The Touch
Date: 1986-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Thriller; Fiction; Fantasy; Urban Fantasy; Supernatural; Science Fiction; Mystery; Medicine; Medical
Description: Suddenly, a family physician can heal any illness with a simple touchAfter a dozen years of practicing medicine as a family physician, Dr. Alan Bulmer discovers one day that he can cure any illness with the mere touch of his hand. At first his scientific nature refuses to accept what is happening to him, but there is no rational explanation to be found. So Alan gives himself over to this mysterious power, reveling in the ability to cure the incurable, to give hope to the hopeless—for one hour each day. Although he tries to hide his power, word inevitably leaks out, and soon Alan's life begins
Publisher: Forge Books
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

THE KEEP

F. Paul Wilson

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
New York

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To Al Zuckerman

PROLOGUE

WARSAW, POLAND
Monday, 28 April 1941
0815 hours

A year and a half ago another name had graced the door, a Polish name, and no doubt a title and the name of a department or bureau in the Polish government. But Poland no longer belonged to the Poles, and thick, heavy strokes of black paint had crudely obliterated the name. Erich Kaempffer paused outside the door and tried to remember the name. Not that he cared. Merely an exercise in memory. A mahogany plaque now covered the spot, but smears of black showed around its edges. It read:

SS-OBERFÜHRER W. HOSSBACH
RSHA-DIVISION OF RACE AND RESETTLEMENT
Warsaw District

He paused to compose himself. What did Hossbach want of him? Why the early morning summons? He was angry with himself for letting this upset him, but no one in the SS, no matter how secure his position, even an officer rising as rapidly as he, could be summoned to report “immediately” to a superior’s office without experiencing a spasm of apprehension.

Kaempffer took one last deep breath, masked his anxiety, and pushed through the door. The corporal who acted as General Hossbach’s secretary snapped to attention. The man was new and Kaempffer could see that the soldier didn’t recognize him. It was understandable—Kaempffer had been at Auschwitz for the past year.

“Sturmbannführer Kaempffer,” was all he said, allowing the youngster to take it from there. The corporal pivoted and strode through to the inner office. He returned immediately.

“Oberführer Hossbach will see you now, Herr Major.”

Kaempffer breezed past the corporal and stepped into Hossbach’s office to find him sitting on the edge of his desk.

“Ah, Erich! Good morning!” Hossbach said with uncharacteristic joviality. “Coffee?”

“No thank you, Wilhelm.” He had craved a cup until this very moment, but Hossbach’s smile had immediately put him on guard. Now there was a knot where an empty stomach had been.

“Very well, then. But take off your coat and get comfortable.”

The calendar said April, but it was still cold in Warsaw. Kaempffer wore his overlong SS greatcoat. He removed it and his officer’s cap slowly and hung them on the wall rack with great care, forcing Hossbach to watch him and, perhaps, to dwell on their physical differences. Hossbach was portly, balding, in his early fifties. Kaempffer was a decade younger, with a tightly muscled frame and a full head of boyishly blond hair. And Erich Kaempffer was on his way up.

“Congratulations, by the way, on your promotion and on your new assignment. The Ploiesti position is quite a plum.”

“Yes.” Kaempffer maintained a neutral tone. “I just hope I can live up to Berlin’s confidence in me.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Kaempffer knew that Hossbach’s good wishes were as hollow as the promises of resettlement he made to the Polish Jews. Hossbach had wanted Ploiesti for himself—every SS officer wanted it. The opportunities for advancement and for personal profit in being commandant of the major camp in Romania were enormous. In the relentless pursuit of position within the huge bureaucracy created by Heinrich Himmler, where one eye was always fixed on the vulnerable back of the man ahead of you, and the other eye ever watchful over your shoulder at the man behind you, a sincere wish for success was a fantasy.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Kaempffer scanned the walls and repressed a sneer as he noted more lightly colored squares and rectangles where degrees and citations had been hung by the previous occupant. Hossbach had not redecorated. Typical of the man to try to give the impression that he was much too busy with SS matters to bother with trifles such as having the walls painted. So obviously an act. Kaempffer did not need to put on a show of his devotion to the SS. His every waking hour was devoted to furthering his position in the organization.

He pretended to study the large map of Poland on the wall, its face studded with colored pins representing concentrations of undesirables. This had been a busy year for Hossbach’s RSHA office; it was through here that Poland’s Jewish population was being directed toward the “resettlement center” near the rail nexus of Auschwitz. Kaempffer imagined his own office-to-be in Ploiesti, with a map of Romania on the wall, studded with his own pins. Ploiesti…there could be no doubt that Hossbach’s cheery manner boded ill. Something had gone wrong somewhere and Hossbach was going to make full use of his last few days as superior officer to rub Kaempffer’s nose in it.

“Is there some way I might be of service to you?” Kaempffer finally asked.

“Not to me, per se, but to the High Command. There is a little problem in Romania at the moment. An inconvenience, really.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A small regular army detachment stationed in the Alps north of Ploiesti has been suffering some losses—apparently due to local partisan activity—and the officer wishes to abandon his position.”

“That’s an army matter.” Major Kaempffer didn’t like this one bit. “It has nothing to do with the SS.”

“But it does.” Hossbach reached behind him and plucked a piece of paper off his desktop. “The High Command passed this on to Obergruppenführer Heydrich’s office. I think it is rather fitting that I pass it on to you.”

“Why fitting?”

“The officer in question is Captain Klaus Woermann, the one you brought to my attention a year or so ago because of his refusal to join the Party.”

Kaempffer allowed himself an instant of guarded relief. “And since I’ll be in Romania, this is to be dumped in my lap.”

“Precisely. Your year’s tutelage at Auschwitz should have taught you not only how to run an efficient camp, but how to deal with partisan locals as well. I’m sure you’ll solve the matter quickly.”

“May I see the paper?”

“Certainly.”

Kaempffer took the proffered slip and read the two lines. Then he read them again.

“Was this decoded properly?”

“Yes. I thought the wording rather odd myself, so I had it double-checked. It’s accurate.”

Kaempffer read the message again:

Request immediate relocation.
Something is murdering my men.

A disturbing message. He had known Woermann in the Great War and would always remember him as one of the stubbornest men alive. And now, in a new war, as an officer in the Reichswehr, Woermann had repeatedly refused to join the Party despite relentless pressure. Not a man to abandon a position, strategic or otherwise, once he had assumed it. Something must be very wrong for him to request relocation.

But what bothered Kaempffer even more was the choice of words. Woermann was intelligent and precise. He knew his message would pass through a number of hands along the transcription and decoding route and must have been trying to get something across to the High Command without going into detail.

But what? The word “murder” implied a purposeful human agent. Why then had he preceded it with “something”? A thing—an animal, a disease, a natural disaster—could kill, but it could not murder.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,” Hossbach was saying, “that since Romania is an ally state rather than an occupied territory, a certain amount of finesse will be required.”

“I’m quite well aware of that.”

A certain amount of finesse would be required in handling Woermann, too. Kaempffer had an old score to settle with him.

Hossbach tried to smile, but the attempt looked more like a leer. “All of us at RSHA, all the way up to General Heydrich, will be most interested to see how you fare in this…before you move on to the major task at Ploiesti.”

The emphasis on the word “before,” and the slight pause preceding it, were not lost on Kaempffer. Hossbach was going to turn this little side trip to the Alps into a trial by fire. Kaempffer was due in Ploiesti in one week; if he could not handle Woermann’s problem with sufficient dispatch, then it might be said that perhaps he was not the man to set up the resettlement camp at Ploiesti. There would be no shortage of candidates to take his place.

Spurred by a sudden sense of urgency, he rose and put on his coat and cap. “I foresee no problems. I’ll leave at once with two squads of einsatzkommandos. If air transport can be arranged and proper rail connections made, we can be there by this evening.”

“Excellent!” Hossbach said, returning Kaempffer’s salute. “Two squads should be sufficient to take care of a few guerrillas.” He turned and stepped to the door.

“More than sufficient, I’m sure.”

SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer did not hear his superior’s parting remark. Other words filled his mind: “Something is murdering my men.”

DINU PASS, ROMANIA
28 April 1941
1322 hours

Captain Klaus Woermann stepped to the south window of his room in the keep’s tower and spat a stream of white into the open air.

Goat’s milk—gah! For cheese, maybe, but not for drinking.

As he watched the liquid dissipate into a cloud of pale droplets plummeting the hundred feet or so to the rocks below, Woermann wished for a brimming stein of good German beer. The only thing he wanted more than the beer was to be gone from this antechamber to Hell.

But that was not to be. Not yet, anyway. He straightened his shoulders in a typically Prussian gesture. He was taller than average and had a large frame that had once supported more muscle but was now tending toward flab. His dark brown hair was cropped close; he had wide-set eyes, equally brown; a slightly crooked nose, broken in his youth; and a full mouth capable of a toothy grin when appropriate. His gray tunic was open to the waist, allowing his small paunch to protrude. He patted it. Too much sausage. When frustrated or dissatisfied, he tended to nibble between meals, usually at a sausage. The more frustrated and dissatisfied, the more he nibbled. He was getting fat.

Woermann’s gaze came to rest on the tiny Romanian village across the gorge, basking in the afternoon sunlight, peaceful, a world away. Pulling himself from the window, he turned and walked across the room, a room lined with stone blocks, many of them inlaid with peculiar brass-and-nickel crosses. Forty-nine crosses in this room to be exact. He knew. He had counted them numerous times in the last three or four days. He walked past an easel holding a nearly finished painting, past a cluttered makeshift desk to the opposite window, the one that looked down on the keep’s small courtyard.

Below, the off-duty men of his command stood in small groups, some talking in low tones, most sullen and silent, all avoiding the lengthening shadows. Another night was coming. Another of their number would die.

One man sat alone in a corner, whittling feverishly. Woermann squinted down at the piece of wood taking shape in the carver’s hands—a crude cross. As if there weren’t enough crosses around!

The men were afraid. And so was he. Quite a turnaround in less than a week. He remembered marching them through the gates of the keep as proud soldiers of the Wehrmacht, an army that had conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium; and then, after sweeping the remnants of the British Army into the sea at Dunkirk, had gone on to finish off France in thirty-nine days. And just this month Yugoslavia had been overrun in twelve days, Greece in a mere twenty-one as of yesterday. Nothing could stand against them. Born victors.

But that had been last week. Amazing what six horrible deaths could do to the conquerors of the world. It worried him. During the past week the world had constricted until nothing existed for him and his men beyond this undersized castle, this tomb of stone. They had run up against something that defied all their efforts to stop it, that killed and faded away, only to return to kill again. The heart was going out of them.

They…Woermann realized that he had not included himself among them for some time. The fight had gone out of his own heart back in Poland, near the town of Posnan…after the SS had moved in and he had seen firsthand the fate of those “undesirables” left in the wake of the victorious Wehrmacht. He had protested. As a result, he had seen no further combat. Just as well. He had lost all pride that day in thinking of himself as one of the conquerors of the world.

He left the window and returned to the desk. Oblivious to the framed photographs of his wife and his two sons, he stared down at the decoded message there.

SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer arriving today with
detachment einsatzkommandos. Maintain present position.

Why an SS major? This was a regular army position. The SS had nothing to do with him, with the keep, or with Romania as far as he knew. But then there were so many things he failed to understand about this war. And Kaempffer, of all people! A rotten soldier, but no doubt an exemplary SS man. Why here? And why with einsatzkommandos? They were extermination squads. Death’s Head Troopers. Concentration camp muscle. Specialists in killing unarmed civilians. It was their work he had witnessed outside Posnan. Why were they coming here?

Unarmed civilians…the words lingered…and as they did, a smile crept slowly into the corners of his mouth, leaving his eyes untouched.

Let the SS come. Woermann was now convinced there was an unarmed civilian of sorts at the root of all the deaths in the keep. But not the helpless cringing sort the SS was used to. Let them come. Let them taste the fear they so dearly loved to spread. Let them learn to believe in the unbelievable.

Woermann believed. A week ago he would have laughed at the thought. But now, the nearer the sun to the horizon, the more firmly he believed…and feared.

All within a week. There had been unanswered questions when they had first arrived at the keep, but no fear. A week. Was that all? It seemed ages ago that he had first laid eyes on the keep…

ONE

IN SUMMATION: The refining complex at Ploiesti has relatively good natural protection to the north. The Dinu Pass through the Transylvanian Alps offers the only overland threat, and that a minor one. As detailed elsewhere in the report, the sparse population and spring weather conditions in the pass make it theoretically possible for a sizable armored force to make its way undetected from the southwest Russian steppes, over the southern Carpathian foothills, and through the Dinu Pass to emerge from the mountains a scant twenty miles northwest of Ploiesti with only flat plains between it and the oil fields.

Because of the crucial nature of the petrol supplied by Ploiesti, it is recommended that until Operation Barbarossa is fully under way, a small watch force be set up within the Dinu Pass. As mentioned in the body of the report, there is an old fortification midway along the pass which should serve adequately as a sentry base.

DEFENSE ANALYSIS FOR PLOIESTI, ROMANIA
Submitted to Reichswehr High Command 1 April 1941

DINU PASS, ROMANIA
Tuesday, 22 April
1208 hours

No such thing as a long day here, no matter what the time of year, thought Woermann as he looked up the sheer mountain walls towering an easy thousand feet on either side of the pass. The sun had to climb a thirty-degree arc before it could peek over the eastern wall and could travel only ninety degrees across the sky before it was again out of sight.

The sides of the Dinu Pass were impossibly steep, as close to vertical as mountain wall could be without overbalancing and crashing down; a bleak expanse of stark, jagged slabs with narrow ledges and precipitous drops, relieved occasionally by conical collections of crumbling shale. Brown and gray, clay and granite, these were the colors, interspersed with snatches of green. Stunted trees, bare now in the early spring, their trunks gnarled and twisted by the wind, hung precariously by tenacious roots that had somehow found weak spots in the rock. They clung like exhausted mountaineers, too tired to move up or down.

Close behind his command car Woermann could hear the rumble of the two lorries carrying his men, and behind them the reassuring rattle of the supply truck with their food and weapons. All four vehicles were crawling in line along the west wall of the pass where for ages a natural shelf of rock had been used as a road. The Dinu was narrow as mountain passes go, averaging only half a mile across the floor along most of its serpentine course through the Transylvanian Alps—the least explored area of Europe. Woermann looked longingly to his right at the floor of the pass fifty feet below, flat and green and pathed along its center. The trip would have been smoother and shorter down there, but his orders warned that their destination was inaccessible to wheeled vehicles from the floor of the pass. They had to keep to the ridge road.

Road? Woermann snorted. This was no road. He would have classed it as a trail or, more appropriately, a ledge. A road it was not. The Romanians hereabouts apparently did not believe in the internal combustion engine and had made no provisions for the passage of vehicles using it.

The sun disappeared suddenly. A bone-jarring rumble, a flash of lightning, and then it was raining again. Woermann cursed. Another storm. The weather here was maddening. Squalls repeatedly swooped down between the walls of the pass, spearing lightning in all directions, threatening to bring the mountains down with their thunder, dumping rain in torrents as if trying to lose ballast so they could rise over the peaks and escape. And then they would be gone as abruptly as they had arrived. Like this one.

Why would anyone want to live here? he wondered. Crops grew poorly, yielding enough for subsistence and little more. Goats and sheep seemed to do well enough, thriving on the tough grasses below and the clear water off the peaks. But why choose a place like this to live?

Woermann had his first look at the keep as the column passed through a small flock of goats clustered at a particularly sharp turn in the path. He immediately sensed something strange about it, but it was a benign strangeness. Castlelike in design, it was not classified a castle because of its small size. So it was called a keep. It had no name, and that was peculiar. Supposedly centuries old, yet it looked as if the last stone had been slipped into place only yesterday. In fact, his initial reaction was that they had made a wrong turn somewhere. This could not possibly be the deserted five-hundred-year-old fortification they were to occupy. Halting the column, he checked the map and confirmed that this indeed was to be his new command post. He looked at the structure again, studying it.

Ages ago a huge flat slab of rock had thrust itself out from the western wall of the pass. Around it ran a deep gorge through which flowed an icy stream that appeared to spring from within the mountain. The keep sat on that slab. Its walls were sleek, perhaps forty feet high, made of granite block, melting seamlessly into the granite of the mountainside at its rear—the work of man somehow at one with the work of nature. But the most striking feature of the small fortress was the solitary tower that formed its leading edge: flat-topped, jutting out toward the center of the pass, at least 150 feet from its notched parapet to the rocky gorge below. That was the keep. A holdover from a different age. A welcome sight in that it assured dry living quarters during their watch over the pass.

But strange the way it looked so new…

Woermann nodded to the man next to him in the car and began folding the map. His name was Oster, a sergeant; the only sergeant in Woermann’s command. He doubled as a driver. Oster signaled with his left hand and the car moved forward with the other three vehicles following. The road—or trail, rather—widened as they swung farther around the bend and came to rest in a tiny village nestled against the mountainside south of the keep, just across the gorge from it.

As they followed the trail into the center of the village, Woermann decided to reclassify that as well. This was no village in the German sense; this was a collection of stucco-walled, shake-roofed huts, all single-story affairs except for the one at the northernmost end. This stood to the right, had a second floor and a sign out front. He didn’t read Romanian but had a feeling it was an inn of sorts. Woermann couldn’t imagine the need for an inn. Who would ever come here?

A few hundred feet or so beyond the village the trail ended at the edge of the gorge. From there a timbered causeway supported by stone columns spanned the two hundred feet or so across the rocky gorge, providing the keep’s sole link to the world. The only other possible means of entry were to scale its sheer stone walls from below or to slide and rappel down a thousand feet of equally sheer mountainside from above.

Woermann’s practiced military eye immediately assessed the strategic values of the keep. An excellent watchpost. This entire stretch of the Dinu Pass would be in plain view from the tower; and from the keep’s walls fifty good men could hold off an entire battalion of Russians. Not that Russians would ever be coming through the Dinu Pass, but who was he to question High Command?

There was another eye within Woermann, and it was assessing the keep in its own way. An artist’s eye, a landscape lover’s…To use watercolors, or to trust oil pigment to catch that hint of brooding watchfulness? The only way to find out would be to try them both. He would have plenty of free time during the coming months.

“Well, Sergeant,” he said to Oster as they halted at the edge of the causeway, “what do you think of your new home?”

“Not much, sir.”

“Get used to it. You’ll probably be spending the rest of the war here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Noting an uncharacteristic stiffness in Oster’s replies, Woermann glanced at his sergeant, a slim, dark man only slightly more than half Woermann’s age.

“Not much war left anyway, Sergeant. Word came as we set out that Yugoslavia has surrendered.”

“Sir, you should have told us! It would have lifted our spirits!”

“Do they need lifting so badly?”

“We’d all prefer to be in Greece at the moment, sir.”

“Nothing but thick liquor, tough meat, and strange dancing there. You wouldn’t like it.”

“For the fighting, sir.”

“Oh, that.”

Woermann had noticed the facetious turn of his mind moving closer and closer to the surface during the past year. Not an enviable trait in any German officer and potentially dangerous to one who had never become a Nazi. But it was his only defense against his mounting frustration at the course of the war and of his career. Sergeant Oster had not been with him long enough to realize this. He’d learn in time, though.

“By the time you got there, Sergeant, the fighting would be over. I expect surrender within the week.”

“Still, we all feel we could be doing more for the Führer there than in these mountains.”

“You shouldn’t forget that it is your Führer’s will that we be stationed here.” He noted with satisfaction that the “your” slipped right by Oster.

“But why, sir? What purpose do we serve?”

Woermann began his recitation: “High Command considers the Dinu Pass a direct link from the steppes of Russia to all those oil fields we passed at Ploiesti. Should relations between Russia and the Reich ever deteriorate, the Russians might decide to launch a sneak attack at Ploiesti. And without that petrol, the Wehrmacht’s mobility would be seriously impaired.”

Oster listened patiently despite the fact that he must have heard the explanation a dozen times before and had himself given a version of the same story to the men in the detachment. Yet Woermann knew he remained unconvinced. Not that he blamed him. Any reasonably intelligent soldier would have questions. Oster had been in the army long enough to know that it was highly irregular to place a seasoned veteran officer at the head of four infantry squads with no second officer, and then to assign the entire detachment to an isolated pass in the mountains of an ally state. It was a job for a green lieutenant.

“But the Russians have plenty of their own oil, sir, and we have a treaty with them.”

“Of course! How stupid of me to forget! A treaty. No one breaks treaties anymore.”

“You don’t think Stalin would dare betray the Führer, do you?”

Woermann bit back the reply that leaped to mind: Not if your Führer can betray him first.

Oster wouldn’t understand. Like most members of the postwar generation, he had come to equate the best interests of the German people with the will of Adolf Hitler. He had been inspired, inflamed by the man. Woermann had found himself far too old for such infatuation. He had celebrated his forty-first birthday last month. He had watched Hitler move from beer halls, to the Chancellory, to godhood. He had never liked him.

True, Hitler had united the country and had started it on the road to victory and self-respect again, something for which no loyal German could fault him. But Woermann had never trusted Hitler, an Austrian who surrounded himself with all those Bavarians—all southerners. No Prussian could trust a bunch of southerners like that. Something ugly about them. What Woermann had witnessed at Posnan had shown him just how ugly.

“Tell the men to get out and stretch,” he said, ignoring Oster’s last question. It had been rhetorical, anyway. “Inspect the causeway to see if it will support the vehicles while I go over and take a look inside.”

As he walked the length of the causeway, Woermann thought its timbers looked sturdy enough. He glanced over the edge at the rocks and gurgling water below. A long way down—sixty feet at least. Best to have the lorries and the supply truck empty but for their drivers, and to bring them across one at a time.

The heavy wooden gates in the keep’s entrance arch were wide open, as were the shutters on most of the windows in the walls and the tower. The place seemed to be airing out. Woermann strolled through the gates and into the cobblestone courtyard. Cool and quiet here. He noticed that the keep had a rear section, apparently carved into the mountain, that he hadn’t noticed from the causeway.

He turned around slowly. The tower loomed over him; gray walls surrounded him on every side. He felt as if he were standing within the arms of a huge slumbering beast, one he dared not awaken.

Then he saw the crosses. The inner walls of the courtyard were studded with hundreds of them…thousands of them. All the same size and shape, all the same unusual design: The upright was a good ten inches high, squared at the top and lipped at the base; the crosspiece measured about eight inches and had a slight upward angle at each end. But the odd part was how high the crosspieces were set upon the uprights—any higher and the cross would have become an uppercase “T.”

Woermann found them vaguely disturbing…something wrong about them. He stepped over to the nearest cross and ran his hand over its smooth surface. The upright was brass and the crosspiece nickel, all skillfully inlaid into the surface of the stone block.

He looked around again. Something else bothered him. Something was missing. Then it hit him—birds. There were no pigeons on the walls. Castles in Germany had flocks of pigeons about them, nesting in every nook and cranny. He couldn’t find a single bird anywhere on the walls, the windows, or the tower.

He heard a sound behind him and whirled, unsnapping the flap on his holster and resting his palm on the butt of his Luger. The Romanian government might be an ally of the Reich, but Woermann was well aware that there were groups within its borders that were not. The National Peasant Party, for instance, was fanatically anti-German; it was out of power now but still active. There might be violent splinter groups here in the Alps, hiding, waiting for a chance to kill a few Germans.

The sound was repeated, louder now. Footsteps, relaxed, with no attempt at stealth. They came from a doorway in the rear section of the keep, and as Woermann watched, a thirtyish man in a sheepskin cojoc stepped through the opening. He didn’t see Woermann. He carried a mortar-filled palette in his hand and, squatting with his back to Woermann, began to patch some crumbling stucco around the doorframe.

“What are you doing here?” Woermann barked. His orders had implied that the keep was deserted.

Startled, the mason leaped up and spun around, the anger in his face dying abruptly as he recognized the uniform and realized that he had been addressed in German. He gibbered something unintelligible—something in Romanian, no doubt. Woermann realized with annoyance that he’d either have to find an interpreter or learn some of the language if he was going to spend any time here.

“Speak German! What are you doing here?”

The man shook his head in a mixture of fear and indecision. He held up an index finger, a signal to wait, then shouted something that sounded like “Papa!” A shutter clattered open above as an older man with a woolly caciula on his head leaned out of one of the tower windows and looked down. Woermann’s grip tightened on the butt of his Luger as the two Romanians carried on a brief exchange. Then the older one called down in German:

“I’ll be right down, sir.”

Woermann nodded and relaxed. He went again to one of the crosses and examined it. Brass and nickel…almost looked like gold and silver.

“There are sixteen thousand eight hundred and seven such crosses imbedded in the walls of this keep,” said a voice behind him. The accent was thick, the words practiced.

Woermann turned. “You’ve counted them?” He judged the man to be in his mid fifties, with a strong family resemblance between him and the younger mason he had startled. Both were dressed in identical peasant shirts and breeches except for the older man’s woolly hat. “Or is that just something you tell your tour customers?”

“I am Alexandru,” he said stiffly, bowing slightly at the waist. “My sons and I work here. And we take no one on tours.”

“That will change in a moment. But right now: I was led to believe the keep was unoccupied.”

“It is when we go home at night. We live in the village.”

“Where’s the owner?”

Alexandru shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Who is he?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Who pays you, then?” This was getting exasperating. Didn’t this man know how to do anything other than shrug and say he didn’t know?

“The innkeeper. Someone brings money to him twice a year, inspects the keep, makes notes, then leaves. The innkeeper pays us monthly.”

“Who tells you what to do?” Woermann waited for another shrug but it did not come.

“No one.” Alexandru stood straight and spoke with quiet dignity. “We do everything. Our instructions are to maintain the keep as new. That’s all we need to know. Whatever needs doing, we do. My father spent his life doing it, and his father before him, and so on. My sons will continue after me.”

“You spend your entire lives maintaining this building? I can’t believe that!”

“It’s bigger than it looks. The walls you see around you have rooms within them. There are corridors of rooms below us in the cellar and carved into the mountainside behind us. Always something to be done.”

Woermann’s gaze roamed up the sullen walls, half in shadow, and down to the courtyard again, already deep in shadow despite the fact that it was early afternoon. Who had built the keep? And who was paying to have it maintained in such perfect condition? It didn’t make sense. He stared at the shadows and it occurred to him that had he been the keep’s builder he would have placed it on the other side of the pass where there was a better southern and western exposure to the light and the warmth of the sun. As it was situated, night must always come early to this place.

“Very well,” he told Alexandru. “You may continue your maintenance tasks after we settle in. But you and your sons must check with the sentries when you enter and leave.” He saw the older man shaking his head. “What’s wrong?”

“You cannot stay here.”

“And why not?”

“It is forbidden.”

“Who forbids?”

Alexandru shrugged. “It’s always been that way. We are to maintain the keep and see to it that no one trespasses.”

“And of course you’re always successful.” The old man’s gravity amused him.

“No. Not always. There have been times when travelers have stayed against our wishes. We do not resist them—we have not been hired to fight. But they never stay more than one night. Most not even that long.”

Woermann smiled. He had been waiting for this. A deserted castle, even a pocket-sized one such as this, had to be haunted. If nothing else, it would give the men something to talk about.

“What drives them away? Moaning? Chain-rattling specters?”

“No…no ghosts here, sir.”

“Deaths then? Gruesome murders? Suicides?” Woermann was enjoying himself. “We have more than our share of castles in Germany, and there’s not a one that doesn’t have some fireside scare story connected with it.”

Alexandru shook his head. “No one’s ever died here. Not that I know of.”

“Then what? What drives trespassers out after only one night?”

“Dreams, sir. Bad dreams. And always the same, from what I can gather…something about being trapped in a tiny room with no door and no windows and no lights…utter darkness…and cold…very cold…and something in the dark with you…colder than the dark…and hungry.”

Woermann felt a hint of a chill across his shoulders and down his back as he listened. It had been on his mind to ask Alexandru if he himself had ever spent a night in the keep, but the look in the Romanian’s eyes as he spoke was answer enough. Yes, Alexandru had spent a night in the keep. But only once.

“I want you to wait here until my men are across the causeway,” he said, shaking off the chill. “Then you can give me a tour.”

Alexandru’s face was a study in helpless frustration. “It is my duty, Herr Captain,” he said with stern dignity, “to inform you that no lodgers are allowed here in the keep.”

Woermann smiled, but with neither derision nor condescension. He understood duty and respected this man’s sense of it.

“Your warning has been delivered. You are faced with the German Army, a force beyond your power to resist, and so you must step aside. Consider your duty faithfully discharged.”

This said, Woermann turned and moved toward the gate. He still had seen no birds. Did birds have dreams?

Did they, too, nest here for one night and never return?

The command car and the three unloaded trucks were driven across the causeway and parked in the courtyard without incident. The men followed on foot, carrying their own gear, then returned to the other side of the gorge to begin bringing over the contents of the supply truck—food, generators, antitank weapons—by hand.

While Sergeant Oster took charge of the work details, Woermann followed Alexandru on a quick tour of the keep. The number of identical brass-and-nickel crosses inlaid at regular intervals in the stones of every corridor, every room, every wall, continued to amaze him. And the rooms…they seemed to be everywhere: within the walls girding the courtyard, under the courtyard, in the rear section, in the watchtower. Most of them were small; all were unfurnished.

“Forty-nine rooms in all, counting the suites in the tower,” Alexandru said.

“An odd number, don’t you think? Why not round it off to fifty?”

Alexandru shrugged. “Who is to say?”

Woermann ground his teeth. If he shrugs once more…

They walked along one of the rampart walls that ran out diagonally from the tower then angled straight back to the mountain. He noted crosses imbedded in the breast-high parapet, too. A question rose in his mind: “I don’t recall seeing any crosses in the outer aspect of the wall.”‘

“There aren’t any. Only on the inside. And look at the blocks here. See how perfectly they fit. Not a speck of mortar is used to hold them together. All the walls in the keep are constructed this way. It’s a lost art.”

Woermann didn’t care about stone blocks. He indicated the rampart beneath their feet. “You say there are rooms below us here?”

“Two tiers of them within each wall, each with a slit window through the outer wall, and a door to a corridor leading to the courtyard.”

“Excellent. They’ll do nicely for barracks. Now to the tower.”

The watchtower was of unusual design. It had five levels, each consisting of a two-room suite that took up all of the level save the space required for a door onto a small exposed landing. A stone stairway climbed the inner surface of the tower’s northern wall in a steep zigzag.

Breathing hard after the climb, Woermann leaned over the parapet that rimmed the tower roof and scanned the long stretch of the Dinu Pass commanded by the keep. He could now see the best placements for his antitank rifles. He had little faith in the effectiveness of the 7.92mm Panzerbuchse 38s he had been given, but then he didn’t expect to have to use them. Nor the mortars. But he would set them up anyway.

“Not much can go by unnoticed from up here,” he said, speaking to himself.

Alexandru replied unexpectedly. “Except in the spring fog. The whole pass gets filled with heavy fog every night during the spring.”

Woermann made a mental note of that. Those on watch duty would have to keep their ears open as well as their eyes.

“Where are all the birds?” he asked. It bothered him that he hadn’t seen any yet.

“I’ve never seen a bird in the keep,” Alexandru said. “Ever.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“The keep itself is odd, Herr Captain, what with its crosses and all. I stopped trying to explain it when I was ten years old. It’s just here.”

“Who built it?” Woermann asked, and turned away so he wouldn’t have to see the shrug he knew was coming.

“Ask five people and you will get five answers. All different. Some say it was one of the old lords of Wallachia, some say it was a defiant Turk, and there are even a few who believe it was built by one of the popes. Who knows for sure? Truth can shrink and fancy can grow much in five centuries.”

“You really think it takes that long?” Woermann said, taking in a final survey of the pass before he turned away. It can happen in a matter of a few years.

As they reached courtyard level, the sound of hammering drew Alexandru toward the corridor that ran along the inner wall of the south rampart. Woermann followed. When Alexandru saw men hammering at the walls, he ran ahead for a closer look, then scurried back to Woermann.

“Herr Captain, they’re driving spikes between the stones!” he cried, his hands twisting together as he spoke. “Stop them! They’re ruining the walls!”

“Nonsense! Those ‘spikes’ are common nails, and there’s one being placed only every ten feet or so. We have two generators and the men are stringing up lights. The German Army does not live by torchlight.”

As they progressed down the corridor, they came upon a soldier kneeling on the floor and stabbing at one of the blocks in the wall with his bayonet. Alexandru became even more agitated.

“And him?” the Romanian said in a harsh whisper. “Is he stringing lights?”

Woermann moved swiftly and silently to a position directly behind the preoccupied private. As he watched the man pry at one of the inlaid crosses with the point of his heavy blade, Woermann felt himself tremble and break out in a cold sweat.

“Who assigned you to this duty, soldier?”

The private started in surprise and dropped his bayonet. His pinched face paled as he turned to see his commanding officer standing over him. He scrambled to his feet.

“Answer me!” Woermann shouted.

“No one, sir.” He stood at attention, eyes straight ahead.

“What was your assignment?”

“To help string the lights, sir.”

“And why aren’t you?”

“No excuse, sir.”

“I’m not your drill sergeant, soldier. I want to know what you had in mind when you decided to act like a common vandal rather than a German soldier. Answer me!”

“Gold, sir,” the private said sheepishly. It sounded lame and he evidently knew it. “There’s been talk that this castle was built to hide papal treasure. And all these crosses, sir…they look like gold and silver. I was just—”

“You were neglecting your duty, soldier. What’s your name?”

“Lutz, sir.”

“Well, Private Lutz, it’s been a profitable day for you. You’ve not only learned that the crosses are made of brass and nickel rather than gold and silver, but you’ve earned yourself a place on the first watch all week as well. Report to Sergeant Oster when you’ve finished with the lights.”

As Lutz sheathed his fallen bayonet and marched away, Woermann turned to Alexandru to find him white-faced and trembling.

“The crosses must never be touched!” the Romanian said. “Never!”

“And why not?”

“Because it’s always been that way. Nothing in the keep is to be changed. That is why we work. That is why you must not stay here!”

“Good day, Alexandru,” Woermann said in a tone he hoped would signal the end of the discussion. He sympathized with the older man’s predicament, but his own duty took precedence.

As he turned away he heard Alexandru’s plaintive voice behind him.

“Please, Herr Captain! Tell them not to touch the crosses! Not to touch the crosses!”

Woermann resolved to do just that. Not for Alexandru’s sake, but because he could not explain the nameless fear that had crept over him as he had watched Lutz pry at that cross with his bayonet. Not a simple stab of unease, but rather a cold, sick dread that had coiled about his stomach and squeezed. And he could not imagine why.

It was late by the time Woermann gratefully settled into his bedroll on the floor of his quarters. He had chosen the third floor of the tower for himself; it stood above the walls and was not too hard a climb. The front room would serve as an office, the smaller rear room as a personal billet. The two front windows—glassless rectangular openings in the outer wall flanked by wooden shutters—gave him a good view of most of the pass, and the village as well; through the pair of windows to the rear he was able to keep an eye on the courtyard.

The shutters were all open to the night. He had turned off his lights and spent a quiet moment at the front windows, watching the gently undulating layer of fog that obscured the gorge. With the passing of the sun, cold air had begun to slip down from the mountain peaks, mixing with the moist air along the floor of the pass which still retained some heat from the day. A white drifting river of mist was the result. The scene was lit only by starlight, but such a magnificent array of stars as seen only in the mountains. He could stare at them and almost understand the delirious motion in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” The silence was broken only by the low hum of the generators situated in a far corner of the courtyard. A timeless scene, and Woermann lingered over it until he felt himself nodding off.

Once in the bedroll, however, he found sleep elusive despite his fatigue. His thoughts scattered in all directions: cold tonight, but not cold enough for the fireplaces…no wood for them anyway…heat wouldn’t be a problem with summer coming on…neither would water since they had found cisterns full of it in the cellar floor, fed continuously by an underground stream…sanitation always a problem…how long were they going to be here?…should he let the men sleep in tomorrow after the long day they had just finished?…maybe get Alexandru and his boys to fashion some cots for the men and himself to get them off these cold stone floors…especially if they would be here into the fall and winter months…if the war lasted that long…

The war…it seemed so far away now. The thought of resigning his commission drifted across his mind again. During the day he could escape it, but here in the dark where he was alone with himself it crept up and crouched on his chest, demanding attention.

He couldn’t resign now, not while his country was still at war. Especially not while he was stationed in these desolate mountains at the whim of the soldier politicians in Berlin. That would be playing directly into their hands. He knew what was on their minds: Join the Party or we’ll keep you out of the fight; join the Party or we’ll disgrace you with assignments like watchdog duty in the Transylvanian Alps; join the Party or resign.

Perhaps he’d resign after the war. This spring marked his twenty-fifth year in the army. And with the way things were going, perhaps a quarter century was enough. It would be good to be home every day with Helga, spend some time with the boys, and hone his painting skills on Prussian landscapes.

Still…the army had been home for so long, and he could not help but believe that the German Army would somehow outlast these Nazis. If he could just hang on long enough…

He opened his eyes and looked into the darkness. Although the wall opposite him was lost in shadow, he could almost sense the crosses inlaid in the stone blocks there. He was not a religious man, but there was unaccountable comfort to be found in their presence.

Which brought to mind the incident in the corridor this afternoon. Try as he might, Woermann could not completely shake off the dread that had gripped him as he had watched that private—what was his name? Lutz?—gouging that cross.

Lutz…Private Lutz…that man was trouble…better have Oster keep an eye on him…

He drifted into sleep wondering if Alexandru’s nightmare awaited him.

TWO

THE KEEP
Wednesday, 23 April
0340 hours

Private Hans Lutz squatted under a naked low-wattage bulb, a lone figure perched on an island of light midstream in a river of darkness, pulling deeply on a cigarette, his back against the cold stone of the keep’s cellar walls. His helmet was off, revealing blond hair and a youthful face marred by the hard set of his eyes and mouth. Lutz ached all over. He was tired. He wanted nothing more than to climb into his bedroll for a few hours of oblivion. In fact, if it were just a bit warmer down here in the cellar he would doze off right where he was.

But he could not allow that to happen. Getting first watch for the entire week was bad enough—God knows what would happen if he got caught sleeping on duty. And it was not beyond Captain Woermann to come strolling down the very corridor where Lutz was sitting, just to check up on him. He had to stay awake.

Just his luck for the captain to come by this afternoon. Lutz had been eyeing those funny-looking crosses since he first set foot in the courtyard. Finally, after an hour of being near them, the temptation had been too great. They had looked like gold and silver, yet it seemed impossible they were. He’d had to find out, and now he was in trouble.

Well, at least he had satisfied his curiosity: no gold or silver. The knowledge hardly seemed worth a week of first watch, though.

He cupped his hands around the pulsating glow of his cigarette tip to warm them. Gott, it was cold! Colder down here than in the open air up on the rampart where Ernst and Otto were patrolling. Lutz had come down to the cellar knowing it was cold. Ostensibly, he hoped the lower temperature would refresh him and help keep him awake; actually, he wanted a chance for a private reconnaissance.

For Lutz had yet to be dissuaded from his belief that there was papal treasure here. There were too many indications—in fact, everything pointed to it. The crosses were the first and most obvious clue; they weren’t good, strong, symmetrical Maltese crosses, but they were crosses nonetheless. And they did look like gold and silver. Further, none of the rooms was furnished, which meant that no one was intended to live here. But far more striking was the constant maintenance: Some organization had been paying the upkeep of this place for centuries without interruption. Centuries! He knew of only one organization with the power, the resources, and the continuity for that: the Catholic Church.

As far as Lutz was concerned, the keep was being maintained for only one purpose: to safeguard Vatican loot.

It was here somewhere—behind the walls or under the floors—and he’d find it.

Lutz stared at the stone wall across the corridor from him. The crosses were particularly numerous down here in the cellar, and as usual they all looked the same—except perhaps for that one off to the left there, the one in the stone on the bottom row at the edge of the light…something different about the way the wan illumination glanced off its surface. A trick of the light? A different finish?

Or a different metal?

Lutz took his Schmeisser automatic from its resting place across his knees and leaned it against the wall. He unsheathed his bayonet as he crawled across the corridor on his hands and knees. The instant the point touched the yellow metal of the cross’s upright he knew he was on to something: The metal was soft…soft and yellow as only solid gold can be.

His hands began to tremble as he dug the tip of the blade into the interface of cross and stone, wedging it deeper and deeper until he felt it grate against the granite. Despite increasing pressure, he could advance the blade no farther. He had penetrated to the rear of the inlaid cross. With a little work he was sure he could pop the entire thing out of the stone in one piece. Leaning against the handle of the knife, Lutz applied steadily increasing pressure. He felt something give and stopped to look.

Damn! The tempered steel of the bayonet was tearing through the gold. He tried to adjust the vector of force more directly outward from the stone, but the metal continued to bulge, to stretch—

The stone moved.

Lutz withdrew the bayonet and studied the block.

Nothing special about it: two feet wide, about a foot and a half high, and probably a foot deep. It was unmortared like the rest, only now it stood a full quarter inch out from its fellows. He rose and paced the distance down to the doorway on the left; entering the room there, he paced the distance back to the wall within. He repeated the procedure on the other side in the room to the right of the loose stone. Simple addition and subtraction revealed a significant discrepancy. The number of steps didn’t match.

There was a large dead space behind the wall.

With a tight thrill tingling in his chest, Lutz fairly fell upon the loose block, prying frantically at its edge. Despite his best efforts, however, he could not move it any farther out of the wall. He hated the thought, but finally had to admit that he couldn’t do it alone. He would have to bring someone else in on this.

Otto Grunstadt, patrolling the wall at this moment, was the obvious choice. He was always looking for a way to pick up a few quick and easy marks. And there were more than a few involved here. Behind that loose stone waited millions in papal gold. Lutz was sure of it. He could almost taste it.

Leaving his Schmeisser and bayonet behind, he ran for the stairs.

“Hurry, Otto!”

“I still don’t know about this,” Grunstadt said, trotting to keep up. He was heavier, darker than Lutz, and sweating despite the cold. “I’m supposed to be on duty above. If I’m caught—”

“This will only take a minute or two,” Lutz said. “It’s right over here.”

After helping himself to a kerosene lamp from the supply room, he had literally pulled Grunstadt from his post, talking all the while of treasure and of being rich for life, of never having to work again. Like a moth catching sight of a light, Grunstadt had followed.

“See?” Lutz said, standing over the stone and pointing. “See how it’s out of line?”

Grunstadt knelt to examine the warped and lacerated border of the stone’s inlaid cross. He picked up Lutz’s bayonet and pressed the cutting edge against the yellow metal of the upright. It cut easily.

“Gold, all right,” he said softly. Lutz wanted to kick him, tell him to hurry up, but he had to let Grunstadt make up his own mind. He watched him try the bayonet point on all the other crosses within reach. “All the other uprights are brass. This is the only one that’s worth anything.”

“And the stone that it’s in is loose,” Lutz added quickly. “And there’s a dead space behind it six feet wide and who knows how deep.”

Grunstadt looked up and grinned. The conclusion was inescapable. “Let’s get started.”

Working in concert they made progress, but not quickly enough to satisfy Lutz. The stone block canted infinitesimally to the left, then to the right, and after fifteen minutes of backbreaking labor it stood less than an inch out from the wall.

“Wait,” Lutz panted. “This thing is a foot deep. It’ll take all night like this. We’ll never finish before the next watch. Let’s see if we can bend the center of the cross out a little more. I’ve got an idea.”

Using both bayonets, they managed to bulge the gold upright out of its groove at a point just below the silver crosspiece, leaving enough space behind it to slip Lutz’s belt between the metal and the stone.

“Now we can pull straight out!”

Grunstadt returned the smile, but weakly. He seemed uneasy about being away from his post for so long. “Then let’s get to it.”

They put their feet on the wall above and beside the block, each with both hands on the belt, then threw their aching backs, legs, and arms into extracting the stubborn stone. With a high-pitched scrape of protest, it began to move, shimmying, shuddering, sliding. Then it was out. They pushed it to the side and Lutz fumbled for a match.

“Ready to be rich?” He lit the kerosene lamp and held it to the opening. Nothing but darkness within.

“Always,” Grunstadt replied. “When do I start counting?”

“Soon as I get back.”

He adjusted the flame, then began to belly-crawl through the opening, pushing the lamp ahead of him. He found himself in a narrow stone shaft, angled slightly downward…and only four feet long. The shaft ended at another stone block, identical to the one they had just struggled so long and so hard to move. Lutz held the lamp close to it. This cross looked like gold and silver, too.

“Give me the bayonet,” he said, reaching his hand back to Grunstadt. The handle of the bayonet slapped into his waiting palm.

“What’s the matter?”

“Roadblock.”

For a moment Lutz felt defeated. With barely room for one man in the narrow shaft, it would be impossible to remove the second stone that faced him. The whole wall would have to be broken through, and that was more than he and Grunstadt could hope to accomplish on their own, no matter how many nights they worked at it. He didn’t know what to do next, but he had to satisfy his curiosity as to the metals in the inlaid cross before him. If the upright was gold, he would at least be sure that he was on the right track.

Grunting as he twisted within the confinement of the shaft, Lutz dug the point of the bayonet into the cross. It sank easily. But more, the stone began to swing backward, as if hinged on its left side. Ecstatic, Lutz pushed at it with his free hand and found that it was only a façade, no more than an inch thick. It moved easily at his touch, releasing a waft of cold, fetid air from the darkness beyond. Something in that air caused the hair on his arms and at the base of his neck to stand on end.

Cold, he thought, as he felt himself shiver involuntarily, but not that cold.

He stifled a growing unease and crawled forward, sliding the lamp ahead of him along the stone floor of the shaft. As he passed it through the new opening, the flame began to die. It neither flickered nor sputtered within its glass chimney, so the blame could not be laid on any turbulence in the cold air that continued to drift past him. The flame merely began to waste away, to wither on its wick. The possibility of a noxious gas crossed his mind, but Lutz could smell nothing and felt no shortness of breath, no eye or nasal irritation.

Perhaps the kerosene was low. As he pulled the lamp back to him to check, the flame returned to its former size and brightness. He shook the base and felt the liquid slosh around within. Plenty of kerosene. Puzzled, he pushed the lamp forward again, and once more the flame began to shrink. The farther into the chamber he pushed it, the smaller it became, illuminating absolutely nothing. Something was wrong here.

“Otto!” he called over his shoulder. “Tie the belt around one of my ankles and hold on. I’m going further down.”

“Why don’t we wait until tomorrow…when it’s light?”

“Are you mad? The whole detail will know then! They’ll all want a share—and the captain will probably take most of it! We’ll have done all the work and we’ll wind up with nothing!”

Grunstadt’s voice wavered. “I don’t like this anymore.”

“Something wrong, Otto?”

“I’m not sure. I just don’t want to be down here anymore.”

“Stop talking like an old woman!” Lutz snapped. He didn’t need Grunstadt going soft on him now. He felt uneasy himself, but there was a fortune just inches away and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from claiming it. “Tie that belt and hold on! If this shaft gets any steeper, I don’t want to slip down.”

“All right,” came the reluctant reply from behind. “But hurry.”

Lutz waited until he felt the belt cinch tight around his left ankle, then began to slide forward into the dark chamber, the lamp ahead of him. He was seized by a sense of urgency. He moved as quickly as the confined space would allow. By the time his head and shoulders were through the opening, the lamp’s flame had dimmed to a tiny blue-white flicker…as if the light were unwelcome, as if the darkness had sent the flame back into its wick.

As Lutz advanced the lamp a few more inches, the flame died. With its passing he realized he was not alone.

Something as dark and as cold as the chamber he had entered was awake and hungry and beside him. He began to shake uncontrollably. Terror ripped through his bowels. He tried to retreat, to pull his shoulders and head back but he was caught. It was as if the shaft had closed upon him, holding him helpless in a darkness so complete there was no up or down. Cold engulfed him, and so did fear—a combined embrace that threatened to drive him mad. He opened his mouth to call for Otto to pull him back. The cold entered him as his voice rose in an agony of terror.

Outside, the belt Grunstadt held in his hands began to whip back and forth as Lutz’s legs writhed and kicked and thrashed about in the shaft. There was a sound like a human voice, but so full of horror and despair, and sounding so far away, that Grunstadt could not believe it came from his friend. The sound came to an abrupt gurgling halt that was awful to hear. And as it ceased, so did Lutz’s frantic movements.

“Hans?”

No answer.

Thoroughly frightened, Grunstadt hauled back on the belt until Lutz’s feet were within reach. He then gripped both boots and pulled Lutz back into the corridor. When he saw what he had delivered from the shaft, Grunstadt began to scream. The sound echoed up and down the cellar corridor, reverberating and growing in volume until the very walls began to shake.

Cowed by the amplified sound of his own terror, Grunstadt stood transfixed as the wall into which his friend had crawled bulged outward, minute cracks appearing along the edges of the heavy granite blocks. A wide crevice jagged up from the space left by the stone they had removed. The few puny lights strung along the corridor began to dim, and when they were nearly out, the wall burst open with a final convulsive tremor, showering Grunstadt with shards of shattered stone and releasing something inconceivably black that leaped out and enveloped him with a single smooth swift flowing motion.

The horror had begun.

THREE

TAVlRA, PORTUGAL
Wednesday, 23 April
0235 hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

The red-haired man suddenly found himself awake. Sleep had dropped away like a loosened cloak and at first he did not know why. It had been a hard day of fouled nets and rough seas; after turning in at his usual hour, he should have slept through until first light. Yet now, after only a few hours, he was awake and alert. Why?

And then he knew.

Grim-faced, he pounded his fist once, twice, into the cool sand around the low wooden frame of his bed. There was anger in his movements, and a certain resignation. He had hoped this moment would never come, had told himself time and again that it never would. But now that it was here, he realized it had been inevitable all along.

He rose from the bed and, clad only in a pair of undershorts, began to roam the room. He had smooth, even features, but the olive tint of his skin clashed with the red of his hair; his scarred shoulders were broad, his waist narrow. He moved with feline grace about the interior of the tiny shack, snatching items of clothing from hooks on the walls, personal articles from the table beside the door, all the while mentally planning his route to Romania. When he had gathered up what he wanted, he tossed everything onto the bed and rolled it up in the bed blanket, tied the roll with string at both ends.

After pulling on a jacket and loose pants, he slung the rolled blanket across his shoulder, grabbed a short shovel, and stepped out into the night air, cool, salty, moonless. Over the dunes, the Atlantic hissed and rumbled against the shore. He walked to the landward side of the dune nearest his hut and began to dig. Four feet down the shovel scraped against something solid. The red-haired man knelt and began to dig with his hands. A few quick, fierce movements brought him to a long, narrow, oilskin-wrapped case that he tugged and wrested from the hole.

It measured five feet or so in length, perhaps ten inches wide and only an inch deep. He paused, his shoulders slumping as he held the case in his hands. He had almost come to believe that he would never have to open it again.

Putting it aside, he dug farther and came up with an unusually heavy money belt, also wrapped in oilskin.

The belt went under his shirt and around his waist, the long, flat case under his arm. With the onshore breeze ruffling his hair, he walked over the dune to where Sanchez kept his boat, high on the sand and tied to a piling as proof against the unlikely possibility of its drifting away in a freak tide. A careful man, Sanchez. A good boss. The red-haired man had enjoyed working for him.

Rummaging in the boat’s forward compartment, he pulled out the nets and threw them on the sand. Next came the wooden box for tools and tackle. This joined the nets on the sand, but not before he had extricated a hammer and nail from its jumbled contents. He walked toward Sanchez’s piling, drawing four Austrian hundred-kronen gold pieces from his money belt. There were many other gold coins in the belt, different sizes from different countries: Russian ten-ruble chevronets, Austrian hundred-shilling pieces, Czech ten-ducats, U.S. double eagles, and more. He would have to depend heavily on the universal acceptance of gold in order to travel the length of the Mediterranean in wartime.

With two swift, powerful strokes of the hammer, he pierced the four coins with a nail, fixing them to the piling. They’d buy Sanchez a new boat. A better one.

He untied the rope from the piling, dragged the boat into the quiet surf, hopped in, and grabbed the oars. When he had rowed past the breakers and had pulled the single sail to the top of its mast, he turned the prow east toward Gibraltar, not far away, and allowed himself a final look at the tiny starlit fishing village at the southern tip of Portugal that had been his home for the past few years. It hadn’t been easy to work his way into their trust. These villagers had never accepted him as one of their own, and never would; but they had accepted him as a good worker. They respected that. The work had accomplished its purpose, leaving him lean and tight-muscled again after too many years of soft city living. He had made friends, but no close ones. None he could not walk away from.

It was a hard life here, yet he would gladly work twice as hard and stay rather than go where he must and face what he must. His hands clenched and unclenched at the thought of the confrontation that awaited him. But there was no one else to go. Only him.

He could not allow delay. He had to reach Romania as quickly as possible and had to travel the entire 2,300-mile length of the Mediterranean Sea to get there.

In the recently disturbed corner of his mind was the realization that he might not get there in time. That he might already be too late…a possibility too awful to contemplate.

FOUR

THE KEEP
Wednesday, 23 April
0435 hours

Woermann awoke trembling and sweating at the same instant as everyone else in the keep. It was not Grunstadt’s prolonged and repeated howling, faintly audible now through the night, that had done it. Something else had ripped him gasping with terror from his sleep…the feeling that everything had gone suddenly, terribly wrong.

After a moment of confusion, he shrugged into his tunic and trousers and ran down the steps to the base of the tower. The men were trickling out of their rooms and into the courtyard as he arrived, to gather in tense, muttering groups listening to the eerie howl that seemed to come from everywhere. He directed three of the men toward the arch that led to the cellar stairs. He had just reached the top of the stairs himself when two of them reappeared, white-faced, tight-lipped, and trembling.

“There’s a dead man down there!” one said.

“Who is it?” Woermann asked as he pushed between them and started down the steps.

“I think it’s Lutz, but I’m not sure. His head’s gone!”

A uniformed corpse awaited him in the central corridor. It lay on its belly, half covered with stony rubble. Headless. But the head had not been sliced off, as with a guillotine, or hacked off—something had torn it off, leaving stumps of arteries and a twisted vertebra protruding from the ragged flesh of the neck. The soldier had been a private, and that was all Woermann could tell at first glance. A second private sat nearby, his wide, blank, staring eyes fixed on the hole in the wall before him. As Woermann watched, the second soldier shuddered and emitted a loud, long, wavering ululation that raised the fine hairs along his nape.

“What happened here, Private?” Woermann asked, but the soldier did not react. Woermann grabbed his shoulder and shook him but there was no sign in the eyes that he even knew his commanding officer was there. He seemed to have crawled into himself and blocked out the rest of the world.

The rest of the men were inching down the corridor to see what had happened. Steeling himself, Woermann leaned over the headless figure and went through its pockets. The wallet held an identity card for Private Hans Lutz.

He had seen dead men before, victims of war, but this was different. This sickened him in a way the others had not. Battlefield deaths were mostly impersonal; this was not. This was horrible, mutilating death for its own sake. And in the back of his mind was the question: Is this what happens when you deface a cross in the keep?

Oster arrived with a lamp. When it was lit, Woermann held it before him and gingerly stepped through the large hole in the wall. The light bounced off blank walls. His breath puffed white in the air and drifted away behind him. It was cold, colder than it should be, with a musty odor, and something more…a hint of putrescence that made him want to back away. But the men were watching.

He followed the cool draft of air to its source: a large, ragged hole in the floor. The stone of the floor had apparently fallen in when the wall collapsed. He saw only inky blackness below until he held the lamp over the opening. Stone steps, strewn with rubble from the collapsed floor, led downward. One particular piece of rubble looked more spherical than the others. He lowered the lamp for a better look and stifled a cry when he saw what it was.

The head of Private Hans Lutz, open-eyed and bloody-mouthed, stared back at him.

FIVE

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Wednesday, 23 April
0455 hours

It did not occur to Magda to question her actions until she heard her father’s voice calling her.

“Magda!”

She looked up and saw her face in the mirror over her dresser. Her hair was down, a glossy cascade of dark brown that splashed against her shoulders and flowed down her back. She was unaccustomed to seeing herself so. Usually, her hair was tightly coiled up under her kerchief, all but a few stubborn strands tucked safely out of sight. She never let it down during the day.

An instant’s confusion: What day was it? And what time? Magda glanced at the clock. Five minutes to five. Impossible! She had already been up for fifteen or twenty minutes. It must have stopped during the night. Yet when she picked it up she could feel the mechanism ticking away within.

How strange…

Two quick steps took her to the window on the other side of the dresser. A peek behind the heavy shade revealed a dark and quiet Bucharest, still asleep.

Magda looked down at herself and saw she was still in her nightgown, the blue flannel one, tight at the throat and sleeves, and loose all the way down to the floor. Her breasts, although not large, jutted out shamelessly under the soft, warm, heavy fabric, free of the tight undergarments that imprisoned them during the day. She quickly folded her arms over them.

Magda was a mystery to the community. Despite her soft, even features, her smooth, pale skin and wide brown eyes, at thirty-one she remained unmarried. Magda the scholar, the devoted daughter, the nursemaid. Magda the spinster. Yet many a younger woman who was married would have envied the shape and texture of those breasts: fresh, unmarred, unsuckled, untouched by any hand but her own. Magda felt no desire to alter that.

Her father’s voice broke through her reverie. “Magda! What are you doing?”

She glanced at the half-filled suitcase on the bed and the words sprang unbidden to her mind. “Packing us some warm clothes, Papa!”

After a brief pause her father said, “Come in here so I don’t wake up the rest of the building with my shouting.”

Magda made her way quickly through the dark to where her father lay. It took but a few steps. Their street-level apartment consisted of four rooms—two bedrooms side by side, a tiny kitchen with a woodburning stove, and a slightly larger front room that served as foyer, living room, dining room, and study. She sorely missed their old house, but they had had to move here six months ago to make the most of their savings, selling off the furniture that didn’t fit. They had affixed the family mezuzah to the inside of the apartment’s doorpost instead of the outside. Considering the temper of the times, that seemed wise.

One of her father’s Gypsy friends had carved a small patrin circle on the outer surface of the door. It meant “friend.”

The tiny lamp on the nightstand to the right of her father’s bed was lit; a high-backed wooden wheelchair sat empty to the left. Pressed between the white covers of his bed like a wilted flower folded into the pages of a scrapbook lay her father. He raised a twisted hand, gloved in cotton as always, and beckoned, wincing at the pain the simple gesture caused him. Magda grasped the hand as she eased down beside him, massaging the fingers, hiding her own pain at seeing him fade away a little each day.

“What’s this about packing?” he asked, his eyes bright in the tight, sallow glow of his face. He squinted at her. His glasses lay on the nightstand and he was virtually blind without them. “You never told me about leaving.”

“We’re both going,” she replied, smiling.

“Where?”

Magda felt her smile falter as confusion washed over her again. Where were they going? She realized she had no firm idea, only a vague impression of snowy peaks and chill winds.

“The Alps, Papa.”

Her father’s lips parted in a toothy smile that threatened to crack the parchmentlike skin stretched so tightly over his facial bones.

“You must have been dreaming, my dear. We’re going nowhere. I certainly won’t be traveling that far—ever again. It was a dream. A nice dream, but that’s all. Forget it and go back to sleep.”

Magda frowned at the crushed resignation in her father’s voice. He had always been such a fighter. His illness was sapping more than his strength. But now was no time to argue with him. She patted the back of his hand and reached for the string on the bedside lamp.

“I guess you’re right. It was a dream.” She kissed him on the forehead and turned out the light, leaving him in darkness.

Back in her room, Magda studied the partially packed suitcase waiting on the bed. Of course it had been a dream that had made her think they were going somewhere. What else could it be? A trip anywhere was out of the question.

Yet the feeling remained…such a dead certainty that they were going somewhere north, and soon. Dreams weren’t supposed to leave such definite impressions. It gave her an odd, uncomfortable feeling…like tiny cold fingers running lightly along the skin of her arms.

She couldn’t shake the certainty. And so she closed the suitcase and shoved it under the bed, leaving the straps unfastened and the clothes inside…warm clothes…It was still cold in the Alps this time of year.

SIX

THE KEEP
Wednesday, 23 April
0622 hours

Hours after his calamitous awakening, Woermann sat with Sergeant Oster and sipped a cup of coffee in the mess. Private Grunstadt had been carried to a room and left alone there. He had been placed in his bedroll after being stripped and washed by two of his fellow privates. He had apparently wet and soiled his uniform before going into his delirium.

“As near as I can figure it,” Oster was saying, “the wall collapsed and one of those big blocks of stone must have landed on the back of his neck and torn his head off.”

Woermann sensed that Oster was trying to sound very calm and analytical, but inside he was as confused and shocked as everybody else.

“As good an explanation as any, I suppose, barring a medical examination. But it still doesn’t tell us what they were up to down there, and it doesn’t explain Grunstadt’s condition.”

“Shock.”

Woermann shook his head. “That man has been through battle. I know he’s seen worse. I can’t accept shock as the whole answer. There’s something else.”

He had arrived at his own reconstruction of the events of the preceding night. The stone block with its vandalized cross of gold and silver, the belt around Lutz’s ankle, the shaft into the wall…it all indicated that Lutz had crawled into the shaft expecting to find more gold and silver at its end. But all he found was a small, empty, blind cubicle…like a tiny prison cell…or hiding place.

Except that Woermann could think of no good reason why there should be any space there at all.

“They must have upset the balance of the stones in the wall by removing that one at the bottom,” Oster said. “That’s what caused the collapse.”

“I doubt it,” Woermann replied, sipping his coffee for warmth as well as for stimulation. “The cellar floor, yes: That weakened and fell into the subcellar. But the corridor wall…” He remembered the way the stones had been scattered about the corridor, as if blown out by an explosion. He could not explain that. He set his coffee cup down. Explanations would have to wait.

“Come. Work to do.”

He headed for his quarters while Oster went to make the twice-daily radio call to the Ploiesti defense garrison. He’d instructed the sergeant to report the casualty as an accidental death.

The sky was light as Woermann stood at the rear window of his quarters and looked down on the courtyard, still in shadow. The keep had changed. He sensed an unease about it. Yesterday the keep had been nothing more than an old stone building. Now it was more. Each shadow seemed deeper and darker than before, and sinister in some unfathomable way.

He blamed it on predawn malaise and on the shock of death so near at hand. Yet as the sun finally conquered the mountaintops on the far side of the pass, chasing the shadows and warming the stone walls of the keep, Woermann had the feeling that the light could not banish what was wrong. It could only drive it beneath the surface for a while.

The men felt it, too. He could see that. But he was determined to keep their spirits up. When Alexandru arrived this morning, he would send him back immediately for a cartload of lumber. There were cots and tables to be made. Soon the keep would be filled with the healthy sound of hammers in strong hands driving good nails into seasoned wood. He walked to the window facing the causeway. Yes, there were Alexandru and his two boys now. Everything was going to be all right.

He lifted his gaze to the tiny village, transected by the sunlight pouring over the mountaintops—its upper half aglow, its lower half still in shadow. And he knew he would have to paint the village just as he saw it now. He stepped back: The village, framed in the drab gray of the wall, shone like a jewel. That would be it…the village seen through the window in the wall. The contrasts appealed to him. He had an urge to set up a canvas and start immediately. He painted best under stress and most loved to paint then, losing himself in perspective and composition, light and shadow, tint and texture.

The rest of the day went quickly. Woermann oversaw the placement of Lutz’s body in the subcellar. It and the severed head were carried down through the opening in the cellar floor and covered with a sheet on the dirt floor of the cavern below. The temperature down there felt close to freezing. He saw no sign of vermin about and it seemed the best place to store the cadaver until later in the week when arrangements could be made for shipment home.

Under normal circumstances Woermann would have been tempted to explore the subcellar. The subterranean cavern with its glistening walls and inky recesses might have sparked an interesting painting. But not this time. He told himself it was too cold, that he would wait until summer and do a proper job of it. But that wasn’t true. Something about this cavern urged him to be gone from it as soon as possible.

He realized as the day progressed that Grunstadt was going to be a problem. The soldier showed no sign of improvement. He lay in whatever position he was placed and stared into space. Every so often he would shudder and moan; occasionally, he would howl at the top of his lungs. He soiled himself again. At this rate, with no intake of food or fluid and without skilled nursing care, he would not survive the week. Grunstadt would have to be shipped out with Lutz’s remains if he didn’t snap out of it.

Woermann kept close watch on the mood of the men during the day and was satisfied with their response to the physical tasks he set for them. They worked well despite their lack of sleep and the death of their comrade. They had all known Lutz, known what a schemer and a plotter he was, that he rarely carried his full share of the load. It seemed to be the consensus that he had brought on the very accident that had killed him.

Woermann saw to it that there was no time for mourning or brooding, even for those few so inclined. A latrine system had to be organized, lumber commandeered from the village, tables and chairs made. By the time the evening mess was cleared, few in the detachment seemed willing to stay up for even an after-dinner cigarette. To a man, except for those on watch, they headed for their bedrolls.

Woermann allowed an alteration in the watch so that the courtyard guard would cover the corridor that led to Grunstadt’s room. Because of his cries and moans, no one would spend the night within a hundred feet of him; but Otto Grunstadt had always been well liked by the men and they felt an obligation to see that he did himself no harm.

Near midnight, Woermann found himself still wide awake despite a desperate desire to sleep. With the dark had come a sense of foreboding that refused to let him relax. He finally gave in to a restless urge to be up and about and decided to tour the guardposts to be sure those on sentry duty were awake.

His tour took him down Grunstadt’s corridor and he decided to look in on him. He tried to imagine what could have driven the man into himself like that. He peeked through the door. A kerosene lamp had been left burning with a low flame in a far corner of the room. The private was in one of his quiet phases, breathing rapidly, sweating and whimpering. The whimpering was followed regularly by a prolonged howl. Woermann wanted to be far down the hall when that occurred. It was unnerving to hear a human voice make a sound like that…the voice so near and the mind so far away.

He was at the end of the corridor and about to step into the courtyard again when it came. Only this wasn’t like the others. This was a shriek, as if Grunstadt had suddenly awakened and found himself on fire, or pierced by a thousand knives—physical as well as emotional agony filled the sound this time. And then it cut off, like pulling the plug on a radio in midsong.

Woermann froze for an instant, his nerves and muscles unwilling to respond to his commands; with intense effort he forced himself to turn and run back down the corridor. He burst into the room. It was cold, colder than a minute ago, and the kerosene lamp was out. He fumbled for a match to relight it, then turned to Grunstadt.

Dead. The man’s eyes were open, bulging toward the ceiling; the mouth was agape, the lips drawn back over the teeth as if frozen in the middle of a scream of horror. And his neck—the throat had been ripped open. Blood splattered the bed and walls.

Woermann’s reflexes took over. Before he even knew what he was doing, his hand had clawed his Luger from its holster and his eyes were searching the corners of the room for whoever had done this. But he could see no one. He ran to the narrow window, stuck his head through, and looked up and down the walls. No rope, no sign of anyone making an escape. He jerked his head back into the room and looked around again. Impossible! No one had come down the corridor, and no one had gone out the window. And yet Grunstadt had been murdered.

The sound of running feet cut off further thought. The guards had heard the shriek and were coming to investigate. Good…Woermann had to admit he was terrified. He couldn’t bear to be alone in this room much longer.

Thursday, 24 April

After seeing to it that Grunstadt’s body was placed next to Lutz’s, Woermann made sure the men were again kept busy all day building cots and tables. He fostered the belief that an anti-German partisan group was at work in the area. But he found it impossible to convince himself; for he had been on the corridor when the murder had occurred and knew there was no way the killer could have got by him without being seen—unless he could fly or walk through walls. So what was the answer?

He announced that the sentries would be doubled tonight, with extra men posted in and around the barracks to safeguard those who were sleeping.

With the sound of insistent hammering rising from the courtyard below, Woermann took time out in the afternoon to set up one of his canvases. He began to paint. He had to do something to get that awful look on Grunstadt’s face out of his mind; it helped to concentrate on mixing his pigments until their color approximated that of the wall in his room. He decided to place the window to the right of center, then spent the better part of two hours in the late afternoon blending the paint and smoothing it onto the canvas, leaving a white area for the village as seen through the window.

That night he slept. After interrupted slumber the first night, and none on the second, his exhausted body fairly collapsed onto his bedroll.

Private Rudy Schreck walked his patrol cautiously and diligently, keeping an eye on Wehner on the far side of the courtyard. Earlier in the evening, two men for this tiny area had seemed a bit much, but as darkness had grown and consolidated its hold on the keep, Schreck found himself glad to have someone within earshot. He and Wehner had worked out a routine: Both would walk the perimeter of the courtyard within an arm’s length of the wall, both going clockwise at opposite sides. It kept them always apart, but it meant better surveillance.

Rudy Schreck was not afraid for his life. Uneasy, yes, but not afraid. He was awake, alert; he had a rapid-fire weapon slung over his shoulder and knew how to use it. Whoever had killed Otto last night was not going to have a chance against him. Still, he wished for more light in the courtyard. The scattered bulbs spilling stark pools of brightness here and there along the periphery did nothing to dispel the overall gloom. The two rear corners of the courtyard were especially dark wells of blackness.

The night was chilly. To make matters worse, fog had seeped in through the barred gate and hung in the air around him, sheening the metal surface of his helmet with droplets of moisture. Schreck rubbed a hand across his eyes. Mostly he was tired. Tired of everything that had to do with the army. War wasn’t what he had thought it would be. When he had joined up two years ago he had been eighteen with a head full of dreams of sound and fury, of great battles and noble victories, of huge armies clashing on fields of honor. That was the way it had always been in the history books. But real war hadn’t turned out that way. Real war was mostly waiting. And the waiting was usually dirty, cold, nasty, and wet. Rudy Schreck had had his fill of war. He wanted to be home in Treysa. His parents were there, and so was a girl named Eva who hadn’t been writing as often as she used to. He wanted his own life back, a life with no uniforms and no inspections, no drills, no sergeants, and no officers. And no watch duty.

He was coming to the rear corner of the courtyard on the northern side. The shadows looked deeper than ever there…much deeper than on his last turn. Schreck slowed his pace as he approached. This is silly, he thought. Just a trick of the light. Nothing to be afraid of.

And yet…he didn’t want to go in there. He wanted to skirt this particular corner. He’d go into all the others, but not this one.

Squaring his shoulders, Schreck forced himself forward. It was only shadow. He was a grown man, too old to be afraid of the dark. He continued straight ahead, maintaining an arm’s length from the wall, into the shadowed corner—and suddenly he was lost. Cold, sucking blackness closed in on him. He spun around to go back the way he had come but found only more blackness, impenetrable, as though the rest of the world had disappeared. Schreck pulled the Schmeisser off his shoulder and held it ready to fire. He was shivering with cold yet sweating profusely. He wanted to believe this was all a trick, that Wehner had somehow turned off all the lights at the instant he had entered the shadow. But Schreck’s senses dashed that hope. The darkness was too complete. It pressed against his eyes and wormed its way into his courage.

He sensed someone approaching. Schreck could neither see nor hear him, but someone was there. Coming closer.

“Wehner?” he said softly, hoping his terror didn’t show in his voice. “Is that you, Wehner?”

But it wasn’t Wehner. Schreck realized that as the presence neared. It was someone—something—else. What felt like a length of heavy rope suddenly coiled around his ankles. As he was yanked off his feet, Private Rudy Schreck began screaming and firing wildly until the darkness ended the war for him.

A short sputtering burst from a Schmeisser jolted Woermann awake. He sprang to the window overlooking the courtyard. One of the guards was running toward the rear. Where was the other? Damn! He had posted two guards in the courtyard! He was about to turn and run for the stairs when he saw something on the wall. A pale lump…it looked almost like…

A body…upside down…a naked body hanging from a rope tied to its feet. Even from his tower window Woermann could see the blood that had spilled from the throat over the face. One of his soldiers, fully armed and on patrol, had been slaughtered and stripped and hung up like a chicken in a butcher’s window.

The fear that had so far only been nibbling at Woermann now asserted an icy, viselike grip.

Friday, 25 April

Three dead men in the subcellar. Defense command at Ploiesti had been notified of the latest mortality but no comment had been radioed back.

There was much activity in the courtyard during the day, but little accomplished. Woermann decided to pair the guards tonight. It seemed incredible that a partisan guerrilla could take an alert, seasoned soldier by surprise at his post, but it had happened. It would not happen with a pair of sentries.

In the afternoon he returned to his canvas and found a bit of relief from the atmosphere of doom that had settled on the keep. He began adding blotches of shadow to the blank gray of the wall, and then detail to the edges of the window. He had decided to leave out the crosses since they would be a distraction from the village that he wanted as the focus. He worked like an automaton, narrowing his world to the brushstrokes on the canvas, shutting away the terror around him.

Night came quietly. Woermann kept rising from his bedroll and going to the window overlooking the courtyard, a useless routine but a compulsion, as if he could keep everyone alive by maintaining a personal watch. On one of his trips he noticed the courtyard sentry walking his tour alone. Rather than call down and cause a disturbance, he decided to investigate personally.

“Where’s your partner?” he asked the lone sentry when he reached the courtyard.

The soldier whirled, then began to stammer. “He was tired, sir. I let him take a rest.”

An uneasy feeling clawed at Woermann’s belly. “I gave orders for all sentries to travel in pairs! Where is he?”

“In the cab of the first lorry, sir.”

Woermann quickly crossed to the parked vehicle and pulled open the door. The soldier within did not move. Woermann poked at his arm.

“Wake up.”

The soldier began to lean toward him, slowly at first, then with greater momentum until he was actually falling toward his commanding officer. Woermann caught him and then almost dropped him. For as he fell, his head angled back to reveal an open, mangled throat. Woermann eased the body to the ground, then stepped back, clamping his jaw against a scream of fright and horror.

Saturday, 26 April

Woermann had Alexandru and his sons turned away at the gate in the morning. Not that he suspected them of complicity in the deaths, but Sergeant Oster had warned him that the men were edgy about their inability to maintain security. Woermann thought it best to avoid a potentially ugly incident.

He soon learned that the men were edgy about more than security. Late in the morning a brawl broke out in the courtyard. A corporal tried to pull rank on a private to make him give up a specially blessed crucifix. The private refused and a fight between two men escalated into a brawl involving a dozen. It seemed there had been small talk about vampires after the first death. It had been ridiculed then, but with each new baffling death the idea had gained credence until believers now outnumbered nonbelievers. This was, after all, Romania, the Transylvanian Alps.

Woermann knew he had to nip this in the bud. He gathered the men in the courtyard and spoke to them for half an hour. He told them of their duty as German soldiers to remain brave in the face of danger, to remain true to their cause, and not to let fear turn them against one another, for that would surely lead to defeat.

“And finally,” he said, noticing his audience becoming restive, “you must all put aside fear of the supernatural. There is a human agent at work in these deaths and we will find him or them. It is now plain that there must be a number of secret passages within the keep that allow the killer to enter and leave without being seen. We’ll spend the rest of the day searching for those passages. And I am assigning half of you to guard duty tonight. We are going to put a stop to this once and for all!”

The men’s spirits seemed to be lifted by his words. In fact, he had almost convinced himself.

He moved about the keep constantly during the rest of the day, encouraging the men, watching them measure floors and walls in search of dead spaces, tapping the walls for hollow sounds. But they found nothing. He personally made a quick reconnaissance of the cavern in the subcellar. It appeared to recede into the heart of the mountain; he decided to leave it unexplored for now. There was no time, and no signs of disturbance in the dirt of the cavern floor to indicate that anyone had passed this way in ages. He left orders, however, to place four men on guard at the opening to the subcellar in the unlikely event that someone might try to gain entrance through the cavern below.

Woermann managed to sneak off for an hour during the late afternoon to sketch in the outline of the village. It was his only respite from the growing tension that pressed in on him from all sides. As he worked with the charcoal pencil, he could feel the unease begin to slip away, almost as if the canvas were drawing it out of him. He would have to take some time tomorrow morning to add color, for it was the village as it looked in the early light that he wished to capture.

As the sun sank and the fading light forced him to quit, he felt all the dread and foreboding filter back. With the sun overhead he could easily believe a human agent was killing his men; he could laugh at talk of vampires. But in the growing darkness, the gnawing fear returned along with the memory of the bloody, sodden weight of that dead soldier in his arms last night.

One safe night. One night without a death, and maybe I can beat this thing. With half of the men guarding the other half, I ought to be able to turn this around and start gaining ground tomorrow.

One night. Just one deathless night.

Sunday, 27 April

The morning came as Sunday mornings should—bright and sunny. Woermann had fallen asleep in his chair; he found himself awake at first light, stiff and sore. It took a moment before he realized that his night’s sleep had gone uninterrupted by screams or gunshots. He pulled on his boots and hurried to the courtyard to assure himself that there were as many men alive this morning as there had been last night. A quick check with one of the sentries confirmed it: No deaths had been reported.

Woermann felt ten years younger. He had done it! There was a way to foil this killer after all! But the ten years began to creep back on him as he saw the worried face of a private who was hurrying across the courtyard toward him.

“Sir!” the man said as he approached. “There’s something wrong with Franz—I mean Private Ghent. He’s not awake.”

Woermann’s limbs suddenly felt very weak and heavy, as if all their strength had suddenly been siphoned away. “Did you check him?”

“No, sir. I-I’m—”

“Lead the way.”

He followed the private to the barracks within the south wall. The soldier in question was in his bedroll in a newly made cot with his back to the door.

“Franz!” called his roommate as they entered. “The captain’s here!”

Ghent did not stir.

Please, God, let him be sick or even dead of a heart seizure, Woermann thought as he stepped to the bed. But please don’t let his throat be torn. Anything but that.

“Private Ghent!” he said.

He saw no evidence of movement, not even the easy rise and fall of the covers over a sleeping man. Dreading what he would find, Woermann leaned over the cot.

The bedroll flap was pulled to Ghent’s chin. Woermann did not pull it down. He did not have to. The glassy eyes, sallow skin, and drying red stain soaking through the fabric told him what he would find.

“The men are on the verge of panic, sir,” Sergeant Oster was saying.

Woermann daubed color onto the canvas in short, quick, furious jabs. The morning light was right where he wanted it on the village and he had to make the most of the moment. He was sure Oster thought he had gone mad, and maybe he had. Despite the carnage around him, the painting had become an obsession.

“I don’t blame them. I suppose they want to go into the village and shoot a few of the locals. But that won’t—”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s not what they’re thinking.”

Woermann lowered his brush. “Oh? What, then?”

“They think that the men who’ve been killed didn’t bleed as much as they should have. They also think Lutz’s death was no accident…that he was killed the same as the others.”

“Didn’t bleed…? Oh, I see. Vampire talk again.”

Oster nodded. “Yessir. And they think Lutz let it out when he opened that shaft into the dead space in the cellar.”

“I happen to disagree,” Woermann said, hiding his expression as he turned back to the painting. He had to be the steadying influence, the anchor for his men. He had to hold fast to the real and the natural. “I happen to think Lutz was killed by falling stone. I happen to think that the four subsequent deaths had nothing to do with Lutz. And I happen to believe they bled quite profusely. There is nothing around here drinking anyone’s blood, Sergeant!”

“But the throats…”

Woermann paused. Yes, the throats. They hadn’t been cut—no knife or garroting wire had been used. They had been torn open. Viciously. But by what? Teeth?

“Whoever the killer is, he’s trying to scare us. And he’s succeeding. So here’s what we’ll do: I’m putting every single man in the detachment on guard duty tonight, including myself. Everyone will travel in pairs. We’ll have this keep so thickly patrolled that a moth won’t be able to fly through unnoticed!”

“But we can’t do that every night, sir!”

“No, but we can do it tonight, and tomorrow night if need be. And then we’ll catch whoever it is.”

Oster brightened. “Yessir!”

“Tell me something, Sergeant,” Woermann said as Oster saluted and turned to go.

“Sir?”

“Had any nightmares since we moved into the keep?”

The younger man frowned. “No, sir. Can’t say that I have.”

“Any of the men mention any?”

“None. You having nightmares, Captain?”

“No.” Woermann shook his head in a way that told Oster he was through with him for now.

No nightmares, he thought. But reality certainly had become a bad dream.

“I’ll radio Ploiesti now,” Oster said as he went out the door.

Woermann wondered if a fifth death would get a rise out of the Ploiesti defense command. Oster had been reporting a death a day, yet no reaction. No offer of help, no order to abandon the keep. Obviously they didn’t care too much what happened here as long as somebody was keeping watch on the pass. Woermann would have to make a decision about the bodies soon. But he wanted desperately to get through one night without a death before shipping them out. Just one.

He turned back to the painting, but found the light had changed. He cleaned his brushes. He had no real hope of capturing the killer tonight, but it might still be the turning point. With everyone on guard and paired, maybe they’d all survive. And that would do wonders for morale.

As he placed his tubes of pigment into their case, an ugly thought struck him: What if one of his own men was the killer?

Monday, 28 April

Midnight had come and gone, and so far so good. Sergeant Oster had set up a checkpoint in the center of the courtyard and as yet no one was unaccounted for. The extra lights in the courtyard and atop the tower bolstered the men’s confidence despite the long shadows they cast. Keeping all the men up all night had been a drastic measure, but it was going to work.

Woermann leaned out one of his windows overlooking the courtyard. He could see Oster at his table, see the men walking in pairs along the perimeter and atop the walls. The generators chugged away over by the parked vehicles. Extra spotlights had been trained on the craggy surface of the mountainside that formed the rear wall of the keep to prevent anyone from sneaking in from above. The men on the ramparts were keeping a careful eye on the outer walls to see that no one scaled them. The front gates were locked, and he had a squad guarding the break into the subcellar.

The keep was secure.

As he stood there, Woermann realized that he was the only man in the entire structure who was alone and unguarded. It made him hesitate to look behind him into the shadowy corners of his room. But this was the price of being an officer.

Keeping his head out the window slot, he looked down and noticed a deepening of the shadow at the juncture of the tower and the south wall. As he watched, the bulb there grew dimmer and dimmer until it was out. His immediate thought was that something had broken the line, but he had to discard that notion when he saw all the other bulbs still glowing. A bad bulb, then. That was all. But what a strange way for a bulb to go dead. Usually they flared blue-white first, then went out. This one just seemed to fade away.

One of the guards down there on the south wall had noticed it too and was coming over to investigate. Woermann was tempted to call down to him to take his partner with him but decided against it. The second man was standing in clear view by the parapet. It was a dead-end corner down there anyway. No possible danger.

He looked on as the soldier disappeared into the shadow—a peculiarly deep shadow. After perhaps fifteen seconds, Woermann looked away, but then was drawn back by a choked gurgle from below, followed by the clatter of wood and steel on stone—a dropped weapon.

He jumped at the sound, feeling his palms grow slick against the stone windowsill as he peered below. And still he could see nothing within the shadow.

The other guard, the first’s partner, must have heard it too, for he started over to see what was wrong.

Woermann saw a dull, red spark begin to glow within the shadow. As it slowly brightened, he realized that it was the bulb coming back to life. Then he saw the first soldier. He lay on his back, arms akimbo, legs folded under him, his throat a bloody ruin. Sightless eyes stared up at Woermann, accusing him. There was nothing else, no one else in the corner.

As the other soldier began shouting for help, Woermann pulled himself back into the room and leaned against the wall, choking back the bile that surged up from his stomach. He could not move, could not speak.

My God, my God!

He staggered over to the table that had been made for him only two days ago and grabbed a pencil. He had to get his men out of here—out of the keep, out of the Dinu Pass if necessary. There was no defense against what he had just witnessed. And he would not contact Ploiesti. This message would go straight to High Command.

But what to say? He looked at the mocking crosses for inspiration but none came. How to make High Command understand without sounding like a madman? How to tell them that he and his men must leave the keep, that something uncanny threatened them, something immune to German military power.

He began to jot down phrases, crossing each out as he thought of a better one. He despised the thought of surrendering any position, but it would be inviting disaster to spend another night here. The men would be nearly uncontrollable now. And at the present death rate, he would be an officer without a command if he stayed much longer.

Command…his mouth twisted sardonically at the word. He was no longer in command of the keep. Something dark and awful had taken over.

SEVEN

THE DARDANELLES
Monday, 28 April
0244 hours

They were halfway through the strait when he sensed the boatman beginning to make his move.

It had not been an easy journey. The red-haired man had sailed past Gibraltar in the dark to Marbella where he had chartered the thirty-foot motor launch that now pulsed around him. It was sleek and low with two oversize engines. Its owner was no weekend captain. The red-haired man knew a smuggler when he saw one.

The owner had haggled fiercely over the fee until he learned he was to be paid in gold U.S. double eagles: half on departure, the rest upon their safe arrival on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmara. To traverse the length of the Mediterranean the owner had insisted on taking a crew. The red-haired man had disagreed; he would be crew enough.

They had run for six days straight, each man taking the helm for eight hours at a stretch, then resting for the next eight, keeping the boat at a steady twenty knots, twenty-four hours a day. They had stopped only at secluded coves where the owner’s face seemed well known, and only long enough to fill the fuel tanks. The red-haired man paid all expenses.

And now, alerted by the slowing of the boat, he waited for the owner, Carlos, to come below and try to kill him. Carlos had had his eye out for such a chance ever since they had left Marbella, but there had been none. Now, nearing the end of their journey, Carlos had only tonight to get the money belt. The red-haired man knew that was what he was after. He had felt Carlos brush against him repeatedly to assure himself that his passenger still wore it. Carlos knew there was gold there; and it was plain by its bulk that there was a lot of it. He also appeared to be consumed with curiosity about the long, flat case his passenger always kept at his side.

A shame. Carlos had been a good companion the past six days. A good sailor, too. He drank a bit too much, ate more than a bit too much, and apparently did not bathe anywhere near enough. The red-haired man gave a mental shrug. He had smelled worse in his day. Much worse.

The door to the rear deck opened, letting in a breath of cool air; starlight framed Carlos briefly before he closed the door behind him.

Too bad, the red-haired man thought as he heard the faint scrape of steel being withdrawn from a leather sheath. A good journey was coming to a sad end. Carlos had expertly guided them past Sardinia, sped them across the clear, painfully blue water between the northern tip of Tunisia and Sicily, then north of Crete and up through the Cyclades into the Aegean. They were presently threading the Dardanelles, the narrow channel connecting the Aegean with the Sea of Marmara.

Too bad.

He saw the light flash off the blade as it was raised over his chest. His left hand shot out and gripped the wrist before the knife could descend; his right hand gripped Carlos’s other hand.

“Why, Carlos?”

“Give me the gold!” The words snapped out.

“I might have given you more if you’d asked me. Why try to kill me?”

Carlos, gauging the strength of the hands holding him, tried a different tack. “I was only going to cut the belt off. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“The belt is around my waist. Your knife is over my chest.”

“It’s dark in here.”

“Not that dark. But all right…” He loosened his grip on the wrists. “How much more do you want?”

Carlos ripped his knife hand free and plunged it downward, growling, “All of it!”

The red-haired man again caught the wrist before the blade could strike. “I wish you hadn’t done that, Carlos.”

With steady, inexorable deliberateness, the red-haired man bent the knife hand inward toward his assailant’s own chest. Joints and ligaments popped and cracked in protest as they stretched to their limit. Carlos groaned in pain and fear as his tendons ruptured and the popping was replaced by the sickening crunch of breaking bones. The point of his knife was now directly over the left side of his chest.

“No! Please…no!”

“I gave you a chance, Carlos.” His own voice sounded hard, flat, and alien in his ears. “You threw it away.”

Carlos’s voice rose to a scream that ended abruptly as his fist was rammed against his ribs, driving the blade into his heart. His body went rigid, then limp. The red-haired man let him slip to the floor.

He lay still for a moment and listened to his heartbeat. He tried to feel remorse but there was none. It had been a long time since he had killed someone. He ought to feel something. But there was nothing. Carlos was a cold-blooded murderer. He had been dealt what he had intended to deal. There was no room for remorse in the red-haired man, only a desperate urgency to reach Romania.

Rising, he picked up the long, flat case, stepped up through the door to the rear deck, and took the helm. The engines were idling. He pushed them to full throttle.

The Dardanelles. He had been through here before, but never during a war, and never at full speed in the dark. The starlit water was a gray expanse ahead of him, the coast a dark smudge to the left and right. He was in one of the narrowest sections of the strait where it funneled down to a mile across. Even at its widest it never exceeded four miles. He traveled by compass and by instinct, without running lights, in a limbo of darkness.

No telling what he might run into in these waters. The radio said Greece had fallen; that might or might not be true. There could be Germans in the Dardanelles now, or British or Russians. He had to avoid them all. This journey had not been planned; he had no papers to explain his presence. And time was against him. He needed every knot the engines could manage.

Once into the wider Sea of Marmara twenty miles ahead, he’d have maneuvering room and would run as far as his fuel would take him. When that got low, he would beach the boat and move overland to the Black Sea. It would cost him precious time, but there was no other way. Even if he had the fuel, he could not risk running the Bosporus. There the Russians would be thick as flies around a corpse.

He pushed on the throttles to see if he could coax any more speed from the engines. He couldn’t.

He wished he had wings.

EIGHT

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Monday, 28 April
0950 hours

Magda held her mandolin with practiced ease, the pick oscillating rapidly in her right hand, the fingers of her left traveling up and down the neck, hopping from string to string, from fret to fret. Her eyes concentrated on a sheet of handwritten music: one of the prettiest Gypsy melodies she had yet committed to paper.

She sat within a brightly painted wagon on the outskirts of Bucharest. The interior was cramped, the living space further reduced by shelves full of exotic herbs and spices on every wall, by brightly colored pillows stuffed into every corner, by lamps and strings of garlic hanging from the low ceiling. Her legs were crossed to support the mandolin, but even then her gray woolen skirt barely cleared her ankles. A bulky gray sweater that buttoned in the front covered a simple white blouse. A tattered scarf hid the brown of her hair. But the drabness of her clothing could not steal the glow from her eyes, or the color from her cheeks.

Magda let herself drift into the music. It took her away for a while, away from a world that became increasingly hostile to her with each new day. They were out there: the ones who hated Jews. They had robbed her father of his position at the university, ordered the two of them out of their lifelong home, removed her king—not that King Carol had ever deserved her loyalty, but still, he had been the king—and replaced him with General Antonescu and the Iron Guard. But no one could take away her music.

“Is that right?” she asked when the last note had echoed away, leaving the interior of the wagon quiet again.

The old woman sitting on the far side of the tiny round oak table smiled, crinkling up the dark skin around her black Gypsy eyes. “Almost. But the middle goes like this.”

The woman placed a well-shuffled deck of checker-backed cards on the table and picked up a wooden naiou. Looking like a wizened Pan as she placed the pipes to her lips, she began to blow. Magda played along until she heard her own notes go sour, then she changed the notations on her sheet.

“That’s it, I guess,” she said, gathering her papers into a pile with a small sense of satisfaction. “Thank you so much, Josefa.”

The old woman held out her hand. “Here. Let me see.”

Magda handed her the sheet and watched as the old woman’s gaze darted back and forth across the page. Josefa was the phuri dai, the wise woman of this particular tribe of Gypsies. Papa had often spoken of how beautiful she had once been; but her skin was weathered now, her raven hair thickly streaked with silver, her body shrunken. Nothing wrong with her mind, though.

“So this is my song.” Josefa did not read music.

“Yes. Preserved forever.”

The old woman handed it back. “But I won’t play it this way forever. This is the way I like to play it now. Next month I may decide to change something. I’ve already changed it many times over the years.”

Magda nodded as she placed the sheet with the others in her folder. She had known Gypsy music to be largely improvised before she had started her collection. That was to be expected—Gypsy life was largely improvised, with no home other than a wagon, no written language, nothing at all to pin them down. Perhaps that was what drove her to try to capture some of their vitality and cage it on a music staff, to preserve it for the future.

“It will do for now,” Magda replied. “Maybe next year I’ll see what you’ve added.”

“Won’t the book be published by then?”

Magda felt a pang. “I’m afraid not.”

“Why not?”

Magda busied herself with putting her mandolin away, not wishing to answer but unable to dodge the question gracefully. She did not look up as she spoke.

“I have to find a new publisher.”

“What happened to the old one?”

Magda kept her eyes down. She was embarrassed. It had been one of the most painful moments in her life, learning that her publisher was reneging on their agreement. She still stung from it.

“He changed his mind. Said this was not the right time for a compendium of Romanian Gypsy music.”

“Especially by a Jewess,” Josefa added.

Magda looked up sharply, then down again. How true.

“Perhaps.” She felt a lump form in her throat. She didn’t want to talk about this. “How’s business?”

“Terrible.” Josefa shrugged as she set the naiou aside and picked up her tarot deck again. She was dressed in the mismatched, cast-off clothes common to Gypsies: flowered blouse, striped skirt, calico kerchief. A dizzying array of colors and patterns. Her fingers, as if acting of their own volition, began shuffling the deck. “I only see a few of the old regulars for readings these days. No new trade since they made me take the sign down.”

Magda had noted that this morning as she had approached the wagon. The sign over the rear door that had read “Doamna Josefa: Fortunes Told” was gone, as was the palmar diagram in the left window and the cabalistic symbol in the right. She had heard that all Gypsy tribes had been ordered by the Iron Guard to stay right where they were and to “deal no fraud” to the citizens.

“So, Gypsies are out of favor, too?”

“We Rom are always out of favor, no matter the time or place. We are used to it. But you Jews…” She clucked and shook her head. “We hear things…terrible things from Poland.”

“We hear them, too,” Magda said, suppressing a shudder. “But we are also used to being out of favor.”

At least some of us are. Not her. She would never get used to it.

“Going to get worse, I fear,” Josefa said.

“The Rom may fare no better.”

Magda realized she was being hostile but couldn’t help it. The world had become a frightening place and her only defense of late had been denial. The things she had heard couldn’t be true, not about the Jews, or about what was happening to Gypsies in the rural regions—tales of round-ups by the Iron Guard, forced sterilizations, then slave labor. It had to be wild rumor, scare stories. And yet, with all the terrible things that had indeed been happening…

“I do not worry,” Josefa said. “Cut a Gypsy into ten pieces and you have not killed him; you have only made ten Gypsies.”

Magda was quite certain that under similar circumstances you would be left only with a dead Jew. Again she tried to change the subject.

“Is that a tarot deck?” She knew perfectly well it was.

Josefa nodded. “You wish a fortune?”

“No. I really don’t believe in any of that.”

“To tell the truth, many times I do not believe in it either. Mostly the cards say nothing because there is really nothing to say. So we improvise, just as we do in music. And what harm is there in it? I don’t do the hokkane baro; I just tell the gadjé girls that they are going to find a wonderful man soon, and the gadjé men that their business ventures will soon be bearing fruit. No harm.”

“And no fortune.”

Josefa lifted her narrow shoulders. “Sometimes the tarot reveals. Want to try?”

“No. Thank you, but no.” She didn’t want to know what the future held. She had a feeling it could only be bad.

“Please. A gift from me.”

Magda hesitated. She didn’t want to offend Josefa. And after all, hadn’t the old woman just told her that the deck usually told nothing? Maybe she would make up a nice fantasy for her.

“Oh, all right.”

Josefa extended the pack of cards across the table.

“Cut.”

Magda separated the top half and lifted it off. Josefa slipped this under the remainder of the deck and began to deal, talking as her hands worked.

“How is your father?”

“Not well, I’m afraid. He can hardly stand now.”

“Such a shame. Not often you can find a gadjé who knows how to rokker. Yoska’s bear did not help his rheumatism?”

Magda shook her head. “No. And it’s not just rheumatism he has. It’s much worse.”

Papa had tried anything and everything to halt the progressive twisting and gnarling of his limbs, going even so far as to allow Josefa’s grandson’s trained bear to walk on his back, a venerable Gypsy therapy that had proven as useless as all the latest “miracles” of modem medicine.

“A good man,” Josefa said, clucking. “It’s wrong that a man who knows so much about this land must…be kept…from seeing it…anymore…” She frowned as her voice trailed off.

“What’s the matter?” Magda asked. Josefa’s troubled expression as she looked down at the cards spread out on the table made Magda uneasy. “Are you all right?”

“Hmmm? Oh, yes. I’m fine. It’s just these cards…”

“Something wrong?”

Magda refused to believe that cards could tell the future any more than could the entrails of a dead bird, yet a pocket of tense anticipation formed under her sternum.

“It’s the way they divide. I’ve never seen anything like it. The neutral cards are scattered, but the cards that can be read as good are all on the right here”—she moved her hand over the area in question—“and the bad or evil cards are all over on the left. Odd.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. Let me ask Yoska.” She called her grandson’s name over her shoulder, then turned back to Magda. “Yoska is very good with the tarot. He’s watched me since he was a boy.”

A darkly handsome young man in his mid twenties with a porcelain smile and a muscular build stepped in from the front room of the wagon and nodded to Magda, his black eyes lingering on her. Magda looked away, feeling naked despite her heavy clothing. He was younger than she, but that had never intimidated him. He had made his desires known on a number of occasions in the past. She had rebuffed him.

He looked down at the table to where his grandmother was pointing. Deep furrows formed slowly in his smooth brow as he studied the cards. He was quiet a long time, then appeared to come to a decision.

“Shuffle, cut, and deal again,” he said.

Josefa nodded agreement and the routine was repeated, this time with no small talk. Despite her skepticism, Magda found herself leaning forward and watching the cards as they were placed on the table one by one. She knew nothing of tarot and would have to rely solely on the interpretation of her hostess and her grandson. When she looked up at their faces, she knew something was not right.

“What do you think, Yoska?” the old woman said in a low voice.

“I don’t know…such a concentration of good and evil…and such a clear division between them.”

Magda swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “You mean it came out the same? Twice in a row?”

“Yes,” Josefa said. “Except that the sides are different. The good is now on the left and the evil is on the right.” She looked up. “That would indicate a choice. A grave choice.”

Anger suddenly drove out Magda’s growing unease. They were playing some sort of a game with her. She refused to be anyone’s fool.

“I think I’d better go.” She grabbed her folder and mandolin case and rose to her feet. “I’m not some naive gadjé girl you can have fun with.”

“No! Please, once more!” The old Gypsy woman reached for her hand.

“Sorry, but I really must be going.”

She hurried for the rear door of the wagon, realizing she wasn’t being fair to Josefa, but leaving all the same. Those grotesque cards with their strange figures, and the awed, puzzled expression on the faces of the two Gypsies filled her with a desperate urge to be out of the wagon. She wanted to be back in Bucharest, back to sharp, clear lines and firm pavements.

NINE

THE KEEP
Monday, 28 April
1910 hours

The snakes had arrived.

SS men, especially officers, reminded Woermann of snakes. SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kaempffer was no exception.

Woermann would always remember an evening a few years before the war when a local Hohere SS und Polizeiführer—the high-sounding name for a local chief of state police—held a reception in the Rathenow district. Captain Woermann, as a decorated officer in the German Army and a prominent local citizen, had been invited. He hadn’t wanted to go, but Helga so seldom had a chance to attend a fancy official reception, and she glowed so when she dressed up that he hadn’t had the heart to refuse.

Against one wall of the reception hall had stood a glass terrarium in which a three-foot snake coiled and uncoiled incessantly. It was the host’s favorite pet. He kept it hungry. On three separate occasions during the evening he invited all the guests to watch as he threw a toad to the snake. A passing glance during the first feeding had sufficed for Woermann—he saw the toad halfway along its slow, headfirst journey down the snake’s gullet, still alive, its legs kicking frantically in a vain attempt to free itself.

The sight had served to make a dull evening grim. When he and Helga had passed the tank on their way out, Woermann saw that the snake was still hungry, still winding around the inside of the cage, looking for a fourth toad despite the three swellings along its length.

He thought of that snake as he watched Kaempffer wind around the front room of Woermann’s quarters, from the door, around the easel, around the desk, to the window, then back again. Except for his brown shirt, Kaempffer was clad entirely in black—black jacket, black breeches, black tie, black leather belt, black holster, and black jackboots. The silver death’s-head insignia, the SS paired thunderbolts, and his officer’s pins were the only bright spots on his uniform…glittering scales on a poisonous, blond-headed serpent.

He noticed that Kaempffer had aged somewhat since their chance meeting in Berlin two years ago.

But not as much as I, Woermann thought grimly.

The SS major, although two years older than Woermann, was slimmer and therefore looked younger. Kaempffer’s blond hair was full and straight and still unmarred by gray. A picture of Aryan perfection.

“I noticed you only brought one squad with you,” Woermann said. “The message said two. Personally, I’d have thought you’d bring a regiment.”

“No, Klaus,” Kaempffer said in a condescending tone as he wound about the room. “A single squad would be more than enough to handle this so-called problem of yours. My einsatzkommandos are rather proficient in taking care of this sort of thing. I brought two squads because this is merely a stop along my way.”

“Where’s the other squad? Picking daisies?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Kaempffer’s smile was not a nice thing to see.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Woermann asked.

Kaempffer removed his cap and coat, threw them on Woermann’s desk, then went to the window overlooking the village.

“In a minute, you shall see.”

Reluctantly, Woermann joined the SS man at the window. Kaempffer had arrived only twenty minutes ago and already was usurping command. With his extermination squad in tow, he had driven across the causeway without a second’s hesitation. Woermann had found himself wishing the supports had weakened during the past week. No such luck. The major’s jeep and the truck behind it had made it safely across. After debarking and telling Sergeant Oster—Woermann’s Sergeant Oster—to see that the einsatzkommandos were well quartered immediately, he had paraded into Woermann’s suite with his right arm flailing a “Heil Hitler” and the attitude of a messiah.

“Seems you’ve come quite a way since the Great War,” Woermann said as they watched the quiet, darkened village together. “The SS seems to suit you.”

“I prefer the SS to the regular army, if that’s what you’re implying. Far more efficient.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’ll show you how efficiency solves problems, Klaus. And solving problems eventually wins wars.” He pointed out the window. “Look.”

Woermann saw nothing at first, then noticed some movement at the edge of the village. A group of people. As they approached the causeway, the group lengthened into a parade: ten village locals stumbling before the proddings of the second squad of einsatzkommandos.

Woermann felt a wave of shock and dismay, even though he should have expected something like this.

“Are you insane? Those are Romanian citizens! We’re in an ally state!”

“German soldiers have been killed by one or more Romanian citizens. And it’s highly unlikely General Antonescu will raise much of a fuss with the Reich over the deaths of a few country bumpkins.”

“Killing them will accomplish nothing!”

“Oh, I’ve no intention of killing them right away. But they’ll make excellent hostages. Word has been spread through the village that if one more German soldier dies, all those ten locals will be shot immediately. And ten more will be shot every time another German is killed. This will continue until either the murders stop or we run out of villagers.”

Woermann turned away from the window. So this was the New Order, the New Germany, the ethic of the Master Race. This was how the war was to be won.

“It won’t work,” he said.

“Of course it will.” Kaempffer’s smugness was unbearable. “It always has and always will. These partisans feed on the backslapping they get from their drinking companions. They play the hero and milk the role for all it’s worth—until their friends start dying, or until their wives and children are marched off. Then they become good little peasants again.”

Woermann searched for a way to save those villagers. He knew they’d had nothing to do with the killings.

“This time is different.”

“I hardly think so. I do believe, Klaus, that I’ve had far more experience with this sort of thing than you.”

“Yes…Auschwitz, wasn’t it?”

“I learned much from Commandant Hoess.”

“You like learning?” Woermann snatched the major’s hat from the desk and tossed it to him. “I’ll show you something new! Come with me!”

Moving swiftly and giving Kaempffer no time to ask questions, Woermann led him down the tower stairs to the courtyard, then across to another stairway leading down to the cellar. He stopped at the rupture in the wall and lit a lamp, then led Kaempffer down a mossy stairway into the cavernous subcellar.

“Cold down here,” Kaempffer said, his breath misting in the lamplight as he rubbed his hands together.

“It’s where we keep the bodies. All six of them.”

“You haven’t shipped any back?”

“I didn’t think it wise to ship them out one at a time…might cause talk among the Romanians along the way…not good for German prestige. I had planned to take them all with me when I left today. But as you know, my request for relocation was denied.”

He stopped before the six sheet-covered figures on the hard-packed earth, noting with annoyance that the sheets over the bodies were in disarray. It was a minor thing, but he felt the least that could be done for these men before their final burial was to treat their remains with respect. If they had to wait before being returned to their homeland, they ought to wait in clean uniforms and a neatly arranged shroud.

He went first to the man most recently killed and pulled back the sheet to expose the head and shoulders.

“This is Private Remer. Look at his throat.”

Kaempffer did so, his face impassive.

Woermann replaced the sheet, then lifted the next, holding the lamp up so Kaempffer could get a good look at the ruined flesh of another throat. He then continued down the line, saving the most gruesome for last.

“And now—Private Lutz.”

Finally, a reaction from Kaempffer: a tiny gasp. But Woermann gasped, too. Lutz’s face stared back at them upside down. The top of his head had been set against the empty spot between his shoulders; his chin and the mangled stump of his neck were angled away from his body toward the empty darkness.

Quickly, gingerly, Woermann swiveled the head until it sat properly, vowing to find the man who had been so careless with the remains of a fallen comrade, and to make him regret it. He carefully rearranged all the sheets, then turned to Kaempffer.

“Do you understand now why I tell you hostages won’t make a bit of difference?”

The major didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he turned and headed for the stairs and warmer air. Woermann sensed that Kaempffer had been shaken more than he had shown.

“Those men were not just killed,” Kaempffer said finally. “They were mutilated!”

“Exactly! Whoever or whatever is doing this is utterly mad! The lives of ten villagers won’t mean a thing.”

“Why do you say ‘whatever’?”

Woermann held Kaempffer’s gaze. “I’m not sure. All I know is that the killer comes and goes at will. Nothing we do, no security measure we try, seems to matter.”

“Security doesn’t work,” Kaempffer said, regaining his former bravado as they re-entered the light and the warmth of Woermann’s quarters, “because security isn’t the answer. Fear is the answer. Make the killer afraid to kill. Make him fear the price others are going to have to pay for his action. Fear is your best security, always.”

“And what if the killer is someone like you? What if he doesn’t give a damn about the villagers?”

Kaempffer didn’t answer.

Woermann decided to press the point. “Your brand of fear fails to work when you run up against your own kind. Take that back to Auschwitz when you go.”

“I’ll not be returning to Poland, Klaus. When I finish up here—and that should only take me a day or two—I’ll be heading south to Ploiesti.”

“I can’t see any use for you there—no synagogues to burn, only oil refineries.”

“Continue making your snide little comments, Klaus,” Kaempffer said, nodding his head ever so slightly as he spoke through tight lips. “Enjoy them now. For once I get my Ploiesti project under way, you will not dare to speak to me so.”

Woermann sat down behind his rickety desk. He was growing weary of Kaempffer. His eyes were drawn to the picture of his younger son, Fritz, the fifteen-year-old.

“I still fail to see what attraction Ploiesti could hold for the likes of you.”

“Not the refineries, I assure you—I leave them to the High Command to worry about.”

“Gracious of you.”

Kaempffer did not appear to hear. “No, my concern is the railways.”

Woermann continued staring at the photo of his son. He echoed Kaempffer: “Railways.”

“Yes! The greatest railway nexus in Romania is to be found at Ploiesti, making it the perfect place for a resettlement camp.”

Woermann snapped out of his trance and lifted his head. “You mean like Auschwitz?”

“Exactly! That’s why the Auschwitz camp is where it is. A good rail network is crucial to efficient transportation of the lesser races to the camps. Petroleum leaves Ploiesti by rail for every part of Romania.” He had spread his arms wide; he began to bring them together again. “And from every corner of Romania trains will return with carloads of Jews and Gypsies and all the other human garbage abroad in this land.”

“But this isn’t occupied territory! You can’t—”

“The Führer does not want the undesirables of Romania to be neglected. It’s true that Antonescu and the Iron Guard are removing the Jews from positions of influence, but the Führer has a more vigorous plan. It has come to be known in the SS as ‘The Romanian Solution.’ To implement it, Reichsführer Himmler has arranged with General Antonescu for the SS to show the Romanians how it is done. I have been chosen for that mission. I will be commandant of Camp Ploiesti.”

Appalled, Woermann found himself unable to reply as Kaempffer warmed to his subject.

“Do you know how many Jews there are in Romania, Klaus? Seven hundred and fifty thousand at last count. Perhaps a million! No one knows for sure, but once I start an efficient record system, we’ll know exactly. But that’s not the worst of it—the country is absolutely crawling with Gypsies and Freemasons. And worse yet: Muslims! Two million undesirables in all!”

“If only I had known!” Woermann said, rolling his eyes and pressing his hands against the side of his face. “I never would have set foot in this sinkhole of a country!”

Kaempffer heard him this time. “Laugh if you wish, Klaus, but Ploiesti will be most important. Right now we are transferring Jews all the way from Hungary to Auschwitz at a great waste of time, manpower, and fuel. Once Camp Ploiesti is functioning, I foresee many of them being shipped to Romania. And as commandant, I shall become one of the most important men in the SS…in the Third Reich! Then it shall be my turn to laugh.”

Woermann remained silent. He had not laughed…he found the whole idea sickening. Facetiousness was his only defense against a world coming under the control of madmen, against the realization that he was an officer in the army that was enabling them to achieve that control. He watched Kaempffer begin to coil back and forth about the room again.

“I didn’t know you were a painter,” the major said, stopping before the easel as if seeing it for the first time. He studied it a moment in silence. “Perhaps if you had spent as much time ferreting out the killer as you obviously have on this morbid little painting, some of your men might—”

“Morbid! There’s nothing at all morbid about that painting!”

“The shadow of a corpse hanging from a noose—is that cheerful?”

Woermann was on his feet, approaching the canvas. “What are you talking about?”

Kaempffer pointed. “Right there…on the wall.”

Woermann stared. At first he saw nothing. The shadows on the wall were the same mottled gray he had painted days ago. Nothing there that even faintly resembled…no, wait. He caught his breath. To the left of the window in which the village sat gleaming in the sunrise…a thin vertical line connecting to a larger dark shape below it. It could be seen as a hunched corpse hanging from a rope. He vaguely remembered painting the line and the shape, but in no way had he intended to add this gruesome touch to the work. He could not bear, however, to give Kaempffer the satisfaction of hearing him admit that he saw it, too.

“Morbidity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.”

But Kaempffer’s mind was already moving elsewhere. “It’s lucky for you the painting’s finished, Klaus. After I’ve moved in, I’ll be much too busy to allow you to come up here and fiddle with it. But you can resume after I’m on my way to Ploiesti.”

Woermann had been waiting for this, and was ready for it. “You’re not moving into my quarters.”

“Correction: my quarters. You seem to forget that I outrank you, Captain.”

Woermann sneered. “SS rank! Worthless! Worse than meaningless. My sergeant is four times the soldier you are! Four times the man, too!”

“Be careful, Captain. That Iron Cross you received in the last war will carry you only so far!”

Woermann felt something snap inside him. He pulled the black-enameled, silver-bordered Maltese cross from his tunic and held it out to Kaempffer. “You don’t have one! And you never will! At least not a real one—one like this, without a nasty little swastika at its center!”

“Enough!”

“No, not enough! Your SS kills helpless civilians—women, children! I earned this medal fighting men who were able to shoot back. And we both know,” Woermann said, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper, “how much you dislike an enemy who shoots back!”

Kaempffer leaned forward until his nose was barely an inch from Woermann’s. His blue eyes gleamed in the white fury of his face.

“The Great War…that is all past. This is the Great War—my war. The old war was your war, and it’s dead and gone and forgotten!”

Woermann smiled, delighted that he had finally penetrated Kaempffer’s loathsome hide. “Not forgotten. Never forgotten. Especially your bravery at Verdun!”

“I’m warning you,” Kaempffer said. “I’ll have you—” And then he closed his mouth with an audible snap.

For Woermann was moving forward. He had stomached all he could of this strutting thug who discussed the liquidation of millions of defenseless lives as matter-of-factly as he might discuss what he was going to have for dinner. Woermann made no overtly threatening gesture, yet Kaempffer took a step backward at his approach. Woermann merely walked past him and opened the door.

“Get out.”

“You can’t do this!”

“Out.”

They stared at each other for a long time. For a moment he thought Kaempffer might actually challenge him. Woermann knew the major was in better condition and physically stronger—but only physically. Finally, Kaempffer’s gaze wavered and he turned away. They both knew the truth about SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer. Without a word, he picked up his black greatcoat and stormed out of the room. Woermann closed the door quietly behind him.

He stood still for a moment. He had let Kaempffer get to him. His control used to be better. He walked over to the easel and stared at his canvas. The more he looked at the shadow he had painted on the wall, the more it looked like a hanging corpse. It gave him a queasy feeling and annoyed him as well. He had meant for the sunlit village to be the focus of the painting, but all he could see now was that damned shadow.

He tore himself away and returned to his desk, staring again at the photograph of Fritz. The more he saw of men like Kaempffer, the more he worried about Fritz. He hadn’t worried this much when Kurt, the older boy, had been in combat in France last year. Kurt was nineteen, a corporal already. A man now.

But Fritz—they were doing things to Fritz, those Nazis. The boy had somehow been induced to join the local Jugendführer, the Hitler Youth. During his last visit home, Woermann had been hurt and dismayed to hear his son’s fourteen-year-old mouth regurgitating that Aryan Master Race garbage, and speaking of “Der Führer” with an awed reverence that had once been reserved for God alone. The Nazis were stealing his son right under his nose, turning the boy into a snake like Kaempffer. And there did not seem to be a thing Woermann could do about it.

There didn’t seem to be anything he could do about Kaempffer either. He had no control over an SS officer. If Kaempffer decided to shoot Romanian peasants, he had no way to stop him other than to arrest him. And he could not do that. Kaempffer was here by authority of the High Command. To arrest him would be insubordination, an act of brazen defiance. His Prussian heritage rebelled at the thought. The army was his career, his home…it had been good to him for a quarter century. To challenge it now…

Helpless. That was how he felt. It brought him back to a clearing outside Posnan, Poland, a year and a half ago, shortly after the fighting had ended. His men had been setting up bivouac when the sound of automatic gunfire came from over the next rise, about a mile away. He had gone to investigate. Einsatzkommandos were lining up Jews—men and women of all ages, children—and systematically slaughtering them with fusillades of bullets. After the bodies had been rolled into the ditch behind them, more were lined up and shot. The ground had turned muddy with blood and the air had been full of the reek of cordite and the cries of those who were still alive and in agony, and to whom no one would bother to administer a coup de grâce.

He had been helpless then, and he was helpless now. Helpless to limit this war to one of soldier against soldier, helpless to stop the thing that was killing his men, helpless to stop Kaempffer from slaughtering those Romanian villagers.

He slumped into the chair. What was the use? Why even try anymore? Everything was changing for the worse. He had been born with the century, a century of hope and promise. Yet he was fighting in his second war, a war he could not understand.

And yet he had wanted this war. He had yearned for a chance to strike back at the vultures who had settled upon the Fatherland after the last war, saddling it with impossible reparations, grinding its face into the dirt year after year after year. His chance had come, and he had participated in some of the great German victories. The Wehrmacht was unstoppable.

Why, then, did he feel such malaise? It seemed wrong for him to want to be out of it all and back in Rathenow with Helga. It seemed wrong to be glad that his father, also a career officer, had died in the Great War and could not see what atrocities were being done today in the name of the Fatherland.

And still, with everything so wrong, he held on to his commission. Why? The answer to that one, he told himself for the hundredth, possibly the thousandth time, was that in his heart he believed the German Army would outlast the Nazis. Politicians came and went, but the army would always be the army. If he could just hold on, the German Army would be victorious, and Hitler and his gangsters would fade from power. He believed that. He had to.

Against all reason, he prayed that Kaempffer’s threat against the villagers would have the desired effect—that there would be no more deaths. But if it didn’t work…if another German was to die tonight, Woermann knew who he wanted it to be.

TEN

THE KEEP
Tuesday, 29 April
0118 hours

Erich Kaempffer lay awake in his bedroll, still rankling at Woermann’s contemptuous insubordination. Sergeant Oster, at least, had been helpful. Like most regular army men, he responded with fearful obedience to the black uniform and the death’s-head insignia, something to which Oster’s commanding officer seemed quite immune. But then, Kaempffer and Woermann had known each other long before there was an SS.

The sergeant had readily found quarters for the two squads of einsatzkommandos and had suggested a dead-end corridor at the rear of the keep as a compound for the prisoners from the village. An excellent choice: The corridor had been carved into the stone of the mountain itself and provided entry to four large rooms. Sole access to the retention area was through another long corridor running at an angle directly out to the courtyard. Kaempffer assumed that the section originally had been designed as a storage area since the ventilation was poor and there were no fireplaces in the rooms. The sergeant had seen to it that the entire length of both corridors, from the courtyard to the blank stone wall at the very end, was well lit by a new string of lightbulbs, making it virtually impossible for anyone to surprise the einsatzkommandos who would be on guard in pairs at all times.

For Major Kaempffer himself, Sergeant Oster had found a large, double-size room on the second level within the rear section of the keep. He had suggested the tower, but Kaempffer had refused; to have moved into the first or second level would have been convenient but would have meant being below Woermann. The fourth tower level involved too many steps to be taken too many times a day. The rear section of the keep was better. He had a window overlooking the courtyard, a bedframe commandeered from one of Woermann’s enlisted men, and an unusually heavy oak door with a secure latch. His bedroll was now supported by the newly made frame, and the major lay within it, a battery lamp on the floor beside him.

His eyes came to rest on the crosses in the walls. They seemed to be everywhere. Curious. He had wanted to ask the sergeant about them but had not wanted to detract from his posture of knowing everything. This was an important part of the SS mystique and he had to maintain it. Perhaps he would ask Woermann—when he could bring himself to speak to him again.

Woermann…he couldn’t get the man off his mind. The irony of it all was that Woermann was the last person in the world Kaempffer would have wished to be billeted with. With Woermann around he could not be the type of SS officer he wished to be. Woermann could fix his gaze on him and pierce right through the SS uniform, through the veneer of power, and see a terrified eighteen-year-old. That day in Verdun had been a turning point in both their lives…

…the British breaking through the German line in a surprise counterattack, the fire pinning down Kaempffer and Woermann and their whole company, men dying on all sides, the machine gunner hit and down, the British charging…Pull back and regroup, the only sane thing to do, but no word from the company commander…probably dead…Private Kaempffer seeing no one in his entire squad left alive except a new recruit, a green volunteer named Woermann sixteen years old, too young to fight…motioning to the kid to start moving back with him…Woermann shaking his head and crawling up to the machine gun emplacement…firing skittishly, erratically at first, then with greater confidence…Kaempffer crawling away, knowing the British would be burying the kid later that day.

But Woermann had not been buried that day. He had held off the enemy long enough for the line to be reinforced. He was promoted and decorated with the Iron Cross. When the Great War ended he was Fahnenjunker, an officer candidate, and managed to remain with the minuscule remnant of the army permitted by the Versailles debacle.

Kaempffer, on the other hand, the son of a clerk from Augsburg, found himself on the street after the war. He had been afraid and penniless, one of many thousands of veterans of a lost war and a defeated army. They were not heroes—they were an embarrassment. He wound up joining the nihilistic Freikorps Oberland, and from there it was not far to the Nazi Party in 1927; after proving his volkisch, his pure German pedigree, he joined the SS in 1931. From then on, the SS became Kaempffer’s home. He had lost his home after the first war and had sworn he would never be homeless again.

In the SS he learned the techniques of terror and pain; he also learned the techniques of survival: how to keep an eye out for weaknesses in his superiors, and how to hide his own weaknesses from the aggressive men below him. Eventually he maneuvered himself into the position of first assistant to Rudolf Hoess, the most efficient of all the liquidators of Jewry.

Again he learned so well that he was elevated to the rank of Sturmbannführer and assigned the task of setting up the resettlement camp at Ploiesti.

He ached to get to Ploiesti and begin. Only the unseen killers of Woermann’s men stood in his way. They had to be disposed of first. Not a problem, merely an annoyance. He wanted it taken care of quickly, not only to allow him to move on, but also to make Woermann look like the bumbler he was. A quick solution and he would be on his way in triumph, leaving Klaus Woermann behind, an impotent has-been.

A quick solution would also defuse anything Woermann might ever say about the incident at Verdun. If Woermann should ever decide to accuse him of cowardice in the face of the enemy, Kaempffer would need only point out that the accuser was an embittered, frustrated man striking out viciously at one who had succeeded where he had failed.

He turned off the lamp. Yes…he needed a quick solution. So much to do, so many more important matters awaiting his attention.

The only thing that bothered him about all this was the unsettling, inescapable fact that Woermann was afraid. Truly afraid. And Woermann did not frighten easily.

He closed his eyes and tried to doze. After a while he felt sleep begin to slip over him like a warm, gentle blanket. He was almost completely covered when he felt it brutally snatched away. He found himself wide awake, his skin suddenly clammy and crawling with fear. Something was outside the door to his room. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet he knew it was there. Something with such a powerful aura of evil, of cold hate, of sheer malevolence, that he could sense its presence through the wood and the stone that separated it from him. It was out there, moving along the corridor, passing the door, and moving away. Away…

His heart slowed, his skin began to dry. It took a few moments, but eventually he was able to convince himself that it had been a nightmare, a particularly vivid one, the kind that shakes you from the early stages of sleep.

Major Kaempffer arose from his bedroll and gingerly began removing his long underwear. His bladder had involuntarily emptied during the nightmare.

Privates Friedrich Waltz and Karl Flick, members of the first Death’s Head unit under Major Kaempffer, stood in their black uniforms, their gleaming black helmets, and shivered. They were bored, cold, and tired. They were unaccustomed to this sort of night duty. Back at Auschwitz they had had warm, comfortable guardhouses and watchtowers where they could sit and drink coffee and play cards while the prisoners cowered in their drafty shacks. Only occasionally had they been required to do gate duty and march the perimeter in the open air.

True, here they were inside, but their conditions were as cold and as damp as the prisoners’. That wasn’t right.

Private Flick slung his Schmeisser behind his back and rubbed his hands together. The fingertips were numb despite his gloves. He stood beside Waltz who was leaning against the wall at the angle of the two corridors. From this vantage point they could watch the entire length of the entry corridor to their left, all the way to the black square of night that was the courtyard, and at the same time keep watch on the prison block to their right.

“I’m going crazy, Karl,” Waltz said. “Let’s do something.”

“Like what?”

“How about making them fall out for a little Sachsengruss?”

“They aren’t Jews.”

“They aren’t Germans, either.”

Flick considered this. The Sachsengruss, or Saxon greeting, had been his favorite method of breaking down new arrivals at Auschwitz. For hours on end he would make them perform the exercise: deep knee bends with arms raised and hands behind the head. Even a man in top condition would be in agony within half an hour. Flick had always found it exhilarating to watch the expressions on the prisoners’ faces as they felt their bodies begin to betray them, as their joints and muscles cried out in anguish. And the fear in their faces. For those who fell from exhaustion were either shot on the spot or kicked until they resumed the exercise. Even if he and Waltz couldn’t shoot any of the Romanians tonight, at least they could have some fun with them. But it might be hazardous.

“Better forget it,” Flick said. “There’s only two of us. What if one of them tries to be a hero?”

“We’ll only take a couple out of the room at a time. Come on, Karl! It’ll be fun!”

Flick smiled. “Oh, all right.”

It wouldn’t be as challenging as the game they used to play at Auschwitz, where he and Waltz held contests to see how many of a prisoner’s bones they could break and still keep him working. But at least a little Sachsengruss would be diverting.

Flick began fishing out the key to the padlock that had transformed the last room on the corridor into a prison cell. There were four rooms available and they could have divided up the villagers but they had crowded all ten into a single chamber instead. He was anticipating the look on their faces when he opened the door—the wincing, lip-quivering fear when they saw his smile and realized they would never receive any mercy from him. It gave him a certain feeling inside, something indescribable, wonderful, something so addictive that he craved more and more of it.

He was halfway to the door when Waltz’s voice stopped him.

“Just a minute, Karl.”

He turned. Waltz was squinting down the corridor toward the courtyard, a puzzled expression on his face. “What is it?” Flick asked.

“Something’s wrong with one of the bulbs down there. The first one—it’s going out.”

“So?”

“It’s fading out.” He glanced at Flick and then back down the corridor. “Now the second one’s fading!” His voice rose half an octave as he lifted his Schmeisser and cocked it. “Get over here!”

Flick dropped the key, swung his own weapon to the ready position, and ran to join his companion. By the time he reached the juncture of the two corridors, the third bulb had gone dark. He tried but could make out no details of the corridor behind the dead bulbs. It was as if the area had been swallowed by impenetrable darkness.

“I don’t like this,” Waltz said.

“Neither do I. But I don’t see a soul. Maybe it’s the generator. Or a bad wire.”

Flick knew he didn’t believe this any more than Waltz did. But he had had to say something to hide his growing fear. Einsatzkommandos were supposed to arouse fear, not feel it.

The fourth bulb began to die. The dark was only a dozen feet away.

“Let’s move into here,” Flick said, backing into the well-lit recess of the rear corridor. He could hear the prisoners muttering in the last room behind them. Though they could not see the dying bulbs, they sensed something was wrong.

Crouched behind Waltz, Flick shivered in the growing cold as he watched the illumination in the outer corridor continue to fade. He wanted something to shoot at but could see only blackness.

And then the blackness was upon him, freezing his joints and dimming his vision. For an instant that seemed to stretch to a lifetime, Private Karl Flick became a victim of the soulless terror he so loved to inspire, felt the deep, gut-tearing pain he so loved to inflict. Then he felt nothing.

Slowly the illumination returned to the corridors, first to the rear, then to the access passage. The only sounds came from the villagers trapped in their cell: whimpering from the women, relieved sobs from the men as they all felt themselves released from the panic that had seized them. One man tentatively approached the door to peer through a tiny space between two boards. His field of vision was limited to a section of floor and part of the rear wall of the corridor.

He could see no movement. The floor was bare except for a splattering of blood, still red, still wet, still steaming in the cold. And on the rear wall there was more blood, but this was smeared instead of splattered. The smears seemed to form a pattern, like letters from an alphabet he almost recognized, forming words that hovered just over the far edge of recognition. Words like dogs howling in the night, naggingly present, but ever out of reach.

The man turned away from the door and rejoined his fellow villagers huddled in the far corner of the room.

Someone was at the door.

Kaempffer’s eyes snapped open; he feared that the earlier nightmare was going to repeat itself. But no. This time he could sense no dark, malevolent presence on the other side of the wall. The agent here seemed human. And clumsy. If stealth were the intruder’s aim, he was failing miserably. But to be on the safe side, Kaempffer pulled his Luger from the holster coiled at his elbow.

“Who’s there?”

No reply.

The rattle of a fumbling hand working the latch continued. Kaempffer could see breaks in the strip of light along the bottom of the door, but they gave no clue as to who might be out there. He considered turning on the lamp, but thought better of it. The dark room gave him an advantage—an intruder would be silhouetted against the light from the hall.

“Identify yourself!”

The fumbling at the latch stopped, to be replaced by a faint creaking and cracking, as if some huge weight were leaning against the door, trying to push through it. Kaempffer couldn’t be sure in the dark, but he thought he saw the door bulge inward. That was two-inch oak! It would take massive weight to do that! As the creaking of the wood grew louder, he found himself trembling and sweating. He had nowhere to go. And now came another sound, as if something were clawing at the door to get in. The noises assailed him, growing louder, paralyzing him. The cracking of the wood was so loud that it seemed it must break into a thousand fragments; the hinges cried out as their metal fastenings were tortured from the stone. Something had to give! He knew he should be chambering a shell into his Luger but he could not move.

The latch suddenly screeched and gave way, the door bursting open and slamming against the wall. Two figures stood outlined in the light from the hall. By their helmets, Kaempffer knew them to be German soldiers, and by their jackboots he knew them to be two of the einsatzkommandos he had brought with him. He should have relaxed at the sight of them, but for some reason he did not. What were they doing breaking into his room?

“Who is it?” he demanded.

They made no reply. Instead, they stepped forward in unison toward where he lay frozen in his bedroll. Something was wrong with their gait—not a gross disorder, but a subtle grotesquery. For one disconcerting moment, Major Kaempffer thought the two soldiers would march right over him. But they stopped at the edge of his bed, simultaneously, as if on command. Neither said a word. Nor did they salute.

“What do you want?” He should have been furious, but the anger would not come. Only fear. Against his wishes, his body was shrinking into the bedroll, trying to hide.

“Speak to me!” The command sounded like a bleat.

No reply. He reached down with his left hand and found the battery lamp beside his bed, all the while keeping the Luger in his right trained on the silent pair looming over him. When his questing fingers found the toggle switch, he hesitated, listening to his own rasping respirations. He had to see who they were and what they wanted, but a deep part of him warned against turning on the light.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. With a groan, he flicked the toggle and held up the lamp.

Privates Flick and Waltz stood over him, faces white and contorted, eyes glazed. A gaping crescent of torn and bloodied flesh grinned down at him from the place where each man’s throat had been. No one moved…the two dead soldiers wouldn’t, Kaempffer couldn’t. For a long, heart-stopping moment, Kaempffer lay paralyzed, the lamp held aloft in his hand, his mouth working spasmodically around a scream of fear that could not pass his locked throat.

Then the tableau was broken. Silently, almost gracefully, the two soldiers leaned forward and fell onto their commanding officer, pinning him in his bedroll under hundreds of pounds of limp dead flesh.

As Kaempffer struggled frantically to pull himself out from under the two corpses, he heard a far-off voice begin to wail in mortal panic. An isolated part of his brain focused on the sound until he identified it.

The voice was his own.

“Now do you believe?”

“Believe what?” Kaempffer refused to look up at Woermann. Instead he concentrated on the glass of kummel pressed between both palms. He had downed the first half in one gulp and now sipped steadily at the rest. By slow, painful degrees he was beginning to feel that he had himself under control again. It helped that he was in Woermann’s quarters and not his own.

“That SS methods will not solve this problem.”

“SS methods always work.”

“Not this time.”

“I’ve only begun! No villagers have died yet!”

Even as he spoke, Kaempffer admitted to himself that he had run up against a situation completely beyond the experience of anyone in the SS. There were no precedents, no one he could turn to for advice. He faced something beyond fear, beyond coercion, something magnificently adept at using fear as its own weapon. This was no guerrilla group, no fanatic arm of the National Peasant Party. This was something beyond war, beyond nationality, beyond race.

Yet the village prisoners would have to die at dawn. He could not let them go—to do so would be to admit defeat, and he and the SS would lose face. He must never allow that to happen. It made no difference that their deaths would have no effect on the…thing that was killing the men. They had to die.

“And they won’t die,” Woermann said.

“What?” Kaempffer finally looked up from the glass of kummel.

“The villagers—I let them go.”

“How dare you!” Anger made him feel alive again. He rose from his chair.

“You’ll thank me later on when you don’t have the systematic murder of an entire Romanian village to explain. And that’s what it would come to. I know your kind. Once started on a course, no matter how futile, no matter how many you hurt, you keep going rather than admit you’ve made a mistake. So I’m keeping you from getting started. Now you can blame your failure on me. I will accept the blame and we can all find a safer place to quarter ourselves.”

Kaempffer sat again, mentally conceding that Woermann’s move had given him an out. But he was trapped. He could not report failure back to the SS. That would mean the end of his career.

“I’m not giving up,” he told Woermann, trying to appear stubbornly courageous.

“What else can you do? You can’t fight this!”

“I will fight it!”

“How?” Woermann leaned back and folded his hands over his small paunch. “You don’t even know what you’re fighting, so how can you fight it?”

“With guns! With fire! With—” Kaempffer shrank away as Woermann leaned toward him, cursing himself for cringing, but helpless against the reflex.

“Listen to me, Herr Sturmbannführer: Those men were dead when they walked into your room tonight. Dead! We found their blood in the rear corridor. They died in your makeshift prison. Yet they walked off the corridor, up to your room, broke through the door, marched up to your bed, and fell on you. How are you going to fight something like that?”

Kaempffer shuddered at the memory. “They didn’t die until they got to my room! Out of loyalty they came to report to me despite their mortal wounds!” He didn’t believe a word of it. The explanation came automatically.

“They were dead, my friend,” Woermann said without the slightest trace of friendship in his tone. “You didn’t examine their bodies—you were too busy cleaning the crap out of your pants. But I did. I examined them just as I have examined every man who has died in this godforsaken keep. And believe me, those two died on the spot. All the major blood vessels in their necks were torn through. So were their windpipes. Even if you were Himmler himself, they couldn’t have reported to you.”

“Then they were carried!”

Despite what he had seen with his own eyes, he pressed for another explanation. The dead didn’t walk. They couldn’t!

Woermann leaned back and stared at him with such disdain that Kaempffer felt small and naked.

“Do they also teach you to lie to yourself in the SS?”

Kaempffer made no reply. He needed no physical examination of the corpses to know that they had been dead when they had walked into his room. He had known that the instant the light from his lamp had shone on their faces.

Woermann rose and strode toward the door. “I’ll tell the men we leave at first light.”

“NO!” The word passed his lips louder and shriller than he wished.

“You don’t really intend to stay here, do you?” Woermann asked, his expression incredulous.

“I must complete this mission!”

“But you can’t! You’ll lose! Surely you see that now!”

“I see only that I shall have to change my methods.”

“Only a madman would stay!”

I don’t want to stay! Kaempffer thought. I want to leave as much as anyone!

Under any other circumstances he would be giving the order to move out himself. But that was not one of his options here. He had to settle the matter of the keep—settle it once and for all—before he could leave for Ploiesti. If he bungled this job, dozens of his fellow SS officers were lusting after the Ploiesti project, watching and waiting to leap at the first sign of weakness and wrest the prize from him. He had to succeed here. If he could not, he would be left behind, forgotten in some rear office as others in the SS took over management of the world.

And he needed Woermann’s help. He had to win him over for just a few days, just long enough to find a solution. Then he would have him court-martialed for freeing the villagers.

“What do you think it is, Klaus?” he asked softly.

“What do I think what is?” Woermann’s tone was annoyed, frustrated, his words clipped brutally short.

“The killing—who or what do you think is doing it?”

Woermann sat down again, his face troubled. “I don’t know. And at this point, I don’t care to know. There are now eight corpses in the subcellar and we must see to it that there aren’t any more.”

“Come now, Klaus. You’ve been here a week…you must have formed an idea.”

Keep talking, he told himself. The longer you talk, the longer before you’ve got to return to that room.

“The men think it’s a vampire.”

A vampire! This was not the kind of talk he needed, but he fought to keep his voice low, his expression friendly.

“Do you agree?”

“Last week—God, even three days ago—I’d have said no. Now, I’m not so sure. I’m no longer sure of anything. If it is a vampire, it’s not like the ones you read about in horror stories. Or see in the movies. The only thing I’m sure of is that the killer is not human.”

Kaempffer tried to recall what he knew about vampire lore. Was the thing that killed the men drinking their blood? Who could tell? Their throats were such a ruin, and so much had spilled on their clothes, it would take a medical laboratory to determine whether some of the blood was missing. He had once seen a pirated print of the silent movie Nosferatu and had watched the American version of Dracula with German subtitles. That had been years ago, and at the time the idea of a vampire had seemed as ludicrous as it deserved to be. But now…certainly no beak-nosed Slav in formal dress was slinking around the keep, but there were most certainly eight corpses in the subcellar. Despite that, he could not see himself arming his men with wooden stakes and hammers.

“I think we shall have to go to the source,” he said as his thoughts reached a dead end.

“And where’s that?”

“Not where—who. I want to find the owner of the keep. This structure was built for a reason, and it is being maintained in perfect condition. There has to be a reason for that.”

“Alexandru and his boys don’t know who the owner is.”

“So they say.”

“Why should they lie?”

“Everybody lies. Somebody has to pay them.”

“The money is given to the innkeeper and he dispenses it to Alexandru and his boys.”

“Then we’ll interrogate the innkeeper.”

“You might also ask him to translate the words on the wall.”

Kaempffer started. “What words? What wall?”

“Down where your two men died. There’s something written on the wall in their blood.”

“In Romanian?”

Woermann shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t even recognize the letters, let alone the language.”

Kaempffer leaped to his feet. Here was something he could handle. “I want that innkeeper!”

The man’s name was Iuliu.

He was grossly overweight, in his late fifties, balding on his upper pate, and mustachioed on his upper lip. His ample jowls, unshaven for at least three days, trembled as he stood in his nightshirt and shivered in the rear corridor where his fellow villagers had been held prisoner.

Almost like the old days, Kaempffer thought, watching from the shadows of one of the rooms. He was starting to feel more like himself again. The man’s confused, frightened countenance brought him back to his early years with the SS in Munich, when they would roust the Jew shopkeepers out of their warm beds in the early morning hours, beat them in front of their families, and watch them sweat with terror in the cold before dawn.

But the innkeeper was no Jew.

Not that it mattered. Jew, Freemason, Gypsy, Romanian innkeeper, what really mattered to Kaempffer was the victim’s sense of complacency, of self-confidence, of security; the victim’s feeling that he had a place in the world and that he was safe—that was what Kaempffer felt he had to smash. They had to learn that there was no safe place when he was around.

He let the innkeeper shiver and blink under the naked bulb for as long as his own patience would allow. Iuliu had been brought to the spot where the two einsatzkommandos had been killed. Anything that had even remotely resembled a ledger or a record book had been taken from the inn and dropped in a pile behind him. His eyes roamed from the bloodstains on the floor, to the bloody scrawl on the rear wall, to the implacable faces of the four soldiers who had dragged him from his bed, then back to the bloodstains on the floor. Kaempffer found it difficult to look at those stains. He kept remembering the two gashed throats that had supplied the blood, and the two dead men who had stood over his bed.

When Major Kaempffer began to feel his own fingers tingle with cold despite his black leather gloves, he stepped out into the light of the corridor and faced Iuliu. At the sight of an SS officer in full uniform, Iuliu took a step backward and almost tripped over his ledgers.

“Who owns the keep?” Kaempffer asked in a low voice without preamble.

“I do not know, Herr Officer.”

The man’s German was atrocious, but it was better than working through an interpreter. He slapped Iuliu across the face with the back of his gloved hand. He felt no malice; this was standard procedure.

“Who owns the keep?”

“I don’t know!”

He slapped him again. “Who?”

The innkeeper spat blood and began to weep. Good—he was breaking.

“I don’t know!” Iuliu cried.

“Who gives you the money to pay the caretakers?”

“A messenger.”

“From whom?”

“I don’t know. He never says. From a bank, I think. He comes twice a year.”

“You must have to sign a receipt or cash a check. Whom is it from?”

“I sign a letter. At the top it says ‘The Mediterranean Bank of Switzerland.’ In Zurich.”

“How does the money come?”

“In gold. In twenty-lei gold pieces. I pay Alexandru and he pays his sons. It has always been this way.”

Kaempffer watched Iuliu wipe his eyes and compose himself. He had the next link in the chain. He would have the SS central office investigate the Mediterranean Bank in Zurich to learn who was sending gold coins to an innkeeper in the Transylvanian Alps. And from there back to the owner of the account, and from there back to the owner of the keep.

And then what?

He didn’t know, but this seemed to be the only way to proceed at the moment. He turned and stared at the words scrawled on the wall behind him. The blood—Flick’s and Waltz’s blood—used as ink for the words had dried to a reddish brown. Many of the letters were either crudely formed or were not like any letters he had ever seen. Others were recognizable. As a whole, they were incomprehensible. Yet they had to mean something.

He gestured to the words. “What does that say?”

“I don’t know, Herr Officer!” He cringed from the glittering blue of Kaempffer’s eyes. “Please…I really don’t!”

From Iuliu’s expression and the sound of his voice, Kaempffer knew the man was telling the truth. But that was not a real consideration—never had been and never would be. The man would have to be pressed to the limit, battered, broken, and sent limping back to his fellow villagers with tales of the merciless treatment he had received at the hands of the officer in the black uniform. And then they would know: They must cooperate, they must crawl over one another in their eagerness to be of service to the SS.

“You lie,” he screamed and slammed the back of his hand across Iuliu’s face again. “Those words are Romanian! I want to know what they say!”

“They are like Romanian, Herr Officer,” Iuliu said, cowering in fear and pain, “but they are not. I don’t know what they say!”

This tallied with the information Kaempffer had gleaned from his own translating dictionary. He had been studying Romania and its languages since the first day he had got wind of the Ploiesti project. By now he knew a little of the Daco-Romanian dialect and expected soon to be passably fluent in it. He did not want any of the Romanians he would be working with to think they could slip anything by him by speaking in their own tongue.

But there were three other major dialects which varied significantly from one another. And the words on the wall, while similar to Romanian, did not appear to belong to any of them.

Iuliu, the innkeeper—probably the only man in the village who could read—did not recognize them. Still, he had to suffer.

Kaempffer turned away from Iuliu and from the four einsatzkommandos around him. He spoke to no one in particular, but his meaning was understood.

“Teach him the art of translation.”

There was a heartbeat’s pause, then a dull thud followed by a choking groan of agony. He did not have to watch. He could picture what was happening: One of the guards had driven the end of his rifle barrel into the small of Iuliu’s back, a sharp, savage blow, sending Iuliu to his knees. They would now be clustered around him, preparing to drive the toes and heels of their polished jackboots into every sensitive area of his body. And they knew them all.

“That will be enough!” said a voice he instantly recognized as Woermann’s.

Enraged at the intrusion, Kaempffer wheeled to confront him. This was insubordination! A direct challenge to his authority! But as he opened his mouth to reprimand Woermann, he noticed that the captain’s hand rested on the butt of his pistol. Surely he wouldn’t use it. And yet…

The einsatzkommandos were looking to their major expectantly, not quite sure what to do. Kaempffer longed to tell them to proceed as ordered but found he could not. Woermann’s baleful stare and defiant stance made him hesitate.

“This local has refused to cooperate,” he said lamely.

“And so you think beating him unconscious—or to death, perhaps—will get you what you want? How intelligent!” Woermann moved forward to Iuliu’s side, blandly pushing the einsatzkommandos aside as if they were inanimate objects. He glanced down at the groaning innkeeper, then fixed each of the guards with his stare. “Is this how German troops act for the greater glory of the Fatherland? I’ll bet your mothers and fathers would love to come and watch you kick an unarmed aging fat man to death. How brave! Why don’t you invite them someday? Or did you kick them to death the last time you were home on leave?”

“I must warn you, Captain—” Kaempffer began, but Woermann had turned his attention to the innkeeper.

“What can you tell us about the keep that we don’t already know?”

“Nothing,” Iuliu said from the floor.

“Any wives’ tales or scare stories or legends?”

“I’ve lived here all my life and never heard any.”

“No deaths in the keep? Ever?”

“Never.”

As Kaempffer watched, he saw the innkeeper’s face light with a kind of hope, as if he had thought of a way to survive the night intact.

“But perhaps there is someone who could help you. If I may just get my registration book…?” He indicated the jumbled ledgers on the floor.

When Woermann nodded to him, he crawled across the floor and picked out a worn, stained, cloth-covered volume from the rest. He fumbled feverishly through the pages until he came to the entry he wanted.

“Here it is! He has been here three times in the past ten years, each time sicker than the last, each time with his daughter. He is a great teacher at the University of Bucharest. An expert in the history of this region.”

Kaempffer was interested now. “When was the last time?”

“Five years ago.” He shrank away from Kaempffer as he replied.

“What do you mean by sick?” Woermann asked.

“He could not walk without two canes last time.”

Woermann took the ledger from the innkeeper. “Who is he?”

“Professor Theodor Cuza.”

“Let’s just hope he’s still alive,” Woermann said, tossing the ledger to Kaempffer. “I’m sure the SS has contacts in Bucharest who can find him if he is. I suggest you waste no time.”

“I never waste time, Captain,” Kaempffer said, trying to regain some of the face he knew he had lost with his men. He would never forgive Woermann for that. “As you enter the courtyard you will notice my men already busy prying at the walls, loosening the stones. I expect to see your men helping them as soon as possible. While the Mediterranean Bank in Zurich is being investigated, and while this professor is being sought out, we shall all be busy dismantling this structure stone by stone. For if we should obtain no useful information from the bank or from the professor, we shall already be started toward destroying every possible hiding place within the keep.”

Woermann shrugged. “Better than sitting around and waiting to be killed, I suppose. I’ll have Sergeant Oster report to you and he can coordinate work details.” He turned, pulled Iuliu to his feet, and pushed him down the corridor, saying, “I’ll be right behind you to see that the sentry lets you out.”

But the innkeeper held back an instant and said something to the captain in a low tone. Woermann began to laugh.

Kaempffer felt his face grow hot as rage welled up within him. They were talking about him, belittling him. He could always tell.

“What is the joke, Captain?”

“This Professor Cuza,” Woermann said, his laughter fading but the mocking smile remaining on his lips, “the man who might possibly know something that could keep a few of us alive…he’s a Jew!”

Renewed laughter echoed from the captain as he walked away.

ELEVEN

BUCHAREST
Tuesday, 29 April
1020 hours

The harsh, insistent pounding from without rattled their apartment door on its hinges.

“Open up!”

Magda’s voice failed her for an instant, then she quavered out the question to which she already knew the answer. “Who is it?”

“Open immediately!”

Magda, dressed in a bulky sweater and a long skirt, her glossy brown hair undone, was standing by the door. She looked over at her father seated in his wheelchair at the desk.

“Better let them in,” he said with a calm she knew was forced. The tight skin of his face allowed little expression, but his eyes were afraid.

Magda turned to the door. With a single motion she undid the latch and jerked back as if fearing it would bite her. It was fortunate that she did, for the door flew open and two members of the Iron Guard, the Romanian equivalent of German storm troopers, lurched in, helmeted, armed with rifles held at high port.

“This is the Cuza residence?” the one toward the rear said. The question had been uttered as a statement, as if daring anyone listening to disagree.

“Yes,” Magda replied, backing away toward her father. “What do you want?”

“We are looking for Theodor Cuza.” His eyes lingered on Magda’s face. “Where is he?”

“I am he,” Papa said.

Magda was at his side, her hand resting protectively atop the high wooden back of his wheelchair. She was trembling. She had dreaded this day, had hoped it would never come. But now it looked as if they were to be dragged off to some resettlement camp where her father would not survive the night. They had long feared that the anti-Semitism of this regime would become an institutionalized horror similar to Germany’s.

The two guardsmen looked at Papa. The one to the rear, who seemed to be in charge, stepped forward and withdrew a piece of paper from his belt. He glanced down at it, then up again.

“You cannot be Cuza. He’s fifty-six. You’re too old!”

“Nevertheless, I am he.”

The intruders looked at Magda. “Is this true? This is Professor Theodor Cuza, formerly of the University of Bucharest?”

Magda found herself mortally afraid, breathless, unable to speak, so she nodded. The two Iron Guards hesitated, obviously at a loss as to what to do.

“What do you want of me?” Papa asked.

“We are to bring you to the rail station and accompany you to the junction at Campina where you will be met by representatives of the Third Reich. From there—”

“Germans? But why?”

“It is not for you to ask! From there—”

“Which means they don’t know either,” Magda heard her father mutter.

“—you will be escorted to the Dinu Pass.”

Papa’s face mirrored Magda’s surprise at their destination, but he recovered quickly.

“I would love to oblige you, gentlemen,” Papa said, spreading his twisted fingers, encased as always in cotton gloves, “for there are few places in the world more fascinating than the Dinu Pass. But as you can plainly see, I’m a bit infirm at the moment.”

The two Iron Guards stood silent, indecisive, eyeing the old man in the chair. Magda could sense their reactions. Papa looked like an animated skeleton with his thin, glossy, dead-looking skin, his balding head fringed with wisps of white hair, his stiff fingers looking thick and crooked and gnarled even through the gloves, and his arms and neck so thin there seemed to be no flesh over the bones. He looked frail, fragile, brittle. He looked eighty. Yet their papers said to find a man of fifty-six.

“Still you must come,” the leader said.

“He can’t!” Magda cried. “He’ll die on a trip like that!”

The two intruders glanced at each other. Their thoughts were easy to read: They had been told to find Professor Cuza and see that he got to the Dinu Pass as quickly as possible. And alive, obviously. Yet the man before them did not look as if he would make it to the station.

“If I have the expert services of my daughter along,” she heard her father say, “I shall perhaps be all right.”

“No, Papa! You can’t!” What was he saying?

“Magda…these men mean to take me. If I am to survive, you must come along with me.” He looked up at her, his eyes commanding. “You must.”

“Yes, Papa.”

She could not imagine what he had in mind, but she had to obey. He was her father. He studied her face.

“Do you realize the direction in which we will be traveling, my dear?”

He was trying to tell her something, trying to key something in her mind. Then she remembered her dream of a week ago, and the half-packed suitcase still sitting under her bed.

“North!”

Their two Iron Guard escorts were seated across the aisle in the passenger car, engaged in low conversation when they were not trying to visually pierce Magda’s heavy clothing. Papa had the window seat, his hands double gloved, leather over cotton, and folded in his lap. Bucharest was sliding away behind them. A fifty-three-mile trip by rail lay ahead—thirty-five miles to Ploiesti and eighteen miles north of there to Campina. After that the going would be rough. She prayed it would not be too much for him.

“Do you know why I had them bring you along?” he said in his dry voice.

“No, Papa. I see no purpose in either of us going. You could have got out of it. All they need do is have their superiors look at you and they’d know you’re not fit to travel.”

“They wouldn’t care. And I’m fitter than I look—not well, by any standard, but certainly not the walking cadaver I appear to be.”

“Don’t talk like that!”

“I stopped lying to myself long ago, Magda. When they told me I had rheumatoid arthritis, I said they were wrong. And they were: I had something worse. But I’ve accepted what’s happening to me. There’s no hope, and there’s not that much more time. So I think I should make the best of it.”

“You don’t have to rush it by allowing them to drag you up to the Dinu Pass!”

“Why not? I’ve always loved the Dinu Pass. It’s as good a place to die as any. And they were going to take me no matter what. I’m wanted up there for some reason and they are intent on getting me there, even in a hearse.” He looked at her closely. “But do you know why I told them I had to have you along?”

Magda considered the question. Her father was ever the teacher, ever playing Socrates, asking question after question, leading his listener to a conclusion. Magda often found it tedious and tried to reach the conclusion as swiftly as possible. But she was too tense at the moment for even a half-hearted attempt at playing along.

“To be your nurse, as usual,” she snapped. “What else?”

She regretted the words as soon as she uttered them, but her father seemed not to notice. He was too intent on what he wanted to say to take offense.

“Yes!” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s what I want them to think. But it’s really your chance to get out of the country! I want you to come to the Dinu Pass with me, but when you get the chance—at the first opportunity—I want you to run off and hide in the hills.”

“Papa, no!”

“Listen to me!” he said, leaning his face toward her ear. “This chance will never come again. We’ve been in the Alps many times. You know the Dinu Pass well. Summer’s coming. You can hide for a while and then make your way south.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know—anywhere! Just get yourself out of the country. Out of Europe! Go to America! To Turkey! To Asia! Anywhere, but go!”

“A woman traveling alone in wartime,” Magda said, staring at her father and trying to keep her voice from sounding scornful. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “How far do you think I’d get?”

“You must try!” His lips trembled.

“Papa, what’s wrong?”

He looked out the window for a long time, and when he finally spoke his voice was barely audible.

“It’s all over for us. They’re going to wipe us off the face of the Continent.”

“Who?”

“Us! Jews! There’s no hope left for us in Europe. Perhaps somewhere else.”

“Don’t be so—”

“It’s true! Greece has just surrendered! Do you realize that since they attacked Poland a year and a half ago they haven’t lost a battle? No one has been able to stand up to them for more than six weeks! Nothing can stop them! And that madman who leads them intends to eradicate our kind from the face of the earth! You’ve heard the tales from Poland—it’s soon going to be happening here! The end of Romanian Jewry has been delayed only because that traitor Antonescu and the Iron Guard have been at each other’s throats. But it seems they’ve settled their differences during the past few months, so it won’t be long now.”

“You’re wrong, Papa,” Magda said quickly. This kind of talk terrified her. “The Romanian people won’t allow it.”

He turned on her, his eyes blazing. “‘Won’t allow it’? Look at us! Look at what has happened so far! Did anyone protest when the government began the ‘Romanianization’ of all property and industry in the hands of Jews? Did a single one of my colleagues at the university—trusted friends for decades!—so much as question my dismissal? Not one! Not one! And has one of them even stopped by to see how I am?” His voice was beginning to crack. “Not one!”

He turned his face back toward the window and was silent.

Magda wished for something to say to make it easier for him, but no words came. She knew that tears would be streaking his cheeks now if his disease had not rendered his eyes incapable of forming them. When he spoke again, he had himself once more under control, but he kept his gaze directed at the flat green farmland rolling by.

“And now we are on this train, under guard of Romanian fascists, on our way to be delivered into the hands of German fascists. We are finished!”

She watched the back of her father’s head. How bitter and cynical he had become. But then, why not? He had a disease that was slowly tying his body into knots, distorting his fingers, turning his skin to wax paper, drying his eyes and mouth, making it increasingly hard for him to swallow. As for his career—despite years at the university as an unchallenged authority on Romanian folklore, despite the fact that he was next in line as head of the department of history, he had been unceremoniously fired. Oh, they said it was because his advancing debility made it necessary, but Papa knew it was because he was a Jew. He had been discarded like so much trash.

And so: His health was failing, he had been removed from the pursuit of Romanian history—the thing he loved most—and now he had been dragged from his home. And above and beyond all that was the knowledge that engines designed for the destruction of his race had been constructed and were already operating with grim efficiency in other countries. Soon it would be Romania’s turn.

Of course he’s bitter! she thought. He has every right to be!

And so do I. It’s my race, my heritage, too, they wish to destroy. And soon, no doubt, my life.

No, not her life. That couldn’t happen. She could not accept that. But they had certainly destroyed any hope she had held of being something more than secretary and nursemaid to her father. Her music publisher’s sudden about-face was proof enough of that.

Magda felt a heaviness in her chest. She had learned the hard way since her mother’s death eleven years ago that it was not easy being a woman in this world. It was hard if you were married, and harder still if you were not, for there was no one to cling to, no one to take your side. It was almost impossible for any woman with an ambition outside the home to be taken seriously. If you were married, you should go back home; if you were not, then something was doubly wrong with you. And if you were Jewish…

She glanced quickly to the area where the two Iron Guards sat. Why am I not permitted the desire to leave my mark on this world? Not a big mark…a scratch would do. My book of songs…it would never be famous or popular, but perhaps someday a hundred years from now someone would come across a copy and play one of the songs. And when the song is over, the player will close the cover and see my name…and I’ll still be alive in a way. The player will know that Magda Cuza passed this way.

She sighed. She wouldn’t give up. Not yet. Things were bad and would probably get worse. But it wasn’t over. It was never over as long as one could hope.

Hope, she knew, was not enough. There had to be something more; just what that might be she didn’t know. But hope was the start.

The train passed an encampment of brightly colored wagons circled around a smoldering central fire. Papa’s pursuit of Romanian folklore had led him to befriend the Gypsies, allowing him to tap their mother lode of oral tradition.

“Look!” she said, hoping the sight would lift his spirits. He loved those people so. “Gypsies.”

“I see,” he said without enthusiasm. “Bid them farewell, for they are as doomed as we are.”

“Stop it, Papa!”

“It’s true. The Rom are an authoritarian’s nightmare. And because of that, they too will be eliminated. They are free spirits, drawn to crowds and laughter and idleness. The fascist mentality cannot tolerate their sort; their place of birth was the square of dirt that happened to lie under their parents’ wagon on the moment of their first breath; they have no permanent address, no permanent place of employment. And they don’t even use one name with any reliable frequency, for they have three: a public name for the gadjé, another for use among their tribe members, and a secret one whispered in their ear at birth by their mother to confuse the Devil, should he come for them. To the fascist mind they are an abomination.”

“Perhaps,” Magda said. “But what of us? Why are we an abomination?”

He turned away from the window at last. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really knows. We are good citizens wherever we go. We are industrious, we promote trade, we pay our taxes. Perhaps it is our lot. I just don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve tried to make sense of it, but I cannot. Just as I cannot make sense of this forced trip to the Dinu Pass. The only thing of interest there is the keep, but that is of interest only to the likes of you and me. Not to Germans.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Before long, he was dozing, snoring gently. He slept all the way past the smoking towers and tanks of Ploiesti, awakened briefly as they passed to the east of Floresti, then dozed again. Magda spent the time worrying about what lay ahead for them, and what the Germans could possibly want with her father in the Dinu Pass.

As the plains drifted by outside the window, Magda drifted into a familiar reverie, one in which she was married to a handsome man, loving and intelligent. They would have great wealth, but it would not go for things like jewelry and fine clothes—those were toys to Magda and she could see no use or meaning in owning them—but for books and curios. They would dwell in a house that would resemble a museum, stuffed with artifacts of value only to them. And that house would lie in a far-off land where no one would know or care that they were Jewish. Her husband would be a brilliant scholar and she would be widely known and respected for her musical arrangements. There would be a place for Papa, too, and money enough to get him the best doctors and nurses, giving her time to herself to work on her music.

A small, bitter smile curved Magda’s lips. An elaborate fantasy—and that was all it ever would be. It was too late for her. She was thirty-one, well past the age when any eligible man would consider her a suitable wife and prospective mother of his children. All she was good for now was somebody’s mistress. And that, of course, she could never accept.

Once, a dozen years ago, there had been someone…Mihail…a student of Papa’s. They had been attracted to each other. Something might have come of that. But then Mother had died and Magda had stayed close to Papa—so close that Mihail had been left out. She had had no choice; Papa had been utterly shattered by Mother’s death and it was Magda who had held him together.

Magda fingered the slim gold band on her right ring finger. It had been her mother’s. How different things would have been if she hadn’t died.

Once in a while Magda thought of Mihail. He had married someone else…they had three children now. Magda had only Papa.

Everything changed with Mother’s death. Magda couldn’t explain how it happened, but Papa grew to be the center of her life. Although she had been surrounded by men in those days, she took no notice of them. Their attentions and advances had lain like beads of water on a glass figurine, unappreciated, unabsorbed, leaving not so much as a hazy ring when they evaporated.

She spent the intervening years suspended between a desire to be somehow extraordinary and a longing for all the very ordinary things that most other women took for granted. And now it was too late. There was really nothing ahead for her—she saw that more clearly every day.

And yet it could have been so different! So much better! If only Mother hadn’t died. If only Papa hadn’t fallen sick. If only she hadn’t been born a Jew. She could never admit the last to Papa. He’d be furious—and crushed—to know she felt that way. But it was true. If they were not Jews, they would not be on this train; Papa would still be at the university and the future would not be a yawning chasm full of darkness and dread with no exit.

The plains gradually turned hilly and the tracks began to slope upward. The sun sat atop the Alps as the train climbed the final slope to Campina. As they passed the towers of the smaller Steaua refinery, Magda began to help her father into his sweater. When that was on, she tightened the kerchief over her hair and went to get his wheelchair from an alcove at the rear of the car. The younger of the two Iron Guards followed her back. She had felt his eyes on her all during the trip, probing the folds of her clothes, trying to find the true outline of her body. And the farther the train had moved from Bucharest, the bolder his stares had become.

As Magda bent over the chair to straighten the cushion on the seat, she felt his hands grip her buttocks through the heavy fabric of her skirt. The fingers of his right hand began to try to worm their way between her legs. Her stomach turning with nausea, she straightened up and wheeled toward him, restraining her own hands from clawing at his face.

“I thought you’d like that,” he said, and moved closer, sliding his arms around her. “You’re not bad looking for a Jew, and I could tell you were looking for a real man.”

Magda looked at him. He was anything but “a real man.” He was at most twenty, probably eighteen, his upper lip covered with a fuzzy attempt at a mustache that looked more like dirt than hair. He pressed himself against her, pushing her back toward the door.

“The next car is baggage. Let’s go.”

Magda kept her face utterly impassive. “No.”

He gave her a shove. “Move!”

As she tried to decide what to do, her mind worked furiously against the fear and revulsion that filled her at his touch. She had to say something, but she didn’t want to challenge him or make him feel he had to prove himself.

“Can’t you find a girl that wants you?” she said, keeping her eyes directly on his.

He blinked. “Of course I can.”

“Then why do you feel you must steal from one who doesn’t?”

“You’ll thank me when it’s over,” he said, leering.

“Must you?”

He withstood her gaze for a moment, then dropped his eyes. Magda did not know what would come next. She readied herself to put on an unforgettable exhibition of screaming and kicking if he continued to try to force her into the next car.

The train lurched and screeched as the engineer applied the brakes. They were coming into Campina junction.

“There’s no time now,” he said, stooping to peer out the window as the station ramp slid by. “Too bad.”

Saved. Magda said nothing. She wanted to slump with relief but did not.

The young Iron Guardsman straightened and pointed out the window. “I think you would have found me a gentle lover compared to them.”

Magda bent and looked through the glass. She saw four men in black military uniforms standing on the station platform and felt weak. She had heard enough about the German SS to recognize its members when she saw them.

TWELVE

KILYOS, TURKEY
Tuesday, 29 April
1802 hours

The red-haired man stood on the seawall feeling the dying light of the sun warm against his side as it stretched the shadow of the piling beside him far out over the water. The Black Sea. A silly name. It was blue, and it looked like an ocean. All around him two-story brick-and-stucco houses crowded up to the water’s edge, their red tile roofs almost matching the deepening color of the sun.

Finding a boat had been easy. The fishing around here was good more often than not, but the fishermen remained poor no matter how good the catch. They spent their lives struggling to break even.

No sleek, swift smuggler’s launch this time, but a lumbering, salt-encrusted sardine fisher. Not at all what he needed, but the best he could get.

The smuggler’s boat had taken him in near Silivri, west of Constantinople—no, they were calling it Istanbul now, weren’t they? He remembered the current regime changing it nearly a decade ago. He’d have to get used to the new name, but old habits were hard to break. He had beached Carlos’s boat, jumped ashore with his long, flat case under his arm, then pushed the launch back into the Sea of Marmara where it would drift with the corpse of its owner until found by a fisherman or by some ship of whatever government was claiming that particular body of water at that particular time.

From there it had been a twenty-mile trip over the gently undulating moorland of European Turkey. A horse had proved as easy to buy on the south coast as a boat had been to rent here on the north. With governments falling left and right and no one sure whether today’s money would be tomorrow’s wastepaper, the sight and feel of gold opened many doors.

And so now he stood on the rim of the Black Sea, tapping his feet, drumming his fingers on the flat case, waiting for his battered vessel to finish fueling. He resisted the urge to rush over and give the owner a few swift kicks to hurry him up. That would be fruitless. He knew he couldn’t rush these people; they lived at their own speed, one much slower than his.

It would be 250 miles due north of here to the Danube Delta, and almost 200 more west from there overland to the Dinu Pass. If not for this idiot war, he could have hired an airplane and been there long before now.

What had happened? Had there been a battle in the pass? The short-wave had said nothing of fighting in Romania. No matter. Something had gone wrong. And he had thought everything permanently settled.

His lips twisted. Permanently? He of all people should have known how rare indeed it was for anything to be permanent.

Still, there remained a chance that events had not progressed beyond the point of no return.

THIRTEEN

THE KEEP
Tuesday, 29 April
1752 hours

“Can’t you see he’s exhausted?” Magda shouted, her fear gone now, replaced by her anger and her fierce protective instinct.

“I don’t care if he’s about to breathe his last gasp,” the SS officer said, the one called Major Kaempffer. “I want him to tell me everything he knows about the keep.”

The ride from Campina to the keep had been a nightmare. They had been unceremoniously trundled into the back of a lorry and watched over by a surly pair of enlisted men while another pair drove. Papa had recognized them as einsatzkommandos and had quickly explained to Magda what their areas of expertise were. Even without the explanation she would have found them repulsive; they treated her and Papa like so much baggage. They spoke no Romanian, using instead a language of shoves and prods with rifle barrels. But Magda soon sensed something else below their casual brutality—a preoccupation. They seemed to be glad to be out of the Dinu Pass for a while, and reluctant to return.

The trip was especially hard on her father, who found it nearly impossible to sit on the bench that ran along each side of the lorry’s payload area. The vehicle tipped and lurched and bounced violently as it raced along a road never intended for its passage. Every jolt was agony for Papa, with Magda watching helplessly as he winced and gritted his teeth as pain shot through him. Finally, when the lorry had to stop at a bridge to wait for a goat cart to move aside, Magda helped him off the bench and back into his wheelchair. She moved quickly, unable to see what was going on outside the vehicle, but knowing that as long as the driver kept banging impatiently on the horn, she could risk moving Papa. After that, it was a matter of holding onto the wheelchair to keep it from rolling out the back while struggling to keep herself from sliding off the bench once the lorry started moving again. Their escort sneered at her plight and made not the slightest effort to help. She was as exhausted as her father by the time they reached the keep.

The keep…it had changed. As they rolled across the causeway in the dusk it looked as well kept as ever, but as soon as they passed through the gate, she felt it—an aura of menace, a change in the very air that weighed on the spirit and touched off chills along the neck and shoulders.

Papa noticed it, too, for she saw him lift his head and look around, as if trying to classify the sensation.

The Germans seemed to be in a hurry. She noticed two kinds of soldiers, some in gray, some in SS black. Two of the ones in gray opened up the rear of the lorry as soon as it stopped and began motioning them out, saying, “Schnell! Schnell!”

Magda addressed them in German, which she understood and could speak reasonably well. “He cannot walk!” This was true at the moment—Papa was on the verge of physical collapse.

The two in gray did not hesitate to leap into the back of the truck and lift her father down, wheelchair and all, but it was left to her to push him across the courtyard. She felt the shadows crowding against her as she followed the soldiers.

“Something’s gone wrong here, Papa!” she whispered in his ear. “Can’t you feel it?”

A slow nod was his only reply.

She rolled him into the first level of the watchtower. Two German officers awaited them there, one in gray, one in black, standing by a rickety table under a single, shaded lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

The evening had only begun.

“Firstly,” Papa said, speaking flawless German in reply to Major Kaempffer’s demand for information, “this structure isn’t a keep. A keep, or donjon as it was called in these parts, was the final inner fortification of a castle, the ultimate stronghold where the lord of the castle stayed with his family and staff. This building”—he made a small gesture with his hands—“is unique. I don’t know what you should call it. It’s too elaborate and well built for a simple watchpost, and yet it’s too small to have been built by any self-respecting feudal lord. It’s always been called ‘the keep,’ probably for lack of a better name. It will do, I suppose.”

“I don’t care what you suppose!” the major snapped. “I want what you know! The history of the keep, the legends connected with it—everything!”

“Can’t it wait until morning?” Magda said. “My father can’t even think straight now. Maybe by then—”

“No! We must know tonight!”

Magda looked from the blond-haired major to the other officer, the darker, heavier captain named Woermann who had yet to speak. She looked into their eyes and saw the same thing she had seen in all the German soldiers they had encountered since leaving the train; the common denominator that had eluded her was now clear. These men were afraid. Officers and enlisted men alike, they were all terrified.

“Specifically in reference to what?” Papa said.

Captain Woermann finally spoke. “Professor Cuza, during the week we have been here, eight men have been murdered.” The major was glaring at the captain, but the captain kept on speaking, either oblivious to the other officer’s displeasure or ignoring it. “One death a night, except for last night when two throats were slashed.”

A reply seemed to form on Papa’s lips. Magda prayed he would not say anything that would set the Germans off. He appeared to think better of it.

“I have no political connections, and know of no group active in this area. I cannot help you.”

“We no longer think there’s a political motive here,” the captain said.

“Then what? Who?”

The reply seemed almost physically painful for Captain Woermann.

“We’re not even sure it is a who.”

The words hung in the air for an endless moment, then Magda saw her father’s mouth form the tiny, toothy oval that had come to pass for a grin lately. It made his face look like death.

“You believe the supernatural to be at work here, gentlemen? A few of your men are killed, and because you can’t find the killer, and because you don’t want to think that a Romanian partisan might be getting the better of you, you look to the supernatural. If you really want my—”

“Silence, Jew!” the SS major said, naked rage on his face as he stepped forward. “The only reason you are here and the only reason I do not have you and your daughter shot at once is the fact that you have traveled this region extensively and are an expert on its folklore. How long you remain alive will depend on how useful you prove to be. So far you have said nothing to convince me that I have not wasted my time bringing you here!”

Magda saw Papa’s smile evaporate as he glanced at her, then back to the major. The threat to her had struck home.

“I will do what I can,” he said gravely, “but first you must tell me everything that has happened here. Perhaps I can come up with a more realistic explanation.”

“For your sake, I hope so.”

Captain Woermann told the story of the two privates who had penetrated the cellar wall where they had found a cross of gold and silver rather than brass and nickel, of the narrow shaft leading down to what appeared to be a blind cell, of the rupture of the wall into the corridor, of the collapse of part of the floor into the subcellar, of the fate of Private Lutz and of those who followed him. The captain also told of the engulfing darkness he had seen on the rampart two nights ago, and of the two SS men who somehow had walked up to Major Kaempffer’s room after their throats had been torn out.

The story chilled Magda. Under different circumstances she might have laughed at it. But the atmosphere in the keep tonight, and the grim faces of these two German officers, gave it credence. And as the captain spoke she realized with a start that her dream of traveling north might have occurred at just about the time the first man had died.

But she couldn’t dwell on that now. She had Papa to look after. She watched his face as he listened; she saw his mortal fatigue slip away as each new death and each bizarre event was related. By the time Captain Woermann finished, Papa had metamorphosed from a sick old man slumped in his wheelchair to Professor Theodor Cuza, an expert being challenged in his chosen field. He paused at length before replying.

Finally: “The obvious assumption here is that something was released from that little room in the wall when the first soldier broke into it. To my knowledge, there has never been a single death in the keep before this. But then, there has never before been a foreign army living in the keep. I would have thought the deaths the work of patriotic”—he emphasized the word—“Romanians but for the events of the last two nights. There is no natural explanation I know for the way the light died on the wall, nor for the animation of exsanguinated corpses. So perhaps we must look outside nature for our explanation.”

“That’s why you’re here, Jew,” the major said.

“The simplest solution is to leave.”

“Out of the question!”

Papa mulled this. “I do not believe in vampires, gentlemen.” Magda caught a quick warning glance from him—she knew that was not entirely true. “At least not anymore. Nor werewolves, nor ghosts. But I’ve always believed there was something special about the keep. It has long been an enigma. It is of unique design, yet there is no record of who built it. It is maintained in perfect condition, yet no one claims ownership. There is no record of ownership anywhere—I know, for I spent years trying to learn who built it and who maintains it.”

“We are working on that now,” Major Kaempffer said.

“You mean you’re contacting the Mediterranean Bank in Zurich? Don’t waste your time, I’ve already been there. The money comes from a trust account set up in the last century when the bank was founded; expenses for maintenance of the keep are paid from interest on the money in the account. And before that, I believe, it was paid through a similar account in a different bank, possibly in a different country…the innkeepers’ records over the generations leave much to be desired. But the fact is there is no link anywhere to the person or persons who opened the account; the money is to be held and the interest is to be paid in perpetuity.”

Major Kaempffer slammed his fist down on the table. “Damn! What good are you, old man!”

“I’m all you have, Herr Major. But let me go further with this: Three years ago I went so far as to petition the Romanian government—then under King Carol—to declare the keep a national treasure and take over ownership. It was my hope that such de facto nationalization would bring out the owners, if any still live. But the petition was refused. The Dinu Pass was considered too remote and inaccessible. Also, since there is no Romanian history specifically connected with the keep, it could not be officially considered a national treasure. And finally, and most importantly, nationalization would require use of government funds for maintenance of the keep. Why should that be wasted when private money is doing such an excellent job?

“I had no defense against those arguments. And so, gentlemen, I gave up. My failing health confined me to Bucharest. I had to be satisfied with having exhausted all research resources, with being the greatest living authority on the keep, knowing more about it than anyone else. Which amounts to absolutely nothing.”

Magda bristled at her father’s constant use of “I.” She had done most of the work. She knew as much about the keep as he. But she said nothing. It was not her place to contradict her father, not in the presence of others.

“What about these?” Captain Woermann said, pointing to a motley collection of scrolls and leather-bound books in the corner of the room.

“Books?” Papa’s eyebrows lifted.

“We’ve started dismantling the keep,” Major Kaempffer said. “This thing we’re after will soon have no place left to hide. We’ll eventually have every stone in the place exposed to the light of day. Then where will it go?”

Papa shrugged. “A good plan…as long as you don’t release something worse.” Magda watched him casually turn his head toward the pile of books, but not before taking note of Kaempffer’s startled expression—it seemed that possibility had never occurred to the major. “But where did you find the books? There was never a library in the keep, and the villagers can barely read their names.”

“In a hollow spot in one of the walls being dismantled,” the captain said.

Papa turned to her. “Go see what they are.”

Magda stepped over to the corner and knelt beside the books, grateful for an opportunity to be off her feet even for a few minutes. Papa’s wheelchair was the only seat in the room, and no one had offered to get a chair for her. She looked at the pile, smelled the familiar musty odor of old paper; she loved books and loved that smell. Perhaps a dozen or so items here, some partially rotten, one in scroll form. Magda pushed her way through them slowly, allowing the muscles of her back as much time as possible to stretch before she had to rise again. She picked up a random volume. Its title was in English: The Book of Eibon. It startled her. It couldn’t be…it was a joke! She looked at the others, translating their titles from the various languages in which they were written, the awe and disquiet mounting within her. These were genuine! She rose and backed away, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste.

“What’s wrong?” Papa asked when he saw her face.

“Those books!” she said, unable to hide her shock and revulsion. “They’re not even supposed to exist!”

Papa wheeled his chair closer to the table. “Bring them over here!”

Magda stooped and gingerly lifted two of them. One was De Vermis Mysteriis by Ludwig Prinn; the other, Cultes des Goules by Comte d’Erlette. Both were extremely heavy and her skin crawled just to touch them. The curiosity of the two officers had been aroused to such an extent that they, too, bent to the pile and brought the remaining texts to the table.

Trembling with excitement that increased with each article placed on the table, Papa muttered under his breath between calling out the titles as he saw them.

“The Pnakotic Manuscripts, in scroll form! The du Nord translation of The Book of Eibon! The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan! And here—Unaussprechlichen Kulten by von Juntz! These books are priceless! They’ve been universally suppressed and forbidden through the ages, so many copies burned that only whispers of their titles have remained. In some cases, it has been questioned whether they ever existed at all! But there they are, perhaps the last surviving copies!”

“Perhaps they were forbidden for a good reason, Papa,” Magda said, not liking the light that had begun to shine in his eyes.

Finding those books had shaken her. They were purported to describe foul rites and contacts with forces beyond reason and sanity. To learn that they were real, that they and their authors were more than sinister rumors, was profoundly unsettling. It warped the texture of everything.

“Perhaps they were,” Papa said without looking up. He had pulled off his outer leather gloves with his teeth and was slipping a rubber cap onto his right index fingertip, still gloved in cotton. Adjusting his bifocals, he began leafing through the pages. “But that was in another time. This is the twentieth century. I can’t imagine there being anything in these books we couldn’t deal with now.”

“What could possibly be so awful?” Woermann said, pulling the leather-bound, iron-hasped copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten toward him. “Look. This one’s in German.”

He opened the cover and flipped through the pages, finally stopping near the middle and reading.

Magda was tempted to warn him but decided against it. She owed these Germans nothing. She saw the captain’s face blanch, saw his throat working in spasms as he slammed the book shut.

“What kind of sick, demented mind is responsible for this sort of thing? It’s…it’s…” He could not seem to find the words to express what he felt.

“What have you got there?” Papa said, looking up from a book whose title he had not yet announced. “Oh, the von Juntz book. That was first published privately in Düsseldorf in 1839. An extremely small edition, perhaps only a dozen copies…” His voice trailed off.

“Something wrong?” Kaempffer said. He had stood apart from the others, showing little curiosity.

“Yes. The keep was built in the fifteenth century…that much I know for sure. These books were all written before then, all except that von Juntz book. Which means that as late as the middle of the last century, possibly later, someone visited the keep and deposited this book with the others.”

“I don’t see how that helps us now,” Kaempffer said. “It does nothing to prevent another of our men”—he smiled as an idea struck him—“or perhaps even you or your daughter, from being murdered tonight.”

“It does cast a new light on the problem, though,” Papa said. “These books you see before you have been condemned through the ages as evil. I deny that. I say they are not evil, but are about evil. The one in my hands right now is especially feared—the Al Azif in the original Arabic.”

Magda heard herself gasp. “Oh, no!” That one was the worst of all!

“Yes! I don’t know much Arabic, but I know enough to translate the title and the name of the poet responsible for it.” He looked from Magda back to Kaempffer. “The answer to your problem may well reside within the pages of these books. I’ll start on them tonight. But first I wish to see the corpses.”

“Why?” It was Captain Woermann speaking. He had composed himself again after his glance into the von Juntz book.

“I wish to see their wounds. To see if there were any ritual aspects about their deaths.”

“We’ll take you there immediately,” the major said and called in two of his einsatzkommandos as escort.

Magda didn’t want to go—she didn’t want to have to look at dead soldiers—but she feared waiting alone for everyone’s return, so she took the handles of her father’s chair and wheeled him toward the cellar stairs. At the top, she was elbowed aside as the two SS soldiers followed the major’s orders and carried her father, chair and all, down the steps. It was cold down there. She wished she hadn’t come.

“What about these crosses, Professor?” Captain Woermann asked as they walked along the corridor, Magda again pushing the chair. “What’s their significance?”

“I don’t know. There’s not even a folktale about them in the region, except in connection with speculation that the keep was built by one of the popes. But the fifteenth century was a time of crisis for the Holy Roman Empire, and the keep is situated in an area that was under constant threat from the Ottoman Turks. So the papal theory is ridiculous.”

“Could the Turks have built it?”

Papa shook his head. “Impossible. It’s not their style of architecture, and crosses are certainly not a Turkish motif.”

“But what about the type of cross?”

The captain seemed to be profoundly interested in the keep, and so Magda answered him before Papa could; the mystery of the crosses had been a personal quest of hers for years.

“No one knows. My father and I searched through countless volumes of Christian history, Roman history, Slavic history, and nowhere have we found a cross exactly like these. It’s closest to the so-called tau cross, but the crosspiece of the tau rests atop the upright. As you can see, the crosspieces of these don’t quite make it to the top. If we had found a historical precedent to this type of cross, we could have possibly linked its designer with the keep. But we found nothing. They are as unique as the structure which houses them.”

She would have continued—it kept her from thinking about what she might have to see in the subcellar—but the captain did not appear to be paying much attention. It could have been because they had reached the breach in the wall, but Magda sensed it was because of the source of the information—she was, after all, only a woman. Magda sighed to herself and remained silent. She had encountered the attitude before and knew the signs well. German men apparently had many things in common with their Romanian counterparts. She wondered if all men were the same.

“One more question,” the captain said to Papa. “Why, do you think, are there never any birds here at the keep?”

“I never noticed their absence, to tell the truth.”

Magda realized she had never seen a bird here in all her trips, and it had never occurred to her that their absence was wrong…until now.

The rubble outside the broken wall had been neatly stacked. As Magda guided Papa’s wheelchair between the orderly piles, she felt a cold draft from the opening in the floor beyond the wall. She reached into the pocket behind the high back of the wheelchair and pulled out Papa’s leather gloves.

“Better put these back on,” she said, stopping and holding the left one open so he could slip his hand in.

“But he already has gloves on!” Kaempffer said, impatient at the delay.

“His hands are very sensitive to cold,” Magda said, now holding the right glove open. “It’s part of his condition.”

“And just what is the condition?” Woermann asked.

“It’s called scleroderma.” Magda saw the expected blank look on their faces.

Papa spoke as he adjusted the gloves on his hands. “I’d never heard of it either until I was diagnosed as having it. As a matter of fact, the first two physicians who examined me missed the diagnosis. I won’t go into details beyond saying that it affects more than the hands.”

“But how does it affect your hands?” Woermann asked.

“Any sudden drop in temperature drastically alters the circulation in my fingers; for all intents and purposes, they temporarily lose their blood supply. I’ve been told that if I don’t take good care of them I could develop gangrene and lose them. So I wear gloves day and night all year round except in the warmest summer months. I even wear a pair to bed.” He looked around. “I’m ready when you are.”

Magda shivered in the draft from below. “I think it’s too cold for you down there, Papa.”

“We’re certainly not going to bring the bodies up here for his inspection,” Kaempffer said.

He gestured to the two enlisted SS men who again lifted the chair and carried it and its frail occupant through the hole in the wall. Captain Woermann had picked up a kerosene lamp from the floor and lit it. He led the way. Major Kaempffer brought up the rear with another.

Reluctantly, Magda fell in line, staying close behind her father, terrified that one of the soldiers carrying him might slip on the slimy steps and let him fall. Only when the wheels of his chair were safely on the dirt floor of the subcellar did she relax.

One of the enlisted men began pushing Papa’s chair behind the two officers as they walked toward eight sheet-covered objects stretched out on the floor thirty feet away. Magda held back, waiting in the pool of the light by the steps. She had no stomach for this.

She noted that Captain Woermann seemed perturbed as he walked around the bodies. He bent and straightened the sheets, adjusting them more evenly around the still forms. A subcellar…she and Papa had been to the keep again and again over the years and had never even guessed the existence of a subcellar. She rubbed her hands up and down over her sweatered arms, trying to generate some warmth. So cold here.

She glanced around apprehensively, looking for signs of rats in the dark. The new neighborhood they had been forced to move into back in Bucharest had rats in all the cellars; so different from the cozy home they’d had near the university. Magda knew her reaction to rats was exaggerated, but she could not help it. They filled her with loathing…the way they moved, their naked tails dragging after them…they made her sick.

But she saw no scuttling forms. She turned back and watched the captain begin to lift the sheets one by one, exposing the head and shoulders of each dead man. She was missing what was being said over there, but that was all right. She was glad she could not see what Papa was seeing.

Finally, the men turned back toward Magda and the stairs. Her father’s voice became intelligible as he neared.

“…and I really can’t say that there’s anything ritualistic about the wounds. Except for the decapitated man, all the deaths seem to have been caused by simple severing of the major vessels in the neck. There’s no sign of teeth marks, animal or human, yet those wounds are certainly not the work of any sharp instrument. Those throats were torn open, savaged in some way that I cannot possibly define.”

How could Papa sound so clinical about such things? Major Kaempffer’s voice was surly and menacing.

“Once again you’ve managed to say much yet tell us nothing!”

“You’ve given me little to work with. Haven’t you anything else?”

The major stalked ahead without bothering to reply. Captain Woermann, however, snapped his fingers.

“The words on the wall! Written in blood in a language nobody knows.”

Papa’s eyes lit up. “I must see them!”

Again the chair was lifted, and again Magda traveled behind to the courtyard. Once there she took over the task of propelling him as the Germans headed for the rear of the keep. Soon they were all at the end of a blind corridor looking at ruddy brown letters scrawled on the wall.

The strokes, Magda noticed, varied in thickness, but all were of a width consistent with a human finger. She shuddered at the thought and studied the words. She recognized the language and knew she could make the translation if only her mind would concentrate on the words and not on what their author had used for ink.

“Do you have any idea what it means?” Woermann asked.

Papa nodded. “Yes,” he said and paused, mesmerized by the display before him.

“Well?” Kaempffer said.

Magda could tell that he hated to depend on a Jew for anything, and worse to be kept waiting by one. She wished her father would be more careful about provoking him.

“It says, ‘Strangers, leave my home!’ It’s in the imperative form.” His voice had an almost mechanical quality as he spoke. He was disturbed by something about the words.

Kaempffer slapped his hand against his holster. “Ah! So the killings are politically motivated!”

“Perhaps. But this warning, or demand, or whatever you might wish to call it, is perfectly couched in Old Slavonic, a dead language. As dead as Latin. And those letters are formed just the way they were written back then. I should know. I’ve seen enough of the old manuscripts.”

Now that Papa had identified the language, Magda’s mind could focus on the words. She thought she knew what was so disturbing.

“Your killer, gentlemen,” he went on, “is either a most erudite scholar, or else has been frozen for half a millennium.”

FOURTEEN

“It appears we have wasted our time,” Major Kaempffer said, puffing on a cigarette as he strutted about. The four were again in the lowest level of the watchtower.

In the center of the room, Magda leaned exhaustedly against the back of the wheelchair. She sensed some sort of tug-of-war going on between Woermann and Kaempffer, but couldn’t understand the rules or the motivations of the players. Of one thing she was certain, however: Papa’s life and her own hung on the outcome.

“I disagree,” Captain Woermann said. He leaned against the wall by the door, his arms folded across his chest. “As I see it, we know more than we did this morning. Not much, but at least it’s progress…we haven’t been making any on our own.”

“It’s not enough!” Kaempffer snapped. “Nowhere near enough!”

“Very well, then. Since we have no other sources of information open to us, I think we should abandon the keep immediately.”

Kaempffer made no reply; he merely continued puffing and strutting back and forth across the far end of the room.

Papa cleared his throat for attention.

“Stay out of this, Jew!”

“Let’s hear what he has to say. That’s why we dragged him here, isn’t it?”

It was gradually becoming clear to Magda that a deep hostility burned between the two officers. She knew Papa had recognized it, too, and was surely trying to turn it to their advantage.

“I may be able to help.” Papa gestured to the pile of books on the table. “As I mentioned before, the answer to your problem may lie in those books. If they do hold the answer, I am the only person who—with the aid of my daughter—can ferret it out. If you wish, I shall try.”

Kaempffer stopped pacing and looked at Woermann.

“It’s worth a try,” Woermann said. “I for one don’t have any better ideas. Do you?”

Kaempffer dropped his cigarette butt to the floor and slowly ground it out with his toe.

“Three days, Jew. You have three days to come up with something useful.”

He strode past them and out the door, leaving it open behind him.

Captain Woermann heaved himself away from the wall and turned toward the door, his hands clasped at his back. “I’ll have my sergeant arrange for a pair of bedrolls for you two.” He glanced at Papa’s frail body. “We have no other bedding.”

“I will manage, Captain. Thank you.”

“Wood,” Magda said. “We’ll need some wood for a fire.”

“It doesn’t get that cold at night,” he said, shaking his head.

“My father’s hands—if they act up on him, he won’t even be able to turn the pages.”

Woermann sighed. “I’ll ask the sergeant to see what he can do—perhaps some scrap lumber.” He turned to go, then turned back to them. “Let me tell you two something. The major will snuff you both out with no more thought than he gave to that cigarette he just finished. He has his own reasons for wanting a quick solution to this problem and I have mine: I don’t want any more of my men to die. Find a way to get us through a single night without a death and you will have proven your worth. Find a way to defeat this thing and I may be able to get you back to Bucharest and keep you safe there.”

“And then again,” Magda said, “you may not.”

She watched his face carefully. Was he really offering them hope?

Captain Woermann’s expression was grim as he echoed her words. “And then again, I may not.”

After ordering wood brought to the first-level rooms, Woermann stood and thought for a moment. At first he had considered the pair from Bucharest a pitiful couple—the girl bound to her father, the father bound to his wheelchair. But as he had watched them and heard them speak, he had sensed subtle strengths within the two of them. That was good. For they both would need cores of steel to survive this place. If armed men could not defend themselves here, what hope was there for a defenseless female and a cripple?

He suddenly realized he was being watched. He could not say how he knew, but the feeling was definitely there. It was a sensation he would find unsettling in the most pleasant surroundings; but here, with the knowledge of what had been happening during the past week, it was unnerving.

Woermann peered up the steps curving away to his right. No one there. He went to the arch that opened onto the courtyard. All the lights were on out there, the pairs of sentries intent on their patrols.

Still the feeling of being watched.

He turned toward the steps, trying to shrug it off, hoping that if he moved from this spot the feeling would pass. And it did. As he climbed toward his quarters, the sensation evaporated.

But the underlying fear remained with him, the fear he lived with every night in the keep—the certainty that before morning someone was going to die horribly.

Major Kaempffer stood within the dark doorway to the rear section of the keep. He watched Woermann pause at the tower entry arch, then turn and start up the steps. Kaempffer felt an impulsive urge to follow him—to hurry back across the courtyard, run up to the third level of the tower, rap on Woermann’s door.

He did not want to be alone tonight. Behind him lay the stairway up to his own quarters, the place where just last night two dead men had walked in and fallen on him. He dreaded the very thought of going back there.

Woermann was the only one who could possibly be of any use to him tonight. As an officer, Kaempffer could not seek out the company of the enlisted men, and he certainly could not go sit with the Jews.

Woermann was the answer. He was a fellow officer and it was only right that they keep each other company. Kaempffer stepped out of the doorway and started briskly for the tower. But after a few paces he came to a faltering halt. Woermann would never let him through the door, let alone sit and share a glass of schnapps with him. Woermann despised the SS, the Party, and everyone associated with either. Why? Kaempffer found the attitude baffling. Woermann was pure Aryan. He had nothing to fear from the SS. Why, then, did he hate it so?

Kaempffer turned and re-entered the rear structure of the keep. There could be no rapprochement with Woermann. The man was simply too pigheaded and narrow-minded to accept the realities of the New Order. He was doomed. And the further Kaempffer stayed away, the better.

Still…Kaempffer needed a friend tonight. And there was no one. Hesitantly, fearfully, he began a slow climb to his quarters, wondering if a new horror awaited him.

The fire added more than heat to the room. It added light, a warm glow that the single lightbulb under its conical shade could not hope to match. Magda had spread out one of the bedrolls next to the fireplace for her father, but he was not interested. Never in the past few years had she seen him so fired, so animated. Month after month the disease had sapped his strength, burdening him with heavier and heavier fatigue until his waking hours had grown few and his sleeping hours many.

But now he seemed a new man, feverishly poring over the texts before him. Magda knew it couldn’t last. His diseased flesh would soon demand rest. He was running on stolen energy. He had no reserves.

Yet Magda hesitated to insist that he rest. Lately he had lost interest in everything, spending his days seated by the front window, staring out at the streets and seeing nothing. Doctors, when she could get one in to see him, had told her it was melancholia, common in his condition. Nothing to be done for it. Just give him aspirin for the constant ache, and codeine—when available—for the awful pains in every joint.

He had been a living dead man. Now he was showing signs of life. Magda couldn’t bring herself to damp them. As she watched, he paused over De Vermis Mysteriis, removed his glasses, and rubbed a cotton-gloved hand over his eyes. Now perhaps was the time to pry him away from those awful books and persuade him to rest.

“Why didn’t you tell them about your theory?” she asked.

“Eh?” He looked up. “Which one?”

“You told them you don’t really believe in vampires, but that’s not quite true, is it? Unless you finally gave up on that pet theory of yours.”

“No, I still believe there might have been one true vampire—just one—from whom all the Romanian lore has originated. There are solid historical clues, but no proof. And without hard proof I could never publish a paper. For the same reason, I chose not to say anything about it to the Germans.”

“Why? They’re not scholars.”

“True. But right now they think of me as a learned old man who might be of use to them. If I told them my theory they might think I was just a crazy old Jew and useless. And I can think of no one with a shorter life expectancy than a useless Jew in the company of Nazis. Can you?”

Magda shook her head quickly. This was not how she wanted the conversation to go. “But what of the theory? Do you think the keep might have housed…”

“A vampire?” Papa made a tiny gesture with his immobile shoulders. “Who can even say what a vampire might really be? There’s been so much folklore about them, who can tell where reality leaves off—assuming there was some reality involved—and myth begins? But there’s so much vampire lore in Transylvania and Moldavia that something around here must have engendered it. At the core of every tall tale lies a kernel of truth.”

His eyes were alight in the expressionless mask of his face as he paused thoughtfully.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there is something uncanny going on here. These books are proof enough that this structure has been connected with deviltry. And that writing on the wall…whether the work of a human madman or a sign that we are dealing with one of the moroi, the undead, is yet to be seen.”

“What do you think?” she asked, pressing for some sort of reassurance.

Her flesh crawled at the thought of the undead actually existing. She had never given such tales the slightest bit of credence, and had often wondered if her father had been playing some sort of intellectual game in his talk of them. But now…

“I don’t think anything right now. But I feel we may be on the verge of an answer. It’s not rational yet…not something I can explain. But the feeling is there. You feel it, too. I can tell.”

Magda nodded silently. She felt it. Oh, yes, she felt it.

Papa was rubbing his eyes again. “I can’t read anymore, Magda.”

“Come, then,” she said, shaking off her disquiet and moving toward him. “I’ll help you to bed.”

“Not yet. I’m too wound up to sleep. Play something for me.”

“Papa—”

“You brought your mandolin. I know you did.”

“Papa, you know what it does to you.”

“Please?”

She smiled. She could never refuse him anything for long. “All right.”

She had cater-cornered the mandolin into the larger suitcase before leaving. It had been reflex, really. The mandolin went wherever Magda went. Music had always been central to her life, and, since Papa had lost his position at the university, a major part of their livelihood. She had become a music teacher after moving into their tiny apartment, bringing her young students in for mandolin lessons or going to their homes to teach them piano. She and Papa had been forced to sell their own piano before moving.

She seated herself in the chair that had been brought in with the firewood and bedrolls and made a quick check of the tuning, adjusting the first set of paired strings, which had gone flat during the trip. When she was satisfied, she began a complicated mixture of strumming and bare-fingered picking she had learned from the Gypsies, providing both rhythm and melody. The tune was also from the Gypsies, a typically tragic melody of unrequited love followed by death of a broken heart.

As she finished the second verse and moved into the first bridge, she glanced up at her father. He was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, the gnarled fingers of his left hand pressing the strings of an imaginary violin through the fabric of his gloves, the right hand and forearm dragging an imaginary bow across those same strings but in only the minute movements his joints would allow. He had been a good violinist in his day, and the two of them had often done duets together on this song, she picking counterpoint to the soaring, tearful, molto rubato figures he would coax from his violin.

And although his cheeks were dry, he was crying.

“Oh, Papa, I should have known…that was the wrong song.”

She was furious with herself for not thinking. She knew so many songs, and yet she had picked one that would most remind him that he could no longer play. She started to rise to go to him and stopped. The room did not seem as well lit as it had a moment ago.

“It’s all right, Magda. At least I can remember all the times I played along with you…better than never having played at all. I can still hear in my head how my violin used to sound.” His eyes were still closed behind his glasses. “Please. Play on.”

But Magda did not move. She felt a chill descend upon the room and looked about for a draft. Was it her imagination, or was the light fading?

Papa opened his eyes and saw her expression. “Magda?”

“The fire’s going out!”

The flames weren’t dying amid smoke and sputter, they were simply wasting away, retreating into the charred wood. And as they waned, so did the bulb strung from the ceiling. The room grew steadily darker, but with a darkness that was more than a mere absence of light. It was almost a physical thing. With the darkness came a penetrating cold, and an odor, a sour acrid aroma of evil that conjured images of corruption and open graves.

“What’s happening?”

“He’s coming, Magda! Stand over by me!”

Instinctively she was already moving toward Papa, seeking to shelter him even as she herself sought shelter at his side. Trembling, she wound up in a crouch beside his chair, clutching his gnarled hands in hers.

“What are we going to do?” she said, not knowing why she was whispering.

“I don’t know.” Papa, too, was trembling.

The shadows grew deeper as the lightbulb faded and the fire died to wan glowing embers. The walls were gone, misted in impenetrable darkness. Only the glow from the coals, a dying beacon of warmth and sanity, allowed them to keep their bearings.

They were not alone. Something was moving about in that darkness. Stalking. Something unclean and hungry.

A wind began to blow, rising from a breeze to full gale force in a matter of seconds, howling through the room although the door and the shutters had all been pulled closed.

Magda fought to free herself from the terror that gripped her. She released her father’s hands. She could not see the door, but remembered it having been directly opposite the fireplace. With the icy gale whipping at her, she moved around to the front of Papa’s wheelchair and began to push it backward to where the door should be. If only she could reach the courtyard, maybe they would be safe. Why, she could not say, but staying in this room seemed like standing in a queue and waiting for death to call their names.

The wheelchair began to roll. Magda pushed it about five feet toward the place where she had last seen the door and then she could push it no farther. Panic rushed over her. Something would not let them pass! Not an invisible wall, hard and unyielding, but almost as if someone or something in the darkness was holding the back of the chair and making a mockery of her best efforts.

And for an instant, in the blackness above and behind the back of the chair, the impression of a pale face looking down at her. Then it was gone.

Magda’s heart was thumping and her palms were so wet they were slipping on the chair’s oaken armrests. This wasn’t really happening! It was all a hallucination! None of it was real…that was what her mind told her. But her body believed! She looked into her father’s face so close to hers and knew his terror reflected her own.

“Don’t stop here!” he cried.

“I can’t get it to move any farther!”

He tried to crane his neck around to see what blocked them but his joints forbade it. He turned back to her.

“Quick! Over by the fire!”

Magda changed the direction of her efforts, leaning backward and pulling. As the chair began to roll toward her, she felt something clutch her upper arm in a grip of ice.

A scream clogged in her throat. Only a high-pitched, keening wail escaped. The cold in her arm was a pain, shooting up to her shoulder, lancing toward her heart. She looked down and saw a hand gripping her arm just above the elbow. The fingers were long and thick; short, curly hairs ran along the back of the hand and up the length of the fingers to the dark, overlong nails. The wrist seemed to melt into the darkness.

The sensations spreading over her from that touch, even through the fabric of her sweater and the blouse beneath it, were unspeakably vile, filling her with loathing and revulsion. She searched the air over her shoulder for a face. Finding none, she let go of Papa’s chair and struggled to free herself, whimpering in naked fear. Her shoes scraped and slid along the floor as she twisted and pulled away, but she could not break free. And she could not bring herself to touch that hand with her own.

Then the darkness began to change, lighten. A pale, oval shape moved toward her, stopping only inches away. It was a face. One from a nightmare.

He had a broad forehead. Long, lank black hair hung in thick strands on either side of his face, strands like dead snakes attached by their teeth to his scalp. Pale skin, sunken cheeks, and a hooked nose. Thin lips were drawn back to reveal yellowed teeth, long and almost canine in quality. But his eyes, gripping Magda more fiercely than the icy hand on her arm, killed off her wailing cry and stilled her frantic struggles.

His eyes. Large and round, cold and crystalline, the pupils dark holes into a chaos beyond reason, beyond reality itself, black as a night sky that had never been blued by the sun or marred by the light of moon and stars. The surrounding irises were almost as dark, dilating as she watched, widening the twin doorways, drawing her into the madness beyond…

…madness. The madness was so attractive. It was safe, it was serene, it was isolated. It would be so good to pass through and submerge herself in those dark pools…so good…

No!

Magda fought the feeling, fought to push herself away.

But…why fight? Life was nothing but disease and misery, a struggle that everyone eventually lost. What was the use? Nothing you did really mattered in the long run. Why bother?

She felt a swift undertow, almost irresistible, drawing her toward those eyes. She sensed lust there, for her, but a lust that went beyond the mere sexual, a lust for all that she was. She felt herself turn and lean toward those twin doorways of black. It would be so easy to let go…

…She held on, something within her refusing to surrender, urging her to fight the current. But it was so strong, and she felt so tired, and what did it all matter, anyway?

A sound…music…and yet not music at all. A sound in her mind, all that music was not…nonmelodic, disharmonic, a delirious cacophony of discord that rattled and shook and sent tiny cracks through the feeble remainder of her will. The world around her—everything—began to fade, leaving only the eyes…only the eyes…

…She wavered, teetering on the edge of forever…

…then she heard Papa’s voice.

Magda clutched at the sound, clung to it like a rope, pulled herself hand over hand along its length. Papa was not calling to her, was not even speaking in Romanian, but it was his voice, the only familiar thing in the chaos about her.

The eyes turned away. Magda was free. The hand released her.

She stood gasping, perspiring, weak, confused, the gale in the room pulling at her clothes, at the kerchief that bound her hair, stealing her breath. And her terror grew, for the eyes were now turning on her father. He was too weak!

But Papa did not flinch under the gaze. He spoke again as he had before, the words garbled, incomprehensible to her. She saw the awful smile on the white face fade as the lips drew into a thin line. The eyes narrowed to mere slits, as if the mind behind them were considering Papa’s words, weighing them.

Magda watched the face, unable to do anything more. She saw the line of the lips curl up infinitesimally at the corners. Then a nod, no more than a jot of movement. A decision.

The wind died as if it had never been. The face receded into the darkness.

All was still.

Motionless, Magda and her father faced each other in the center of the room as the cold and the dark slowly dissipated. A log in the fireplace split lengthwise with a crack like a rifle shot and Magda felt her knees liquefy with the sound. She fell forward and only by luck and desperation was she able to grasp the arm of the wheelchair for support.

“Are you all right?” Papa said, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was feeling his fingers through the gloves.

“I will be in a minute.” Her mind recoiled at what she had just experienced. “What was it? My God, what was it?”

Papa was not listening. “They’re gone. I can’t feel anything in them.” He began to pull the gloves from his fingers.

His plight galvanized Magda. She straightened and began to push the chair over to the fire, which was springing to life again. She was weak with reaction and fatigue and shock, but that seemed to be of secondary importance.

What about me? Why am I always second? Why do I always have to be strong?

Once…just once…she would like to be able to collapse and have someone tend to her. She forcibly submerged the thoughts. That was no way for a daughter to think when her father needed her.

“Hold them out, Papa! There’s no hot water so we’ll have to depend on the fire to warm them!”

In the flickering light of the flames she saw that his hands had gone dead white, as white as those of that…thing. Papa’s fingers were stubby with coarse, thick skin and curved, ridged nails. Small punctate depressions marred each fingertip, scars left by tiny areas of healed gangrene. They were the hands of a stranger—Magda could remember when his hands had been graceful, animated, with long, mobile, tapering fingers. A scholar’s hands. A musician’s. They had been living things. Now they were mummified caricatures of life.

She had to get warmth back into them, but not too quickly. At home in Bucharest she had always kept a pot of warm water on the stove during the winter months for these episodes. The doctors called it Raynaud’s phenomenon; any sudden drop in temperature caused constrictive spasms in the blood vessels of his hands. Nicotine had a similar effect, and so he had been cut off from his beloved cigars. If his tissues were deprived of oxygen too long or too often, gangrene would take root. So far he had been lucky. When gangrene had set in, the areas had been small and he had been able to overcome it. But that would not always be the case.

She watched as he held his hands out to the fire, rotating them back and forth against the warmth as best his stiff joints would allow. She knew he could feel nothing in them now—too cold and numb. But once circulation returned he would be in agony as his fingers throbbed and tingled and burned as if on fire.

“Look what they’ve done to you!” she said angrily as the fingers changed from white to blue.

Papa looked up questioningly. “I’ve had worse.”

“I know. But it shouldn’t have happened at all! What are they trying to do to us?”

“They?”

“The Nazis! They’re toying with us! Experimenting on us! I don’t know what just happened here…It was very realistic, but it wasn’t real! Couldn’t have been! They hypnotized us, used drugs, dimmed the lights—”

“It was real, Magda,” Papa said, his voice soft with wonder, confirming what she knew in her soul, what she had so wanted him to deny. “Just as those forbidden books are real. I know—”

Breath suddenly hissed through his teeth as blood began to flow into his fingers again, turning them dark red. The starved tissues punished him as they gave up their accumulated toxins. Magda had been through this with him so many times she could almost feel the pain herself.

When the throbbing subsided to an endurable level, he continued, his words coming in gasps.

“I spoke to him in Old Slavonic…told him we were not his enemies…told him to leave us alone…and he left.” He grimaced in pain a moment, then looked at Magda with bright, glittering eyes. His voice was low and hoarse. “It’s him, Magda. I know it! It’s him!”

Magda said nothing. But she knew it, too.

FIFTEEN

THE KEEP
Wednesday, 30 April
0622 hours

Captain Woermann had tried to stay awake through the night but failed. He had seated himself at the window overlooking the courtyard with his Luger unholstered in his lap, though he doubted a 9mm Parabellum would help against whatever haunted the keep. Too many sleepless nights and too little fitful napping during the days had caught up with him again.

He awoke with a start, disoriented. For a moment he thought he was back in Rathenow, with Helga down in the kitchen cooking eggs and sausage, and the boys already up and out and milking the cows. But he had been dreaming.

When he saw the sky was light, he leaped from the chair. Night was gone and he was still alive. He had survived another night. His elation was short-lived, for he knew that someone else had not. Somewhere in the keep he knew a corpse lay still and bloody, awaiting discovery.

He holstered the Luger as he crossed the room and stepped out on the landing. All was quiet. He trotted down the stairs, rubbing his eyes and massaging his stubbled cheeks to full wakefulness. As he reached the lowest level, the doors to the Jews’ quarters opened and the daughter came out.

She didn’t see him. She carried a metal pot in her hand and wore a vexed expression. Deep in thought, she passed through the open door into the courtyard and turned right toward the cellar stairs, completely oblivious to him. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, and that troubled him until he remembered that she had been in the keep a number of times before. She knew of the cellar cisterns, of the fresh water there.

Woermann stepped out into the courtyard and watched her move. There was an ethereal quality about the scene: a woman walking across the cobblestones in the dawn light, surrounded by gray stone walls studded with metallic crosses, streamers of fog on the courtyard floor eddying in her wake. Like a dream. She looked to be a fine woman under all those layers of clothing. She had a natural sway to her hips when she walked, an unpracticed grace that was innately appealing to the male in him. Pretty face, too, especially those wide brown eyes. If she’d only let her hair out from under that kerchief, she could be a beauty.

At another time, in another place, she would have been in grave danger in the company of five squads of women-starved soldiers. But these men had other things on their minds; they feared the dark and the death that unfailingly accompanied it.

He was about to follow her into the cellar to assure himself that she sought no more than fresh water for the pot in her hand when he spied Sergeant Oster pounding toward him.

“Captain! Captain!!”

Woermann sighed and braced himself for the news. “Who did we lose?”

“No one!” He held up a clipboard. “I checked on everyone and they’re all alive and well!”

Woermann did not allow himself to rejoice—he had been fooled on this score last week—but he did allow himself to hope.

“You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”

“Yes, sir. All except for the major, that is. And the two Jews.”

Woermann glanced toward the rear of the keep, to Kaempffer’s window. Could it be…?

“I was saving the officers for last,” Oster was saying, almost apologetically.

Woermann nodded, only half listening. Could it be? Could Erich Kaempffer have been last night’s victim? It was too much to hope for. Woermann had never imagined he could hate another human being as much as he had come to hate Kaempffer in the last day and a half.

With eager anticipation he began walking toward the rear of the keep. If Kaempffer were dead, not only would the world be a brighter place, but he would again be senior officer and would have his men out of the keep by noon. The einsatzkommandos could come along or stay behind to die until a new SS officer arrived. He had no doubt they would fall in right behind him as he left.

If, however, Kaempffer still lived, it would be a disappointment, but one with a bright side: For the first time since they had arrived, a night would have passed without the death of a German soldier. And that was good. It would boost morale immeasurably. It would mean they had a hope—a slim one—of overcoming the death curse that blanketed them here like a shroud.

As Woermann crossed the courtyard with the sergeant hurrying behind him, Oster said, “Do you think the Jews are responsible?”

“For what?”

“For nobody dying last night.”

Woermann paused and glanced between Oster and Kaempffer’s window almost directly overhead. Oster apparently had no doubt that Kaempffer was still alive.

“Why do you say that, Sergeant? What could they have done?”

Oster’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. The men believe it…at least my men—I mean our men—believe it. After all, we lost someone every night except last night. And the Jews arrived last night. Maybe they found something in those books we dug up.”

“Perhaps.”

Intriguing, but improbable. The old Jew and his daughter could not have come up with anything so soon. Old Jew…he was beginning to sound like Kaempffer! Awful.

Woermann led the way into the rear section of the keep and ran up the steps to the second level. He was puffing by the time they reached Kaempffer’s room.

Too much sausage, he told himself again. Too many hours sitting and brooding instead of moving about and burning up that paunch. He was reaching for the latch on Kaempffer’s door when it swung open and the major himself appeared.

“Ah! Klaus!” he said bluffly. “I thought I heard someone out here.”

Kaempffer adjusted the black leather strap of his officer’s belt and holster across his chest. Satisfied that it was secure, he stepped out into the hall.

“How nice to see you looking so well,” Woermann said.

Kaempffer, struck by the obvious insincerity, glanced at him sharply, then at Oster.

“Well, Sergeant, who was it this time?”

“Sir?”

“Dead! Who died last night? One of mine or one of yours? I want the Jew and his daughter brought over to the corpse, and I want them to—”

“Pardon, sir,” Oster said, “but no one died last night.”

Kaempffer’s eyebrows shot up and he turned to Woermann. “No one? Is this true?”

“If the sergeant says so, that’s good enough for me.”

“Then we’ve done it!” He smacked first into his palm and puffed himself up, gaining an inch of height in the process. “We’ve done it!”

“‘We’? And pray tell, dear Major—just what did ‘we’ do?”

“Why, we got through a night without a death! I told you if we held on we could beat this thing!”

“That you did,” Woermann said, choosing his words carefully. He was enjoying this. “But just tell me: What had the desired effect? Exactly what was it that protected us last night? I want to make sure I have this straight so I can see to it that we repeat the process tonight.”

Kaempffer’s self-congratulatory elation faded as quickly as it had bloomed.

“Let’s go see that Jew.”

He pushed past Oster and Woermann and started for the steps.

“I thought that would occur to you before too long,” Woermann said, following at a slower pace.

As they reached the courtyard, Woermann thought he heard the faint sound of a woman’s voice coming from the cellar. He could not understand the words, but her distress was evident. The sounds became louder, shriller. The woman was shouting in anger and fear.

He ran over to the cellar entry. The professor’s daughter was there—he remembered now that her name was Magda—and she was wedged into the angle formed by the steps and the wall. Her sweater had been torn open, so had the blouse and other garments beneath it, all pulled down over one shoulder, exposing the white globe of a breast. An einsatzkommando had his face buried against that breast while she kicked and raged and beat her fists ineffectively against him.

Woermann recoiled for an instant at the sight, then he was racing down the steps. So intent was the soldier on Magda’s breast that he did not seem to hear Woermann’s approach. Clenching his teeth, Woermann kicked the soldier in the right flank with all the force he could muster. It felt good—good to hurt one of these bastards. With difficulty he resisted the urge to go on kicking him.

The SS trooper grunted with pain and reared up, ready to charge at whoever had struck the blow. When he saw that he faced an officer, it was still apparent in his eyes that he was debating whether or not to lash out anyway.

For a few heartbeats, Woermann almost wished the private would do just that. He waited for the slightest sign of a forward rush, his hand ready to draw his Luger. He would never have imagined himself capable of shooting another German soldier, but something inside him hungered to kill this man, to strike out through him at everything that was wrong with the Fatherland, the army, his career.

The soldier backed off. Woermann felt himself relax.

What was happening to him? He had never hated before. He had killed in battle, at long range and face-to-face, but never with hatred. It was an uncomfortable, disorienting sensation, as if a stranger had taken up residence unbidden in his home and he could not find a way to make him leave.

As the soldier stood and straightened his black uniform, Woermann glanced at Magda. She had her clothes closed and rearranged, and was rising from a crouch on the steps. Without a hint of warning, she spun and slapped the palm of her hand across her tormentor’s face with stinging force, rocking his head back and sending him reeling off the bottom step in surprise. Only an outflung hand against the stone wall prevented him from going over onto his back.

She spat something in Romanian, her tone and facial expression conveying whatever meaning her words did not, and walked past Woermann, retrieving her half-spilled waterpot as she moved.

It required all of Woermann’s Prussian reserve to keep from applauding her. Instead, he turned back to the soldier who was plainly torn between standing at attention in the presence of an officer and taking reprisal on the girl.

Girl…why did he think of her as a girl? She was perhaps a dozen years younger than he, but easily a decade older than his son Kurt, and he considered Kurt a man. Perhaps it was because of a certain unsullied freshness about her, a certain innocence. Something there that was precious, to be preserved, protected.

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Private Leeb, sir. Einsatzkommandos.”

“Is it customary for you to attempt rape while on duty?”

No reply.

“Was what I just saw part of your assigned duties here in the cellar?”

“She’s only a Jew, sir.”

The man’s tone implied that this particular fact was sufficient explanation for anything he might have done to her.

“You did not answer my question, soldier!” His temper was nearing the breaking point. “Was attempted rape part of your duty here?”

“No, sir.” The reply was as reluctant as it was defiant.

Woermann stepped down and snatched Private Leeb’s Schmeisser from his shoulder. “You are confined to quarters, Private—”

“But sir!”

Woermann noted that the plea was not directed to him but to someone above and behind him. He did not have to turn and look to know who it was, so he continued speaking without missing a beat.

“—for deserting your post. Sergeant Oster will decide on a suitable disciplinary action for you”—he paused and looked up to the head of the stairs, directly into Kaempffer’s eyes—“unless, of course, the major has a particular punishment in mind.”

Technically it was within Kaempffer’s rights to interfere at this point, since their commands were separate and they answered to different authority; and Kaempffer was here at the behest of the High Command to which all the uniformed forces must ultimately answer. He was also the senior officer.

But Kaempffer could do nothing here. To let Private Leeb off would be to condone desertion of an assigned post. No officer could allow that. Kaempffer was trapped. Woermann knew it and intended to take full advantage.

The major spoke stiffly. “Take him away, Sergeant. I will deal with him later.”

Woermann tossed the Schmeisser to Oster, who marched the crestfallen einsatzkommando up the stairs.

“In the future,” Kaempffer said acidly when the sergeant and the private were out of earshot, “you will not discipline or give orders to my men. They are not under your command, they are under mine!”

Woermann started up the stairs. When he came abreast of Kaempffer, he wheeled on him. “Then keep them on their leashes!”

The major paled, startled by the unexpected outburst.

“Listen, Herr SS officer,” Woermann continued, letting all his anger and disgust rise to the surface, “and listen well. I don’t know what I can say to get this through to you. I’d try reason but I think you’re immune to it. So I’ll try to appeal to your instinct for self-preservation—we both know how well developed that is. Think: Nobody died last night. And the only thing different about last night from all the other nights was the presence of the two Jews from Bucharest. There has to be a connection. Therefore, if for no other reason than the chance that they may be able to come up with an answer to the killings and a way to stop them, you must keep your animals away from them!”

He did not wait for a reply, fearing he might try to throttle the man if he did not immediately move away. He turned and walked toward the watchtower. After a few steps, he heard Kaempffer begin to follow him. He went to the door of the first-level suite, knocked, but did not wait for a reply before entering. Courtesy was one thing, but he intended to maintain an indisputable position of authority in the eyes of these two civilians.

The professor merely glared at the two Germans as they entered. He was alone in the front room, sipping at water in a tin cup, still seated in his wheelchair before the book-laden table, just as they had left him the night before. Woermann wondered if he had moved at all during the night. His gaze strayed to the books, then darted away. He remembered the excerpt he had seen in one of them last night…about preparing sacrifices for some deity whose name was an unpronounceable string of consonants. He shuddered even now at the memory of what was to be sacrificed, and of how it was prepared. How anyone could sit and read that and not get sick…

He scanned the rest of the room. The girl wasn’t here—probably in the back. This room seemed smaller than his own, two stories up…maybe it was just an impression created by the clutter of the books and the luggage.

“Is this morning an example of what we must face to get drinking water?” the waxy masked old man said through his tiny mouth, his voice dry, scaly. “Is my daughter to be assaulted every time she leaves the room?”

“That has been taken care of,” Woermann told him. “The man will be punished.” He stared at Kaempffer, who had sauntered to the other side of the room. “I can assure you it will not happen again.”

“I hope not,” Cuza replied. “It is difficult enough trying to find any useful information in these texts under the best conditions. But to labor under the threat of physical abuse at any moment…the mind rebels.”

“It had better not rebel, Jew!” Kaempffer said. “It had better do as it is told!”

“It’s just that it’s impossible for me to concentrate on these texts when I’m worried about my daughter’s safety. That should not be too hard to grasp.”

Woermann sensed that the professor was aiming an appeal at him but he was not sure what it was.

“It’s unavoidable, I’m afraid,” he told the old man. “She is the only woman on what is essentially an army base. I don’t like it any more than you. A woman doesn’t belong here. Unless…” A thought struck him. He glanced at Kaempffer. “We’ll put her up in the inn. She could take a couple of the books with her and study them on her own, and come back to confer with her father.”

“Out of the question!” Kaempffer said. “She stays here where we can keep an eye on her.” He approached Cuza at the table. “Right now I’m interested in what you learned last night that kept us all alive!”

“I don’t understand…”

“No one died last night,” Woermann said. He watched for reaction in the old man’s face; it was difficult, perhaps impossible to discern a change of expression in that tight, immobile skin. But he thought he saw the eyes widen almost imperceptibly in surprise.

“Magda!” he called. “Come here!”

The door to the rear room opened and the girl appeared. She looked composed after the incident on the cellar steps, but he saw that her hand trembled as it rested on the door frame.

“Yes, Papa?”

“There were no deaths last night!” Cuza said. “It must have been one of those incantations I was reading!”

“Last night?” The girl’s expression betrayed an instant of confusion, and something else: a fleeting horror at the mention of last night. She locked eyes with her father and a signal seemed to pass between them, perhaps the tiniest nod from the old man, then her face lit up.

“Wonderful! I wonder which incantation?”

Incantation? Woermann thought.

He would have laughed at this conversation last Monday. It smacked of a belief in spells and black magic. But now…he would accept anything that got them all through the night alive. Anything.

“Let me see this incantation,” Kaempffer said, interest lighting his eyes.

“Certainly.” Cuza pulled over a weighty tome. “This is De Vermis Mysteriis by Ludwig Prinn. It’s in Latin.” He glanced up. “Do you read Latin, Major?”

A tightening of the lips was Kaempffer’s only reply.

“A shame,” the professor said. “Then I shall translate for—”

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you, Jew?” Kaempffer said softly.

But Cuza was not to be intimidated, and Woermann had to admire him for his courage.

“The answer is here!” he cried, pointing to the pile of books before him. “Last night proves it. I still don’t know what haunts the keep, but with a little time, a little peace, and fewer interruptions, I’m sure I can find out. Now, good day, gentlemen!”

He adjusted his thick glasses and pulled the book closer. Woermann hid a smile at Kaempffer’s impotent rage and spoke before the major could do anything rash.

“I think it would be in our best interests to leave the professor to the task he was brought here for, don’t you, Major?”

Kaempffer clasped his hands behind him and strode through the door. Woermann took one last look at the professor and his daughter before following. They were hiding something, those two. Whether about the keep itself or the murderous entity that stalked its corridors at night, he could not say. And right now it really didn’t matter. As long as no more of his men died in the night, the pair were welcome to their secret. He was not sure he ever wanted to know. But should the deaths begin again, he would demand a full accounting.

Professor Cuza pushed the book away from him as soon as the door closed behind the captain. He rubbed the fingers of his hands one at a time, each in turn.

Mornings were the worst. That was when everything hurt, especially the hands. Each knuckle was like a rusted hinge on the door to an abandoned woodshed, protesting with pain and noise at the slightest disturbance, fiercely resisting any change in position. But it wasn’t just his hands. All his joints hurt. Awakening, rising, and getting into the wheelchair that circumscribed his life was a chorus of agony from the hips, the knees, the wrists, the elbows, and the shoulders. Only by midmorning, after two separate doses of aspirin and perhaps some codeine when he had it, did the pain in his inflamed connective tissues subside to a tolerable level. He no longer thought of his body as flesh and blood; he saw it as a piece of clockwork that had been left out in the rain and was now irreparably damaged.

Then there was the dry mouth which never let up. The doctors had told him it was “not uncommon for scleroderma patients to experience a marked decrease in the volume of salivary secretions.” They said it so matter-of-factly, but there was nothing matter-of-fact about living with a tongue that always tasted like plaster of Paris. He tried to keep some water at hand at all times; if he didn’t sip occasionally his voice began to sound like old shoes dragging across a sandy floor.

Swallowing, too, was a chore. Even the water had trouble going down. And food—he had to chew everything until his jaw muscles cramped and then hope it wouldn’t get stuck halfway to his stomach.

It was no way to live, and he had more than once considered putting an end to the whole charade. But he had never made the attempt. Possibly because he lacked the courage; possibly because he still possessed enough courage to face life on whatever terms he was offered.

He wasn’t sure which.

“Are you all right, Papa?”

He looked up at Magda. She stood near the fireplace with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, shivering. It wasn’t from the cold. He knew she had been badly shaken by their visitor last night and had hardly slept. Neither had he. But then to be assaulted not thirty feet from her sleeping quarters…

Savages! What he would give to see them all dead—not just the ones here, but every stinking Nazi who stepped outside his border! And those still inside the German border as well. He wished for a way to exterminate them before they exterminated him. But what could he do? A crippled scholar who looked half again his real age, who could not even defend his own daughter—what could he do?

Nothing. He wanted to scream, to break something, to bring down the walls as Samson had done. He wanted to cry. He cried too easily of late, despite his lack of tears. That wasn’t manly. But then, he wasn’t much of a man anymore.

“I’m fine, Magda,” he said. “No better, no worse than usual. It’s you that worries me. This is no place for you—no place for any woman.”

She sighed. “I know. But there’s no way to leave here until they let us.”

“Always the devoted daughter,” he said, feeling a burst of warmth for her. Magda was loving and loyal, strong-willed yet dutiful. He wondered what he had ever done to deserve her. “I wasn’t talking about us. I was talking about you. I want you to leave the keep as soon as it’s dark.”

“I’m not too good at scaling walls, Papa.” Her smile was wan. “And I’ve no intention of trying to seduce the guard at the gate. I wouldn’t know how.”

“The escape route lies right below our feet. Remember?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that!”

“How could you forget? You found it.”

It had happened on their last trip to the pass. He had still been able to get about on his own then but had needed two canes to bolster the failing strength in his legs. Unable to go himself, he had sent Magda down into the gorge in search of a cornerstone at the base of the keep, or perhaps a stone with an inscription on it…anything to give him a clue as to the builders of the keep. Magda had found no inscription, but she had come across a large, flat stone in the wall at the very base of the watchtower; it had moved when she leaned against it. It was hinged on the left and perfectly balanced. Sunlight pouring through the opening had revealed a set of stairs leading upward.

Over his protests she had insisted on exploring the base of the tower in the hope that some old records might have been left within. All she found was a long, steep, winding set of stairs that ended in a seemingly blind niche in the ceiling of the base. But it was not a blind end—the niche was in the very wall that divided the two rooms they now occupied. Within it, Magda had discovered another perfectly balanced stone, scored to look like the smaller rectangular blocks that made up the rest of the wall; it swung open into the larger of the two rooms, permitting secret ingress and egress from the bottom suite of the tower.

Cuza had attached no significance to the stairway then—a castle or keep always had a hidden escape route. Now he saw it as Magda’s stairway to freedom.

“I want you to take the stairs down to the bottom as soon as it is dark, let yourself out into the gorge, and start walking east. When you get to the Danube, follow it to the Black Sea, and from there to Turkey or—”

“Without you?”

“Of course without me!”

“Put it out of your mind, Papa! Where you stay, I stay.”

“Magda, I’m commanding you as your father to obey me!”

“Don’t! I will not desert you. I couldn’t live with myself if I did!”

As much as he appreciated the sentiment, it did nothing to lessen his frustration. Clearly the commanding approach was not going to work this time. He decided to plead. Over the years he had become adept at getting his way with her. By one method or another, by browbeating or twisting her up with guilt, he could usually make her accede to whatever he desired. Sometimes he did not like himself for the way he dominated her life, but she was his daughter, and he her father. And he had needed her. Yet now, when it was time to cut her free so that she could save herself, she would not go.

“Please, Magda. As one last favor to a dying old man who would go smiling to his grave if he knew you were safe from the Nazis.”

“And me knowing I left you among them? Never!”

“Please listen to me! You can take the Al Azif with you. It’s bulky I know, but it’s probably the last surviving copy in any language. There isn’t a country in the world where you couldn’t sell it for enough money to keep you comfortable for life.”

“No, Papa,” she said with a determination in her voice that he could not recall ever hearing before.

She turned away and walked into the rear room, closing the door behind her.

I’ve taught her too well, he thought. I’ve bound her so tightly to me I cannot push her away even for her own good. Is that why she never married? Because of me?

Cuza rubbed his itching eyes with cotton-gloved fingers, thinking back over the years. Ever since puberty Magda had been a constant object of male attention. Something in her appealed to different sorts of men in different ways; she rarely left one untouched. She probably would have been married and a mother a number of times over by now—and he a grandfather—if her mother had not died so suddenly eleven years ago. Magda, only twenty then, had changed, taking on the roles of his companion, secretary, associate, and now nurse. The men about soon found her remote. Magda gradually built up a shell of self-absorption. Cuza knew every weak spot in that shell—and could pierce it at will. To all others she was immune.

But there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Magda faced a very short future unless she escaped the keep. Beyond that, there was the apparition they had encountered last night. Cuza was sure it would return with the passing of the day, and he did not want Magda here when it did. Something in its eyes had caused fear to grip his heart like an icy fist. Such an unspeakable hunger there…He wanted Magda far away tonight.

But more than anything else he wanted to stay here by himself and wait for it to return. This was the moment of a lifetime—a dozen lifetimes! To come face-to-face with a myth, with a creature that had been used for centuries to frighten children. Adults, too. To document its existence! He had to speak to this thing again…induce it to answer. He had to learn which of the myths surrounding it were true and which false.

The mere thought of the meeting made his heart race with excitement and anticipation. Strangely, he did not feel terribly threatened by the creature. He knew its language and had even communicated with it last night. It had understood and had left them unharmed. He sensed the possibility of a common ground between them, a place for a meeting of minds. He certainly did not wish to stop it or harm it—Theodor Cuza was not an enemy of anything that reduced the ranks of the German Army.

He looked down at the littered table before him. He was sure he would find nothing threatening to the being in these despicable old books. He now understood why they had been suppressed—they were abominations. But they were useful as props in the little play he was acting out for those two bickering German officers. He had to remain in the keep until he had learned all he could from the being that dwelt here. Then the Germans could do what they wished with him.

But Magda…Magda had to be on her way to safety before he could devote his attention to anything else. She would not leave of her own accord…but what if she were driven out? Captain Woermann might be the key there. He did not seem too happy about having a woman quartered in the keep. Yes, if Woermann could be provoked…

Cuza despised himself for what he was about to do.

“Magda!” he called. “Magda!”

She opened the door and looked out. “I hope this is not about my leaving the keep, because—”

“Not the keep; just the room. I’m hungry and the Germans told us they’d feed us from their kitchen.”

“Did they bring us any food?”

“No. And I’m sure they won’t. You’ll have to go get some.”

She stiffened. “Across the courtyard? You want me to go back out there after what happened?”

“I’m sure it won’t happen again.” He hated lying to her, but it was the only way. “The men have been warned by their officers. And besides, you’ll not be on any dark cellar stairway. You’ll be out in the open.”

“But the way they look at me…”

“We have to eat.”

A long pause as his daughter stared at him, then she nodded. “I suppose we do.”

Magda buttoned her sweater all the way to the neck as she crossed the room, saying nothing as she left.

Cuza felt his throat constrict as the door closed behind her. She had courage, and trust in him…a trust he was betraying. And yet keeping. He knew what she faced out there, and yet he had knowingly sent her into it. Supposedly for food.

He wasn’t the least bit hungry.

SIXTEEN

THE DANUBE DELTA, EASTERN ROMANIA
Wednesday, April 30
1035 hours

Land was in sight again.

Sixteen unnervingly frustrating hours, each one like an endless day, were finally at an end. The red-haired man stood on the weathered bow and looked shoreward. The sardiner had chugged across the placid expanse of the Black Sea at a steady pace, a good pace, but one made maddeningly slow by the sole passenger’s relentless sense of urgency. At least they had not been stopped by either of the two military patrol boats they had passed, one Russian, one Romanian. That could have proved disastrous.

Directly ahead lay the multichanneled delta where the Danube emptied into the Black Sea. The shore was green and swampy, pocked with countless coves. Getting ashore would be easy, but traveling through the bogs to higher, drier land would be time-consuming. And there was no time!

He had to find another way.

The red-haired man glanced over his shoulder at the old Turk at the helm, then forward again to the delta. The sardine boat didn’t draw much—it could move comfortably in about four feet of water. It was a possibility—take one of these tiny delta tributaries up to the Danube itself, then chug west along the river to a point, say, just east of Galati. They would be traveling against the current but it had to be faster than scrambling on foot through miles of sucking mire.

He dug into his money belt and brought out two Mexican fifty-peso pieces. Together they gave a weight of about two and a half ounces of gold. Turning again, he held them up to the Turk, addressing him in his native tongue.

“Kiamil! Two more coins if you’ll take me upstream!”

The fisherman stared at the coins, saying nothing, chewing his lower lip. He already had enough gold in his pocket to make him the richest man in his village. At least for a while. But nothing lasts forever, and soon he would be out on the water again, hauling in his nets. The two extra coins could forestall that. Who knew how many days on the water, how many hand cuts, how many pains in an aging back, how many hauls of fish would have to be unloaded at the cannery to earn an equivalent amount?

The red-haired man watched Kiamil’s face as the calculations of risks against profits played across it. And as he watched, he, too, calculated the risks: They would be traveling by day, never far from shore because of the narrowness of the waterway along most of the route, in Romanian waters in a boat of Turkish registry.

It was insane. Even if by some miracle of chance they reached the edge of Galati without being stopped, Kiamil could not expect a similar miracle on the return trip downstream. He would be caught, his boat impounded, and he imprisoned. Conversely, there was little risk to the red-haired man. If they were stopped and brought into port, he was sure he could find a way to escape and continue his trek. But Kiamil at the very least would lose his boat. Possibly his life.

It wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t fair. He lowered the coins just as the Turk was about to reach for them.

“Never mind, Kiamil,” he said. “I think it might be better if we just keep to our original agreement. Put me ashore anywhere along here.”

The old man nodded, relief rather than disappointment showing on his leathery face at the withdrawal of the offer. The sight of the gold coins held out to him had almost turned him into a fool.

As the boat nosed toward shore, the red-haired man slipped the cord that tied the blanket roll with all his possessions over his shoulder and lifted the long, flat case under his arm. Kiamil reversed the engines within a foot or two of the gray mixture of sand and dirt overgrown with rank, wiry grasses that served for a bank here. The red-haired man stepped onto the gunwale and leaped ashore.

He turned to look back at Kiamil. The Turk waved and began to back the boat away from shore.

“Kiamil!” he shouted. “Here!” He tossed the two fifty-peso gold pieces out to the boat one at a time. Each was unerringly snatched from the air by a brown, callused hand.

With loud and profuse thanks in the name of Mohammed and all that was holy in Islam ringing in his ears, the red-haired man turned and began to pick his way across the marsh. Clouds of insects, poisonous snakes, and bottomless holes of quicksand lay directly ahead of him, and beyond that would be units of Iron Guard. They could not stop him, but they could slow him down. As threats to his life they were insignificant compared to what he knew lay a half day’s ride due west in the Dinu Pass.

SEVENTEEN

THE KEEP
Wednesday, 30 April
1647 hours

Woermann stood at his window and watched the men in the courtyard. Yesterday they had been intermingled, the black uniforms interspersed with the gray ones. This afternoon they were separated, an invisible line dividing the einsatzkommandos from the regular army men.

Yesterday they had had a common enemy, one who killed regardless of the color of the uniform. But last night the enemy had not killed, and by this afternoon they were all acting like victors, each side claiming credit for the night of safety. It was a natural rivalry. The einsatzkommandos saw themselves as elite troops, SS specialists in a special kind of warfare. The regular army men saw themselves as the real soldiers; although they feared what the black uniform of the SS represented, they looked on the einsatzkommandos as little more than glorified policemen.

Unity had begun to break down at breakfast. It had been a normal mess period until the girl, Magda, had shown up. There had been some good-natured jostling and elbowing for a place near her as she moved past the food bins, filling a tray for herself and her father. Not an incident really, but her very appearance at morning mess had begun to divide the two groups. The SS contingent automatically assumed that since she was a Jew they had a preemptive right to do with her as they wished. The regular army men did not feel anyone had a preemptive right to the girl. She was beautiful. Try as she might to cover her hair in that old kerchief and bundle her body in those shapeless clothes, she could not conceal her femininity. It radiated through all her attempts to minimize it. It was there in the softness of her skin, in the smoothness of her throat, the turn of her lips, the tilt of her sparkling brown eyes. She was fair game for anyone as far as the regular army troops were concerned—with the real fighting men getting first chance, of course.

Woermann hadn’t noticed it at the time but the first cracks in the previous day’s solidarity had appeared.

At the noon mess a shoving match between gray and black uniforms began, again while the girl was going through the line. Two men slipped and fell on the floor during the minor fracas, and Woermann sent the sergeant over to break it up before any serious blows could be struck. By that time Magda had taken her food and departed.

Shortly after lunch she had wandered about, looking for him. She had told him that her father needed a cross or a crucifix as part of his research into one of the manuscripts. Could the captain lend her one? He could—a little silver cross removed from one of the dead soldiers.

And now the off-duty men sat apart in the courtyard while the rest worked at dismantling the rear of the keep. Woermann was trying to think of ways to avoid certain trouble at the evening mess. Maybe the best thing to do was to have someone load up a tray at each meal and bring it to the old man and his daughter in the tower. The less seen of the girl, the better.

His eyes were drawn to movement directly below him. It was Magda, hesitant at first, and then with straight-backed, high-chinned decisiveness, marching bucket in hand toward the cellar entry. The men followed her at first with their eyes, then they were on their feet, drifting toward her from all corners of the courtyard, like soap bubbles swirling toward an unstoppered drain.

When she came up from the cellar with her bucket of water, they were waiting for her in a thick semicircle, pushing and shoving toward the front for a good close look at her. They were calling to her, moving before, beside, and behind her as she tentatively made her way back to the tower. One of the einsatzkommandos blocked her way but was pushed aside by a regular army man who grabbed her bucket with exaggerated gallantry and carried it ahead of her, a clown footman. But the SS man who had been pushed snatched at the bucket; he succeeded only in spilling the contents over the legs and the boots of the one who now held it.

As laughter started from the black uniforms, the face of the regular army man turned a bright red. Woermann could see what was coming but was helpless to stop it from his position on the third level of the tower. He watched the soldier in gray swing the bucket at the SS man, saw the bucket connect full force with the head, then Woermann was away from the window and running down the steps as fast as his legs would carry him.

As he reached the bottom landing, he saw the door to the Jews’ suite swing shut behind a flash of skirt fabric, then he was out in the courtyard facing a full-scale brawl. He had to fire his pistol twice to get the men’s attention and had to threaten to shoot the next one who threw a punch before the fighting actually stopped.

The girl had to go.

As things quieted down, Woermann left his men with Sergeant Oster and headed directly for the first floor of the tower. While Kaempffer was busy squaring away the einsatzkommandos, Woermann would use the opportunity to start the girl on her way out of the keep. If he could get her across the causeway and into the inn before Kaempffer was aware of what was happening, there was a good chance he could keep her out.

He did not bother to knock this time, but pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Fräulein Cuza!”

The old man was still sitting at the table; the girl was nowhere in sight. “What do you want with her?”

He ignored the father. “Fräulein Cuza!”

“Yes?” she said, stepping out of the rear room, her face anxious.

“I want you packed to leave for the inn immediately. You have two minutes. No more.”

“But I can’t leave my father!”

“Two minutes and you are leaving, with or without your things!”

He would not be swayed, and he hoped his face showed it. He did not like to separate the girl and her father—the professor obviously needed care and she obviously was devoted to caring for him—but the men under his command came first, and she was a disruptive influence. The father would have to remain in the keep; the daughter would have to stay in the inn. There was no room for argument.

Woermann watched her cast a pleading look at her father, begging him to say something. But the old man remained silent. She took a deep breath and turned toward the back room.

“You now have a minute and a half,” Woermann told her.

“A minute and a half for what?” said a voice behind him. It was Kaempffer.

Groaning inwardly and readying himself for a battle of wills, Woermann faced the SS man.

“Your timing is superb as usual, Major,” he said. “I was just telling Fräulein Cuza to pack her things and move herself over to the inn.”

Kaempffer opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the professor.

“I forbid it!” he cried in his dry, shrill voice. “I will not permit you to send my daughter away!”

Kaempffer’s eyes narrowed as his attention was drawn from Woermann to Cuza. Even Woermann found himself turning in surprise to see what had prompted the outburst.

“You forbid, old Jew?” Kaempffer said in a hoarse voice as he moved past Woermann to the professor. “You forbid? Let me tell you something: You forbid nothing around here! Nothing!”

The old man bowed his head in resignation.

Satisfied with the result of his vented anger, Kaempffer turned back to Woermann. “See that she’s out of here immediately. She’s a troublemaker!”

Dazed and bemused, Woermann watched Kaempffer storm out of the room as abruptly as he had arrived. He looked at Cuza, whose head was no longer bowed, and who now appeared to be resigned to nothing.

“Why didn’t you protest before the major arrived?” Woermann asked him. “I had the impression you wanted her out of the keep.”

“Perhaps. But I changed my mind.”

“So I noticed—and in a most provocative manner at a most strategic moment. Do you manipulate everyone this way?”

“My dear Captain,” Cuza said, his tone serious, “no one pays much attention to a cripple. People look at the body and see that it is wrecked by an accident or wasted by illness, and they automatically carry the infirmity to the mind within that body. ‘He can’t walk, therefore he can’t have anything intelligent or useful or interesting to say.’ So a cripple like me soon learns how to make other people come up with an idea he has already thought of, and to have them arrive at it in such a way that they believe it originated with them. It’s not manipulation—it’s a form of persuasion.”

As Magda emerged from the rear room, suitcase in hand, Woermann realized with chagrin, and perhaps a touch of admiration, that he, too, had been manipulated—or “persuaded.” He now knew whose idea it had been for Magda to make those repeated trips to the mess and the cellar. The realization did not bother him too much, though. His own instincts had always been against having a woman in the keep.

“I’m going to leave you at the inn unguarded,” he told Magda. “I’m sure you understand that if you run off it will not go well with your father. I’m going to trust in your honor and your devotion to him.”

He did not add that it would be courting a riot to decide which soldiers would guard her—competition for the double benefit of separation from the keep and proximity to an attractive female would further widen the existing rift between the two contingents of soldiers. He had no choice but to trust her.

A look passed between father and daughter.

“Have no fear, Captain,” Magda said, glaring at her father. “I have no intention of running off and deserting him.”

He watched the professor’s hands bunch into two thick, angry fists.

“You’d better take this,” Cuza said, pushing one of the books toward her, the one he had called the Al Azif. “Study it tonight so we can discuss it tomorrow.”

There was a trace of mischief in her smile. “You know I don’t read Arabic, Papa.” She picked up another, slimmer volume. “I think I’ll take this one instead.”

They stared at each other across the table. They were at an impasse of wills, and Woermann thought he had a good idea where the conflict lay.

Without warning, Magda stepped around the table and kissed her father on the cheek. She smoothed his sparse white hairs, then straightened up and looked Woermann directly in the eye.

“Take care of my father, Captain. Please. He’s all I have.”

Woermann heard himself speaking before he could think. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to everything.”

He cursed himself. He shouldn’t have said that. It went against all his officer training, all his Prussian rearing. But that look in her eyes made him want to do as she asked. He had no daughter of his own, but if he had he would want her to care about him the way this girl cared about her father.

No…he had no need to worry about her running off. But the father—he was a sly one. He would bear watching. Woermann warned himself never to take anything about these two for granted.

The red-haired man sent his mount plunging through the foothills toward the southeast entrance to the Dinu Pass. The greening terrain around him went by unnoticed in his haste. As the sun slipped down the sky ahead of him, the hills on each side grew steeper and rockier, closing on him, narrowing until he was confined to a path a scant dozen feet wide. Once through the bottleneck up ahead he would be on the wide floor of the Dinu Pass. From there on it would be an easy trip, even in the dark. He knew the way.

He was about to congratulate himself on avoiding the many military patrols in the area when he spotted two soldiers up ahead blocking his path with ready rifles and fixed bayonets. Rearing his mount to a halt before the pair, he quickly decided on a course of action—he wanted no trouble, so he would play it meek and mild.

“Where to in such a hurry, goatherd?”

It was the older of the two who spoke. He had a thick mustache and a pitted face. The younger man laughed at the word “goatherd.” Apparently it held some derogatory meaning for them.

“Up the pass to my village. My father is sick. Please let me by.”

“All in good time. How far up do you intend to go?”

“To the keep.”

“‘The keep’? Never heard of it. Where is it?”

That answered one question for the red-haired man. If the keep were involved in a military action in the pass, these men at least would have heard of it.

“Why are you stopping me?” he asked them, trying to look puzzled. “Is something wrong?”

“It is not for the likes of you to question the Iron Guard,” Mustache said. “Get down from there so we can have a better look at you.”

So they weren’t just soldiers; they were members of the Iron Guard. Getting through here was going to be tougher than he had thought. The red-haired man dismounted and stood silent, waiting as they scrutinized him.

“You’re not from around here,” Mustache said. “Let me see your papers.”

That was the question the red-haired man had feared throughout his trip. “I don’t have them with me, sir,” he said in his most deferential manner. “I left in such a hurry that I forgot them. I’ll go back and get them if you wish.”

A look passed between the two soldiers. A traveler without papers had no legal rights to speak of—his noncompliance with the law gave them a free hand to deal with him in any way they saw fit.

“No papers?” Mustache had his rifle at the port position across the front of his chest. As he spoke he emphasized his words with sharp outward thrusts of his rifle, slamming the bolt assembly and the side of the stock against the red-haired man’s ribs. “How do we know you’re not running guns to the peasants in the hills?”

The red-haired man winced and backed away, showing more pain than he felt; to absorb the blows stoically would only incite Mustache to greater violence.

Always the same, he thought. No matter what the time or place, no matter what the ruling power calls itself, its bullyboys remain the same.

Mustache stepped back and pointed his rifle at the red-haired man. “Search him!” he told his younger partner.

The young one slung his rifle over a shoulder and began roughly slapping his hands over the traveler’s clothes. He stopped when he came to the money belt. With a few deft moves he opened the shirt and removed the belt from beneath. When they saw the gold coins in the pouches, another look passed between them.

“Where’d you steal that?” Mustache said, once again slamming the side of his rifle against the red-haired man’s ribs.

“It’s mine,” he told them. “It’s all I have. But you can keep it if you’ll just let me be on my way.” He meant that. He didn’t need the gold anymore.

“Oh, we’ll keep it all right,” Mustache said. “But first we’ll see what else you’ve got.” He pointed to the long, flat case strapped to the right flank of the horse. “Open that, “ he told his companion.

The red-haired man decided then that he had let this go as far as he could. He would not let them open the case.

“Don’t touch that.”

They must have sensed menace in his voice, for both soldiers stopped and stared at him. Mustache’s lips worked in anger. He stepped forward to slam his rifle against the red-haired man once more.

“Why you—”

Although the red-haired man’s next moves might have looked carefully planned, they were all reflex. As Mustache made to thrust with his rifle, the red-haired man deftly ripped it out of his grasp. While Mustache stared dumbly at his empty hands, the red-haired man swung the butt of the rifle up and cracked the man’s jaw; from there all that was needed to crush the larynx was a short jab against the exposed throat. Turning, he saw the other soldier unslinging his weapon. The red-haired man took a single step and drove the bayonet on the other end of his borrowed rifle full length into the younger man’s chest. With a sigh, the soldier sagged and died.

The red-haired man viewed the scene dispassionately. Mustache was still alive, but barely. His back was arched, his face tinged with blue as his hands tore at his throat, trying in vain to let some air through to his lungs.

As before, when he had killed Carlos the boatman, the red-haired man felt nothing. No triumph, no regret. He could not see how the world would be poorer for the passing of two members of the Iron Guard, and he knew that if he had waited much longer it might have been him on the ground, wounded or dead.

By the time the red-haired man had replaced the money belt around his waist, Mustache lay as still as his companion. He hid the bodies and the rifles in the rocks on the northern slope and resumed his gallop toward the keep.

Magda paced about her tiny candlelit room at the inn, anxiously rubbing her hands together, stopping every so often at the window to glance out at the keep. No moon tonight, with high clouds moving in from the south.

The dark frightened her…the dark and being alone. She could not remember when she had last been alone like this. It was neither right nor proper for her to be staying unchaperoned at the inn. It helped some to know that Iuliu’s wife, Lidia, would be around, but she would be little help if that thing in the keep decided to cross the gorge and come to her.

She had a clear view of the keep from her window—in fact, hers was the only room with a window facing north. She had requested it for that reason. There had been no problem; she was the only guest.

Iuliu had been most gracious, almost obsequious. That puzzled her. He had always been courteous during their previous stays, but in a rather perfunctory way. Now he virtually fawned over her.

From where she stood she could pick out the lit window in the first level of the tower where she knew Papa now sat. She saw no sign of movement; that meant he was alone. She had been furious with him earlier when she realized how he had maneuvered her out of the keep. But as the hours passed, her anger gave way to worry. How would he take care of himself?

She turned and leaned back against the sill, looking at the four white stucco walls that confined her. Her room was small: a narrow wardrobe, a single dresser with a beveled mirror above it, a three-legged stool, and a large, too-soft bed. Her mandolin lay on the bed, untouched since her arrival. The book too, Cultes des Goules, lay untouched in the bottom drawer of the dresser. She had no intention of studying it; she had taken it only for show.

She had to get out for a while. She blew out two of the candles, but left the third burning. She did not want the room to be totally dark. After last night’s encounter, she would fear the dark forever.

A scuffed wood stairway took her down to the first floor. She found the innkeeper hunched on the front stoop, sitting and whittling dejectedly.

“Something wrong, Iuliu?”

He started at the sound of her voice, looked her once in the eye, then returned to his aimless whittling.

“Your father,” he said. “He is well?”

“For the moment, yes. Why?”

He put down the knife and covered his eyes with both hands; the words came out in a rush. “You’re both here because of me. I am ashamed…I am not a man. But they wanted to know all about the keep and I couldn’t tell them what they wanted. And then I thought of your father, who knows all there is to know about the keep. I didn’t know how sick he was now, and I never thought they’d bring you, too. But I couldn’t help it! They were hurting me!”

Magda experienced a brief flare of anger—Iuliu had had no right mentioning Papa to the Germans! And then she admitted that under similar circumstances, she too might have told them anything they wanted to know. At least now she knew how they had connected Papa with the keep, and she had an explanation for Iuliu’s deferential manner.

His pleading expression touched her as he looked up at her. “Do you hate me?”

Magda leaned over and placed a hand on his round shoulder. “No. You didn’t mean us any harm.”

He covered her hand with his. “I hope all will go well for you.”

“So do I.”

She walked slowly along the path to the gorge, the silence broken only by the pebbles crunching underfoot, echoing in the moist air. She stopped and stood in the thick, freshly budded brush to the right of the causeway and hugged her sweater more tightly around her. Almost midnight, cool and damp; but the chill she felt went deeper than any caused by a simple drop in temperature. Behind her the inn was a dim shadow; across the causeway lay the keep, ablaze with light in many of its windows. The fog had risen from the bottom of the pass, filling the gorge and surrounding the keep. Light from the courtyard filtered up through the fine haze in the air, making a glow like a phosphorescent cloud. The keep looked like an ungainly luxury liner adrift in a phantom sea of fog.

Fear settled over her as she stared at the keep.

Last night…considering the mortal threats of the day, it had been easy for her to avoid thinking about last night. But here in the dark it all came back—those eyes, that icy grip on her arm. She ran her hand over the spot near her elbow where the thing had touched her. There was still a mark on the skin there, pale gray. The area looked dead, and she hadn’t been able to wash it off. She hadn’t told Papa. But it was proof: Last night had not been a dream. The nightmare was a reality. A type of creature she had blithely assumed to be fantasy had become real, and it was over there in that stone building.

So was Papa. She knew that right now he was waiting for it. He hadn’t told her so, but she knew. Papa hoped to be visited tonight, and she would not be there to help him. The thing had spared them last night, but could Papa count on such luck two nights in a row?

And what if it did not visit Papa tonight? What if it crossed the gorge and came to her? She could not bear the thought of another encounter like the last.

It was all so unreal! The undead were fiction!

And yet last night…

The sound of hoofbeats interrupted her musings. She turned and dimly saw a horse and a rider passing the inn at full gallop. They approached the causeway, apparently with every intention of charging over to the keep, but at the last minute the rider fiercely reined his steed to a halt at its edge. Horse and man stood limned in the glow that filtered across the gorge from the keep. She noted a long, flat box strapped to the horse’s right flank. The rider dismounted and took a few tentative steps onto the causeway, then stopped.

Magda crouched in the brush and watched him study the keep. She could not say exactly why she chose to hide herself, but the events of the past few days had made her distrust anyone she did not know.

He was tall, leanly muscular, bare-headed, his hair wind-twisted and reddish, his breathing rapid but unlabored. She could see his head move as his eyes followed the sentries atop the keep walls. He seemed to be counting them. His posture was tense, as if he were forcibly restraining himself from battering his body against the closed gates at the far end of the causeway. He looked frustrated, angry, and puzzled.

He stood still and quiet for a long time. Magda felt her calves begin to ache from squatting on them for so long, but she dared not move. At last he turned and walked back to his horse. His eyes scanned the edge of the gorge, back and forth, as he moved. He suddenly stopped and stared directly at the spot where Magda crouched. She held her breath as her heart began to pound in alarm.

“You there!” he called. “Come out!” His tone was commanding, his accent hinting at the Meglenitic dialect.

Magda made no move. How could he possibly see her through the dark and the brush?

“Come out or I’ll drag you out!”

Magda found a heavy stone near her right hand. Gripping it tightly, she rose quickly and stepped forward. She would take her chances in the open. Neither this man nor anyone else was going to drag her anywhere without a fight. She had been pushed around enough today.

“Why were you hiding in there?”

“Because I don’t know who you are.” Magda made her voice sound as defiant as she could.

“Fair enough.” He gave a curt nod as he spoke.

Magda could sense the tension coiled within him, yet felt it had nothing to do with her. That eased her mind a little.

He gestured toward the keep. “What’s going on in there? Who has the keep lit up like a cheap tourist attraction?”

“German soldiers.”

“I thought those helmets looked German. But why here?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure they know, either.”

She watched him stare at the keep a moment longer and heard him mutter something under his breath that sounded like “Fools!” But she was not sure. She sensed a remoteness about him, a feeling that he was not the least bit concerned with her, that the only thing he cared about was the keep. She relaxed her grip on the stone but did not drop it. Not yet.

“Why are you so interested?”

He looked at her, his features shadowed. “Just a tourist. I’ve been this way before and thought I’d stop by the keep on my way through the mountains.”

She knew immediately that was a lie. No sightseer rode at night through the Dinu Pass at the speed with which this man had arrived. Not unless he was mad.

Magda took a step backward and started walking toward the inn. She feared to stay in the dark with a man who told patent lies.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my room. It’s chilly out here.”

“I’ll escort you back.”

Uneasy, Magda quickened her pace. “I’ll find my own way, thank you.”

He did not seem to hear, or if he did he chose to ignore what she had said. He pulled his mount around and came up beside her, matching her stride and leading the horse behind him. Ahead the inn sat like a large two-story box. She could see dim light in her window from the candle she had left burning.

“You can put that rock down,” he said. “You won’t need it.”

Magda hid her startled reaction. Could this man see in the dark?

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

He had a sour smell, a mixture of man sweat and horse sweat which she found unpleasant. She further quickened her pace to leave him behind.

He did not bother to catch up.

Magda dropped the stone as she reached the front stoop and went inside. To her right the tiny dining area was dark and empty. To her left Iuliu was at the table he used as a front desk, preparing to blow out his candle.

“Better wait,” she told him as she hurried past. “I think you have another guest coming.”

His face lit up. “Tonight?”

“Immediately.”

Beaming, he opened the registration book and unstoppered the inkwell. The inn had been in Iuliu’s family for generations. Some said it had been built to house the masons who had constructed the keep. It was nothing more than a small two-story house, and not by any means an income-producing venture—the number of travelers who stopped at the inn during the course of a year was ludicrously low. But the first floor served as a home for the family and there was always someone about in the rare event that a traveler did appear. The major portion of Iuliu’s insubstantial income came from the commission he received for acting as bursar to the workers in the keep. The rest came from wool from the flock of sheep his son tended—those that had not been sacrificed to put a little meat on the family table and clothes on their backs.

Two of the inn’s three rooms rented at one time—a bonanza.

Magda ran lightly to the top of the stairs but did not immediately enter her room. She paused to listen to what the stranger would tell Iuliu. She wondered at her interest as she stood there. She had found the man unattractive in the extreme; in addition to his odor and grimy appearance, there was a trace of arrogance and condescension that she found equally offensive.

Why, then, was she eavesdropping? It was not like her.

She heard a heavy tread on the front stoop, and then on the floor as the man entered. His voice echoed up the stairwell.

“Ah, innkeeper! Good! You’re still up. Arrange for someone to rub down my horse and stall her for a few days. She’s my second mount of the day and I’ve ridden her hard. I want her well dried before she’s put away for the night. Hello? Are you listening?”

“Yes…yes, sir.” Iuliu’s voice sounded hoarse, strained, frightened.

“Can you do it?”

“Yes. I—I’ll have my nephew come over right away.”

“And a room for myself.”

“We have two left. Please sign.”

There was a pause. “You can give me the one directly overhead—the one on the north side.”

“Uh, pardon, sir, but ‘Glenn’ is not enough.” Iuliu’s voice trembled as he spoke.

“Do you have anyone else named Glenn staying here?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone else in the area named Glenn?”

“No, but—”

“Then Glenn alone will do.”

“Very well, sir. But I must tell you that the north room is occupied. You may have the east room.”

“Whoever it is, tell him to switch rooms. I’ll pay extra.”

“It’s not a him, sir. It’s a her, and I don’t think she’ll move.”

How very true, Iuliu, Magda thought.

“Tell her!” It was a command in a tone not to be denied.

As Magda heard Iuliu’s scurrying feet approach the stairs, she ducked into her room and waited. The stranger’s attitude infuriated her. And what had he done to frighten Iuliu so?

She opened her door at the first knock and stared at the portly innkeeper, his hands nervously clutching and twisting the fabric of his shirt front, his face pale and beaded with so much sweat that his mustache had begun to droop. He was terrified.

“Please, Domnisoara Cuza,” he blurted, “there’s a man downstairs who wants this room. Will you please let him have it? Please?”

He was whining. Pleading. Magda felt sorry for him, but she was not going to give up this room.

“Absolutely not!” She began to close the door but he put his hand out.

“But you must!”

“I will not, Iuliu. And that’s final!”

“Then would you…would you tell him. Please?”

“Why are you so afraid of him? Who is he?”

“I don’t know who he is. And I’m not really…” His voice trailed off. “Won’t you please tell him for me?”

Iuliu was literally quivering with fear. Magda’s first impulse was to let the innkeeper handle his own affairs, but then it occurred to her that she would derive a certain pleasure from telling the arrogant newcomer that she was keeping her room. For two days now she had been allowed no say in what had happened to her. Standing firm on this small matter would be a welcome change.

“Of course I’ll tell him.”

She squeezed past Iuliu and hurried down the steps. The man was waiting impassively in the foyer, casually and confidently leaning on the long, flat box she had previously seen strapped to his horse. This was the first time she had seen him in the light and she reconsidered her initial assessment. Yes, he was grimy, and she could smell him from the foot of the stairs, but his features were even, his nose long and straight, his cheekbones high. She noticed how truly red his hair was, like a dark flame; a bit wild and overlong, perhaps, but that, like his odor, could well be the natural result of a long, hard trip. His eyes held her for a moment, startling in their blueness, their clarity. The only jarring note in his appearance was the olive tone of his skin—out of place in the company of his hair and eyes.

“I thought it might be you.”

“I’m keeping my room.”

“I require it,” he said, straightening.

“It’s mine for now. You’re welcome to it when I leave.”

He took a step toward her. “It’s important that I have a northern exposure. I—”

“I have my own reasons for wanting to keep my eye on the keep,” Magda said, cutting him off from another lie, “just as I’m sure you have yours. But mine are of great personal importance. I will not leave.”

His eyes blazed suddenly, and for an instant Magda was afraid she had overstepped her bounds. Just as suddenly, he cooled and stepped back, a half smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

“You’re obviously not from around here.”

“Bucharest.”

“I thought as much.”

Magda caught a hint of something in his eyes, something akin to grudging respect. But that didn’t seem right. Why would he look at her that way when she was blocking him from what he wanted?

“You won’t reconsider?” he said.

“No.”

“Ah, well,” he sighed. “An eastern exposure it is, then. Innkeeper! Show me to my room!”

Iuliu came rushing down the stairs, nearly tripping in his haste. “Right away, sir. The room to the right at the top of the stairs is all ready for you. I’ll take this—”

He reached for the case but Glenn snatched it away.

“I can handle that very well by myself. But there’s a blanket roll on the back of my horse that I’ll be needing.” He started up the stairs. “And be sure to see to that horse! She’s a good and true beast.”

With a brief parting glance at Magda, a glance that stirred an unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation within her, he went up the steps two at a time.

“And draw me a bath immediately!”

“Yes, sir!” Iuliu leaned over to Magda and clasped both her hands in his. “Thank you!” he whispered, still frightened, but apparently less so.

He then rushed out to the horse.

Magda stood in the middle of the foyer for a moment, wondering at the evening’s strange chain of events. She had unanswered questions here at the inn but she couldn’t think about them now, not while more fearful questions needed answers at the keep.

The keep! She had forgotten about Papa!

She hurried up the stairs, passing the closed door to Glenn’s room on her way, then pushed into her own and rushed to the window. There in the watchtower, Papa’s light burned the same as before.

She sighed with relief and lay back on the bed. A bed…a real bed. Maybe everything would turn out all right tonight after all.

She frowned to herself. No, that tactic wasn’t going to work. Something was going to happen. She closed her eyes against the light of the guttering candle atop the dresser, its glow doubled by the mirror behind it. She was tired. If she could rest her eyes for just a minute, she’d be better…Think about good things, like Papa being allowed to go back to Bucharest with her, fleeing the Germans and that hideous manifestation…

The sound of movement out in the hall drew her thoughts away from the keep. It sounded like that man, Glenn, going down to the back room for a bath. At least he wouldn’t always smell the way he did tonight. But why should she care? He did seem concerned about the welfare of his horse, and that could be read as a sign of a compassionate man. Or just a practical one. Had he really said it was his second mount of the day? Could any man ride two horses into such a lather? She could not imagine why Iuliu seemed so terrified of the newcomer. He seemed to know Glenn, and yet had not known his name until he had signed it. It didn’t make sense.

Nothing made sense anymore…

Her thoughts drifted…

The sound of a door closing startled her awake. It was not her own. It must have been Glenn’s. A creak on the stair…Magda bolted upright and glanced at the candle—it had lost half its length since the last time she looked. She leaped to the window. The light was still on in her father’s room.

No sound from below, but she could make out the dim shape of a man moving along the path toward the causeway. His movements were catlike. Silent. She was sure it was Glenn. As Magda watched, he stepped into the brush to the right of the causeway and stood there, precisely where she had earlier. The mist that filled the gorge overflowed and lapped at his feet. Like a sentinel, he watched the keep.

Magda felt a stab of anger. What was he doing out there? That was her spot. He had no right to take it. She wished she had the courage to go out there and tell him to leave, but she did not. She did not fear him, actually, but he moved too quickly, too decisively. This Glenn was a dangerous man. But not to her, she felt. To others. To those Germans in the keep, perhaps. And didn’t that make him an ally of sorts? Still, she could not very well go unescorted to him in the dark and tell him to leave so she could keep her own vigil.

But she could observe him. She could set herself up behind him and see what he was up to while she kept her eye on Papa’s window. Maybe she’d learn why he was here. That was the question that nagged her as she padded down the stairs, through the darkened foyer, and out onto the road. She crept toward a large rock not too far behind him. He would never know she was there.

“Come to reclaim your vantage point?”

Magda jumped at the sound of his voice—he had not even looked around!

“How did you know I was here?”

“I’ve been listening to your approach ever since you left the inn. You’re really rather clumsy.”

There it was again—that smug self-assurance.

He turned and gestured to her. “Come up here and tell me why you think the Germans have the keep lit up like that in the wee hours. Don’t they ever sleep?”

She held back, then decided to accept his invitation. She would stand at the edge there, but not too close to him. As she neared, she noted he smelled worlds better.

“They’re afraid of the dark,” she said.

“Afraid of the dark.” His tone had gone flat. He did not seem surprised by her reply. “And just why is that?”

“A vampire, they think.”

In the dim light filtering across the gorge from the keep, Magda saw his eyebrows rise. “Oh? Is that what they’ve told you? Do you know someone in there?”

“I’ve been in there myself. And my father’s in there right now.” She pointed to the lowermost window in the watchtower. “That is his—the one that’s lit.” How she hoped he was all right.

“But why would anyone think there’s a vampire about?”

“Eight men dead, all German soldiers, all with their throats torn open.”

His mouth tightened into a grim line. “Still…a vampire?”

“There’s also a matter of two corpses supposedly walking about. A vampire seems to be the only thing that could explain all that’s happened in there. And after what I saw—”

“You saw him?” Glenn turned and leaned toward her, his eyes boring into hers, intent on her answer.

Magda retreated a step. “Yes.”

“What did he look like?”

“Why do you want to know?” He was frightening her now. His words pounded at her as he leaned closer.

“Tell me! Was he dark? Was he pale? Handsome? Ugly? What?”

“I—I’m not even sure I can remember exactly. All I know is that he looked insane and…and unholy, if that makes any sense to you.”

He straightened. “Yes. That says much. And I didn’t mean to upset you.” He paused briefly. “What about his eyes?”

Magda felt her throat tighten. “How did you know about his eyes?”

“I know nothing about his eyes,” he said quickly, “but it’s said they are the windows to the soul.”

“If that’s true,” she said, her voice lowering of its own volition to a whisper, “his soul is a bottomless pit.”

Neither of them spoke for a while, both watching the keep in silence. Magda wondered what Glenn was thinking. Finally, he spoke.

“One more thing: Do you know how it all began?”

“My father and I weren’t here, but we were told that the first man died when he and a friend broke through a cellar wall.”

She watched him grimace and close his eyes, as if in pain; and as she had seen hours earlier, his lips again formed the word “fools” without speaking it aloud.

He opened his eyes and suddenly pointed to the keep. “What’s happening in your father’s room?”

Magda looked and saw nothing at first. Then terror clutched her. The light was fading. Without thinking, she started toward the causeway. But Glenn grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.

“Don’t be foolish!” he whispered harshly in her ear. “The sentries will shoot you! And if by some chance they hold their fire, they’ll never let you in! There’s nothing you can do!”

Magda barely heard him. Frantically, wordlessly, she struggled against him. She had to get away—she had to get to Papa! But Glenn was strong and refused to release her. His fingers dug into her arms, and the more she struggled, the tighter he held her.

Finally, his words sank in: She could not get to Papa. There was nothing she could do.

In helpless, agonized silence, she watched the light in Papa’s room fade slowly, inexorably to black.

EIGHTEEN

THE KEEP
Thursday, 1 May
0217 hours

Theodor Cuza had waited patiently, eagerly, knowing without knowing how he knew that the thing he had seen last night would return to him. He had spoken to it in the old tongue. It would return. Tonight.

Nothing else was certain tonight. He might unlock secrets sought by scholars for ages, or he might never see the morning. He trembled as much with anticipation as with fear of the unknown.

Everything was ready. He sat at his table, the old books piled in a neat stack to his left, a small box full of traditional vampire banes within easy reach to his right, the ever-present cup of water directly before him. The only illumination was the cone of light from the hooded bulb overhead, the only sound his own breathing.

And suddenly he knew he was not alone.

Before he saw anything, he felt it—a malign presence, beyond his field of vision, beyond his capacity to describe it. It was simply there. Then the darkness began. Different this time. Last night it had pervaded the very air of the room, growing and spreading from everywhere. Tonight he watched it invade by a different route—slowly, insidiously seeping through the walls, blotting them from his view, closing in on him.

Cuza pressed his gloved palms against the tabletop to keep them from shaking. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, so loud, so hard he feared one of the chambers would rupture. The moment was here. This was it.

The walls were gone. Darkness surrounded him in an ebon dome that swallowed the glow from the overhead bulb—no light passed beyond the end of the table. It was cold, but not so cold as last night, and there was no wind.

“Where are you?” He spoke in Old Slavonic.

No reply. But in the darkness, beyond the point where light would not go, he sensed that something stood and waited, taking his measure.

“Show yourself—please!”

After a lengthy pause a thickly accented voice spoke from the dark.

“I can speak a more modern form of our language.” The words derived from a root version of the Daco-Romanian dialect spoken in this region at the time the keep was built.

The darkness on the far side of the little table began to recede. A shape took form out of the black. Cuza immediately recognized the face and the eyes from last night, and then the rest of the figure became visible. A giant of a man stood before him, at least six and a half feet tall, broad shouldered, standing proudly, defiantly, legs spread, hands on hips. A floor-length cloak, as black as his hair and eyes, was fastened about his neck with a clasp of jeweled gold. Beneath that Cuza could see a loose red blouse, possibly silk, loose black breeches that looked like jodhpurs, and high boots of rough brown leather.

It was all there—power, decadence, ruthlessness.

“How do you come to know the old tongue?” said the voice.

Cuza heard himself stammer. “I—I’ve studied it for years. Many years.”

He found his mind had gone numb, frozen. All the things he had wanted to say, the questions he had planned all afternoon to ask, all fled, all gone. Desperately, he verbalized the first thought that came into his head.

“I had almost expected you to be wearing evening clothes”

The thick eyebrows, growing so near to each other, touched as the visitor’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand ‘evening clothes.’”

Cuza gave himself a mental kick—amazing how a single novel, written half a century ago by an Englishman, could so alter one’s perceptions of what was an essentially Romanian myth. He leaned forward in his wheelchair.

“Who are you?”

“I am the Viscount Radu Molasar. This region of Wallachia was once mine.”

He was saying that he was a feudal lord of his time. “A boyar?”

“Yes. One of the few who stayed with Vlad—the one they called Tepes, the Impaler—until his end outside Bucharest.”

Even though he had expected such an answer, Cuza was still aghast. “That was in 1476! Almost five centuries ago! Are you that old?”

“I was there.”

“But where have you been since the fifteenth century?”

“Here.”

“But why?” Cuza’s fear was vaporizing as he spoke, replaced by an intense excitement that sent his mind racing. He wanted to know everything—now!

“I was being pursued.”

“By Turks?”

Molasar’s eyes narrowed, leaving only the endless black of his pupils showing. “No. By…others…madmen who would pursue me across the world to destroy me. I knew I could not outrun them forever”—he smiled here, revealing long, tapered, slightly yellowed teeth, none of them particularly sharp, but all strong-looking—“so I decided to outwait them. I built this keep, arranged for its maintenance, and hid myself away.”

“Are you…” A question arose that Cuza had been burning to ask from the start but had dared not; now he could contain himself no longer. “Are you of the undead?”

Again the smile, cold, almost mocking. “Undead? Nosferatu? Moroi? Perhaps.”

“But how did you—?”

Molasar slashed a hand through the air. “Enough! Enough of your bothersome questions! I care not for your idle curiosity. I care not for you but that you are a countryman of mine and there are invaders in the land. Why are you with them? Do you betray Wallachia?”

“No!” Cuza felt the fear that had been washed away in the excitement of contact creep back into him as he saw Molasar’s expression grow fierce. “They brought me here against my will!”

“Why?” The word was a jabbing knife.

“They thought I could find out what was killing the soldiers. And I guess I have…haven’t I?”

“Yes. You have.” Molasar underwent another mercurial shift of mood, smiling again. “I need them to restore my strength after my long repose. I will need them all before I am again at the peak of my powers.”

“But you mustn’t!” Cuza blurted without thinking.

Molasar flared again. “Never say to me what I must or must not do in my home! And never when invaders have taken it over! I saw to it that no Turk ever set foot in this pass while I was about, and now I am awakened to find my keep overrun with Germans!”

He was in a foaming rage, walking back and forth, swinging his fists wildly about to punctuate his words.

Cuza took the opportunity to lift the top off the box to his right and remove the fragment of broken mirror Magda had given him earlier in the day. As Molasar stormed about, lost in a rage, Cuza held up the mirror and tried to catch Molasar’s reflection in it. He could glance to his left and see Molasar by the stack of books on the corner of the table, but when he looked in the mirror he could see only the books.

Molasar cast no reflection!

Suddenly, the mirror was snatched from Cuza’s hand.

“Still curious?” He held up the mirror and looked into it. “Yes. The tales are true—I cast no reflection. Long ago I did.” His eyes clouded for an instant. “But no more. What else have you in that box?”

“Garlic.” Cuza reached under the cover and pulled out a clove. “It is said to ward away the undead.”

Molasar held out his palm. Black curly hair grew at its center.

“Give it to me.” When Cuza complied, Molasar put the clove up to his mouth and took a bite, then tossed the rest into a corner. “I love garlic.”

“And silver?” He pulled out a silver locket that Magda had left him.

Molasar did not hesitate to take it and rub it between his palms. “I could not very well have been a boyar if I had feared silver!” He seemed to be enjoying himself now.

“And this,” Cuza said, reaching for the last item in the box, “is supposed to be the most potent of vampire banes.” He pulled out the cross Captain Woermann had lent Magda.

With a sound that was part gasp and part growl, Molasar stepped away and averted his eyes. “Put it away!”

“It affects you?” Cuza was stunned. A heaviness grew in his chest as he watched Molasar cringe. “But why should it? How—?”

“PUT IT AWAY!”

Cuza did so immediately, bulging the sides of the cardboard box as he pressed the lid down as tightly as he could over the offending object.

Molasar all but leaped upon him, baring his teeth and hissing his words through them. “I thought I might find an ally in you against the outlanders, but I see you are no different!”

“I want to see them gone, too!” Cuza said, terrified, pressing himself back into the meager cushioning of his wheelchair. “More than you!”

“If that were true, you would never have brought that abomination into this room! And you would never have exposed it to me!”

“But I didn’t know! It could have been another false folktale like the garlic and the silver!” He had to convince him!

Molasar paused. “Perhaps.” He whirled and stalked toward the darkness, his anger cooled, but minimally. “But I have doubts about you, Crippled One.”

“Don’t go! Please!”

Molasar stepped into the waiting dark and turned toward Cuza as it enveloped him. He said nothing.

“I’m on your side, Molasar!” Cuza cried. He couldn’t leave now—not when there were so many unanswered questions! “Please believe me!”

Only pinpoint glints of light off the surfaces of Molasar’s eyes remained. The rest of him had been swallowed up. Suddenly, a hand jabbed out of the blackness, pointing a finger at Cuza.

“I will watch you, Crippled One. And if I see you are to be trusted, I will speak with you another time. But if you betray our people, I shall end your days.”

The hand disappeared. Then the eyes. But the words remained, hanging in the air. The darkness gradually receded, seeping back into the walls. Soon all was as it had been. The partially eaten clove of garlic on the floor in the corner was the only evidence of Molasar’s visit.

For a long while, Cuza did not move. Then he noticed how thick his tongue was in his mouth, and drier than usual. He picked up the cup of water and sipped; a mechanical exercise requiring no conscious thought. He swallowed with the usual difficulty, then reached for the box to his right. His hand rested on the lid awhile before lifting it. His numbed mind balked at facing what was within, but he knew he eventually must. Compressing his strictured mouth into a short, grim line, he lifted the lid, removed the cross, and laid it before him on the tabletop.

Such a little thing. Silver. Some ornate work at the ends of the upright and the crosspiece. No corpse affixed to it. Just a cross. If nothing else, a symbol of man’s inhumanity to man.

From the millennia-old traditions and learning of his own faith that was so much a part of his daily life and culture, Cuza had always looked upon the wearing of crosses as a rather barbaric custom, a sure sign of immaturity in a religion. But then, Christianity was a relatively young offshoot of Judaism. It needed time. What had Molasar called the cross? An “abomination.” No, it was not that; at least not to Cuza. Grotesque, yes, but never an abomination.

But now it took on new meaning, as did so many other things. The walls seemed to press in on him as he stared at the little cross, allowing it to become the focus of his attention. Crosses were so like the banes used by primitives to ward off evil spirits. Eastern Europeans, especially the Gypsies, had countless banes, from garlic to icons. He had lumped the cross in with the rest, seeing no reason why it should deserve more consideration.

Yet Molasar had been repulsed by the cross…could not even bear to look at it. Tradition gave it power over demons and vampires because it was supposedly the symbol of the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Cuza had always told himself that if the undead did exist and the cross did have power over them, it was because of the innate faith of the person holding the object, not the object itself.

Yet he had just proved himself wrong.

Molasar was evil. That was given: Any entity that leaves a trail of corpses in order to continue its own existence is inherently evil. And when Cuza had held up the cross, Molasar had shrunk away. Cuza had no belief in the power of the cross, yet it had power over Molasar.

So it must be the cross itself that had the power, not its bearer.

His hands shook. He felt dizzy and lightheaded as his mind ran over all the implications. They were shattering.

NINETEEN

THE KEEP
Thursday, 1 May
0640 hours

Two nights in a row without a death. Woermann found his mood edging into a sort of cautious jubilance as he buckled on his belt. He had actually slept last night, soundly and long, and was so much the better for it this morning.

The keep was no brighter or cheerier. That indefinable sense of malignant presence still lurked in the shadows. No, it was he who had changed. For some reason he now felt there might be a real chance of his getting back to his home in Rathenow alive. For a while he had seriously come to doubt the possibility. But with the hearty breakfast he had eaten in his room perking through his intestines, and the knowledge that the men under his command numbered the same this morning as they had last night, all things seemed possible—perhaps even the departure of Erich Kaempffer and his uniformed hoodlums.

Even the painting failed to bother him this morning. The shadow to the left of the window still looked like a gibbeted corpse, but it no longer disturbed him as it had when Kaempffer had first pointed it out.

He descended the watchtower stairs and reached the first level in time to find Kaempffer approaching the professor’s rooms from the courtyard, looking more supremely confident than usual, and with as little reason as ever.

“Good morning, dear Major!” Woermann called heartily, feeling he could forgo any overt venting of spleen this morning, considering the imminence of Kaempffer’s departure. But a veiled jab was always in order. “I see we have the same idea: You’ve come to express your deepest thanks to Professor Cuza for the German lives he has saved again!”

“There’s no evidence of his having done a damned thing!” Kaempffer said, his jauntiness disappearing in a snarl. “Even he makes no claim!”

“But the timing of the end of the murders with his arrival is rather suggestive of some cause-effect relationship, don’t you think?”

“Coincidence! Nothing more!”

“Then why are you here?”

Kaempffer faltered for an instant. “To interrogate the Jew about what he has learned from the books, of course.”

“Of course.”

They entered the outer room, Kaempffer first. They found Cuza kneeling on the floor on his spread-out bedroll. He was not praying. He was trying to hoist himself back into the wheelchair. After the briefest glance in their direction as they walked in, he returned his full concentration to the task.

Woermann’s initial impulse was to help the man. Cuza’s hands appeared useless for gripping and his muscles seemed too weak to pull him up even if the hands had been normal. But he had asked for no aid, either with his eyes or with his voice. It was obviously a matter of pride for him to pull himself up into the chair unassisted. Woermann realized that beyond his daughter, the crippled man had little left in which to take any pride. He would not rob him of this small accomplishment.

Cuza seemed to know what he was doing. As Woermann watched from Kaempffer’s side—he was sure the major was enjoying the spectacle—he could see that Cuza had braced the back of the wheelchair against the wall beside the fireplace, could see the pain on his face as he strained his weakened muscles to pull himself up, forcing his frozen joints to bend. Finally, with a groan that broke out beads of perspiration on his face, Cuza slid up onto the seat and slumped on his side, hanging over the armrest, panting and sweating. He still had to slide up a little farther and turn over fully onto his buttocks before he was completely in the chair, but the worst part was over.

“What do you want of me?” he said when he had caught his breath.

Gone was that staid, overly polite manner that had typified his behavior since his arrival in the keep; gone, too, was the constant referral to them as “gentlemen.” At the moment there appeared to be too much pain, too much exhaustion to cope with to allow him the luxury of sarcasm.

“What did you learn last night, Jew?” Kaempffer said.

Cuza heaved himself over onto his buttocks and leaned wearily against the back of the chair. He closed his eyes a moment, then reopened them, squinting at Kaempffer. He appeared to be almost blind without his glasses.

“Not much more. But there is evidence that the keep was built by a fifteenth-century boyar who was a contemporary of Vlad Tepes.”

“Is that all? Two days of study and that is all?”

“One day, Major,” the professor said, and Woermann sensed some of the old spark edging into the reply. “One day and two nights. That’s not a long time when the reference materials are not in one’s native tongue.”

“I did not ask for excuses, Jew! I want results!”

“And have you got them?” The answer seemed important to Cuza.

Kaempffer straightened his shoulders and pulled himself up to his full height as he replied. “There have been two consecutive nights without a death, but I don’t believe you have had anything to do with that.” He rotated the upper half of his body and gave Woermann a haughty look. “It seems I have accomplished my mission here. But just for good measure, I’ll stay one more night before continuing on my way.”

“Ah! Another night of your company!” Woermann said, feeling his spirits soar. “Our cup runneth over!” He could put up with anything for one more night—even Kaempffer.

“I see no need for you to remain here even that long, Herr Major,” Cuza said, visibly brightening. “I’m sure other countries have much greater need of your services.”

Kaempffer’s upper lip curled into a smile. “I shan’t be leaving your beloved country, Jew. I go to Ploiesti from here.”

“Ploiesti? Why Ploiesti?”

“You’ll learn soon enough.” He turned to Woermann. “I shall be ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I shall personally hold the gate open for you.”

Kaempffer shot him an angry look, then strode from the room. Woermann watched him go. He sensed that nothing had been solved, that the killings had stopped of their own accord, and that they could begin again tonight, tomorrow night, or the next. It was only a brief hiatus they were enjoying, a moratorium; they had learned nothing, accomplished nothing. But he had not voiced his doubts to Kaempffer. He wanted the major out of the keep as much as the major wanted to be out.

“What did he mean about Ploiesti?” Cuza asked from behind him.

“You don’t want to know.” He looked from Cuza’s ravaged, troubled face to the table. The silver cross his daughter had borrowed yesterday lay there next to the professor’s spectacles.

“Please tell me, Captain. Why is that man going to Ploiesti?”

Woermann ignored the question. The professor had enough problems. Telling him that the Romanian equivalent of Auschwitz was in the offing would do him no good.

“You may visit your daughter today if you wish. But you must go to her. She cannot come in.”

He reached over and picked up the cross. “Did you find this useful in any way?”

Cuza glanced at the silver object for only an instant, then looked sharply away. “No. Not at all.”

“Shall I take it back?”

“What? No-no! It still might come in handy. Leave it right there.”

The sudden intensity in Cuza’s voice struck Woermann. The man seemed subtly changed since yesterday, less sure of himself. Woermann could not put his finger on it, but it was there.

He tossed the cross onto the table and turned away. He had too many other things on his mind to worry about what was troubling the professor. If indeed Kaempffer was leaving, Woermann would have to decide what his next move would be. To stay or to go? One thing was certain: He now would have to arrange for shipment of the corpses back to Germany. They had waited long enough. At least with Kaempffer out of his hair he would be able to think straight again.

Preoccupied with his own concerns, he left the professor without saying good-bye. As he closed the door behind him, he noticed that Cuza had rolled his chair up to the table and fixed his spectacles over his eyes. He sat there holding the cross in his hand, staring at it.

At least he was alive.

Magda waited impatiently while one of the gate sentries went to get Papa. They had already kept her waiting a good hour before they opened the gates. She had rushed over at first light but they had ignored her pounding. A sleepless night had left her irritable and exhausted. But at least he was alive.

Her eyes roamed the courtyard. All quiet. Piles of rubble from the dismantling work cluttered the rear, but no one was working now. All at breakfast, no doubt. What was taking so long? They should have let her go get him herself.

Against her will, her thoughts drifted. She thought of Glenn. He had saved her life last night. If he hadn’t held her back when he had, she would have been shot to death by the German sentries. Lucky that he had been strong enough to hold her until she came to her senses. She kept remembering the feel of him as he had pressed her against him. No man had ever done that—had ever been close enough to do that. The memory of it was good. It had stirred something in her that refused to return to its former quiescent state.

She tried to concentrate on the keep and on Papa, forcing her thoughts away from Glenn…

…Yet he had been kind to her, soothing her, convincing her to go back to her room and keep her vigil at the window. She could do nothing at the edge of the gorge. She had felt so utterly helpless, and he had understood. And when he had left her at her door, there had been a look in his eyes: sad, and something else. Guilt? But why should he feel guilty?

She noticed a movement within the entrance to the tower and stepped across the threshold. All the light and warmth of the morning drained away from her as she did—like stepping out of a warm house into a blustery winter night. She backed up immediately and felt the chill recede as soon as her feet were back on the causeway. There seemed to be a different set of rules at work within the keep. The soldiers didn’t appear to notice; but she’d spent the night outside. She could tell.

Papa and his wheelchair appeared, propelled from behind by a reluctant sentry who seemed embarrassed by the task. As soon as she saw her father’s face, Magda knew something was wrong. Something dreadful had happened last night. She wanted to run forward but knew they would not let her. The soldier pushed the wheelchair to the threshold and then let go, allowing it to roll to Magda unattended. Without letting it come to a complete halt, she swung around behind and pushed her father onto the causeway. When they were halfway across and he had yet to speak to her, even to say good morning, she felt she had to break the silence.

“What’s wrong, Papa?”

“Nothing and everything.”

“Did he come last night?”

“Wait until we’re over by the inn and I’ll tell you everything. We’re too close here. Someone might overhear.”

Anxious to learn what had disturbed him so, she hurriedly wheeled him around to the back of the inn where the morning sun shone brightly on the awakening grass and reflected off the white stucco of the building’s wall.

Setting the chair facing north so the sun would warm him without shining in his eyes, she knelt and gripped both his gloved hands with her own. He didn’t look well at all; worse than usual; and that caused her a deep pang of concern. He should be home in Bucharest. The strain here was too much for him.

“What happened, Papa? Tell me everything. He came again, didn’t he?”

His voice was cold when he spoke, his eyes on the keep, not on her: “It’s warm here. Not just warm for flesh and bone, but warm for the soul. A soul could wither away over there if it stayed too long.”

“Papa—”

“His name is Molasar. He claims he was a boyar loyal to Vlad Tepes.”

Magda gasped. “That would make him five hundred years old!”

“He’s older, I’m sure, but he would not let me ask all my questions. He has his own interests, and primary among them is ridding the keep of all trespassers.”

“That includes you.”

“Not necessarily. He seems to think of me as a fellow Romanian—a ‘Wallachian,’ as he would say—and doesn’t appear to be particularly bothered by my presence. It’s the Germans—the thought of them in his keep has driven him almost insane with rage. You should have seen his face when he talked about them.”

“His keep?”

“Yes. He built it to protect himself after Vlad was killed.”

Hesitantly, Magda asked the all-important question: “Is he a vampire?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Papa said, looking at her and nodding. “At least he is whatever the word ‘vampire’ is going to mean from now on. I doubt very much that many of the old traditions will hold true. We are going to have to redefine the word—no longer in terms of folklore, but in terms of Molasar.” He closed his eyes. “So many things will have to be redefined.”

With an effort, Magda pushed aside the primordial revulsion that welled up in her at the thought of vampires and tried to step back and analyze the situation objectively, allowing the long-trained, long-disciplined scholar within her to take over.

“A boyar under Vlad Tepes, was he? We should be able to trace that name.”

Papa was staring at the keep again. “We may, and we may not. There were hundreds of boyars associated with Vlad throughout his three reigns, some friendly to him, some hostile…He impaled most of the hostile ones. You know what a chaotic, fragmented mess the records from that period are: If the Turks weren’t invading Wallachia, someone else was. And even if we did find evidence of a Molasar who was a contemporary of Vlad’s, what would it prove?”

“Nothing, I guess.” She began filtering through her vast learning on the history of this region. A boyar, loyal to Vlad Tepes…

Magda had always thought of Vlad as a bloodred blot on Romanian history. As son of Vlad Dracul, the Dragon, Prince Vlad was known as Vlad Dracula—Son of the Dragon. But he earned the name Vlad Tepes, which meant Vlad the Impaler, after his favorite method of disposing of prisoners of war, disloyal subjects, treacherous boyars, and virtually anyone else who displeased him. She remembered drawings she had seen depicting Vlad’s St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre at Amlas when thirty thousand citizens of that unfortunate city were impaled on long wooden poles which were then thrust into the ground; the sufferers were left pierced through and suspended in the air until they died. Occasionally he had a strategic purpose for impaling: In 1460 the sight of twenty thousand impaled corpses of Turkish prisoners rotting in the sun outside Targoviste so horrified an invading army of Turks that they turned back and left Vlad’s kingdom alone for a while.

“Imagine,” she mused, “being loyal to Vlad Tepes.”

“Don’t forget that the world was very different then,” Papa said. “Vlad was a product of his times; Molasar is a product of those same times. Vlad is still considered a national hero in these parts—he was Wallachia’s scourge, but he was also its champion against the Turks.”

“I’m sure this Molasar found nothing offensive in Vlad’s behavior.” Her stomach turned at the thought of all those men, women, and children impaled and left to die, so slowly. “He probably found it entertaining.”

“Who is to say? But you can see why one of the undead would gravitate to someone like Vlad: never a shortage of victims. He could slake his thirst on the dying and no one would ever guess that the victims had passed on from anything other than impalement. With no unexplained deaths around to raise questions, he could feast with no one suspecting his true nature.”

“That does not make him any less a monster,” she whispered.

“How can you judge him, Magda? One should be judged by one’s peers. Who is Molasar’s peer? Don’t you realize what his existence means? Don’t you see how many things it changes? How many cherished concepts assumed to be facts are going to wind up as so much garbage?”

Magda nodded slowly, the enormity of what they had found pressing on her with new weight. “Yes. A form of immortality.”

“More than that! Much more! It’s like a new form of life, a new mode of existence! No—that’s not right. An old mode—but new as far as historical and scientific knowledge is concerned. And beyond the rational, look at the spiritual implications.” His voice faltered. “They’re…devastating.”

“But how can it be true? How?” Her mind still balked.

“I don’t know. There’s so much to learn and I had so little time with him. He feeds on the blood of the living—that seems self-evident from what I saw of the remains of the soldiers. They had all been exsanguinated through the neck. Last night I learned that he does not reflect in a mirror—that part of traditional vampire lore is true. But the fear of garlic and silver, those parts are false. He appears to be a creature of the night—he has struck only at night, and appeared only at night. However, I doubt very much that he spends the daylight hours asleep in anything so melodramatic as a coffin.”

“A vampire,” Magda said softly, breathily. “Sitting here with the sun overhead it seems so ludicrous, so—”

“Was it ludicrous two nights ago when he sucked the light from our room? Was his grip on your arm ludicrous?”

Magda rose to her feet, rubbing the spot above her right elbow, wondering if the marks were still there. She turned away from her father and pulled the sleeve up. Yes…still there…an oblong patch of gray-white, dead-looking skin. As she began to pull the sleeve back down, she noticed the mark begin to fade—the skin was returning to a pink healthy color under the direct light of the sun. As she watched, the mark disappeared completely.

Feeling suddenly weak, Magda staggered and had to clutch at the back of the wheelchair to steady herself. Struggling to maintain a neutral expression, she turned back to Papa.

She needn’t have bothered—he was again staring at the keep, unaware that she had turned away.

“He’s somewhere in there now,” he was saying, “waiting for tonight. I must speak to him again.”

“Is he really a vampire, Papa? Could he really have been a boyar five hundred years ago? How do we know this isn’t all a trick? Can he prove anything?”

“Prove?” he said, anger tingeing his voice. “Why should he prove anything? What does he care what you or I believe? He has his own concerns. And he thinks I may be of use to him. ‘An ally against the outlanders,’ he said.”

“You mustn’t let him use you!”

“And why not? If he has need of an ally against the Germans who have invaded his keep, I just might go along with him—although I can’t see what use I’d be. That’s why I’ve told the Germans nothing.”

Magda sensed that the Germans might not be the only ones; he was holding back from her as well. And that wasn’t like him.

“Papa, you can’t be serious!”

“We share a common enemy, Molasar and I, do we not?”

“For now, perhaps. But what about later?”

He ignored her question. “And don’t forget that he can be of great use to me in my work. I must learn all about him. I must talk to him again. I must!” His gaze drifted back to the keep. “So much is changed now…have to rethink so many things…”

Magda tried but could not comprehend his mood.

“What’s bothering you, Papa? For years you’ve said you thought there might be something to the vampire myth. You risked ridicule. Now that you’re vindicated, you seem upset. You should be elated.”

“Don’t you understand anything? That was an intellectual exercise. It pleased me to play with the idea, to use it for self-stimulation and to stir up all those rockbound minds in the history department!”

“It was more than that and don’t deny it.”

“All right…but I never dreamed such a creature still existed. And I never thought I would actually meet him face-to-face!” His voice sank to a whisper. “And I in no way considered the possibility that he might really fear…”

Magda waited for him to finish, but he did not. He had turned inward, his right hand absently reaching into the breast pocket of his coat.

“Fear what, Papa? What does he fear?”

But he was rambling. His eyes had strayed again to the keep while his hand fumbled in his pocket. “He is patently evil, Magda. A parasite with supranormal powers feeding on human blood. Evil in the flesh. Evil made tangible. So if that is so, where then does good reside?”

“What are you talking about?” His disjointed thoughts were frightening her. “You’re not making sense!”

He pulled his hand from his pocket and thrust something toward her face. “This! This is what I’m talking about!”

It was the silver cross she had borrowed from the captain. What did Papa mean? Why did he look that way, with his eyes so bright? “I don’t understand.”

“Molasar is terrified of it!”

What was wrong with Papa?

“So? By tradition a vampire is supposed to—”

“By tradition! This is no tradition! This is real! And it terrified him! It nearly drove him from the room! A cross!”

Suddenly, Magda knew what had been so sorely troubling Papa all morning.

“Ah! Now you see, don’t you,” he said, nodding and smiling a small sad smile.

Poor Papa! To have spent all night with all that uncertainty. Magda’s mind recoiled, refusing to accept the meaning of what she had been told.

“But you can’t really mean—”

“We can’t hide from a fact, Magda.” He held up the cross, watching the light glint off its worn, shiny surface. “It is part of our belief, our tradition, that Christ was not the Messiah. That the Messiah is yet to come. That Christ was merely a man and that his followers were generally goodhearted people but misguided. If that is true…” He seemed to be hypnotized by the cross. “If that is true…if Christ were just a man…why should a cross, the instrument of his death, so terrify a vampire? Why?”

“Papa, you’re leaping to conclusions. There has to be more to this!”

“I’m sure there is. But think: It’s been with us all along, in all the folktales, the novels, and the moving pictures derived from those folktales. Yet who of us has ever given it a second thought? The vampire fears the cross. Why? Because it’s the symbol of human salvation. You see what that implies? It never even occurred to me until last night.”

Can it be? she asked herself as he paused. Can it really be?

Papa spoke again, his voice dull and mechanical. “If a creature such as Molasar finds the symbol of Christianity so repulsive, the logical conclusion is that Christ must have been more than a man. If that is true, then our people, our traditions, our beliefs for two thousand years, have all been misguided. The Messiah did come and we failed to recognize him!”

“You can’t say that! I refuse to believe it! There has to be another answer!”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see the loathing on his face when I pulled out the cross. You didn’t see how he shrank away in terror and cowered until I returned it to the box. It has power over him!”

It had to be true. It went against the most basic tenets of Magda’s learning. But if Papa had said it, seen it, then it must be true. She yearned for something to say, something soothing, reassuring. But all that came out was a sad, simple, “Papa.”

He smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry, child. I’m not about to throw away my Torah and seek out a monastery. My faith goes deep. But this does give one pause, doesn’t it? It does raise the question that we could be wrong…We all could have missed a boat that sailed twenty centuries ago.”

He was trying to make light of it for her sake, but Magda knew he was being flayed alive in his mind.

She sank to the grass to think. And as she moved, she caught a flash of motion at the open window above. A glimpse of rust-colored hair. She clenched her fists as she realized that the window opened into Glenn’s room. He must have heard everything.

Magda kept watch for the next few minutes, hoping to catch him eavesdropping, but saw nothing. She was about to give up when a voice startled her.

“Good morning!”

Glenn was rounding the southern corner of the inn with a small wooden ladderback chair in each hand.

“Who’s there?” Papa asked, unable to twist around in his seat to see behind him.

“Someone I met yesterday. His name is Glenn. He has the room across the hall from me.”

Glenn nodded cheerily to Magda as he walked around her and stood before Papa, towering over him like a giant. He wore woolen pants, climbing boots, and a loose-fitting shirt open at the neck. He set the two chairs down and thrust his hand toward her father.

“And good morning to you, sir. I’ve already met your daughter.”

“Theodor Cuza,” Papa replied hesitantly, with poorly veiled suspicion.

He placed his gloved hand, stiff and gnarled, inside Glenn’s. There followed a parody of a handshake, then Glenn indicated one of the chairs to Magda.

“Try this. The ground’s still too damp to sit on.”

Magda rose. “I’ll stand, thank you,” she said with all the haughtiness she could manage. She resented his eavesdropping, and she resented his intrusion into their company even more.

“My father and I were just leaving anyway.”

As Magda moved toward the back of the wheelchair, Glenn laid a gentle hand on her arm.

“Please don’t go yet. I awoke to the sound of two voices drifting through my window, discussing the keep and something about a vampire. Let’s talk about it, shall we?” He smiled.

Magda found herself speechless, furious with the boldness of his intrusion and the casual presumption of his touching her. Yet she did not snatch her arm away. His touch made her tingle. It felt good.

Papa, however, had nothing to hold him back: “You must not mention one word of what you just heard to anyone! It could mean our lives!”

“Don’t give yourself a moment’s worry over that,” Glenn said, his smile fading. “The Germans and I have nothing to say to each other.” He looked back to Magda. “Won’t you sit? I brought the chair for you.”

She looked at her father. “Papa?”

He nodded resignedly. “I don’t think we have too much choice.”

Glenn’s hand slipped away as Magda moved to seat herself, and she felt a small, unaccountable void within her. She watched him swing the other chair around and seat himself on it backwards, straddling the ladderback and resting his elbows on the top rung.

“Magda told me last night about the vampire in the keep,” he said, “but I’m not sure I caught the name he gave you.”

“Molasar,” Papa said.

“Molasar,” Glenn said slowly, rolling the name over on his tongue, his expression puzzled. “Mo…la…sar.” Then he brightened, as if he had solved a puzzle. “Yes—Molasar. An odd name, don’t you think?”

“Unfamiliar,” Papa said, “but not so odd.”

“And that,” Glenn, said, gesturing to the cross still clutched in the twisted fingers. “Did I overhear you say that Molasar feared it?”

“Yes.”

Magda noted that Papa was volunteering no information.

“You’re a Jew, aren’t you, Professor?”

A nod.

“Is it customary for Jews to carry crosses around?”

“My daughter borrowed it for me—a tool in an experiment.”

Glenn turned to her. “Where did you get it?”

“From one of the officers at the keep.” Where was all this leading?

“It was his own?”

“No. He said it came from one of the dead soldiers.” She began to grasp the thread of deduction he seemed to be following.

“Strange,” Glenn said, returning his attention to Papa, “that this cross did not save the soldier who first possessed it. One would think that a creature who feared the cross would pass up such a victim and search for another, one carrying no protective—what shall we call it?—charm.”

“Perhaps the cross was stuffed inside his shirt,” Papa said. “Or in his pocket. Or even back in his room.”

Glenn smiled. “Perhaps. Perhaps.”

“We didn’t think of that, Papa,” Magda said, eager to reinforce any idea that might bolster his sagging spirits.

“Question everything,” Glenn said. “Always question everything. I should not have to remind a scholar of that.”

“How do you know I’m a scholar?” Papa snapped, a spark of the old fire in his eyes. “Unless my daughter told you.”

“Iuliu told me. But there’s something else you’ve overlooked, and it’s so obvious you’re both going to feel foolish when I tell you.”

“Make us feel foolish, then,” Magda told him. Please!

“All right: Why would a vampire so afraid of the cross dwell in a structure whose walls are studded with them? Can you explain that?”

Magda stared at her father and found him staring back at her.

“You know,” Papa said, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve been in the keep so often, and I’ve puzzled over it for so long, I no longer even see the crosses!”

“That’s understandable. I’ve been through there a few times myself, and after a while they do seem to blend in. But the question remains: Why does a being who finds the cross repulsive surround himself with countless crosses?” He rose and easily swung the chair onto his shoulder. “And now I think I’ll go get some breakfast from Lidia and leave you two to figure out an answer. If there is one.”

“But what’s your interest in this?” Papa asked. “Why are you here?”

“Just a traveler,” Glenn said. “I like this area and visit regularly.”

“You seem to be more than a little interested in the keep. And quite knowledgeable about it.”

Glenn shrugged. “I’m sure you know far more than I do.”

“I wish I knew how to keep my father from going back over there tonight,” Magda said.

“I must go back, my dear. I must face Molasar again.”

Magda rubbed her hands together. They had gone cold at the thought of Papa’s returning to the keep. “I just don’t want them to find you with your throat torn open like the others.”

“There are worse things that can happen to a man,” Glenn said.

Struck by the change in his tone, Magda looked up and found all the sunniness and light gone from his face. He was staring at Papa. The tableau held for only a few seconds, then he smiled again.

“Breakfast awaits. I’m sure I’ll see you again during our respective stays. But one more thing before I go.”

He stepped around to the rear of the wheelchair and turned it in a 180-degree arc with his free hand.

“What are you doing?” Papa cried.

Magda leaped to her feet.

“Just offering you a change of scenery, Professor. The keep is, after all, such a gloomy place. This is much too beautiful a day to dwell on it.”

He pointed to the floor of the pass. “Look south and east instead of north. For all its severity, this is a most beautiful part of the world. See how the grass is greening up, how the wild flowers are starting to bloom in the crags. Forget the keep for a while.”

For a moment he caught and held Magda’s eyes with his own, then he was gone, turning the corner, the chair balanced on his shoulder.

“A strange sort, that one,” she heard Papa say, a touch of a laugh in his voice.

“Yes. He most certainly is.”

But though she found Glenn strange, Magda felt she owed him a debt of gratitude. For reasons known only to him, he had intruded on their conversation and made it his own, lifting Papa’s spirits from their lowest ebb, taking Papa’s most painful doubts and casting doubt in turn upon them. He had handled it deftly and with telling effect. But why? What did he care about the inner torment of a crippled old Jew from Bucharest?

“He does raise some good points, though,” Papa went on. “Some excellent points. How could they not have occurred to me?”

“Nor to me?”

“Of course,” his tone was softly defensive, “he’s not fresh from a personal encounter with a creature considered until now a mere figment of a gruesome imagination. It’s easy for him to be more objective. By the way, how did you meet him?”

“Last night, when I was out by the edge of the gorge keeping watch on your window—”

“You shouldn’t fret over me so! You forget that I helped raise you, not the other way around.”

Magda ignored the interruption. “He rode up on horseback, looking like he intended to charge right into the keep. But when he saw the lights and the Germans, he stopped.”

Papa seemed to consider this briefly, then switched topics. “Speaking of Germans, I’d better be getting back before they come looking for me. I’d prefer to re-enter the keep on my own rather than at gunpoint.”

“Isn’t there a way we could—”

“Escape? Of course! You’ll just wheel me down the ledge road, all the way to Campina! Or perhaps you could help me onto the back of a horse—that would certainly shorten the trip!” His tone grew more acid as he spoke. “Or best of all, why don’t we go and ask that SS major for a loan of one of his lorries—just for an afternoon drive, we’ll tell him! I’m sure he’ll agree.”

“There’s no need to speak to me that way,” she said, stung by his sarcasm.

“And there’s no need for you to torture yourself with any hope of escape for the two of us! Those Germans aren’t fools. They know I can’t escape, and they don’t think you’ll leave without me. Although I want you to. At least then one of us would be safe.”

“Even if you could get away, you’d return to the keep! Isn’t that right, Papa?” Magda said. She was beginning to understand his attitude. “You want to go back there.”

He would not meet her eyes. “We are trapped here, and I feel I must use the opportunity of a lifetime. I would be a traitor to my whole life’s work if I let it slip away.”

“Even if a plane landed in the pass right now and the pilot offered to fly us to freedom, you wouldn’t go, would you!”

“I must see him again, Magda! I must ask him about all those crosses on the walls! How he came to be what he is! And most of all, I must learn why he fears the cross. If I don’t, I—I’ll go mad!”

Neither spoke for the next few moments. Long moments. But Magda sensed more than silence between them. A widening gap. She felt Papa drawing away, drawing into himself, shutting her out. That had never happened before. They had always been able to discuss things. Now he seemed to want no discussion. He wanted only to get back to Molasar.

“Take me back,” was all he said as the silence went on and on, becoming unbearable.

“Stay a little longer. You’ve been in the keep too much. I think it’s affecting you.”

“I’m perfectly fine, Magda. And I’ll decide when I’ve been in the keep too long. Now, are you going to wheel me back or do I have to sit here and wait until the Nazis come and get me?”

Biting her lip in anger and dismay, Magda moved behind the chair and turned it toward the keep.

TWENTY

He seated himself a few feet back from the window where he could hear the rest of the conversation below yet remain out of sight should Magda chance to look up again. He had been careless earlier. In his eagerness to hear, he had leaned on the sill. Magda’s unexpected upward glance had caught him. At that point he had decided that a frontal assault was in order and had gone downstairs to join them.

Now all talk seemed to have died. As he heard the creaky wheels of the professor’s chair start to turn, he leaned forward and watched the pair move off, Magda pushing from behind, appearing calm despite the turmoil he knew to be raging within her. He poked his head out the window for one last look as she rounded the corner and passed from view.

On impulse, he dashed to his door and stepped out into the empty hall; three long strides took him diagonally across to Magda’s room. Her door opened at his touch and he went directly to the window. She was on the path to the causeway, pushing her father ahead of her.

He enjoyed watching her.

She had interested him from their first meeting on the gorge rim when she had faced him with such outward calm, yet all the while clutching a heavy stone in her hand. And later, when she had stood up to him in the foyer of the inn, refusing to give up her room, and he was seeing her then for the first time in the light with her eyes flashing, he had known that some of his defenses were softening. Deep-brown doe eyes, high-colored cheeks…he liked the way she looked, and she was lovely when she smiled. She had done that only once in his presence, crinkling her eyes at the corners and revealing white, even teeth. And her hair…the little wisps he had seen of it were a glossy brown…she would be striking with her hair down instead of hidden away.

But the attraction was more than physical. She was made of good stuff, that Magda. He watched her take her father to the gate and give him over to the guard there. The gate closed and she was left alone on the far end of the causeway. As she turned and walked back, he retreated to the middle of her room so he wouldn’t be visible at the window. He watched her from there.

Look at her! How she walks away from the keep! She knows every pair of eyes on that wall is upon her, that at this very moment she is being stripped and ravished in half a dozen minds. Yet she walks with her shoulders back, her gait neither hurried nor dalliant. Perfectly composed, as if she’s just made a routine delivery and is on her way to the next. And all the while she’s cringing inside.

He shook his head in silent admiration. He had long ago learned to immerse himself in a sheath of impenetrable calm. It was a mechanism that kept him insulated, kept him one step removed from too intimate contact, reducing his chances for impulsive behavior. It allowed him a clear, serene, dispassionate view of everything and everyone around him, even when all was in chaos.

Magda, he realized, was one of those rare people with the power to penetrate his sheath, to cause turbulence in his calm. He felt attracted to her, and she had his respect—something he rarely awarded to anyone.

But he could not afford to get involved now. He must maintain his distance. Yet…he had been without a woman for so long, and she was awakening feelings he had thought gone forever. It was good to feel them again. She had slipped past his guard, and he sensed he was slipping past hers. It would be nice to—

No! You can’t get involved. You can’t afford to care. Not now. Of all times, not now! Only a fool—

And yet…

He sighed. Better to lock up his feelings again before things got out of hand. Otherwise, the result could be disastrous. For both of them.

She was almost to the inn. He left the room, carefully closing the door behind him, and returned to his own. He dropped onto the bed and lay with his hands behind his head, waiting for her tread on the stair. But it did not come.

To Magda’s surprise, she found that the closer she got to the inn, the less she thought about Papa and the more she thought about Glenn. Guilt tugged at her. She had left her crippled father alone, surrounded by Nazis, to face one of the undead tonight, and her thoughts turned to a stranger. Strolling around to the rear of the inn, she experienced a light feeling in her chest and a quickening of her pulse at the thought of him.

Lack of food, she told herself. Should have had something to eat this morning.

She found herself alone in the rear. The ladderback chair Glenn had brought for her sat empty and alone in the sunlight. She glanced up to his window. No one there, either.

Magda picked up the chair and carried it around to the front, telling herself it wasn’t disappointment she felt, only hunger.

She remembered Glenn saying he intended to have breakfast. Perhaps he was still inside. She quickened her pace. Yes, she was hungry.

She stepped in and saw Iuliu sitting in the dining alcove to her right. He had sliced a large wedge from a wheel of cheese and was sipping some goat’s milk. He seemed to eat at least six times a day.

He was alone.

“Domnisoara Cuza!” he called. “Would you like some cheese?”

Magda nodded and sat down. She now wasn’t as hungry as she had thought, but she did need some food to keep going. Besides, there were a few questions she wanted to ask Iuliu.

“Your new guest,” she said casually, taking a slice of white cheese off the flat of the knife blade, “he must have taken breakfast to his room.”

Iulu’s brow furrowed. “Breakfast? He didn’t have any breakfast here. But many travelers bring their own food with them.”

Magda frowned. Why had he said he was going to see Lidia about breakfast? An excuse to get away?

“Tell me, Iuliu…You seemed to have calmed down since last night. What upset you so about this Glenn when he arrived?”

“It was nothing.”

“Iuliu, you were trembling! I’d like to know why, especially since my room is across the hall from his. I deserve to know if you think he’s dangerous.”

The innkeeper concentrated hard on slicing the cheese. “You will think me a fool.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Very well.” He put down the knife and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “When I was a boy my father ran the inn and, like me, paid the workers in the keep. There came a time when some of the gold that had been delivered was missing—stolen, my father said—and he could not pay the keep workers their full amount. The same thing happened after the next delivery; some of the money disappeared. Then one night a stranger came and began beating my father, punching him, hurling him about the room as if he were made of straw, telling him to find the money. ‘Find the money! Find the money!’” He puffed out his already ample cheeks. “My father, I am ashamed to say, found the money. He had taken some and hidden it. The stranger was furious. Never have I seen such wrath in a man. He began beating and kicking my father again, leaving him with two broken arms.”

“But what does this have to do—”

“You must understand,” Iuliu said, leaning forward and lowering his voice even further, “that my father was an honest man and that the turn of the century was a terrible time for this region. He only kept a little of the gold as a means of being certain that we would eat during the coming winter. He would have paid it back when times were better. It was the only dishonest thing he had done in an otherwise good and upright—”

“Iuliu!” Magda said, finally halting the flow of words. “What has this to do with the man upstairs?”

“They look the same, Domnisoara. I was only ten years old at the time, but I saw the man who beat my father. I will never forget him. He had red hair and looked so very much like this man. But”—he laughed softly—“the man who beat my father was perhaps in his early thirties, just like this man, and that was forty years ago. They couldn’t be the same. But in the candlelight last night, I—I thought he had come to beat me too.”

Magda raised her eyebrows questioningly, and he hurried to explain.

“Not that there’s any gold missing now, of course. It’s just that the workers have not been allowed to enter the keep to do their work and I’ve been paying them anyway. Never let it be said that I kept any of the gold for myself. Never!”

“Of course not, Iuliu.” She rose, taking another slice of cheese with her. “I think I’ll go upstairs and rest awhile.”

He smiled and nodded. “Supper will be at six.”

Magda climbed the stairs quickly, but found herself slowing as she passed Glenn’s door, her eyes drawing her head to the right and lingering there. She wondered what he was doing in there, or if he was there at all.

Her room was stuffy, so she left the door open to allow the breeze from the window to pass through. The porcelain water pitcher on her dresser had been filled. She poured some of the cool water into the bowl beside it and splashed her face. She was exhausted but knew sleep was impossible…too many thoughts swirling in her head to allow her to rest just yet.

A high-pitched chorus of cheeps drew her to the window. Amid the budding branches of the tree that grew next to the north wall of the inn sat a bird’s nest. She could see four tiny chicks, their heads all eyes and gaping mouth, straining their scrawny necks upward for a piece of whatever the mother bird was feeding them. Magda knew nothing about birds. This one was gray with black markings along its wings. Had she been home in Bucharest she might have looked it up. But with all that had been happening, she found she couldn’t care less.

Tense, restless, she wandered about the tiny room. She checked the flashlight she had brought with her. It still worked. Good. She would need it tonight. On her way back from the keep, she had reached a decision.

Her eyes fell on the mandolin propped in the corner by the window. She picked it up, seated herself on the bed and began to play. Tentatively at first, adjusting the tuning as she plucked out a simple melody, then with greater ease and fluidity as she relaxed into the instrument, segueing from one folk tune to another. As with many a proficient amateur, she achieved a form of transport with her instrument, fixing her eyes on a point in space, her hands playing by touch, humming inwardly as she jumped from song to song. Tensions eased away, replaced by an inner tranquillity. She played on, unaware of time.

A hint of movement at her open door jarred her back to reality. It was Glenn.

“You’re very good,” he said from the doorway.

She was glad it was he, glad he was smiling at her, and glad he had found pleasure in her playing.

She smiled shyly. “Not so good. I’ve gotten careless.”

“Maybe. But the range of your repertoire is wonderful. I know of only one other person who can play so many songs with such accuracy.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

There it was again: smugness. Or was he just teasing her? Magda decided to call his bluff. She held out the mandolin.

“Prove it.”

Grinning, Glenn stepped into the room, pulled the three-legged stool over to the bed, seated himself, and reached for the mandolin. After making a show of “properly” tuning the instrument, he began to play.

Magda listened in awe. For such a big man with such large hands, his touch on the mandolin was astonishingly delicate. He was obviously showing off, playing many of the same tunes but in a more intricate style. She studied him. She liked the way his blue shirt stretched across the width of his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows, and she watched the play of the muscles and tendons under the skin of his forearms as he worked the mandolin. There were scars on those arms, crisscrossing the wrists and trailing up to the point where the shirt hid the rest of him. She wanted to ask him about those scars but decided it was too personal a question.

However, she could certainly question him about how he played some of the songs.

“You played the last one wrong,” she told him.

“Which one?”

“I call it ‘The Bricklayer’s Lady.’ I know the lyrics vary from place to place, but the melody is always the same.”

“Not always,” Glenn said. “This was how it was originally played.”

“How can you be so sure?” That irritating smugness again.

“Because the village lauter who taught me was ancient when we met, and she’s now been dead many years.”

“What village?” Magda felt indignation touch her. This was her area of expertise. Who was he to correct her?

“Kranich—near Suceava.”

“Oh…Moldavian. That might explain the difference.” She glanced up and caught him staring at her.

“Lonely without your father?”

Magda thought about that. She had missed Papa sorely at first and had felt at a loss as to what to do with herself without him. But at the moment she was very content to be sitting here with Glenn, listening to him play, and yes, even arguing with him. She never should have allowed him in her room, even with the door open, but he made her feel safe. And she liked his looks, especially his blue eyes, even though he seemed to be a master at preventing her from reading much in them.

“Yes,” she said. “And no.”

He laughed. “A straightforward answer—two of them!”

A silence grew between them, and Magda became aware that Glenn was very much a man, a long-boned man with flesh packed tightly to those bones. He had an aura of maleness about him that she had never noticed in anyone else. It had escaped her last night and this morning, but here in this tiny room it filled all the empty spaces. It caressed her, making her feel strange and special. A primitive sensation. She had heard of animal magnetism…was that what she was experiencing now in his presence? Or was it just that he seemed so alive? He fairly bristled with vitality.

“You have a husband?” he asked, his gaze resting on the gold band on her right ring finger—her mother’s wedding band.

“No.”

“A lover then?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

Magda hesitated. She didn’t dare tell him that except in her dreams she had given up on the possibility of life with a man. All the good men she had met in the past few years were married, and the unmarried ones would remain so for reasons of their own or because no self-respecting woman would have them. But certainly all the men she had ever met were stooped and pallid things compared with the one who sat across from her now.

“Because I’m beyond the age when that sort of thing has any importance!” she said finally.

“You’re a mere babe!”

“And you? Are you married?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Have you been?”

“Many times.”

“Play another song!” Magda said in exasperation. Glenn seemed to prefer teasing to giving her straight answers.

But after a while the playing stopped and the talking began. Their conversation ranged over a wide array of topics, but always as they related to her. Magda found herself talking about everything that interested her, starting with music and with the Gypsies and Romanian rural folk who were the source of the music she loved, and on to her hopes and dreams and opinions.

The words trickled out fitfully at first, but swelled to a steady stream as Glenn encouraged her to go on. For one of the few times in her life, Magda was doing all the talking. And Glenn listened. He seemed genuinely interested in whatever she had to say, unlike so many other men who would listen only as far as the first opportunity to turn the conversation to themselves. Glenn kept turning the talk away from himself and back toward her.

Hours slipped by, until shadows began darkening the inn. Magda yawned.

“Excuse me,” she said, “I think I’m boring myself. Enough of me. What about you? Where are you from?”

Glenn shrugged. “I grew up all over western Europe, but I guess you could say I’m British.”

“You speak Romanian exceptionally well—almost like a native.”

“I’ve visited often, even lived with some Romanian families here and there.”

“But as a British subject, aren’t you taking a chance being in Romania? Especially with the Nazis so close?”

Glenn hesitated. “Actually, I have no citizenship anywhere. I have papers from various countries proclaiming my citizenship, but I have no country. In these mountains, one doesn’t need a country.”

A man without a country? Magda had never heard of such a thing. To whom did he owe allegiance?

“Be careful. There aren’t too many red-haired Romanians.”

“True.” He smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “But the Germans are in the keep and the Iron Guard stays out of the mountains if it knows what’s good for it. I’ll keep to myself while I’m here, and I shouldn’t be here that long.”

Magda felt a stab of disappointment—she liked having him around.

“How long?” She felt she had asked the question too quickly, but it couldn’t be helped. She wanted to know.

“Long enough for a last visit before Germany and Romania declare war on Russia.”

“That’s not—”

“It’s inevitable. And soon.” He rose from the stool.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to let you rest. You need it.”

Glenn leaned forward and pressed the mandolin back into her hands. For a moment their fingers touched and Magda felt a sensation like an electric shock, jolting her, making her tingle all over. But she did not pull her hand away…oh, no…because that would make the feeling stop, would halt the delicious warmth spreading throughout her body and down along her legs.

She could see that Glenn felt it, too, in his own way.

Then he broke contact and retreated to the door. The feeling ebbed, leaving her a trifle weak. Magda wanted to stop Glenn, to grasp his hand and tell him to stay. But she could not imagine herself doing such a thing and was shocked that she even wanted to. Uncertainty held her back, too. The emotions and sensations boiling within were new to her. How would she control them?

As the door closed behind him, she felt the warmth fade away, replaced by a hollow space deep within. She sat quietly for a few moments, and then told herself that it was probably all for the best that he had left her alone now. She needed sleep; she needed to be rested and fully alert later on.

For she had decided that Papa would not face Molasar alone tonight.

TWENTY-ONE

THE KEEP
Thursday, 1 May
1722 hours

Captain Woermann sat alone in his room. He had watched the shadows grow long across the keep until the sun slipped out of sight. His uneasiness had grown with them. The shadows shouldn’t have disturbed him. After all, for two nights in a row there had been no deaths, and he saw no reason why tonight should be different. Yet he had this sense of foreboding.

The morale of the men had improved immensely. They had begun to act and feel like victors again. He could see it in their eyes, in their faces. They had been threatened, a few had died, but they had persisted and were still in command of the keep. With the girl out of sight, and with none of their fellows newly dead, a tacit truce had formed between the men in gray uniforms and those in black. They didn’t mingle, but there was a new sense of comradeship—they had all triumphed.

Woermann found himself incapable of sharing their optimism.

He looked over to his painting. All desire to do further work on it had fled, and he had no wish to start another. He could not find enough ambition to get out his pigments and blot out the shadow of the hanging corpse. His attention centered now on that shadow. Every time he looked it appeared more distinct. The shape looked darker today, and the head seemed to have more definition. He shook himself and looked away. Nonsense.

No…not quite nonsense. Something foul was still afoot in the keep. No deaths for two nights, true, but the keep had not changed. The evil had not gone away, it was merely…resting.

Resting? Was that the right word? Not really. Holding back was better. It certainly had not gone away. The walls still pressed in on him; the air continued to feel heavy and laden with menace. The men could slap one another on the back and talk one another out of it. But Woermann could not. He had only to look at his tainted painting and he knew with leaden certainty that there had been no real end to the killings, merely a pause, one that might last for days or end tonight.

Nothing had been overcome or driven out. Death was still here, waiting, ready to strike again when the occasion suited it.

He straightened his shoulders to ward off a growing chill. Something was going to happen soon. He could feel it in the core of his spine.

One more night…just give me one more night.

If death held off until tomorrow morning, Kaempffer would depart for Ploiesti. After that, Woermann could again make his own rules—without the SS. And he could move his men out of the keep immediately should trouble start again.

Kaempffer…he wondered what dear sweet Erich was doing. He hadn’t seen him all afternoon.

SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer sat hunched over the Ploiesti rail map spread out before him on his cot. Daylight was fading fast and his eyes ached from straining at the tiny interconnecting lines. Better to quit now than try to continue under one of the harsh electric bulbs.

Straightening, he rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. At least the day had not been a total loss. The new map of the rail nexus had yielded some useful information. He would be starting from scratch with the Romanians. Everything in the construction of the camp would be left to him, even choice of the site. He thought he had found a good one in a row of old warehouses on the eastern edge of the nexus. If they were not in use or not being put to any important use, they could act as the seed of the Ploiesti camp. Wire fences could be strung within a matter of days, and then the Iron Guard could get about the business of collecting Jews.

Kaempffer ached to get started. He would let the Iron Guard gather up the first “guests” in whatever haphazard fashion they wished while he oversaw the design of the physical plant. Once that was underway he would devote more of his time to teaching the Romanians the SS’s proven methods of corralling undesirables.

Folding the map, he found his thoughts turning to the immense profits to be earned from the camp, and of ways to keep most of those profits for himself. Confiscate the prisoners’ rings, watches, and jewelry immediately; gold teeth and the women’s hair could be taken later. Commandants in Germany and in Poland were all becoming rich. Kaempffer saw no reason why he should be an exception.

And more would come. In the near future, after he got the camp running like a well-oiled machine, there were certain to be opportunities to rent out some of the healthier inmates to Romanian industry. A growing practice at other camps, and very profitable. He might well be able to hire out large numbers of inmates, especially with Operation Barbarossa soon to be launched. The Romanian Army would be invading Russia along with the Wehrmacht, draining off much of the country’s able-bodied work force. Yes, the factories would be eager for laborers. Their pay, of course, would go to the camp commandant.

He knew the tricks. Hoess had taught him well at Auschwitz. It was not often that a man was given an opportunity to serve his country, to improve the genetic balance of the human race, and to enrich himself all at once. He was a lucky man…

Except for this damnable keep. At least the problem here seemed to be under control. If things held as they were, he could leave tomorrow morning and report success back to Berlin. The report would look good:

He had arrived and had lost two men the first night before he had been able to set up counteroffensive action; after that, there were no further killings. He would be vague as to how he had stopped the killings but crystal clear as to whom the credit belonged. After three nights with no further deaths, he departed. Mission accomplished. If the killings resumed after his departure, it would be the fault of that bungler Woermann. By then Kaempffer would be too involved with setting up Camp Ploiesti. They would have to send someone else to bail out Woermann.

Lidia’s tap on the door to announce dinner startled Magda out of her sleep. A few splashes of water from the basin onto her face and she was fully awake. But not hungry. Her stomach was so knotted she knew it would be impossible to get down a bite of food.

She stood at the window. Traces of daylight remained in the sky, but none down in the pass. Night had come to the keep, yet the bright courtyard lights had not been turned on. Windows were illuminated here and there in the walls like eyes in the dark, Papa’s among them, but it was not yet lit up like—what had Glenn called it that first night?—“a cheap tourist attraction.”

She wondered if Glenn was downstairs at the dinner table now. Was he thinking of her? Waiting for her, perhaps? Or was he intent solely on his meal? No matter. She could not under any circumstances let him see her. One look into her eyes and he would know what she intended and might try to stop her.

Magda tried to concentrate on the keep. Why was she thinking of Glenn? He obviously could take care of himself. She should be thinking about Papa and her mission tonight, not of Glenn.

And yet her thoughts persisted in turning to him. She had even dreamed of him during her nap. Details were fuzzy now, but the impressions that lingered were all warm and somehow erotic. What was happening to her? She had never reacted to anyone this way, ever. There had been times in her late teens when young men had courted her. She had been flattered and briefly charmed by two or three of them, but nothing more. And even Mihail…they had been close, but she had never desired him.

That was it. Magda realized with a shock that she desired Glenn, wanted him near her, making her feel—

This was absurd! She was acting like a simple-minded farm girl in heat upon meeting her first smooth-talking man from the big city. No, she could not allow herself to become involved with Glenn or with any man. Not while Papa could not fend for himself. And especially not while he was locked up in the keep with the Germans and that thing. Papa came first. He had no one else, and she would never desert him.

Ah, but Glenn…if only there were more men like him. He made her feel important, as if being who she was was good, something to take pride in. She could talk to him and not feel like the book-bound misfit others seemed to see.

It was past ten o’clock when Magda left the inn. From her window she had watched Glenn slink down the path and take up a position in the brush at the edge of the gorge. After waiting to make sure he had settled himself there, she tied her hair up in its kerchief, snatched her flashlight from the bureau, and left her room. She passed no one on her way down the stairs, through the foyer, and into the darkness outside.

Magda did not head for the causeway. Instead she crossed the path and walked toward the towering shadows of the mountains, feeling her way in the dark. She could not use the flashlight until she was inside the keep; turning it on out here or in the gorge would risk giving away her presence to one of the sentries on the wall. She lifted her sweater and tucked the flashlight into the waistband of her skirt, feeling the cold of its metal against her skin.

She knew exactly where she was going. At the juncture of the gorge and the western wall of the pass was a large wedge-shaped pile of dirt, shale, and rocky rubble that had been sliding down the mountain and collecting for ages. Its slope was gentle and the footing good—she had learned this years ago when she had embarked on her first trip into the gorge in search of the nonexistent cornerstone. She had made the climb numerous times since then, but always in sunlight. Tonight she would be hampered by darkness and fog. Not even moonlight to help her, since moonrise was not due until after midnight. This was going to be risky, but Magda felt certain she could do it.

She reached the mountain wall where the gorge came to an abrupt halt. The wedge of rubble formed a half cone, its base on the floor of the fog-filled gorge some sixty feet below and its point ending two paces from the site where she stood.

Setting her jaw and breathing deeply once, twice, Magda began the descent. She moved slowly, cautiously, testing each foothold before putting her full weight on it, holding on to the larger rocks for balance. She was in no great hurry. She had plenty of time. Caution was the key—caution and silence. One wrong move and she would begin to slide. The jagged rocks along the way would tear her flesh to shreds by the time she reached bottom. And even if she survived the fall, the rockslide she caused would alert the sentries on the wall. She had to be careful.

She made steady progress, all the while shutting out the thought that Molasar might be waiting for her in the gorge below. She had one bad moment; it came after she had progressed below the gently undulating surface of the fog. For a moment she could not find any footing. She clung to a slab of rock with both legs dangling below her in a misty chasm, unable to make contact with anything. It was as if the whole world had fallen away, leaving her hanging from this jutting stone, alone, forever. But she fought off her panic and inched to her left until her questing feet found a bit of purchase.

The rest of the descent was easier. She reached the base of the wedge unharmed. More difficult terrain lay ahead, however. The floor of the gorge was a never-never land, a realm of jagged rocks and rank grasses, steeped in cloying fog that swirled around her as she moved, clutching at her with wispy tentacles. She moved slowly and with utmost care. The rocks were slick and treacherous, capable of causing a bone-breaking fall at her first unwary step. She was all but blind but kept moving. After an eternity, she passed her first landmark: a dim, dark strip of shadow overhead. She was under the causeway. The base of the tower would be ahead and to the left.

She knew she was almost there when her left foot suddenly sank ankle deep in icy water. She quickly drew back to remove her shoes, her heavy stockings, and to hike her skirt above her knees. Then she steeled herself. Teeth clenched, Magda waded ahead into the water, her breath escaping in a rush as cold spiked into her feet and lower legs, driving nails of pain into her marrow. Yet she kept her pace slow, even, determinedly suppressing the urge to splash over to the warmth and dryness of the far bank. Rushing would mean noise, and noise meant discovery.

She had walked a good dozen feet beyond the water’s far edge before she realized she was out of it. Her feet were numb. Shivering, she sat on a rock and massaged her toes until sensation returned; then she stepped into her stockings and shoes again.

A few more steps took her to the outcropping of granite that formed the base on which the keep rested. Its rough surface was easy to follow to the spot where the leading edge of the tower stretched down to the floor of the gorge. There she felt the flat surfaces and right angles of man-made block begin.

She felt around until she found the oversized block she sought, and pushed. With a sigh and a barely audible scrape, the slab swung inward. A dark rectangle awaited her like a gaping mouth. Magda didn’t let herself hesitate. Pulling the flashlight from her waistband, she stepped through.

The sensation of evil struck her like a blow as she entered, breaking out beads of icy perspiration, making her want to leap headlong back through the opening and into the fog. It was far worse than when she and Papa had passed through the gate Tuesday night, and worse, too, than this morning when she had stepped across the threshold at the gate. Had she become more sensitive to it, or had the evil grown stronger?

He drifted slowly, languidly, aimlessly through the deepest recesses of the cavern that formed the keep’s subcellar, moving from shadow to shadow, a part of the darkness, human in form but long drained of the essentials of humanness.

He stopped, sensing a new life that had not been present a moment ago. Someone had entered the keep. After a moment’s concentration, he recognized the presence of the crippled one’s daughter, the one he had touched two nights ago, the one so ripe with strength and goodness that his ever insatiable hunger quickened to a ravening need. He had been furious when the Germans had banished her from the keep.

Now she was back.

He began again to drift through the darkness, but his drifting was no longer languid, no longer aimless.

Magda stood in the stygian gloom, shaking and indecisive. Mold spores and dust motes, disturbed by her entry, irritated her throat and nose, choking her. She had to get out. This was a fool’s errand. What could she possibly do to help Papa against one of the undead? What had she hoped to accomplish by coming here? Silly heroics like this got people killed! Who did she think she was, anyway? What made her think—

Stop!

A mental scream halted her terrified thoughts. She was thinking like a defeatist. This wasn’t her way. She could do something for Papa! She did not know what, exactly, but at the very least she would be at his side to give moral support. She would go on.

Her original intention had been to close the hinged slab behind her. But she could not bring herself to do it. There would be comfort of a sort, scant comfort, in knowing her escape route lay open behind her.

She thought it safe to use the flashlight now, so she flicked it on. The beam struggled against the darkness, revealing the lower end of a long stone stairway that wound a spiral path up the inner surface of the tower’s base. She flashed the beam upward but the light was completely swallowed by the darkness above.

She had no choice but to climb.

After her shaky descent and her trek through the fogenshrouded gorge, stairs—even steep ones—were a luxury. She played the flashlight back and forth before her as she moved, assuring herself that each step was intact before she entrusted her weight to it. All was silence in the huge, dark cylinder of stone except for the echo of her footfalls and remained so until she had completed two of the three circuits that made up the stairway.

Then from off to her right she felt a draft. And heard a strange noise.

She stood motionless, frozen in the flow of cold air, listening to a soft, faraway scraping. It was irregular in pitch and in rhythm, but persistent. She quickly flashed the light to her right and saw a narrow opening almost six feet high in the stone. She had seen it there on her previous explorations but had never paid much attention to it. She didn’t recall a draft flowing through it. Nor had she ever heard any noise within.

Aiming the beam through the hole, Magda peered into the darkness, hoping and at the same time not hoping to find the source of the scraping.

As long as it’s not rats. Please, God, let there be no rats in there.

Inside she saw nothing but an empty expanse of dirt floor. The scraping seemed to come from deep within the cavity. Far off to the right, perhaps fifty feet away, she noticed a dim glow. Dousing the flashlight confirmed it: There was light back there, faint, coming from above. Magda squinted in the darkness and dimly perceived the outline of a stairway.

Abruptly, she realized where she was. She was looking into the subcellar from the east. Which meant that the light she saw to her right was seeping down through the ruptured cellar floor. Just two nights ago she had stood at the foot of those steps while Papa had examined the…

…corpses. If the steps were to her right, then off to her left lay the eight dead German soldiers. And still that noise continued, floating toward her from the far end of the subcellar—if it had an end.

Repressing a shudder, she turned on her flashlight again and continued her climb. One last turn to go. She shone the beam upward to the place where the steps disappeared into a dark niche at the edge of the ceiling. The sight of it spurred her on, for she knew that the buttressed ceiling of the stairwell was the floor of the tower’s first level. Papa’s level. And the niche lay within the dividing wall of his rooms.

Magda quickly completed the climb and eased into the space. She pressed her ear to the large stone on the right; it was hinged in a way similar to the entrance stone sixty feet below. No sound came through to her. Still she waited, forcing herself to listen longer. No footsteps, no voices. Papa was alone.

She pushed on the stone, expecting it to swing open easily. It didn’t move. She leaned against it with all her weight and strength. No movement. Crouching, feeling locked in a tiny cave, Magda’s mind raced over the possibilities. Something had happened. Five years ago, she had moved the stone with little effort. Had the keep settled in the intervening years, upsetting the delicate balance of the hinges?

She was tempted to rap the butt of her flashlight against the stone. That at least would alert Papa to her presence. But then what? He certainly couldn’t help her move the stone. And what if the sound traveled up to one of the other levels and alerted a sentry or one of the officers? No—she could not rap on anything.

But she had to get into that room! She pushed once more, this time wedging her back against the stone and her feet against the opposing wall, straining all her muscles to their limit. Still no movement.

As she huddled there, angry, bitterly frustrated, a thought occurred to her. Perhaps there was another way—via the subcellar. If there were no guards there, she might make it to the courtyard; and if the bright courtyard lights were still off, she might be able to steal across the short distance to the tower and to Papa’s room.

So many ifs…but if at any time she found her way blocked, she could always turn back, couldn’t she?

Quickly, she descended to the opening in the wall. The cold draft was still there, as were the far-off scraping sounds. She stepped through and began walking toward the stairs that would take her up to the cellar, making her way toward the light that filtered down from above. She played her flashlight beam down and just ahead of her, careful not to let it stray off to the left where she knew the corpses lay.

As she moved deeper into the subcellar, she found it increasingly difficult to keep up her pace. Her mind, her sense of duty, her love for her father—all the higher strata of her consciousness—were pushing her forward. But something else was dragging at her, slowing her. Some primal part of her brain was rebelling, trying to turn her around.

She pushed on, overriding all warnings. She would not be stopped now…although the way the shadows seemed to move and twist and shift about her was ghastly and unsettling. A trick of the light, she told herself. If she kept moving, she’d be all right.

Magda had almost reached the stairs when she saw something move within the shadow of the bottom step. She almost screamed when it hopped up into the light.

A rat!

It sat hunched on the step with its fat body partially encircled by a twitching tail as it licked its claws. Loathing welled up in her. She wanted to retch. She knew she could not take another step forward with that thing there. The rat looked up, glared at her, then scuttled off into the shadows. Magda didn’t wait for it to change its mind and come back. She hurried halfway up the steps, then stopped and listened, waiting for her stomach to calm.

All was quiet above—not a word, not a cough, not a footstep. The only sound was that scraping, persistent, louder now that she was in the subcellar, but still far away in the recesses of the cavern. She tried to block it out. She could not imagine what it might be and did not want to try.

After flashing her light around to make sure no more rats were near, she took the stairs slowly, carefully, silently. Near the top she peered cautiously over the edge of the hole in the floor. Through the ruptured wall to her right was the cellar’s central corridor, alight with a string of incandescent bulbs, and apparently deserted. Three more steps brought her up to floor level, and another three took her to the ruined wall. Again she waited for the sound of guards. Hearing none, she peeked into the corridor: deserted.

Now came the truly risky part. She would have to travel the length of the corridor to the steps that led up to the courtyard. And then up those two short flights. And after that—

One step at a time, Magda told herself. First the corridor. Conquer that before worrying about the stairs.

She waited, afraid to step out into the light. Until now she had moved in darkness and seclusion. Exposing herself under those bulbs would be like standing naked in the center of Bucharest at noon. But her only other alternative was to give up and go back.

She stepped forward into the light and moved quickly, silently, down the corridor. She was almost at the foot of the stairs when she heard a sound from above. Someone coming down. She had been ready to dart into one of the side rooms at the first sign of anyone approaching, and now she made that move.

Inside the doorway, Magda froze. She neither saw, heard, nor touched anyone, but she knew she was not alone. She had to get out! But that would expose her to whoever was coming down the steps.

Suddenly she sensed movement in the darkness behind her and then an arm went around her throat.

“What have we here?” said a voice in German. A sentry had been in the room! He dragged her back toward the corridor. “Well, well! Let’s have a look at you in the light!”

Magda’s heart pounded with terror as she waited to see the color of her captor’s uniform. If gray, she might have a chance, a slim one, but at least a chance. If it was black…

It was black. And there was another einsatzkommando running toward them.

“It’s the Jew girl!” said the first. His helmet was off and his eyes were bleary. He must have been dozing in the room when she slipped in.

“How’d she get in?” the second said as he came up.

Magda tried to shrink inside her clothes as they stared at her.

“I don’t know,” said the first, releasing her and pushing her toward the stairs to the courtyard, “but I think we’d better get her up to the major.”

He leaned into the room to retrieve the helmet he had removed for his nap. As he did, the second SS man came alongside her. Magda acted without thinking. She pushed the first into the room and raced back toward the break in the wall. She did not want to face that major. If she could get below, she had a chance to reach safety, for only she knew the way.

The back of her scalp suddenly turned to fire and her feet almost left the ground as the second soldier yanked viciously on the fistful of hair and kerchief he had grabbed as she leaped past him. But he was not satisfied with that. As tears of pain sprang to her eyes, he pulled her toward him by her hair, placed a hand between her breasts, and slammed her against the wall.

Magda lost her breath and felt consciousness fade as her shoulders and the back of her head struck the stone with numbing force. The next few moments were a collage of blurs and disembodied voices:

“You didn’t kill her, did you?”

“She’ll be all right.”

“Doesn’t know her place, that one.”

“Perhaps no one’s ever taken the time to properly teach her.”

A brief pause, then: “In there.”

Still in a fog, her body numb, her vision blurred, Magda felt herself dragged by the arms along the cold stone floor, pulled around a corner and out of the direct light. She realized she was in one of the rooms. But why? When they released her arms, she heard the door close, saw the room go dark, felt them fall upon her, fumbling over each other in their urgency, one trying to pull her skirt down while the other tried to lift it up to her waist to get at her undergarments.

She would have screamed but her voice was gone, would have fought back but her arms and legs were leaden and useless, would have been utterly terrified had it not all seemed so far away and dreamlike. Over the hunched shoulders of her assailants she could see the lighted outline of the door to the corridor. She wanted to be out there.

Then the outline of the door changed, as if a shadow had moved across it. She sensed a presence outside the door. Suddenly, with a thundering crash the door split down the middle and smashed open, showering them all with splinters and larger fragments of wood. A form—huge, masculine—filled the doorway, blotting out most of the light.

Glenn! she thought at first, but that hope was instantly doused by the wave of cold and malevolence flooding the room.

The startled Germans cried out in terror as they rolled away from her. The form seemed to swell as it leaped forward. Magda felt herself kicked and jostled as the two soldiers dove for the weapons they had lain aside. But they were not quick enough. The newcomer was upon them with blinding swiftness, bending, grasping each soldier by the throat, and then straightening up again to his full height.

Magda’s head began to clear as the horror of what she was watching broke through to her. It was Molasar who stood over her, a huge, black figure silhouetted in the light from the corridor, two red points of fire where his eyes should be, and in each hand a struggling, kicking, choking, gagging einsatzkommando held out at arm’s length on either side of him. He clutched them until their movements slowed and their strangled, agonized sounds died away, until both hung limp in his hands. He then shook them violently, so violently that Magda could hear the bones and cartilage in their necks snap, break, grind, and splinter. Then he threw them into a dark corner and disappeared after them.

Fighting her pain and weakness, Magda rolled over and struggled to a crouching position on her hands and knees. She still was not able to get to her feet. It would take a few more minutes before her legs would support her.

Then came a sound—a greedy, sibilant, sucking noise that made her want to retch. It drove her to her feet and, after she leaned against the wall for an instant, propelled her toward the light of the corridor.

She had to get out! Her father was forgotten in the wake of the unspeakable horror taking place in the room behind her. The corridor wavered as she stumbled toward the ruptured wall, but she determinedly held on to consciousness. She reached the opening without falling, but as she stepped through, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

Molasar was coming, his long, purposeful stride bringing him swiftly, gracefully closer, his cloak billowing behind him, his eyes bright, his lips and chin smeared with blood.

With a small cry, Magda ducked inside the wall and ran for the steps to the subcellar. It did not seem even remotely possible that she could outrun him, yet she refused to give in. She sensed him close behind her but did not look around. Instead she leaped for the steps.

As she landed, her heel skidded on slime and she began to fall. Strong arms, cold as the night, gripped her from behind, one slipping around her back, the other beneath her knees. She opened her mouth to scream out her terror and revulsion but her voice was locked. She felt herself lifted and carried downward. After one brief, horrified glance at the angular lines of Molasar’s pale, blood-flecked face, his long, unkempt, stringy hair, the madness in his eyes, she was carried out of the light and into the subcellar and could no longer see anything.

Molasar turned. He was bearing her toward the stairwell in the base of the watchtower. She tried to fight him but his grip easily overcame her best efforts. Finally she gave up. She would save her strength until she saw a chance to escape.

As before, despite her multiple layers of clothing, she sensed numbing cold where he touched her. He had a heavy, stale odor about him. And although he did not appear physically dirty, he seemed…unclean.

He carried her through the narrow opening into the base of the tower.

“Where…?” Her voice croaked out the first word of her question before her terror strangled it.

No answer came.

Magda had begun to shiver as they had moved through the subcellar; now, on the stairwell, her teeth were chattering. Contact with Molasar seemed to be siphoning off her body heat.

All was dark around them, yet Molasar was taking the steps two at a time with ease and confidence. After a full circuit around the inner surface of the tower’s base, he stopped. Magda felt the sides of the niche within the ceiling press around her, heard stone grate upon stone, and then light poured in on her.

“Magda!” Papa’s voice.

As her pupils adjusted to the change in light, she felt herself placed on her feet and released. She put out a hand and felt it contact the armrest of Papa’s wheelchair. She grasped it, clung to it like a drowning sailor clutching a floating plank.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a harsh, shocked whisper.

“Soldiers…” was all she could say. As her vision adjusted, she found Papa staring at her openmouthed.

“They abducted you from the inn?”

She shook her head. “No. I came in below.”

“But why would you do such a foolish thing?”

“So you would not have to face him alone.”

Magda did not make any gesture toward Molasar. Her meaning was clear.

The room had darkened noticeably since her arrival. She knew Molasar was standing somewhere behind her in the shadows by the hinged stone, but she could not bring herself to look in his direction.

She went on: “Two of the SS soldiers caught me. They pulled me into a room. They were going to…”

“What happened?” Papa asked, his eyes wide.

“I was…” Magda glanced briefly over her shoulder at the shadow. “…saved.”

Papa continued to stare at her, no longer with shock or concern, but with something else—disbelief.

“By Molasar?”

Magda nodded and finally found the strength to turn and face Molasar. “He killed them both!”

She stared at him. He stood in shadow by the open slab of stone, cloaked in darkness, a figure out of a nightmare, his face dimly seen but his eyes bright. The blood was gone from his face, as if it had been absorbed through the skin rather than wiped away. Magda shuddered.

“Now you’ve ruined everything!” Papa said, startling her with the anger in his voice. “Once the new bodies are found I’ll be subjected to the full force of the major’s wrath! And all because of you!”

“I came here to be with you,” Magda said, stung. Why was he angry with her?

“I did not ask you to come! I did not want you here before, and I do not want you here now!”

“Papa, please!”

He pointed a gnarled finger at the opening in the wall.

“Leave, Magda! I have too much to do and too little time in which to do it! The Nazis will soon be storming in here asking me why two more of their men are dead and I will have no answer! I must speak to Molasar before they arrive!”

“Papa—”

“Go!”

Magda stood and stared at him. How could he speak to her this way? She wanted to cry, wanted to plead, wanted to slap some sense into him. But she could not. She could not defy him, even before Molasar. He was her father, and although she knew he was being brutally unfair, she could not defy him.

Magda turned and rushed past the impassive Molasar into the opening. The slab swung closed behind her and she was again in darkness. She felt in her waistband for the flashlight—gone! It must have fallen out somewhere.

Magda had two alternatives: return to Papa’s room and ask for a lamp or a candle, or descend in the dark.

After only a few seconds she chose the latter. She could not face Papa again tonight. He had hurt her more than she had ever known she could be hurt. A change had come over him. He was somehow losing his gentleness, and losing the empathy that had always been part of him. He had dismissed her tonight as though she were a stranger. And he hadn’t even cared enough to be sure she had a light with her!

Magda bit back a sob. She would not cry! But what was there to do? She felt helpless. And worse, she felt betrayed.

The only thing left was to leave the keep. She began her descent, relying on touch alone. She could see nothing, but knew that if she kept her left hand against the wall and took each step slowly and carefully, she could make it to the bottom without falling to her death.

As she completed the first spiral, Magda half expected to hear that odd scraping sound through the opening into the subcellar. But it did not come. Instead, there was a new sound in the dark—louder, closer, heavier. She slowed her progress until her left hand slid off the stone of the wall and met the cool air flowing through the opening. The noise grew as she listened.

It was a scuffling sound, a dragging, fulsome, shambling sound that set her teeth on edge and dried her tongue so it stuck to the roof of her mouth. This could not be rats…much too big. It seemed to come from the deeper darkness to her left. Off to the right, dim light still seeped down from the cellar above, but it did not reach to the area where the sound was. Just as well. Magda did not want to see what was over there.

She groped wildly across the opening and, for a mind-numbing moment, could not find the far edge. Then her hand contacted cold, wonderfully solid stone and she continued downward, faster than before, dangerously fast, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gulps. If the thing in the subcellar was coming her way, she had to be out of the keep by the time it reached the stairwell.

She kept going down, endlessly down, every so often looking back over her shoulder in an instinctive and utterly futile attempt to see in the darkness. A dim rectangle beckoned to her as she reached the bottom. She stumbled toward it, through it, and out into the fog. She swung the slab closed and leaned against it, gasping with relief.

After composing herself, Magda realized that she had not escaped the malevolent atmosphere of the keep by merely stepping outside its walls. This morning the vileness that permeated the keep had stopped at the threshold; now it extended beyond the walls. She began to walk, to stumble through the darkness. It was not until she was almost to the stream that she felt she had escaped the aura of evil.

Suddenly from above came faint shouts, and the fog brightened. The lights in the keep had been turned up to maximum. Someone must have found the two newly dead bodies.

Magda continued to move away from the keep. The extra light was no threat, for none of it reached her. It filtered down like sunshine viewed from the bottom of a murky lake. The light was caught and held by the fog, thickening it, whitening it, concealing her rather than revealing her. She splashed carelessly across the stream this time without pausing to remove her shoes and stockings—she wanted to be away from the keep as quickly as possible. The shadow of the causeway passed overhead and soon she was at the base of the wedge of rubble. After a brief rest to catch her breath, she began to climb until she reached the upper level of the fog. It filled the gorge almost completely now, leaving only a short unprotected distance to the top. A few seconds of exposure and she would be safe.

Magda pulled herself up over the rim and ran in a half-crouch. As she felt the brush enfold her, her foot caught on a root and she fell headlong, striking her left knee on a stone. She hugged the knee to her chest and began to cry, long, wracking sobs far out of proportion to the pain. It was anguish for Papa, relief at being safely away from the keep, a reaction to all she had seen and heard there, to all that had been done to her, or almost done to her.

“You’ve been to the keep.”

It was Glenn. She could think of no one she wanted more to see at this moment. Hurriedly drying her eyes on her sleeve, she stood—or tried to. Her injured knee sent a knifing pain up her leg and Glenn put out a hand to keep her from falling.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was gentle.

“Just a bruise.”

She tried to take a step but the leg refused to bear her weight. Without a word, Glenn scooped her up in his arms and began carrying her back to the inn.

It was the second time tonight she had been carried so. But this time was different. Glenn’s arms were a warm sanctuary, thawing all the cold left by Molasar’s touch. As she leaned against him she felt all the fear ooze out of her. But how had he come up behind her without her hearing him? Or had he been standing there all along, waiting for her?

Magda let her head rest on his shoulder, feeling safe, at peace.

If only I could feel this way forever.

He carried her effortlessly through the front door of the inn, through the empty foyer, up the stairs, and into her room. After depositing her gently on the edge of the bed, he knelt before her.

“Let’s take a look at that knee.”

Magda hesitated at first, then drew her skirt up over her left knee, leaving the right one covered and keeping the rest of the heavy fabric tight around and between her thighs. In the back of her mind was the thought that she should not be sitting here on a bed exposing her leg to a man she hardly knew. But somehow…

Her coarse, dark blue stocking was torn, revealing a purpling bruise on the kneecap. The flesh was swollen, puffy. Glenn stepped over to the near side of the dresser and dipped a washcloth into the water pitcher, then brought the cloth over and placed it on her knee.

“That ought to help,” he said.

“What’s gone wrong with the keep?” she asked, staring at his red hair, trying to ignore, and yet reveling in, the tingling warmth that crept steadily up her thigh from where his hand held the cloth against her.

He looked up at her. “You were there tonight. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I was there, but I can’t explain—or perhaps I can’t accept—what’s happening. I do know that Molasar’s awakening has changed the keep. I used to love that place. Now I fear it. There’s a very definite…wrongness there. You don’t have to see it or touch it to be aware of its presence, just as sometimes you don’t have to look outside to know there’s bad weather coming. It pervades the very air…seeps right into your pores.”

“What kind of ‘wrongness’ do you sense in Molasar?”

“He’s evil. I know that’s vague, but I mean evil. Inherently evil. A monstrous, ancient evil who thrives on death, who values all that is noxious to the living, who hates and fears everything we cherish.” She shrugged, embarrassed by the intensity of her words. “That’s what I feel. Does it make any sense to you?”

Glenn watched her closely for a long moment before replying. “You must be extremely sensitive to have felt all that.”

“And yet…”

“And yet what?”

“And yet tonight Molasar saved me from the hands of two fellow human beings who should have by all rights been allied with me against him.”

The pupils in Glenn’s blue eyes dilated. “Molasar saved you?”

“Yes. Killed two German soldiers”—she winced at the memory—“horribly…but didn’t harm me. Strange, isn’t it?”

“Very.” Leaving the damp cloth in place, Glenn slid his hand off her knee and ran it through the red of his hair. Magda wanted him to put it back where it had been, but he seemed preoccupied. “You escaped him?”

“No. He delivered me to my father.”

She watched Glenn mull this, then nod as if it made some sort of sense to him.

“And there was something else.”

“About Molasar?”

“No. Something else in the keep. In the subcellar…something moving around in there. Maybe it was what had been making the scraping noise earlier.”

“Scraping noise,” Glenn repeated, his voice low.

“Rasping, scraping…from far back in the subcellar.”

Without a word, Glenn rose and went to the window. Motionless, he stood staring out at the keep.

“Tell me everything that happened to you tonight—from the moment you stepped into the keep until the moment you left. Spare no detail.”

Magda told him everything she could remember up to the time Molasar deposited her in Papa’s room. Then her voice choked off.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“How was your father?” Glenn asked. “Was he all right?”

Pain gathered in her throat. “Oh, he was fine.” In spite of her brave smile, tears started in her eyes and began to spill onto her cheeks. Try as she might to will them back, they kept coming. “He told me to get out…to leave him alone with Molasar. Can you imagine that? After what I went through to reach him, he tells me to get out!”

The anguish in her voice must have penetrated Glenn’s preoccupied state, for he turned away from the window and stared at her.

“He didn’t care that I had been assaulted and almost raped by two Nazi brutes…didn’t even ask if I was hurt! All he cared was that I had shortened his precious time with Molasar. I’m his daughter and he cares more about talking to that…that creature!”

Glenn stepped over to the bed and seated himself beside her. He put his arm around her back and gently pulled her against him.

“Your father’s under a terrible strain. You must remember that.”

“And he should remember he’s my father!”

“Yes,” Glenn said softly. “Yes, he should.” He swiveled half around and lay back on the bed, then tugged gently on Magda’s shoulders. “Here. Lie down beside me and close your eyes. You’ll be all right.”

With her heart pounding in her throat, Magda allowed herself to be drawn nearer to him. She ignored the pain in her knee as she swung her legs off the floor and turned to face him. They lay stretched out together on the narrow bed, Glenn with his arm under her, Magda with her head in the nook of his shoulder, her body almost touching his, her left hand pressed against the muscles of his chest.

Thoughts of Papa and the hurt he had caused her washed away as waves of sensation crashed over and through her. She had never lain beside a man before. It was frightening and wonderful. The aura of his maleness engulfed her, making her mind spin. She tingled wherever they made contact, tiny electric shocks arcing through her clothing…clothing that was suffocating her.

On impulse, she lifted her head and kissed him on the lips. He responded ardently for a moment, then pulled back.

“Magda—”

She watched his eyes, seeing a mixture of desire, hesitation, and surprise there. He could be no more surprised than she. There had been no thought behind that kiss, only a newly awakened need, burning in its intensity. Her body was acting of its own accord, and she was not trying to stop it. This moment might never come again. It had to be now. She wanted to tell Glenn to make love to her but could not say it.

“Someday, Magda,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. He gently drew her head back down to his shoulder. “Someday. But not now. Not tonight.”

He stroked her hair and told her to sleep. Strangely, the promise was enough. The heat seeped out of her, and with it all the trials of the night. Even worries about Papa and what he might be doing ebbed away. Occasional bubbles of concern still broke the surface of her spreading calm, but they became progressively fewer and farther between, their ripples smaller and more widely spaced. Questions about Glenn floated by: who he really was, and the wisdom, let alone the propriety, of allowing herself to be this close to him.

Glenn…he seemed to know more about the keep and about Molasar than he was admitting. She had found herself talking to him about the keep as if he were as intimately familiar with it as she; and he had not seemed surprised about the stairwell in the watchtower’s base, or about the opening from the stairwell into the subcellar, despite her offhand references to them. To her mind there could be only one reason for that: He already knew about them.

But these were niggling little qualms. If she had discovered the hidden entrance to the tower years ago, there was no reason why he could not have found it, too. The important thing now was that for the first time tonight she felt completely safe and warm and wanted.

She drifted off to sleep.

TWENTY-TWO

As soon as the stone slab swung shut behind his daughter, Cuza turned to Molasar and found the bottomless black of the creature’s pupils already fixed on him from the shadows. All night he had waited to cross-examine Molasar, to penetrate the contradictions that that odd red-haired stranger had pointed out this morning. But then Molasar had appeared, holding Magda in his arms.

“Why did you do it?” Cuza asked, looking up from his wheelchair.

Molasar continued to stare at him, saying nothing.

“Why? I should think she’d be no more than another tempting morsel for you!”

“You try my patience, cripple!” Molasar’s face grew whiter as he spoke. “I could no more stand by now and watch two Germans rape and defile a woman of my country than I could stand idly by five hundred years ago and watch the Turks do the same. That is why I allied myself with Vlad Tepes! But tonight the Germans went further than any Turk ever dared—they tried to commit the act within the very walls of my home!” Abruptly, he relaxed and smiled. “And I rather enjoyed ending their miserable lives.”

“As I am sure you rather enjoyed your alliance with Vlad.”

“His penchant for impalement left me with ample opportunities to satisfy my needs without attracting attention. Vlad came to trust me. At the end, I was one of the few boyars he could truly count on.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.”

Cuza tried to clear away the confusion that smudged his thoughts. So many contradictions…nothing was as it should be. And hanging over it all was the unsettling knowledge that he owed his daughter’s safety, and perhaps her life, to one of the undead.

“Nevertheless, I am in your debt.”

Molasar made no reply.

Cuza hesitated, then began leading up to the question he most wanted to ask. “Are there more like you?”

“You mean undead? Moroi? There used to be. I don’t know about now. Since awakening, I’ve sensed such reluctance on the part of the living to accept my existence that I must assume we were all killed off over the last five hundred years.”

“And were all the others so terrified of the cross?”

Molasar stiffened. “You don’t have it with you, do you? I warn you—”

“It’s safely away. But I wonder at your fear of it.” Cuza gestured to the walls. “You’ve surrounded yourself with brass-and-nickel crosses, thousands of them, and yet you panicked at the sight of the tiny silver one I had last night.”

Molasar stepped to the nearest cross and laid his hand against it.

“These are a ruse. See how high the crosspiece is set? So high that it is almost no longer a cross. This configuration has no ill effect on me. I had thousands of them built into the walls of the keep to throw off my pursuers when I went into hiding. They could not conceive of one of my kind dwelling in a structure studded with ‘crosses.’ And as you will learn if I decide I can trust you, this particular configuration has special meaning for me.”

Cuza had desperately hoped to find a flaw in Molasar’s fear of the cross; he felt that hope wither and die. A great heaviness settled on him. He had to think! And he had to keep Molasar here—talking! He couldn’t let him go. Not yet.

“Who are ‘they’? Who was pursuing you?”

“Does the name Glaeken mean anything to you?”

“No.”

Molasar stepped closer. “Nothing at all?”

“I assure you I never heard the word before.” Why was it so important?

“Then perhaps they are gone,” Molasar muttered, more to himself than to Cuza.

“Please explain yourself. Who or what is a Glaeken?”

“The Glaeken were a fanatical sect that started as an arm of the Church in the Dark Ages. Its members enforced orthodoxy and were answerable only to the pope at first; after a while, however, they became a law unto themselves. They sought to infiltrate all the seats of power, to bring all the royal families under their control in order to place the world under a single power—one religion, one rule.”

“Impossible! I am an authority on European history, especially this part of Europe, and there was never any such sect!”

Molasar leaned closer and bared his teeth. “You dare call me a liar within the walls of my home? What do you know of history? What did you know of me—of my kind—before I revealed myself? What did you know of the history of the keep? Nothing! The Glaeken were a secret brotherhood. The royal families had never heard of them, and if the later Church knew of their continued existence, it never admitted it.”

Cuza turned away from the blood stench of Molasar’s breath. “How did you learn of their existence?”

“At one time, there was little afoot in the world that the moroi were not privy to. And when we learned of the Glaeken’s plans, we decided to take action.” He straightened with obvious pride. “The moroi opposed the Glaeken for centuries. It was clear that the successful culmination of their plans would be inimical to us, and so we repeatedly foiled their schemes by draining the life from anyone in power who came under their thrall.”

He began to roam the room.

“At first the Glaeken were not even sure we existed. But once they became convinced, they waged all-out war. One by one my brother moroi went down to true death. When I saw the circle tightening around me, I built the keep and locked myself away, determined to outlast the Glaeken and their plans for world dominion. Now it appears that I have succeeded.”

“Very clever,” Cuza said. “You surrounded yourself with ersatz crosses and went into hibernation. But I must ask you, and please answer me: Why do you fear the cross?”

“I cannot discuss it.”

“You must tell me! The Messiah—was Jesus Christ—?”

“No!” Molasar staggered away and leaned against the wall, gagging.

“What’s wrong?”

He glared at Cuza. “If you were not a countryman, I would tear your tongue out here and now!”

Even the sound of Christ’s name repels him! Cuza thought.

“But I never—”

“Never say it again! If you value whatever aid I can give you, never say that name again!”

“But it’s only a word.”

“NEVER!” Molasar regained some of his composure. “You have been warned. Never again or your body will lie beside the Germans below.”

Cuza felt as if he were drowning. He had to try something.

“What about these words? Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei raba bealma divera chireutei, veyamlich—”

“What is that meaningless jumble of sounds?” Molasar said. “Some sort of chant? An incantation? Are you trying to drive me off?” He took a step closer. “Have you sided with the Germans?”

“No!”

It was all Cuza could say before his voice cracked and broke off. His mind reeled as if from a blow; he gripped the arms of his wheelchair with his crippled hands, waiting for the room to tilt and spill him out. It was a nightmare! This creature of the Dark cringed at the sight of a cross and retched at the mention of the name Jesus Christ. Yet the words of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, were just so much meaningless noise. It could not be!

And yet it was.

Molasar was speaking, oblivious to the painful maelstrom that swirled within his listener. Cuza tried to follow the words. They might be crucial to Magda’s survival, and his own.

“My strength is growing steadily. I can feel it coming back to me. Before long—two nights at most—I shall have the power to rid my keep of all these outlanders.”

Cuza tried to assimilate the meaning of the words: strength…two more nights…rid my keep…But other words kept rearing up in his consciousness, a persistent undertone…Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei…blocking their meaning.

And then came the sound of heavy boots running into the watchtower and pounding up the stone steps to the upper levels, the faint sound of human voices raised in anger and fear in the courtyard, the momentary dimming of the single bulb overhead, signaling a sudden draw on the power supply.

Molasar showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “It seems they have found their two comrades-in-arms.”

“And soon they will come here to place the blame on me,” Cuza said, alarm pulling him from his torpor.

“You are a man of the mind,” Molasar said, stepping to the wall and giving the hinged slab a casual shove. It swung open easily. “Use it.”

Cuza watched Molasar blend and disappear into the deeper shadow of the opening, wishing he could follow. As the stone slab swung shut, Cuza wheeled his chair around to the table and leaned over the Al Azif, feigning study; waiting, trembling.

It was not a long wait. Kaempffer burst into the room.

“Jew!” he shouted, jabbing an accusing finger at Cuza as he assumed a wide-legged stance he no doubt considered at once powerful and threatening. “You’ve failed, Jew! I should have expected no more!”

Cuza could only sit and stare dumbly at the major. What could he say? He had no strength left. He felt miserable, sick at heart as well as in body. Everything hurt him, every bone, every joint, every muscle. His mind was numb from his encounter with Molasar. He couldn’t think. His mouth was parched, yet he dared not take any more water, for his bladder longed to empty itself at the very sight of Kaempffer.

He wasn’t cut out for such stress. He was a teacher, a scholar, a man of letters. He was not equipped to deal with this strutting popinjay who had the power of life and death over him. He wanted desperately to strike back yet did not have the faintest hope of doing so. Was living through all this really worth the trouble?

How much more could he take?

And yet there was Magda. Somewhere along the line there must be hope for her.

Two nights…Molasar had said he would have sufficient strength two nights from now. Forty-eight hours. Cuza asked himself: Could he hold out that long? Yes, he would force himself to last until Saturday night. Saturday night…the Sabbath would be over…What did the Sabbath mean anymore? What did anything mean anymore?

“Did you hear me, Jew?” The major’s voice was straining toward a scream.

Another voice spoke: “He doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.”

The captain had entered the room. Cuza sensed a core of decency within Captain Woermann, a flawed nobility. Not a trait he expected to find in a German officer.

“Then he’ll learn soon enough!” Two long strides took Kaempffer to Cuza’s side. He leaned down and forward until his perfect Aryan face was only inches away.

“What’s wrong, Major?” Cuza said, feigning ignorance, but allowing his genuine fear of the man to show on his face. “What have I done?”

“You’ve done nothing, Jew! And that’s the problem. For two nights you’ve sat here with these moldering books, taking credit for the sudden halt in the deaths. But tonight—”

“I never—” Cuza began, but Kaempffer stopped him by slamming his fist on the table.

“Silence! Tonight two more of my men were found dead in the cellar, their throats torn out like the others!”

Cuza had a fleeting image of the two dead men. After viewing the other cadavers, it was easy to imagine their wounds. He visualized their gory throats with a certain relish. Those two had attempted to defile his daughter and deserved all they had suffered. Deserved worse.

Molasar was welcome to their blood. But it was he who was in danger now. The fury in the major’s face made that clear. He must think of something or he would not live to see Saturday night.

“It’s now evident that you deserve no credit for the last two nights of peace. There is no connection between your arrival and the two nights without a death—just lucky coincidence for you! But you led us to believe it was your doing. Which proves what we have learned in Germany: Never trust a Jew!”

“I never took credit for anything! I never even—”

“You’re trying to detain me here, aren’t you?” Kaempffer said, his eyes narrowing, his voice lowering to a menacing tone as he studied him. “You’re doing your best to keep me from my mission at Ploiesti, aren’t you?”

Cuza’s mind reeled from the major’s sudden change of tack. The man was mad…as mad as Abdul Alhazred must have been after writing the Al Azif…which lay before them on the table…

He had an idea.

“But Major! I’ve finally found something in one of the books!”

Captain Woermann stepped forward at this. “Found? What have you found?”

“He’s found nothing!” Kaempffer snarled. “Just another Jew lie to let him go on living!”

How right you are, Major, he thought.

“Let him speak, for God’s sake!” Woermann turned to Cuza. “What does it say? Show me.”

Cuza indicated the Al Azif, written in the original Arabic. The book dated from the eighth century and had absolutely nothing to do with the keep, or even Romania for that matter. But he hoped the two Germans would not know that.

Doubt furrowed Woermann’s brow as he looked down at the scroll. “I can’t read those chicken tracks.”

“He’s lying!” Kaempffer shouted.

“This book does not lie, Major,” Cuza said. He paused an instant, praying that the Germans would not know the difference between Turkish and ancient Arabic, then plunged into his lie. “It was written by a Turk who invaded this region with Mohammed the second. He says there was a small castle—his description of all the crosses can only mean he was in this keep—in which one of the old Wallachian lords had dwelt. The shade of the deceased lord would allow natives of the region to sleep unmolested in his keep, but should outlanders or invaders dare to pass through the portals of his former home, he would slay them at the rate of one per night for every night they stayed. Do you understand? The same thing that is happening here now happened to a unit of the Turkish Army half a millennium ago!”

Cuza watched the faces of the two officers as he finished. His own reaction was one of amazement at his facile fabrication from what he knew of Molasar and the region. There were holes in the story, but small ones, and they had a good chance of being overlooked.

Kaempffer sneered. “Utter nonsense!”

“Not necessarily,” Woermann said. “Think about it: The Turks were always on the march back then. And count up our corpses—with the two new ones tonight, we have averaged one death a night since I arrived on April twenty-second.”

“It’s still…” Kaempffer’s voice trailed off as his confidence ebbed. He looked uncertainly at Cuza. “Then we’re not the first?”

“No. At least not according to this.”

It was working! The biggest lie Cuza had ever told in his life, composed on the spot, was working! They didn’t know what to believe! He wanted to laugh.

“How did they finally solve the problem?” Woermann asked.

“They left.”

Silence followed Cuza’s simple reply.

Woermann finally turned to Kaempffer: “I’ve been telling you that for—”

“We cannot leave!” Kaempffer said, a hint of hysteria in his voice. “Not before Sunday.” He turned to Cuza. “And if you do not come up with an answer for this problem by then, Jew, I shall see to it that you and your daughter personally accompany me to Ploiesti!”

“But why?”

“You’ll find out when you get there.” Kaempffer paused a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “No, I believe I’ll tell you now. Perhaps it will speed your efforts. You’ve heard of Auschwitz, no doubt? And Buchenwald?”

Cuza’s stomach imploded. “Death camps.”

“We prefer to call them ‘resettlement’ camps. Romania lacks such a facility. It is my mission to correct that deficiency. Your kind, plus Gypsies and Freemasons and other human dross, will be processed through the camp I will set up at Ploiesti. If you prove to be of service to me, I will see to it that your entry into the camp is delayed, perhaps even until your natural death. But if you impede me in any way, you and your daughter will have the honor of being our first residents.”

Cuza sat helpless in his chair. He could feel his lips and tongue working, but he could not speak. His mind was too shocked, too appalled at what he had just heard. It was impossible! Yet the glee in Kaempffer’s eyes told him it was true. Finally, a word escaped him.

“Beast!”

Kaempffer’s smile broadened. “Strangely enough, I don’t mind the sound of that word on a Jew’s lips. It is proof positive that I am successfully discharging my duties.” He strode to the door, then turned back. “So look well through your books, Jew. Work hard for me. Find me an answer. It’s not just your own well-being that hangs on it, but your daughter’s too.”

He turned and was gone.

Cuza looked at Woermann pleadingly. “Captain…?”

“I can do nothing, Herr Professor,” he replied in a low voice full of regret. “I can only suggest that you work at those books. You’ve found one reference to the keep; that means there’s a good chance you can find another. And I might suggest that you tell your daughter to find a safer place of residence than the inn…perhaps somewhere in the hills.”

He could not admit to the captain that he had lied about finding a reference to the keep, that there was no hope of ever finding one. And as for Magda:

“My daughter is stubborn. She will stay at the inn.”

“I thought as much. But beyond what I have just said, I am powerless. I am no longer in command of the keep.” He grimaced. “I wonder if I ever was. Good evening.”

“Wait!” Cuza clumsily fished the cross out of his pocket. “Take this. I have no use for it.”

Woermann enclosed the cross in his fist and stared at him a moment. Then he, too, was gone.

Cuza sat in his wheelchair, enveloped in the blackest despair he had ever known. He saw no way of winning here. If Molasar stopped killing the Germans, Kaempffer would leave for Ploiesti to begin the systematic extermination of Romanian Jewry. If Molasar persisted, Kaempffer would destroy the keep and drag him and Magda to Ploiesti as his first victims. He thought of Magda in their hands and truly understood the old cliché, a fate worse than death.

There had to be a way out. Far more than his own life and Magda’s rested on what happened here. Hundreds of thousands—perhaps a million or more—of lives were at stake. There had to be a way to stop Kaempffer. He had to be prevented from going off on his mission…It seemed of utmost importance to him to arrive in Ploiesti on Monday. Would he lose his position if delayed? If so, that might give the doomed a grace period.

What if Kaempffer never left the keep? What if he met with a fatal accident? But how? How to stop him?

He sobbed in his helplessness. He was a crippled Jew amid squads of German soldiers. He needed guidance. He needed an answer. And soon. He folded his stiff fingers and bowed his head.

Oh God. Help me, your humble servant, find the answer to the trials of your other servants. Help me help them. Help me find a way to preserve them…

The silent prayer trailed off into the oblivion of his despair. What was the use? How many of the countless thousands dying at the hands of the Germans had lifted their hearts and minds and voices in a similar plea? And where were they now? Dead!

And where would he be if he waited for an answer to his own supplication? Dead.

And worse for Magda.

He sat in quiet desperation…

Still…there was Molasar.

Woermann stood for a moment outside the professor’s door after closing it. He had experienced a strange sensation while the old man was explaining what he had found in that indecipherable book, a feeling that Cuza was telling the truth, and yet lying at the same time. Odd. What was the professor’s game?

He strolled out to the bright courtyard, catching the anxious expressions on the faces of the sentries. Ah, well, it had been too good to be true. Two nights without a casualty—too much to hope for three. Now they were all back to square one…except for the body count which continued to rise. Ten now. One per night for ten nights. A chilling statistic.

If only the killer, Cuza’s “Wallachian lord,” had held off until tomorrow night. Kaempffer would have been gone by then and he could have marched his own men out. But as things looked now, they would all have to stay through the weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights to go.

A death potential of three. Maybe more.

Woermann turned right and walked the short distance to the cellar entrance. The interment detail should have the two fresh corpses down in the subcellar by now. He decided to see that they were laid out properly. Even einsatzkommandos should be accorded a modicum of dignity in death.

In the cellar he glanced into the room in which the two bodies had been found; their throats had not only been torn open but their heads had lolled at obscene angles. The killer had broken their necks for some reason. That was a new atrocity. The room was empty now except for pieces of the shattered door. What had happened here? The dead men’s weapons had been found unfired. Had they tried to save themselves by locking the door against their attacker? Why had no one heard their shouts? Or hadn’t they shouted?

He walked farther down the central corridor to the broached wall and heard voices coming from below. On the way down the stairs he met the interment detail coming up, blowing into their chilled hands. He directed them back down the stairs.

“Let’s go see what sort of job you did.”

In the subcellar the glow from flashlights and handheld kerosene lamps glimmered dully off the ten white-sheeted figures.

“We neatened them up a bit, sir,” said a private in gray. “Some of the sheets needed straightening.”

Woermann surveyed the scene. Everything seemed in order. He was going to have to come to a decision on disposition of the bodies. He would have to ship them out soon. But how?

He clapped his hands together. Of course—Kaempffer! The major was planning to leave Sunday evening no matter what. He could transport the corpses to Ploiesti, and from there they could be flown back to Germany. Perfect…and fitting.

He noticed that the left foot of the third corpse from the end was sticking out from under its sheet. As he stooped to adjust the cover, he saw that the boot was filthy. It looked as if the wearer had been dragged to his resting place by the arms. Both boots were caked with dirt.

Woermann felt a surge of anger, then let it slip away. What did it matter? The dead were dead. Why make a fuss over a muddy pair of boots? Last week it would have seemed important. Now it was no more than a quibble. A trifle. Yet the dirty boots bothered him. He could not say why, exactly. But they did bother him.

“Let’s go, men,” he said, turning away and letting his breath fog past him as he moved. The men readily complied. It was cold down here.

Woermann paused at the foot of the steps and looked back. The corpses were barely visible in the receding light. Those boots…he thought of those dirty, muddy boots again. Then he followed the others up to the cellar.

From his quarters at the rear of the keep, Kaempffer stood at his window and looked out over the courtyard. He had watched Woermann go down to the cellar and return. And still he stood. He should have felt relatively safe, at least for the rest of the night. Not because of the guards all around, but because the thing that killed his men at will had done its work for the night and would not strike again.

Instead, his terror was at a peak.

For a particularly horrifying thought had occurred to him. It derived from the fact that so far all the victims had been enlisted men. The officers had remained untouched. Why? It could be due purely to chance since enlisted men outnumbered officers by better than twenty to one in the keep. But deep within Kaempffer was a gnawing suspicion that he and Woermann were being held in reserve for something especially ghastly.

He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he could not escape the dreadful certainty of it. If he could tell someone—anyone—about it, he would at least be partially freed of the burden. Perhaps then he could sleep.

But there was no one.

And so he would stand here at this window until dawn, not daring to close his eyes until the sun filled the sky with light.

TWENTY-THREE

THE KEEP
Friday, 2 May
0732 hours

Magda waited at the gate, anxiously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Despite the morning sun, she was cold. The soul-chilling sensation of evil that had been confined to the keep before seemed to be leaking out into the pass. Last night it had followed her almost as far as the stream below; this morning it had struck her as soon as she set foot on the causeway.

The high wooden gates had been swung inward and now rested against the stone sides of the short, tunnellike entry arch. Magda’s eyes roamed from the tower entrance where she expected Papa to emerge, to the dark opening directly across the courtyard that led down to the cellar, to the rear section of the keep. She saw soldiers at work there, hacking away at the stones. Where yesterday their movements had been lackadaisical, today they were frantic. They worked liked madmen—frightened madmen.

Why don’t they just leave? She couldn’t understand why they remained here night after night waiting for more of their number to die. It didn’t make sense.

She had been feverish with concern for Papa. What had they done to him last night after finding the bodies of her two would-be rapists? As she had approached on the causeway, the awful thought that they might have executed him filled her mind. But that fear had been negated by the sentry’s quick agreement to her request to see her father. And now that the initial anxiety had been relieved, her thoughts began to drift.

The cheeping of the hungry baby birds outside her window and the dull throb of pain in her left knee had awakened her this morning. She had found herself alone in her bed, fully clothed, under the covers. She had been so terribly vulnerable last night, and Glenn easily could have taken advantage of that. But he hadn’t, even when it had been so obvious that she had wanted him.

Magda cringed inside, unable to comprehend what had come over her, shocked by the memory of her own brazenness. Fortunately, Glenn had rejected her…

No, that was too strong a word…demurred was a better way to put it. She wondered at that, glad he had held back, and yet slighted that he had found her so easy to refuse.

Why should she feel slighted? She had never valued herself in terms of her ability to seduce a man. And yet she heard this nasty whisper in a far corner of her mind hinting that she lacked something.

But maybe it had nothing to do with her. It could be he was one of those…those men who could not love a woman, only another man. But that, she knew, was not the case. She remembered their one kiss—even now it caused a wave of welcome heat to brush over her—and remembered the response she had felt on his part.

Just as well. Just as well he had not accepted her offer. How would she have faced him again if he had? Mortified by her wantonness, she would be forced to avoid him, and that would mean depriving herself of his company. And she so wanted his company.

Last night had been an aberration, a chance combination of circumstances that would not repeat itself. She realized now what had happened: Physical and emotional exhaustion, the near escape from the soldiers, the rescue by Molasar, Papa’s rejection of her offer to stay by his side—all had combined to leave her temporarily deranged. That had not been Magda Cuza lying next to Glenn on the bed last night; it had been someone else, someone she did not know. It would not happen again.

She had passed his room this morning, limping from the pain in her knee, and had been tempted to knock on his door—to thank him for his aid and to apologize for her behavior. But after listening a minute and hearing no sound, she hadn’t wanted to wake him.

She had come directly to the keep, not solely to see that Papa was well, but to tell him how much he had hurt her, how he had no right to treat her in such a manner, and how she had a good mind to heed his advice and leave the Dinu Pass.

The last was an empty threat, but she wanted to strike back at him in some way, to make him react, or at least apologize for his callous behavior. She had rehearsed exactly what she was going to say and exactly the tone of voice in which she would say it. She was ready.

Then Papa appeared at the entrance to the tower with a soldier pushing his chair from behind. One look at his ravaged face and all the anger and hurt went out of her. He looked terrible; he seemed to have aged twenty years overnight. She hadn’t thought it possible, but he looked more feeble.

How he has suffered! More than any man should. Pitted against his countrymen, his own body, and now the German Army. I can’t side against him, too.

The soldier pushing him this morning was more courteous than the one who had wheeled him yesterday. He brought the wheelchair to a halt before Magda, then turned away. Wordlessly, she moved behind and began to push Papa the rest of the way. They had not gone a dozen feet when he held up his hand.

“Stop here, Magda.”

“What’s wrong?”

She didn’t want to stop. She could still feel the keep here. Papa didn’t seem to notice.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Did they keep you up?” she asked, coming around to crouch before him, her fierce protective instincts kindling anger within her. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

His eyes were rheumy as they looked into hers. “They didn’t touch me, but they hurt me.”

“How?”

He began speaking in the Gypsy dialect they both knew: “Listen to me, Magda. I’ve found out why the SS men are here. This is just a stop along their way to Ploiesti where that major is going to set up a death camp—for our people.”

Magda felt a wave of nausea. “Oh, no! That’s not true! The government would never let Germans come in and—”

“They are already here! You know the Germans have been building fortifications around the Ploiesti refineries; they’ve been training Romanian soldiers to fight. If they’re doing all that, why is it so hard to believe that they intend to start teaching Romanians how to kill Jews? From what I can gather, the major is experienced in killing. He loves his work. He will make a good teacher. I can tell.”

It couldn’t be! And yet hadn’t she also said that Molasar couldn’t be? There had been stories in Bucharest about the death camps, whispered tales of the atrocities, of the countless dead; tales which at first no one believed, but as testimony piled upon testimony, even the most skeptical Jew had to accept. The Gentiles did not believe. They were not threatened. It was not in their interest—in fact it could well prove to their detriment—to believe.

“An excellent location,” Papa said in a tired voice devoid of emotion. “Easy to get us there. And should one of their enemies try to bomb the oil fields, the resulting inferno would do the Nazis’ job for them. And who knows? Perhaps the knowledge of the camp’s existence might even cause an enemy to hesitate to bomb the fields, although I doubt it.”

He paused, winded. Then: “Kaempffer must be stopped.”

Magda shot to her feet, wincing at the pain in her knee.

“You don’t think you can stop him, do you? You’d be dead a dozen times over before you could even scratch him!”

“I must find a way. It’s no longer just your life I worry about. Now it’s thousands. And they all hang on Kaempffer.”

“But even if something does…stop him, they’ll only send another in his place!”

“Yes. But that will take time, and any delay is in our favor. Perhaps in the interval Russia will attack the Germans, or vice versa. I can’t see two mad dogs like Hitler and Stalin keeping away from each other’s throats for too long. And in the ensuing conflict perhaps the Ploiesti Camp will be forgotten.”

“But how can the major be stopped?” She had to make Papa think, make him see how crazy this was.

“Perhaps Molasar.”

Magda was unwilling to believe what she had just heard. “Papa, no!”

He held up a cotton-gloved hand. “Wait, now. Molasar has hinted that he might use me as an ally against the Germans. I don’t know how I could be of service to him, but tonight I’ll find out. And in return I’ll ask that he be sure to put a stop to Major Kaempffer.”

“But you can’t deal with something like Molasar! You can’t trust him not to kill you in the end!”

“I don’t care for my own life. I told you, there’s more at stake here. And besides, I detect a certain rough honor in Molasar. You judge him too harshly, I think. You react to him as a woman and not as a scholar. He is a product of his times, and they were bloodthirsty times. Yet he has a sense of national pride that has been deeply offended by the presence of the Germans. I may be able to use that. He thinks of us as fellow Wallachians and is better disposed toward us. Didn’t he save you from the two Germans you blundered into last night? He could just as easily have made you a third victim. We must try to use him! There’s no alternative.”

Magda stood before him and searched for another option. She could not find one. And although she was repelled by it, Papa’s scheme did offer a glimmer of hope. Was she being too hard on Molasar? Did he seem so evil because he was so different, so implacably other? Could he be more of an elemental force than something consciously evil? Wasn’t Major Kaempffer a better example of a truly evil being?

She had no answers. She was groping.

“I don’t like it, Papa,” was all she could say.

“No one said you should like it. No one promised us an easy solution—or any solution at all, for that matter.” He yawned. “And now I’d like to go back to my room. I need sleep for tonight’s encounter. I’ll require all my wits about me if I’m to strike a bargain with Molasar.”

“A deal with the devil,” Magda said, her voice falling to a quavering whisper. She was more frightened than ever for her father.

“No, my dear. The devil in the keep wears a black uniform with a silver death’s head on his cap, and calls himself a Sturmbannführer.”

Magda reluctantly had returned him to the gate, then watched until he was wheeled back into the tower. She turned and hurried toward the inn in a state of confusion. Everything was moving too quickly for her. Her life until now had been filled with books and research, melodies, and black music notes on white paper. She was not cut out for intrigue. Her head still spun with the monstrous implications of what she had been told.

She hoped Papa knew what he was doing. Instinctively, she had opposed his planned liaison with Molasar until she had seen that look on Papa’s face. A spark of hope had glimmered there, a shining fragment of the old zest that had once made his company such a pleasure. Papa saw a chance to do something rather than just sit in his wheelchair and have things done to him. He desperately needed to feel he could be of some use to his people…to anybody. She could not rob him of that.

As she approached the inn, Magda felt the chill of the keep finally slip away. She strolled around the building in search of Glenn, thinking he might be taking the morning sun at the rear. He was not outside, nor was he in the dining alcove when she passed. She went upstairs and stopped at his door, listening. Still no sound from within. He hadn’t struck her as a late riser; perhaps he was reading.

She raised her hand to knock, then lowered it. Better to run into him around the inn than come looking for him—he might think she was chasing him.

Back in her room she heard the plaintive cheeping of the baby birds and went to the window to look at the nest. She could see their four tiny heads straining up from the nest, but the mother wasn’t there. Magda hoped she hurried back—her babies sounded terribly hungry.

She picked up her mandolin but after a few chords put it down again. She was edgy, and the constant noise of the baby birds was making her more so. With a sudden surge of determination, she strode out into the hall.

She rapped twice on the wooden door to Glenn’s room. No answer, no sound of movement within. She hesitated, then gave way to impulse and lifted the latch. The door swung open.

“Glenn?”

The empty room was identical to her own; in fact she had stayed in this room on the last trip she and Papa had made to the keep. Something was wrong, though. She studied the walls. The mirror—the mirror over the bureau was gone. A rectangle of whiter stucco marked its former spot on the wall. It must have been broken since her last visit and never replaced.

Magda stepped inside and walked in a slow circle. This was where he stayed, and here was the unmade bed where he slept. She felt excited, wondering what she would say if he came back now. How could she explain her presence? She couldn’t. She decided she’d better leave.

As she turned to go, she saw that the closet door was ajar. Something glittered from within. It was pressing her luck, but how much could a quick peek hurt? She pulled the door open all the way.

The mirror that was supposed to hang over the bureau lay propped up in the corner of the closet. Why would Glenn take down the mirror? Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it had fallen off the wall and Iuliu had yet to rehang it. She noted a few items of clothing in the closet and something else: A long case of some sort, nearly as long as she was tall, stood in the other corner.

Curious, Magda knelt and touched its leather surface—rough, warped, puckered. Either very old or poorly cared for. She could not imagine what could be in it. A quick look over her shoulder assured her that the room was still empty, the door still open, and all quiet in the hallway. It would take only a second to release the catches on the case, peek inside, reclose it, then be on her way. She had to know.

Feeling the delicious apprehension of a naughty, inquisitive child exploring a forbidden area of the house, she reached for the three brass clasps; they grated as she opened them, as if they had sand in their works. The hinges made a similar sound as she swung the cover open.

At first Magda did not know what it was. The color was blue, a deep, dark, steely blue; the object was metal, but what type of metal she could not say. Its shape was that of an elongated wedge—a long, tapering piece of metal, pointed at the top and very sharp along both its beveled edges. Like a sword.

That was it! A sword! A broadsword. Only there was no hilt to this blade, only a thick, six-inch spike at its squared-off lower end, which looked like it was designed to fit into the top of a hilt. What a huge, fearsome weapon this would make when attached to its hilt!

Her eyes were drawn to the markings on the blade—it was covered with odd symbols. Not merely etched into the shiny blue surface of the metal, they were carved into it. She could slip the tip of her little finger along the grooves. The symbols were runes, but not like any she had ever seen. She was familiar with Germanic and Scandinavian runes, which went back to the Dark Ages, back as far as the third century. But these were older. Much older. They possessed a quality of eldritch antiquity that disturbed her, seeming to shift and move as she studied them. This broadsword blade was old—so old she wondered who or what had made it.

The door to the room slammed closed. “Find what you’re looking for?”

Magda jumped at the sound, causing the lid of the case to snap closed over the blade. She leaped to her feet and turned around to face Glenn, her heart thumping with surprise—and guilt.

“Glenn, I—”

He looked furious. “I thought I could trust you! What did you hope to find in here?”

“Nothing…I came looking for you.”

She did not understand the intensity of his anger. He had a right to be annoyed, but this—

“Did you think you’d find me in the closet?”

“No! I…”

Why try to explain it away? It would only sound lame. She had no business being here. She was in the wrong, she knew it, and she felt terribly guilty standing here after being caught in the act. But it wasn’t as if she had come here to steal from him. As she felt her own anger begin to grow at the way he was overreacting, she found the will to meet his glare with her own.

“I’m curious about you. I came in to talk with you. I—I like to be with you, and yet I know nothing about you.” She tossed her head. “It won’t happen again.”

She moved toward the hall, intending to leave him with his precious privacy, but she never reached the door. As she passed between Glenn and the bureau, he reached out and gripped her shoulders, gently but with a firmness that was not to be denied. He turned her toward him. Their eyes locked.

“Magda…” he began, then he was pulling her to him, pressing his lips against hers, crushing her against him.

Magda experienced a fleeting urge to resist, to pound her fists against him and pull away, but this was mere reflex and was gone before she could respond to it, engulfed in the heat of desire that surged over her. She slipped her arms around Glenn’s neck and pulled closer to him, losing herself in the enveloping glow. His tongue pushed through to hers, shocking her with its audacity—she hadn’t known anyone kissed like this—and jolting her with the pleasure it gave. Glenn’s hands began to roam her body, caressing her buttocks through the layers of her clothes, moving over her compressed breasts, leaving tingling trails of warmth wherever they went. They rose to her neck, untied her kerchief and hurled it away, then came to rest on the buttons of her sweater and began opening them. She didn’t stop him. Her clothes had shrunken on her and the room had grown so hot…she had to be rid of them.

There came a brief moment then when she could have stopped it, could have pulled back and retreated. With the parting of the front of her sweater a small voice cried out in her mind—Is this me? What’s happening to me? This is insane! It was the voice of the old Magda, the Magda who had faced the world since her mother’s death. But that voice was swept away by another Magda, a stranger, a Magda who had slowly grown amid the ruins of everything the old Magda had believed in. A new Magda, awakened by the vital force that burned white-hot within the man who now held her. The past, tradition, and propriety had lost all meaning; tomorrow was a faraway place she might never see. There was only now. And Glenn.

The sweater slipped from her shoulders, then the white blouse. Magda felt fire where her hair brushed the bare skin of her upper back and shoulders. Glenn pushed the tight bandeau down to her waist, allowing her breasts to spring free. Still holding his lips to hers, he ran his fingertips lightly over each breast, zeroing in on the taut nipples and tracing tiny circles that caused her to moan deep in her throat. His lips finally broke from hers, sliding along her throat to the valley between her breasts, from there to her nipples, each in turn, his tongue making little wet circles over the dry ones his fingers had drawn. With a small cry she clutched the back of his head and arched her breasts against his face, shuddering as waves of ecstasy began to pulsate from deep within her pelvis.

He lifted her and carried her to the bed, removing the rest of her clothes while his lips continued to pleasure her. Then his own clothes were off and he was leaning over her. Magda’s hands had taken on a life of their own, running over him as if to be sure that he was real. And then he was on her and slipping into her, and after the first jab of pain he was there and it was wonderful.

Oh, God! she thought as spasms of pleasure shot through her. Is this what it’s like? Is this what I’ve been missing all these years? Can this be the awful act I’ve heard the married women talking about? It can’t be! This is too wonderful! And I haven’t been missing anything because it never could be like this with any man but Glenn.

He began to move inside her and she matched his rhythm. The pleasure increased, doubling and redoubling until she was sure her flesh would melt. She felt Glenn’s body begin to stiffen as she felt the inevitability within her. It happened. With her back arched, her ankles hooked on either side of the narrow mattress, and her knees wide in the air, Magda Cuza saw the world swell, crack, and come apart in a blazing burst of flame.

And after a while, to the accompaniment of her spent body’s labored breathing, she watched it fall together again through the lids of her closed eyes.

They spent the day on that narrow little bed, whispering, laughing, talking, exploring each other. Glenn knew so much, taught her so much, it was as if he were introducing her to her own body. He was gentle and patient and tender, bringing her to peaks of pleasure time and time again. He was her first—she didn’t say so; she didn’t have to. She was far from his first—that, too, required no comment, and Magda found it didn’t matter. Yet she sensed a great release within him, as if he had denied himself for a long time.

His body fascinated her. The male physique was terra incognita to Magda. She wondered if all men’s muscles were so hard and so close to the skin. All of Glenn’s hair was red, and there were so many scars on his chest and abdomen; old scars, thin and white on his olive skin. When she asked about them, he told her they were from accidents. Then he quieted her questions by making love to her again.

After the sun had dipped behind the western ridge, they dressed and went for a walk, arm in arm, stretching their limbs, stopping every so often to embrace and kiss. When they returned to the inn, Lidia was putting supper on the table. Magda realized she was famished and so they both sat down and helped themselves, Magda trying to do her best to keep her eyes off Glenn and concentrate on the food, feeding one hunger while another grew. A whole new world had been opened to her today and she was eager to explore it further.

They ate hurriedly and excused themselves the instant they were finished, like schoolchildren hurrying out to play before dark. From the table it was a race to the second floor, Magda ahead, laughing, leading Glenn to her room this time. Her bed. As soon as the door closed behind them they were pulling at each other’s clothes, throwing them in all directions, then clutching each other in the growing dark.

As she lay in his arms hours later, fully spent, at peace with herself and the world as never before, Magda knew she was in love. Magda Cuza, the spinster bookworm, in love. Never, anywhere, at any time, had there been another man like Glenn. And he wanted her. She loved him. She hadn’t said so. She felt she should wait until he said it first. It might not be for a while, but that was all right. She could tell he felt it too, and that was enough.

She snuggled more closely against him. Today alone was enough for the rest of her life. It was almost gluttonous to look forward to tomorrow. Yet she did. Avidly. Surely no one had ever derived so much pleasure from body and emotions as she had today. No one.

Tonight she went to sleep a different Magda Cuza than the one who had awakened in this very bed this morning. It seemed so long ago…a lifetime ago. And that other Magda seemed like such a stranger now. A sleepwalker, really. The new Magda was wide awake and in love. Everything was going to be all right.

Magda closed her eyes. Faintly, she heard the cheeping of the baby birds outside the window. Their peeps were fainter than this morning and seemed to have taken on a desperate quality. But before she could wonder about what might be wrong, she was asleep.

He looked at Magda’s face in the dark. Peaceful and innocent. The face of a sleeping child. He tightened his arms around her, afraid she might slip away.

He should have kept his distance; he had known that all along. But he had been drawn to her. He had let her stir the ashes of feelings he had thought long dead and gone, and found live coals beneath. And then this morning, in the heat of his anger at finding her snooping through his closet, the coals had burst into flame.

It was almost like fate. Like kismet. He had seen and experienced far too much to believe that anything was truly ordained to be. There were, however, certain…inevitabilities. The difference was subtle, yet most important.

Still, it was wrong to let her care when he didn’t even know if he would be walking away from here. Perhaps that was why he had been driven to be with her. If he died here, at least the taste of her would be fresh within him. He couldn’t afford to care now. Caring could distract him, further reducing his chances of surviving the coming battle. And yet if he did manage to survive, would Magda want anything to do with him when she knew the truth?

He drew the cover over her bare shoulder. He did not want to lose her. If there were any way to keep her after all this was over, he would do everything he could to find it.

TWENTY-FOUR

THE KEEP
Friday, 2 May
2137 hours

Captain Woermann sat before his easel. It had been his intention to force himself to blot out that shadow of the hanging corpse. But now, with his palette in his left hand and a tube of pigment in his right, he found himself unwilling to change it. Let the shadow remain. It didn’t matter. He would leave the painting behind anyway. He wanted no reminders of this place when he departed. If he departed.

Outside, the keep lights were on full force, the men on guard in pairs, armed to the teeth and ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. Woermann’s own weapon lay on his bedroll, holstered and forgotten.

He had developed his own theory about the keep, not one he took seriously, but one that fit most of the facts and explained most of the mysteries. The keep was alive. That would explain why no one had seen what killed the men, and why no one could track it down, and why no one had been able to find its hiding place despite all the walls they had torn down. It was the keep itself doing the killing.

One fact was left dangling by this explanation, however. A major fact. The keep had not been malevolent when they had entered, at least not in a way one could sense. True, birds seemed to avoid nesting here, but Woermann had felt nothing wrong until that first night when the cellar wall had been broached. The keep had changed then. It had become bloodthirsty.

No one had fully explored the subcellar. There really didn’t seem to be any reason to. Men had been on guard in the cellar while a comrade had been murdered above them, and they had seen nothing coming or going through the break in the floor. Maybe they should explore the subcellar. Perhaps the keep’s heart lay buried in those caverns. That’s where they should search.

No…that could take forever. Those caverns could extend for miles, and frankly he didn’t want to search them. It was always night down there. And night had become a dread enemy. Only the corpses were willing to stay.

The corpses…their dirty boots and smudged shrouds still bothered Woermann at the oddest times. Like now. And all day long, ever since he had overseen the placement of the last two dead soldiers, those dirty boots had trudged unbidden into his thoughts, scattering them, smearing them with mud.

Those dirty, muddy boots. They made him uncomfortable in a way he could not pin down.

He continued to sit and stare at the painting.

Kaempffer sat cross-legged on his cot, a Schmeisser across his knees. A shiver rippled over him. He tried to still it but didn’t have strength. He had never realized how exhausting constant fear could be. He felt as if he were back in Auschwitz—but as a prisoner.

He had to get out of here!

Blow up the keep tomorrow—that’s what he should do! Set the charges and reduce it to gravel after lunch. That way he could spend Saturday night in Ploiesti in a bunk with a real mattress and not worry about every sound, every vagrant current of air. No more would he have to sit and shake and sweat and wonder what might be making its way down the hall to his door.

But tomorrow was too soon. It wouldn’t look good on his record. He wasn’t due in Ploiesti until Monday and would be expected to use up all the available time until then to solve the problem here. Blowing up the keep was the extreme measure, to be considered only when all else failed. The High Command had ordered that this pass be watched and had designated the keep as the chosen watchpoint. Destruction had to be the last resort.

He heard the measured treads of a pair of einsatzkommandos pass his locked door. The hallway out there was doubly guarded. He had made sure of that. Not that there was the slightest chance a stream of lead from a Schmeisser could stop whatever was behind the killings here, he simply hoped the guards would be taken first, thereby sparing him another night.

And those guards had better stay awake and on duty, no matter how tired they were! He had driven the men hard today to dismantle the rear section of the keep, concentrating their efforts on the area around his quarters. They had opened every wall within fifty feet of where he now huddled, and had found nothing—no secret passages leading to his room, no hiding places anywhere.

He shivered again.

The cold and the darkness came as they had before, but Cuza was feeling too weak and sick tonight to turn his chair around and face Molasar. He was out of codeine and the pain in his joints was a steady agony.

“How do you enter and leave this room?” he asked for want of anything better to say. He had been facing the hinged slab that opened into the base of the watchtower, assuming Molasar would arrive through there. But Molasar had somehow appeared behind him.

“I have my own means of moving about which does not require doors or secret passages. A method quite beyond your comprehension.”

“Along with many other things,” Cuza said, unable to keep the despair from his voice.

It had been a bad day. Beyond the unremitting pain was the sick realization that this morning’s glimmer of hope for a reprieve for his people had been a chimera, a useless pipe dream. He had planned to bargain with Molasar, to strike a deal. But for what? The end of the major? Magda had been right this morning: Stopping Kaempffer would only delay the inevitable; his death might even make the situation worse. Vicious reprisals on Romanian Jews would certainly follow if an SS officer sent to set up a death camp were brutally murdered. And the SS would merely send another officer to Ploiesti, maybe next week, maybe next month. What did it matter? The Germans had plenty of time. They were winning every battle, overrunning one country after another. There did not seem to be any way of stopping them. And when they finally held the seats of power in all the countries they wanted, they could pursue their insane leader’s goals of racial purity at their leisure.

In the long run nothing a crippled history professor could do would make the least bit of difference.

And worsening it all was the insistent knowledge that Molasar feared the cross…feared the cross!

Molasar glided around into his field of vision and stood there studying him. Strange, Cuza thought. Either I’ve immersed myself in such a morass of self-pity that I’m insulated from him, or I’m getting used to Molasar. Tonight he did not feel the crawling sensation that once accompanied Molasar’s presence. Maybe he simply didn’t care anymore.

“I think you may die,” Molasar said without preamble.

The bluntness of the words jolted Cuza. “At your hands?”

“No. At your own.”

Could Molasar read minds? Cuza’s thoughts had dwelt on that very subject for most of the afternoon. Ending his life would solve so many problems. It would set Magda free. Without him to hold her back, she could flee into the hills and escape Kaempffer, the Iron Guard, and all the rest. Yes, the idea had occurred to him. But he still lacked the means…and the resolve.

Cuza averted his gaze. “Perhaps. But if not by my own doing, then soon in Major Kaempffer’s death camp.”

“Death camp?” Molasar leaned forward into the light, his brow furrowed in curiosity. “A place where people gather to die?”

“No. A place where people are dragged off to be murdered. The major will be setting up one such camp not far south of here.”

“To kill Wallachians?” Sudden fury drew Molasar’s lips back from his abnormally long teeth. “A German is here to kill my people?”

“They are not your people,” Cuza said, unable to shake his despondency. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. “They are Jews. Not the sort you would concern yourself with.”

“I shall decide what concerns me! But Jews? There are no Jews in Wallachia—at least not enough to matter.”

“When you built the keep that was true. But in the following century we were driven here from Spain and the rest of Western Europe. Most settled in Turkey, but many strayed into Poland and Hungary and Wallachia.”

“‘We’?” Molasar looked puzzled. “You are a Jew?”

Cuza nodded, half expecting a blast of anti-Semitism from the ancient boyar.

Instead, Molasar said, “But you are a Wallachian too.”

“Wallachia was joined with Moldavia into what is now called Romania.”

“Names change. Were you born here? Were these other Jews who are destined for the death camps?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then they are Wallachians!”

Cuza sensed Molasar’s patience growing short, yet he had to speak: “But their ancestors were immigrants.”

“It matters not! My grandfather came from Hungary. Am I, who was born on this soil, any less a Wallachian for that?”

“No, of course not.” This was a senseless conversation. Let it end.

“Then neither are these Jews you speak of. They are Wallachians, and as such they are my countrymen!” Molasar straightened up and threw back his shoulders. “No German may come into my country and kill my countrymen!”

Typical! Cuza thought. I bet he never objected to his fellow boyars’ depredations among the Wallachian peasants during his day. And he obviously never objected to Vlad’s impalements. It was all right for the Wallachian nobility to decimate the populace, but don’t let a foreigner dare!

Molasar had retreated to the shadows outside the bulb’s cone of light.

“Tell me about these death camps.”

“I’d rather not. It’s too—”

“Tell me!”

Cuza sighed. “I’ll tell you what I know. The first one was set up in Buchenwald, or perhaps Dachau, around eight years ago. There are others: Flossenburg, Ravensbruck, Natzweiler, Auschwitz, and many others I’ve probably never heard of. Soon there will be one in Romania—Wallachia, as you would have it—and maybe more within a year or two. The camps serve one purpose: the collection of certain types of people, millions of them, for torture, debasement, forced labor, and eventual extermination.”

“Millions?”

Cuza could not read Molasar’s tone completely, but there was no doubt that he was having trouble believing what he had been told. Molasar was a shadow among the shadows, his movements agitated, almost frantic.

“Millions,” Cuza said firmly.

“I will kill this German major!”

“That won’t help. There are thousands like him, and they will come one after another. You may kill a few and you may kill many, but eventually they will learn to kill you.”

“Who sends them?”

“Their leader is a man named Hitler who—”

“A king? A prince?”

“No…” Cuza fumbled for the word. “I guess voevod would be the closest word you have for it.”

“Ah! A warlord! Then I shall kill him and he shall send no more!”

Molasar had spoken so matter-of-factly that the full meaning of his words was slow to penetrate the shroud of gloom over Cuza’s mind. When it did…

“What did you say?”

“Lord Hitler—when I’ve regained my full strength I’ll drink his life!”

Cuza felt as if he had spent the whole day struggling upward from the floor of the deepest part of the ocean with no hope of reaching air. With Molasar’s words he broke surface and gulped life. Yet it would be easy to sink again.

“But you can’t! He’s well protected! And he’s in Berlin!”

Molasar came forward into the light again. His teeth were bared, this time in a rough approximation of a smile.

“Lord Hitler’s protection will be no more effective than all the measures taken by his lackeys here in my keep. No matter how many locked doors and armed men protect him, I shall take him if I wish. And no matter how far away he is, I shall reach him when I have the strength.”

Cuza could barely contain his excitement. Here at last was hope—a greater hope than he had ever dreamed possible.

“When will that be? When can you go to Berlin?”

“I shall be ready tomorrow night. I shall be strong enough then, especially after I kill all the invaders.”

“Then I’m glad they didn’t heed me when I told them the best thing they could do was to evacuate the keep.”

“You what?” It was a shout.

Cuza could not take his eyes off Molasar’s hands—they clutched at him, ready to tear into him, restrained only by their owner’s will.

“I’m sorry!” he said, pressing himself back in his chair. “I thought that’s what you wanted!”

“I want their lives!” The hands retreated. “When I want anything else I will tell you what it is, and you will do exactly as I say!”

“Of course! Of course!”

Cuza could never fully and truly agree to that, but he was in no position to put on a show of resistance. He reminded himself that he must never forget what sort of a being he was dealing with. Molasar would not tolerate being thwarted in any way; he had no thought other than having his own way. Nothing else was acceptable or even conceivable to him.

“Good. For I have need of mortal aid. It has always been so. Limited as I am to the dark hours, I need someone who can move about in the day to prepare the way for me, to make certain arrangements that can only be made in the light hours. It was so when I built this keep and arranged for its upkeep, and it is so now. In the past I have made use of human outcasts, men with appetites different from mine but no more acceptable to their fellows. I bought their services by providing them the means to sate those appetites. But you—your price, I feel, will be in accord with my own desires. We share a common cause for now.”

Cuza looked down at his twisted hands. “I fear you could have a better agent than I.”

“The task I will require of you tomorrow night is a simple one: An object precious to me must be removed from the keep and hidden in a secure place in the hills. With that safe I shall feel free to pursue and destroy those who wish to kill our countrymen.”

Cuza experienced a strange floating sensation, a new emotional buoyancy as he imagined Hitler and Himmler cowering before Molasar, and then their torn and lifeless—better yet, headless—bodies strung up for viewing at the entrance to an empty death camp. It would mean an end to the war and the salvation of his people; not merely Romanian Jewry, but his entire race! It promised a tomorrow for Magda. It meant an end to Antonescu and the Iron Guard. It might even mean reinstatement at the university.

But then reality dropped him from those heights, down to his wheelchair. How could he carry anything from the keep? How could he hide it in the hills when his strength could barely wheel him through the door?

“You will need a whole man,” he said to Molasar in a voice that threatened to break. “A cripple like me is useless to you.”

He sensed rather than saw Molasar move around the table to his side. He felt light pressure on his right shoulder—Molasar’s hand. He looked up to see Molasar looking down at him. Smiling.

“You have much to learn about the scope of my powers.”

TWENTY-FIVE

THE INN
Saturday, 3 May
1020 hours

Joy.

That was what it was. Magda had never imagined how wonderful it could be to awaken in the morning and find herself wrapped in the arms of someone she loved. Such a peaceful feeling, a safe feeling. It made the prospect of the coming day so much brighter to know she had Glenn to share it with.

Glenn lay on his side, she on hers, the two of them face-to-face. He was still asleep, and although Magda did not want to wake him, she found she could not keep her hands off him. Gently, she ran her palm over his shoulder, fingered the scars on his chest, smoothed the red tumble of his hair. She moved her bare leg against his. It was so sensuously warm under the covers, skin to skin, pore to pore. Desire began to add its own kind of heat to her skin. She wished he would wake up.

Magda watched his face as she waited for him to stir. So much to learn about this man. Where exactly was he from? What had his childhood been like? What was he doing here? Why did he have that sword blade with him? Why was he so wonderful? She felt like a schoolgirl. She was thrilled with herself. She could not remember being happier.

She wanted Papa to know him. The two of them would get along marvelously. But she wondered how Papa would react to their relationship. Glenn was not Jewish…she didn’t know what he was, but he was certainly not Jewish. Not that it made any difference to her, but such matters had always been important to Papa.

Papa…

A sudden wave of guilt doused her burgeoning desire. While she had been snuggling in Glenn’s arms, safe and secure between bouts of thrashing ecstasy, Papa had sat cold and alone in a stone room, surrounded by human devils while he awaited an audience with a creature from Hell. She should be ashamed!

And yet, why shouldn’t she have stolen a little pleasure for herself? She had not deserted Papa. She was still here at the inn. He had driven her away from the keep the night before and had refused to leave it at all yesterday. And now that she thought of it, if Papa had come back to the inn with her yesterday morning she would not have entered Glenn’s room, and they would not be together this morning.

Strange how things worked.

But yesterday and last night don’t really change things, she told herself. I’m changed, but our predicament remains unaltered. This morning Papa and I are at the mercy of the Germans, just as we were yesterday morning and the morning before that. We are still Jews. They are still Nazis.

Magda slipped from Glenn’s side and rose to her feet, taking the thin bedspread with her. As she moved to the window she wrapped the fabric around her. Much had changed within her, many inhibitions had fallen away like scale from a buried bronze artifact, but still she could not stand naked at a window in broad daylight.

The keep—she could feel it before she reached the window. The sense of evil within it had stretched to the village during the night…almost as if Molasar were reaching out for her. Across the gorge it sat, gray stone under a gray, overcast sky, the last remnants of night fog receding around it. Sentries were still visible on its parapets; the front gate was open. And someone or something was moving along the causeway toward the inn. Magda squinted in the morning light to see what it was.

A wheelchair…and in it…Papa.

But no one was pushing him. He was propelling himself. With strong, rapid, rhythmic motions, Papa’s hands were gripping the wheel rims and his arms were turning them, speeding him along the causeway.

Impossible, but she was seeing it. And he was coming to the inn!

Calling to Glenn to wake up, she began to run around the room gathering her strewn-about garments and pulling them on. Glenn was up in an instant, laughing at her awkward movements and helping her find her clothes. Magda did not find the situation even slightly amusing. Frantically, she pulled her clothes on and ran from the room. She wanted to be downstairs when Papa arrived.

Theodor Cuza was finding his own kind of joy in the morning.

He had been cured. His hands were bare and open to the cool morning air as they gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled them along the causeway. All without pain, without stiffness. For the first time in longer than he wished to remember, Cuza had awakened without feeling as if someone had stolen in on him during the night and splinted every one of his joints. His upper arms moved back and forth like well-oiled pistons, his head freely pivoted to either side without pain or protesting creaks. His tongue was moist—he had adequate saliva again to swallow, and it went down easily. His face had thawed so that he could once again smile in a way that did not cause others around him to wince and glance away.

And he was smiling now, grinning idiotically with the joy of mobility, of self-sufficiency, of being able once again to take an active physical role in the world around him.

Tears! He felt tears on his cheeks. He had cried often since the disease had firmed its grip upon him, but the tears had long since dried up along with his saliva. Now his eyes were wet and his cheeks were slick with them. He was crying, joyfully, unabashedly, as he wheeled himself toward the inn.

Cuza had not known what to expect as Molasar stood over him last night and placed a hand on his shoulder, but he had felt something change within him. He had not known what it was then, but Molasar had told him to go to sleep, that things would be different come morning. He had slept well, without the usual repeated awakenings during the night to grope for the water cup to wet his parched mouth and throat, and had risen later than usual.

Risen…that was the word for it. He had risen from a living death. On his first try he had been able to sit up, and then stand without pain, without gripping the wall or the chair for support. He had known then that he would be able to help Molasar, and help him he would. Anything Molasar wanted him to do, he would do.

He’d had some rough moments leaving the keep. He could not let anyone know he could walk, so he’d imitated his former infirmities as he wheeled himself toward the gate. The sentries had looked at him curiously as he rolled by, but they did not stop him—he had always been free to visit his daughter. Fortunately, neither of the officers had been in the courtyard as he had passed through.

And now, with the Germans behind and an unobstructed causeway ahead, Professor Theodor Cuza spun the wheels of his chair as fast as he could. He had to show Magda. She had to see what Molasar had done for him.

The wheelchair bounced off the end of the causeway with a jolt that almost tipped him headfirst out of it, but he kept rolling. It was rougher going in the dirt but he didn’t mind. It gave him a chance to stretch his muscles, which felt unnaturally strong despite their years of disuse. He rolled by the front door of the inn, then turned left around its south side. There was only one first floor window there, opening into the dining alcove. He stopped after he passed that and wheeled up close to the stucco wall. He was out of sight here—no one from the inn or the keep could see him, and he simply had to do it once more.

He faced the wall and locked the brakes on his chair. A push against the armrests and there he was: standing on his own two feet, supported by no one and nothing. Alone. Standing. By himself. He was a man again. He could look other men straight in the eyes instead of ever up at them. No more a child’s-eye view of existence from down there, where he was always treated as a child. Now he was up here…a man again!

“Papa!”

He turned to see Magda at the corner of the building, gaping at him.

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” he said and opened his arms to her. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, she rushed into them.

“Oh, Papa!” she said in a voice that was muffled by the folds of his jacket as he crushed her against him. “You can stand!”

“I can do more than that.” He stepped away from her and began to walk around the wheelchair, steadying himself at first with a hand atop the backrest, then releasing it as he realized he didn’t need it. His legs felt strong, even stronger than they had felt earlier this morning. He could walk! He felt as if he could run, dance. On impulse, he bent, turned, and spun around in a poor imitation of a step in the Gypsy abulea, almost falling over in the process. But he kept his balance and ended up at Magda’s side, laughing at her astonished expression.

“Papa, what’s happened? It’s a miracle!”

Still gasping from laughter and exertion, he grasped her hands. “Yes, a miracle. A miracle in the truest sense of the word.”

“But how—”

“Molasar did it. He cured me. I’m free of scleroderma—completely free of it! It’s as if I never had it!”

He looked at Magda and saw how her face shone with happiness for him, how her eyes blinked to hold back tears of joy. She was truly sharing this moment with him. And as he looked more closely, he sensed that she was somehow different. He sensed another, deeper joy in her that he had never seen before. He felt he should probe for its source but could not be bothered with that now. He felt too good, too alive!

A movement caught the corner of his eye and he looked up. Magda followed his glance. Her eyes danced when she saw who it was.

“Glenn, look! Isn’t it wonderful? My father has been cured!”

The red-haired man with the strange olive skin said nothing as he stood by the corner of the inn. His pale blue eyes bored into Cuza’s own, making him feel as if his very soul were being examined. Magda kept talking excitedly, rushing over to Glenn and pulling him forward by the arm. She seemed almost drunk with happiness.

“It’s a miracle! A true miracle! Now we’ll be able to get away from here before—”

“What price have you paid?” Glenn said in a low voice that cut through Magda’s chatter.

Cuza stiffened and tried to hold Glenn’s gaze. He found he could not. There was no happiness for him in the cold blue eyes. Only sadness and disappointment.

“I’ve paid no price. Molasar did it for a fellow countryman.”

“Nothing is free. Ever.”

“Well, he did ask me to perform a few services for him, to help make arrangements for him after he leaves the keep since he cannot move about in the day.”

“What, specifically?”

Cuza was becoming annoyed with this type of interrogation. Glenn had no right to an answer and he was determined not to give him one.

“He didn’t say.”

“Odd, isn’t it, to receive payment for a service you’ve not yet rendered, nor even agreed to render? You don’t even know what will be required of you and yet you have already accepted payment.”

“This is not payment,” Cuza said with renewed confidence. “This merely enables me to help him. We’ve made no bargain for there is no need of one. Our bond is the common cause we share—the elimination of Germans from Romanian soil and the elimination of Hitler and Nazism from the world!”

Glenn’s eyes widened and Cuza almost laughed at the expression on his face.

“He promised you that?”

“It was not a promise! Molasar was incensed when I told him of Kaempffer’s plans for a death camp at Ploiesti. And when he learned that there was a man in Germany named Hitler who was behind it all, he vowed to destroy him as soon as he was strong enough to leave the keep. There was no need of a deal or a bargain or payment—we have a common cause!”

He must have been shouting because he noticed that Magda took a step away from him as he finished, a concerned look on her face. She clutched Glenn’s arm and leaned against him. Cuza felt himself go cold. He tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke.

“And what have you been doing with yourself since we parted yesterday morning, child?”

“Oh, I—I’ve been with Glenn most of the time.”

She needed to say no more. He knew. Yes, she had been with Glenn.

Cuza looked at his daughter, clinging to the stranger with a wanton familiarity, her head bare, her hair blowing in the wind. She had been with Glenn. It angered him. Out of his sight less than two days and she had given herself to this heathen. He would put a stop to that! But not now. Soon. Too many other important matters at hand. As soon as he and Molasar had finished their business in Berlin, he would see to it that this Glenn character with the accusing eyes was taken care of too.

…Taken care of…? He didn’t even know what he meant by that. He wondered at the scope of his hostility toward Glenn.

“But don’t you see what this means?” Magda was saying, obviously trying to soothe him. “We can leave, Papa! We can escape down into the pass and get away from here. You don’t have to go back to the keep again! And Glenn will help us, won’t you, Glenn?”

“Of course. But I think you’d better ask your father first if he wants to leave.”

Damn him! Cuza thought as Magda turned wondering eyes on him. Thinks he knows everything!

“Papa…?” she began, but the look on his face must have told her what the answer would be.

“I must go back,” he told her. “Not for myself. I don’t matter anymore. It’s for our people. Our culture. For the world. Tonight he will be strong enough to put an end to Kaempffer and the rest of the Germans here. After that, I must perform a few simple tasks for him and we can walk away from here without worrying about hiding from search parties. And after Molasar kills Hitler—!”

“Can he really do that?” Magda asked, her expression questioning the enormity of the possibility he was describing.

“I asked myself that very question. And then I thought about how he has so terrified these Germans until they are ready to shoot at each other, and has eluded them in that tiny keep for a week and a half, killing them at will.” He held up his hands bare to the wind and watched with a renewed sense of awe as the fingers flexed and extended easily, painlessly. “And after what he has done for me, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is very little he cannot do.”

“Can you trust him?” Magda asked;

Cuza stared at her. This Glenn had apparently tainted her with his suspicious nature. He was no good for her.

“Can I afford not to?” he said after a pause. “My child, don’t you see that this will mean a return to normalcy for us all? Our friends the Gypsies will no longer be hunted down, sterilized, and put to work as slaves. We Jews will not be driven from our homes and our jobs, our property will no longer be confiscated, and we will no longer face the certain extinction of our race. How can I do anything else but trust Molasar?”

His daughter was silent. No rebuttal was forthcoming, for no rebuttal existed.

“And for me,” he continued, “it will mean a return to the university.”

“Yes…your work.” Magda seemed to be in a sort of daze.

“My work was my first thought, yes. But now that I am fit again, I don’t see why I should not be made chancellor.”

Magda glanced up sharply. “You never wanted to be in administration before.”

She was right. He never had. But things were different now.

“That was before. This is now. And if I help rid Romania of the fascists ruining it, don’t you think I should deserve some sort of recognition?”

“You will also have set Molasar loose upon the world,” Glenn said, breaking his prolonged silence. “That may earn you a kind of recognition you don’t want.”

Cuza felt his jaw muscles bunch in anger. Why didn’t this outsider just go away?

“He’s already loose! I’ll merely be channeling his power. There must be a way we can come to some sort of an…arrangement with him. We can learn so much from a being such as Molasar, and he can offer so much. Who knows what other supposedly ‘incurable’ diseases he can remedy? We will owe him an enormous debt for ridding us of Nazism. I would consider it a moral obligation to find some way of coming to terms with him.”

“Terms?” Glenn said. “What kind of terms are you prepared to offer him?”

“Something can be arranged.”

“What, specifically?”

“I don’t know—we can offer him the Nazis who started this war and who run the death camps. That’s a good start.”

“And after they’re gone? Who next? Remember, Molasar will go on and on. You will have to provide sustenance forever. Who next?”

“I will not be interrogated like this!” Cuza shouted as his temper frayed to the breaking point. “Something will be worked out! If an entire nation can accommodate itself to Adolf Hitler, surely we can find a way to coexist with Molasar!”

“There can be no coexistence with monsters,” Glenn said, “be they Nazis or Nosferatu. Excuse me.”

He turned and strode away. Magda stood still and quiet, staring after him. And Cuza in turn stared at his daughter, knowing that although she had not run after the stranger in body, she had done so in spirit. He had lost his daughter.

The realization should have hurt, should have cut him to the bone and made him bleed. Yet he felt no pain or sense of loss. Only anger. He felt two steps removed from all emotions except rage at the man who had taken his daughter away from him.

Why didn’t he hurt?

After watching Glenn until he had rounded the corner of the inn, Magda turned back to her father. She studied his angry face, trying to understand what was going on inside him, trying to sort out her own confused feelings.

Papa had been cured, and that was wonderful. But at what price?

He had changed so—not just in body, but in mind, in personality even. There was a note of arrogance in his voice she had never heard before. And his defensiveness about Molasar was totally out of character. It was as if Papa had been fragmented and then put back together with fine wire…but with some of the pieces missing.

“And you?” Papa asked. “Are you going to walk away from me, too?”

Magda studied him before answering. He was almost a stranger.

“Of course not,” she said, hoping her voice did not show how much she ached to be with Glenn right now. “But…”

“‘But’ what?” His voice cut her like a whip.

“Have you really thought about what dealing with a creature like Molasar means?”

The contortions of Papa’s newly mobilized face as he replied shocked her. His lips writhed as he grimaced with fury.

“So! Your lover has managed to turn you against your own father and against your own people, has he?” His words struck like blows. He barked a harsh, bitter laugh. “How easily you are swayed, my child! A pair of blue eyes, some muscles, and you’re ready to turn your back on your people as they are about to be slaughtered!”

Magda swayed on her feet as if buffeted by a gale. This could not be Papa talking! He was not a cruel man, and yet now he was utterly vicious! But she refused to let him see how much he had just hurt her.

“My only concern was for you,” she said through tight lips that would have quivered had she allowed them to. “You don’t know that you can trust Molasar!”

“And you don’t know that I can’t! You’ve never spoken with him, never heard him out, never seen the look in his eyes when he talks of the Germans who have invaded his keep and his country.”

“I’ve felt his touch,” Magda said, shivering despite the sunlight. “Twice. There was nothing there to convince me that he could care a bit for the Jews—or for any living thing.”

“I’ve felt his touch, too,” Papa said, raising his arms and walking in a quick circle around the empty wheelchair. “See for yourself what that touch has done for me! As for Molasar saving our people, I have no delusions. He doesn’t care about Jews in other lands; only in his own. Only Romanian Jews. The key word is Romanian! He was a nobleman in this land, and he still considers it his land. Call it nationalism or patriotism or whatever—it doesn’t matter. The fact is that he wants all Germans off what he calls ‘Wallachian soil’ and he intends to do something about it. Our people will benefit. And I intend to do anything I can to help him!”

The words rang true. Magda couldn’t help but admit that. They were logical, plausible. And it could be a noble thing Papa was doing. Right now he could run off and save himself and her; instead, he was committing himself to return to the keep to try to save more than two lives. He was risking his own life for a greater goal. Maybe it was the right thing to do. Magda so wanted to believe that.

But she could not. The numbing cold of Molasar’s touch had left her with a permanent rime of mistrust. And there was something else, too: the look in Papa’s eyes as he spoke to her now. A wild look. Tainted…

“I only want you safe.” It was all she could say.

“And I want you safe,” he told her.

She noted a softening in his eyes and in his voice. He was more like his old self for a moment.

“I also want you to stay away from that Glenn,” he said. “He’s no good for you.”

Magda looked away, downward to the floor of the pass. She would never agree to give up Glenn.

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Is that so?”

She sensed the hardness creeping back into Papa’s tone.

“Yes.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “He’s made me see that I’ve never really known the meaning of living until now.”

“How touching! How melodramatic!” Papa said, his voice dripping scorn. “But he’s not a Jew!”

Magda had been expecting this.

“I don’t care!” she said, facing him. And somehow she knew that Papa no longer cared either—it was just another objection to fling at her. “He’s a good man. And if and when we get out of here, I’ll stay with him, if he’ll have me!”

“We’ll see about that!” There was menace in his expression. “But for now I can see that we have no more to discuss!” He threw himself into the wheelchair.

“Papa?”

“Push me back to the keep!”

Anger flared in Magda. “Push yourself back!”

She regretted her words immediately. She had never spoken to her father that way in her entire life. What was worse: Papa did not seem to notice. Either that, or he had noticed and did not care enough to react.

“It was foolish of me to wheel myself over this morning,” he said as if she had not spoken at all. “But I could not wait around for you to come and get me. I must be more careful. I want no suspicions raised about the true state of my health. I want no extra watch on me. So get behind me and push.”

Magda did so, reluctantly and resentfully. For once, she was glad to leave him at the gate and walk back alone.

Matei Stephanescu was angry. Rage burned in his chest like a glowing coal. He did not know why. He sat tense and rigid in the front room of his tiny house at the southern end of the village, a cup of tea and a loaf of bread on the table before him. He thought of many things. And his rage grew steadily hotter.

He thought of Alexandru and his sons and how it wasn’t right that they should get to work at the keep all their lives and earn gold while he had to chase a herd of goats up and down the pass until they grew big enough to sell or barter for his needs. He had never envied Alexandru before, but this morning it seemed that Alexandru and his sons were at the core of all his ills.

Matei thought about his own sons. He needed them here. He was forty-seven and already gray in the hair and knobby in the joints. But where were his sons? They had deserted him—gone to Bucharest two years ago to seek their fortunes, leaving their father and mother alone. They had not cared enough for their father to stay near him and help as he grew older. He hadn’t heard from either of them since they’d left. If he instead of Alexandru had had the work at the keep, Matei was sure his own sons would now be at his side, and perhaps Alexandru’s would have run off to Bucharest.

It was a rotten world and getting rottener. Even his own wife did not care enough about him to get out of bed for him this morning. Ioan had always been anxious to see that he got off with a good breakfast. But this morning was different. She wasn’t sick. She had merely told him, “Go fix it yourself!” And so he had fixed his own tea, which now sat cold and untasted before him. He picked up the knife that lay next to the teacup and cut a thick slice of bread. But after his first bite he spit it out.

Stale!

Matei slammed his hand down on the table. He could not take much more of this. With the knife still in his hand he marched into the bedroom and stood over the prone form of his wife still bundled under the covers.

“The bread’s stale,” he said.

“Then bake some fresh for yourself,” came the muffled reply.

“You’re a miserable wife!” he cried in a hoarse voice. The handle of the knife was sweaty in his hand. His temper was reaching the breaking point.

Ioan threw the covers off and rose to her knees on the bed, hands on hips, her black hair in wild disarray, her face puffy with sleep and fired with a rage that mirrored his own.

“And you are a poor excuse for a man!”

Matei stood and stared at his wife in shock. For a heartbeat he seemed to step outside himself to view the scene. It was not like Ioan to say such a thing. She loved him. And he loved her. But right now he wanted to kill her.

What was happening? It was as if something in the air they breathed was bringing out the worst in them.

And then he was back behind his own eyes, boiling with insensate rage, driving the knife toward his wife. He felt the impact rattle up his arm as the blade rammed into Ioan’s flesh, heard her scream in fear and pain. And then he turned and walked out, never turning back to see where the knife had struck, or whether Ioan was still alive or dead.

As Captain Woermann tightened the collar on his tunic before going down to the mess for lunch, he glanced out his window and saw the professor and his daughter approaching the keep on the causeway. He studied the pair, taking a certain grim satisfaction in the knowledge that his decision to make the girl stay at the inn rather than at the keep, and to allow the two of them to meet freely and confer during the day, had been a good one. There had been greater harmony among the men with her out of sight, and she had not bolted despite the fact that she had been left unguarded. He had made the proper assessment of her: loyal and devoted. As he watched, he saw that they were embroiled in a considerably animated discussion.

Something about the scene struck Woermann as wrong. He scrutinized them until he noticed that the old man’s gloves were off. He had yet to see the professor’s hands uncovered since his arrival. And Cuza seemed to be helping the chair along by pushing against the wheels.

Woermann shrugged. Perhaps the professor was just having a good day. He trotted down the steps, strapping on his belt and holster as he went. The courtyard was a shambles, a confusion of jeeps, lorries, generators, and granite block torn from the walls. The men on the work detail were in the mess in the rear having lunch. They did not seem to be working so hard today as they had been yesterday; but then, they had no new death to spur them on.

He heard voices raised from the gate and turned to look. It was the professor and the girl, arguing as the sentry stood by impassively. Woermann did not have to understand Romanian to know that there was contention between them. The girl seemed to be on the defensive but was holding her ground. Good for her. The old man seemed too much of a tyrant to Woermann, using his illness as a weapon against his daughter.

But he seemed less ill today. His usually frail voice sounded strong and vibrant. The professor must be having a very good day indeed.

Woermann turned and began walking toward the mess area. After a few firm steps, however, his pace faltered and slowed as his gaze canted to the right where an open arch sat dark and still, giving access via its stone gullet to the cellar and beyond.

Those boots…those damned muddy boots…

They haunted him, taunted him…something nasty about them. He had to check them again. Just once.

He descended the steps quickly and hurried down the cellar hall. No need to prolong this. Just a quick look and then back up to the light. He snatched a lantern from the floor by the break in the wall, lit it, and then made his way down into the cold, silent night of the subcellar.

At the base of the steps he spotted three large rats sniffing around in the slime and dirt. Grimacing with disgust, Woermann pawed for his Luger while the rats glared at him defiantly. By the time his weapon had been freed and a cartridge chambered, they had scurried away.

Keeping the pistol raised before him, Woermann hurried over to the row of sheeted cadavers. He saw no more rats on the way. The question of the muddy boots had been blotted from his mind. All he cared about now was the condition of the dead soldiers. If those rats had been at them he would never forgive himself for delaying shipment of the remains.

Nothing seemed amiss. The sheets were all in place. He lifted the covers one by one to inspect the dead faces, but found no sign that the rats had been gnawing at them. He touched the flesh of one of the faces—cold…icy cold and hard. Probably not at all appetizing to a rat.

Still, he could take no chances now that he had seen rats here. The bodies would be shipped out first thing tomorrow morning. He had waited long enough. As he straightened and turned to leave, he noticed a hand of one of the corpses sticking out from under its sheet. He bent again to tuck it back under the cover but snatched his hand away as it came in contact with the dead fingertips.

They were shredded.

Cursing the rats, he held the lamp closer to see how much damage they had done. A crawling sensation ran down his spine as he inspected the hand. It was filthy. The nails were shattered and caked with dirt, the flesh of each fingertip torn and shredded almost to the bone.

Woermann felt sick. He had seen hands like this once before. They had belonged to a soldier in the last war who had received a head wound and mistakenly had been pronounced dead. He had been buried alive. After awakening in his coffin he had clawed his way through a pine box and five or six feet of dirt. Despite his superhuman efforts, the poor fellow never made it to the surface. But before his lungs gave out, his hands had broken through to the air.

And those hands, both of them, had looked like this. Shuddering, Woermann backed away toward the steps. He did not want to see the dead soldier’s other hand. He did not want to see any more down here. Ever again.

He turned and ran for daylight.

Magda returned directly to her room, intending to spend a few hours alone there. So many things to think about; she needed time with herself.

But she could not think. The room was too full of Glenn and of memories of last night. The rumpled bed in the corner was a continual distraction.

She wandered to the window, drawn as ever to the sight of the keep. The malaise that had once been confined within its walls now saturated the air she breathed, further frustrating her attempts at coherent thought. The keep sat out there on its stone perch like some slimy sea thing sending out tentacles of evil in all directions.

As she turned away, the bird’s nest caught her eye. The chicks were strangely silent. After their insistent cheeping all yesterday and into the night, it was odd they should be so quiet now. Unless they had flown the nest. But that couldn’t be. Magda did not know much about birds but she knew those tiny things had been far from ready for flight.

Concerned, she pulled the stool over to the window and stepped up for a view into the nest. The chicks were there: still, limp, fuzzy forms with open, silent mouths and huge, glassy, sightless eyes. Looking at them, Magda felt an unaccountable sense of loss.

She jumped down from the stool and leaned against the windowsill, puzzled. No violence had been done to the baby birds. They had simply died. Disease? Or had they starved to death? Had the mother fallen victim to one of the village cats? Or had she deserted them?

Magda didn’t want to be alone anymore.

She crossed the hall and knocked on Glenn’s door. When there was no reply she pushed it open and stepped inside. Empty. She went to the window and looked out to see if Glenn might be taking the sun at the rear of the building, but there was no one there.

Where could he be?

She went downstairs. The sight of dirty dishes left on the table in the alcove struck her. Magda had always known Lidia to be an immaculate housekeeper. The dishes reminded her that she had missed breakfast. It was almost lunchtime now and she was hungry.

Magda stepped through the front door and found Iuliu standing outside, looking toward the other end of the village.

“Good morning,” she said. “Any chance of lunch being served early?”

Iuliu swiveled his bulk to look at her. The expression on his stubbly face was aloof and hostile, as if he could not imagine dignifying such a request with a reply. After a while he turned away again.

Magda followed his gaze down the road to a knot of people outside one of the village huts.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing that would interest an outsider,” Iuliu replied in a surly tone. Then he seemed to change his mind. “But perhaps you should know.” There was a malicious slant to his smile. “Alexandru’s boys have been fighting with each other. One is dead and the other badly hurt.”

“How awful!” Magda said. She had met Alexandru and his sons, questioned them about the keep a number of times. They had all seemed so close. She was as shocked by the news of the death as she was by the pleasure Iuliu seemed to have taken in telling her.

“Not awful, Domnisoara Cuza. Alexandru and his family have long thought themselves better than the rest of us. Serves them right!” His eyes narrowed. “And it serves as a lesson to outsiders who come here thinking themselves better than the people who live here.”

Magda backed away from the threat in Iuliu’s voice. He had always been such a placid fellow. What had gotten into him?

She turned and walked around the inn. Now more than ever she needed to be with Glenn. But he was nowhere in sight. Nor was he at his usual spot in the brush where he watched the keep.

Glenn was gone.

Worried and despondent, Magda walked back to the inn. As she stepped up to the door she saw a hunched figure limping up from the village. It was a woman and she appeared to be hurt.

“Help me!”

Magda started toward her but Iuliu appeared at the doorway and pulled her back. “You stay here!” he told Magda gruffly, then turned toward the injured woman. “Go away, Ioan!”

“I’m hurt!” she cried. “Matei stabbed me!”

Magda saw that the woman’s left arm hung limp at her side, and her clothing—it looked like a nightgown—was soaked with blood on the left side from shoulder to knee.

“Don’t bring your troubles here,” Iuliu told her. “We have our own.”

The woman continued forward. “Help me, please!”

Iuliu stepped away from the door and picked up an apple-sized rock.

“No!” Magda cried and reached to stay his arm.

Iuliu elbowed her aside and threw the rock, grunting with the force he put behind it. Fortunately for the woman his aim was poor and the missile whizzed harmlessly past her head. But its message was not lost on her. With a sob, she turned and began hobbling away.

Magda started after her. “Wait! I’ll help you!”

But Iuliu grabbed her roughly by the arm and shoved her through the doorway into the inn. Magda stumbled and fell to the floor.

“You’ll mind your business!” he shouted. “I don’t need anyone bringing trouble to my house! Now get upstairs and stay there!”

“You can’t—” Magda began, but then saw Iuliu step forward with bared teeth and a raised arm. Frightened, she leaped to her feet and retreated to the stairs.

What had come over him? He was a different person! The whole village seemed to have fallen under a vicious spell—stabbings, killings, and no one willing to give the slightest aid to a neighbor in need. What was happening here?

Once upstairs, Magda went directly to Glenn’s room. It was unlikely he could have returned without her spotting him, but she had to check.

Still empty. Where was he?

She wandered about the tiny room. She checked the closet and found everything as it had been yesterday—the clothes, the case with the hiltless sword blade in it, the mirror. The mirror bothered her. She looked over to the space above the bureau. The nail was still in the wall there. She reached behind the mirror and found the wire still intact. Which meant it hadn’t fallen from the wall; someone had taken it down. Glenn? Why would he do that?

Uneasy, she closed the closet door and left the room. Papa’s cruel words of the morning and Glenn’s unexplained disappearance were combining to make her suspicious of everything. She had to hold herself together. She had to believe that Papa would be all right, that Glenn would come back to her soon, and that the people in the village would return to their former gentle selves.

Glenn…where could he have gone? And why? Yesterday had been a time of complete togetherness for the two of them, and today she couldn’t even find him. Had he used her? Had he taken his pleasure with her and now abandoned her? No, she couldn’t believe that.

He had seemed greatly disturbed by what Papa had told him this morning. Glenn’s absence might have something to do with that. Still, she felt he had deserted her.

As the sun sank closer to the mountaintops, Magda became almost frantic. She checked his room again—no change. Disconsolately, she wandered back to her own room and to the window facing the keep. Avoiding the silent nest, her eyes ranged the brush along the edge of the gorge, looking for something, anything that might lead her to Glenn.

And then she saw movement within the brush to the right of the causeway. Without waiting for a second look to be sure, Magda ran for the stairs. It had to be Glenn! It had to be!

Iuliu was nowhere about and she left the inn without any trouble. As she approached the brush, she spied his red hair among the leaves. Her heart leaped. Joy and relief flooded through her—along with a hint of resentment for the torment she had been through all day.

She found him perched on a rock, watching the keep from the cover of the branches. She wanted to throw her arms around him and laugh because he was safe, and she wanted to scream at him for disappearing without a word.

“Where have you been all day?” Magda asked as she came up behind him, trying her best to keep her voice calm.

He answered without turning around. “Walking. I had some thinking to do, so I took a walk along the floor of the pass. A long walk.”

“I missed you.”

“And I you.” He turned and held out his arm. “There’s room enough here for two.” His smile was not as wide or as reassuring as it could have been. He seemed strangely subdued, preoccupied.

Magda ducked under his arm and hugged against him. Good…it felt good within the carapace of that arm.

“What’s worrying you?”

“A number of things. These leaves for instance.” He grabbed a handful from the branches nearest him and crumbled them in his fist. “They’re drying out. Dying. And it’s only May. And the villagers…”

“It’s the keep, isn’t it?” Magda said.

“It seems that way, doesn’t it? The longer the Germans stay in there, the more they chip away at the interior of the structure, the further the evil within spreads. Or so it seems.”

“Or so it seems,” Magda echoed him.

“And then there’s your father…”

“He worries me, too. I don’t want Molasar to turn on him and leave him”—she could not say it; her mind refused to picture it—“like the others.”

“Worse things can happen to a man than having his blood drained.”

The solemnity of Glenn’s tone struck her. “You said that once before, on the first morning you met Papa. But what could be worse?”

“He could lose his self.”

“Himself?”

“No. Self. His own self. What he is, what he has struggled all his life to be. That can be lost.”

“Glenn, I don’t understand.”

And she didn’t. Or perhaps didn’t want to. There was a faraway look in Glenn’s eyes that disturbed her.

“Let’s suppose something,” he said. “Let’s suppose that the vampire, or moroi, or undead, as he exists in legend—a spirit confined to the grave by day, rising at night to feed on the blood of the living—is nothing more than the legend you always thought it to be. Suppose instead that the vampire myth is the result of ancient taletellers’ attempts to conceptualize something beyond their understanding; that the real basis for the legend is a being who thirsts for nothing so simple as blood, but who feeds instead on human weakness, who thrives on madness and pain, who steadily gains strength and power from human misery, fear, and degradation.”

His voice, his tone, made her uncomfortable.

“Glenn, don’t talk like that. That’s awful. How could anything feed on pain and misery? You’re not saying that Molasar—”

“I’m just supposing.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” she said with true conviction. “I know Molasar is evil, and perhaps insane. That’s because of what he is. But he’s not evil in the way you describe. He can’t be! Before we arrived he saved the villagers the major had taken prisoner. And remember what he did for me when those two soldiers attacked me.” Magda shivered with the awful memory. “He saved me. And what could be more degrading than rape at the hands of two Nazis? Something that feeds on degradation could have had a small feast at my expense. But Molasar pulled them off me and killed them.”

“Yes. Rather brutally, I believe, from what you told me.”

Queasily, Magda remembered the soldiers’ gurgling death rattles, the grinding of the bones in their necks as Molasar shook them.

“So?”

“So he did not go completely unappeased.”

“But he could have killed me, too, if that would have given him pleasure. But he didn’t. He returned me to my father.”

Glenn’s eyes pierced her. “Exactly!”

Puzzled by Glenn’s response, Magda faltered, then hurried on.

“And as for my father, he’s spent the last few years in almost continual agony. Completely miserable. And now he’s cured of his scleroderma. It’s as if he never had it! If human misery nourishes Molasar, why has he not let my father remain ill and in pain and feed on that? Why cut off a source of ‘nourishment’ by healing my father?”

“Why indeed?”

“Oh, Glenn!” she said, clutching him. “Don’t frighten me any more than I already am! I don’t want to argue with you—I’ve already had such an awful time with my father. I couldn’t bear to be at odds with you, too!”

Glenn’s arm tightened around her. “All right, then. But think on this: Your father is healthier now in body than he has been for many years. But what of the man within? Is he the same man you came here with four days ago?”

That was a question that had plagued Magda all day—one she didn’t know how to answer.

“Yes…No…I don’t know! I think he’s just as confused as I am right now. But I’m sure he’ll be all right. He’s had a shock, that’s all. Being suddenly cured of a supposedly incurable, steadily crippling disease would make anyone behave strangely for a while. But he’ll get over it. You wait and see.”

Glenn said nothing, and Magda was glad of that. It meant that he, too, wanted peace between them. She watched the fog form along the floor of the pass and start to rise as the sun ducked behind the peaks. Night was coming.

Night. Papa had said that Molasar would rid the keep of Germans tonight. That should have given her hope, but somehow it seemed terrible and ominous to her. Even the feel of Glenn’s arm around her could not entirely allay her fear.

“Let’s go back to the inn,” she said at last.

Glenn shook his head. “No. I want to see what happens over there.”

“It could be a long night.”

“It might be the longest night ever,” he said without looking at her. “Endless.”

Magda glanced up and caught a look of terrible guilt passing over his face. What was tearing him up inside? Why wouldn’t he share it with her?

TWENTY-SIX

“Are you ready?”

The words did not startle Cuza. After seeing the last dying rays of the sun fade from the sky, he had been anticipating Molasar’s arrival. At the sound of the hollow voice, he rose from the wheelchair, proud and grateful to be able to do so. He had waited all day for the sun to go down, cursing it at times for being so slow in its course across the sky.

And now the moment was finally here. Tonight would be his night and no one else’s. Cuza had waited for this. No one could take it from him.

“Ready!” he said, turning to find Molasar standing close behind him, barely visible in the glow of a single candle on the table. Cuza had unscrewed the electric bulb overhead. He found himself more comfortable in the wan flicker of the candle. More at ease. More at home. More at one with Molasar. “Thanks to you, I’m able to help.”

Molasar’s expression was neutral. “It took little to heal the wounds caused by your illness. Had I been stronger, I could have healed you in an instant; in my relatively weakened condition, however, it took all night.”

“No doctor could have done it in a lifetime—two lifetimes!”

“Nothing!” Molasar said with a quick, deprecating gesture of his right hand. “I have great powers for bringing death, but also great powers for healing. There is always a balance. Always.”

He thought Molasar’s mood uncharacteristically philosophical. But Cuza had no time for philosophy tonight.

“What do we do now?”

“We wait,” Molasar said. “All is not yet ready.”

“And after—what?” Cuza could barely contain his impatience. “What then?”

Molasar strolled to the window and looked out at the darkening mountains. After a long pause, he spoke in a low tone.

“Tonight I am going to entrust you with the source of my power. You must take it, remove it from the keep, and find a safe hiding place for it somewhere up in those crags. You must not let anyone stop you. You must not allow anyone to take it from you.”

Cuza was baffled. “The source of your power?” He racked his memory. “I never heard of the undead having such a thing.”

“That is because we never wished it to be known,” Molasar said, turning and facing him. “My powers flow from it, but it is also the most vulnerable point in my defenses. It allows me to exist as I do, but in the wrong hands it can be used to end my existence. That is why I always keep it near me where I can protect it.”

“What is it? Where—”

“A talisman, hidden now in the depths of the subcellar. If I am to depart the keep, I cannot leave it behind unprotected. Nor can I risk taking it with me to Germany. So I must give it over for safekeeping to someone I can trust.”

He moved closer and Cuza felt a chill steal over his skin as the depthless black of Molasar’s pupils fixed on him. But he forced himself to stand his ground.

“You can trust me. I’ll hide it so well that even a mountain goat will be hard-pressed to find it. I swear!”

“Do you?” Molasar moved even closer. Candlelight flickered off his waxy face. “It will be the most important task you have ever undertaken.”

“I can do it—now,” Cuza said, balling his fist and feeling strength rather than pain in the movement. “No one will take it away from me.”

“It is unlikely that anyone will try. And even if someone does, it is doubtful anyone alive today would know how to use it against me. But on the other hand, it is made of gold and silver. Should someone find it and try to melt it down…”

A twinge of uncertainty plucked at Cuza. “Nothing can stay hidden forever.”

“Forever is not necessary. Only until I have finished with Lord Hitler and his cohorts. It need remain safe only until I return. After that I shall again take charge of its protection.”

“It will be safe!” Cuza’s self-confidence flowed back into him. He could hide anything in these hills for a few days. “When you return it shall be waiting for you. Hitler gone—what a glorious day that will be! Freedom for Romania, for the Jews. And for me—vindication!”

“‘Vindication’?”

“My daughter—she does not think I should trust you.”

Molasar’s eyes narrowed. “It was not wise to discuss this with anyone, even your own daughter.”

“She is as anxious to see Hitler gone as I am. She simply finds it hard to believe that you are sincere. She’s being influenced by the man I fear has become her lover.”

“What man?”

Cuza thought he saw Molasar flinch, thought the pallid face had grown a shade paler.

“I don’t know much about him. His name is Glenn and he seems to have an interest in the keep. But as to—”

Cuza suddenly felt himself jerked forward and upward. In a blur of motion, Molasar’s hands had shot out, grasped the fabric of his coat, and lifted him clear off the floor.

“What does he look like?” The words were harsh, forced through clenched teeth.

“He—he’s tall!” Cuza blurted, terrified by the enormous strength in the cold hands just inches from his throat, and the long yellow teeth so near…“Almost as tall as you, and—”

“His hair! What about his hair?”

“Red!”

Molasar hurled him away, sending him tumbling across the room, rolling and skidding helplessly, bruisingly along the floor. And as he did, a guttural sound escaped Molasar’s throat, distorted by rage but recognizable to Cuza as—

“Glaeken!”

Cuza thudded against the far wall of the room and lay dazed for a moment. As his vision slowly cleared, he saw something he had never expected to see in Molasar’s face: fear.

Glaeken? Cuza thought, crouching, afraid to speak. Wasn’t that the name of the secret sect Molasar had mentioned two nights ago? The fanatics who used to pursue him? The ones he had built the keep to hide from?

He watched Molasar go to the window and stare out toward the village, his expression unreadable. Finally, he turned again toward Cuza. His mouth was set in a tight, thin line.

“How long has he been here?”

“Three days—since Wednesday evening.” Cuza felt compelled to add: “Why? What’s wrong?”

Molasar did not answer immediately. He paced back and forth in the growing darkness beyond the candlelight—three steps this way, three steps that way, deep in thought. And then he stopped.

“The Glaeken sect must still exist,” he said in a hushed voice. “I should have known! They were always too tenacious, their zeal for world domination too fanatical for them to die out! These Nazis you speak of…this Hitler…it all makes sense now. Of course!”

Cuza felt it might be safe to rise. “What makes sense?”

“The Glaeken always chose to work behind the scenes, using popular movements to hide their identity and their true aims.” Molasar stood there, a towering shadow, and raised his fists. “I see it now. Lord Hitler and his followers are just another façade for the Glaeken. I’ve been a fool! I should have recognized their methods when you first told me about the death camps. And then that twisted cross these Nazis have painted on everything—how obvious! The Glaeken were once an arm of the Church!”

“But Glenn—”

“He is one of them! Not one of their puppets like the Nazis, but one of the inner circle. A true member of the Glaeken—one of its assassins!”

Cuza felt his throat constrict. “But how can you be sure?”

“The Glaeken breed their assassins true to a certain form: always blue eyes, always faintly olive skin, always red hair. They are trained in every method of killing, including ways of killing the undead. This one who calls himself Glenn means to see that I never leave my keep!”

Cuza leaned against the wall, reeling at the thought of Magda in the arms of a man who was part of the real power behind Hitler. It was too fantastic to believe! And yet it all seemed to fit. That was the real horror—it all fit.

No wonder Glenn had been so upset at hearing him say he was going to help Molasar rid the world of Hitler. It also explained Glenn’s unceasing efforts to cast doubt on everything Molasar had told him. And it explained, too, why he had instinctively come to loathe the red-haired man. The monster was not Molasar—it was Glenn! And no doubt at this very moment Magda was with him! Something had to be done!

He steadied himself and looked at Molasar. Cuza could not allow himself to panic now. He needed answers before deciding what to do.

“How can he possibly stop you?”

“He knows ways…ways perfected by his sect over centuries of conflict with my kind. He alone would be able to use my talisman against me. If he gains possession of it he will destroy me!”

“Destroy you…”

Cuza stood in a daze. Glenn could ruin everything. If Glenn destroyed Molasar it would mean more death camps, more conquests by Hitler’s armies…the eradication of the Jews as a people.

“He must be eliminated,” Molasar said. “I cannot risk leaving my source of power here behind me while he is about.”

“Then do it!” Cuza said. “Kill him like you killed the others!”

Molasar shook his head. “I am not yet strong enough to face one such as he—at least not outside these walls. I’m stronger in the keep. If there were some way to bring him here, I could deal with him. I could then see that he would never interfere with me—ever!”

“I have it!” The solution was suddenly clear in Cuza’s brain, crystallizing even as he spoke. It was so simple. “We’ll have him brought here.”

Molasar’s expression was dubious but interested. “By whom?”

“Major Kaempffer will be more than happy to do it!”

Cuza heard himself laugh and was startled at the sound. But why not laugh? He could not suppress his glee at the idea of using an SS major to help rid the world of Nazism.

“Why should he want to do that?”

“Leave it to me!”

Cuza seated himself in the wheelchair and began rolling toward the door. His mind was working furiously. He would have to find the right way to bend the major to his way of thinking, to let Kaempffer reach on his own the decision to bring Glenn over to the keep. He wheeled himself out of the tower and into the courtyard.

“Guard! Guard!” he shouted. Sergeant Oster hurried over immediately, two other soldiers behind him. “Get the major!” he called, puffing with feigned exertion. “I must speak to him immediately!”

“I’ll relay the message,” the sergeant said, “but don’t expect him to come running.” The other two soldiers grinned at this.

“Tell him I’ve learned something important about the keep, something that must be acted upon tonight. Tomorrow may be too late!”

The sergeant looked at one of the privates and jerked his head toward the rear of the keep. “Move!” To the other, he gestured toward the wheelchair. “Let’s see to it that Major Kaempffer doesn’t have to walk too far to see what the professor has to say.”

Cuza was wheeled as far across the courtyard as the rubble would allow, then left to wait. He sat quietly, composing what he would say. After many long minutes, Kaempffer appeared at the opening in the rear wall, his head bare. He was obviously annoyed.

“What do you have to tell me, Jew?” he called.

“It’s of utmost importance, Major,” Cuza replied, weakening his voice so Kaempffer would have to strain to hear. “And not for shouting.”

As Major Kaempffer picked his way through the maze of fallen stone, his lips were moving, indubitably forming silent curses.

Cuza had not realized how much he would enjoy this little charade.

Kaempffer finally arrived at the wheelchair’s side and waved the others away.

“This had better be good, Jew. If you’ve brought me out here for nothing—”

“I believe I’ve discovered a new source of information about the keep,” Cuza told him in a low, conspiratorial tone. “There’s a stranger over at the inn. I met him today. He seems very interested in what is going on here—too interested. He questioned me very closely on it this morning.”

“Why should that interest me?”

“Well, he made a few statements which struck me as odd. So odd that I looked into the forbidden books when I returned and found references there which backed up his statements.”

“What statements?”

“They are unimportant in themselves. What is important is they indicate that he knows more about the keep than he’s telling. I think he may be connected in some way to the people who are paying for the keep’s maintenance.”

Cuza paused to let this settle in. He didn’t want to overburden the major with information. After sufficient time, he added:

“If I were you, Major, I would ask the gentleman to stop in tomorrow for a chat. Maybe he would be good enough to tell us something.”

Kaempffer sneered. “You aren’t me, Jew! I do not waste my time asking dolts to visit—and I don’t wait until morning!” He turned and gestured to Sergeant Oster. “Get four of my troopers down here on the double!” Then back to Cuza: “You’ll come along with us to assure we arrest the right man.”

Cuza hid his smile. It was all so simple—so hellishly simple.

“Another objection that my father has is that you’re not a Jew,” Magda said.

The two of them were still seated amid the dying leaves, facing the keep. Dusk was deepening and the keep had all its lights on.

“He’s right.”

“What is your religion?”

“I have none.”

“But you must have been born into one.”

Glenn shrugged. “Perhaps. If so, I’ve long since forgotten it.”

“How can you forget something like that?”

“Easy.”

She was beginning to feel annoyed at his insistence on frustrating her curiosity.

“Do you believe in God, Glenn?”

He turned and flashed the smile that never failed to move her. “I believe in you…isn’t that enough?”

Magda leaned against him. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

What was she to do with this man who was so unlike her yet stirred her emotions so? He seemed well educated, even erudite, yet she could not imagine him ever opening a book. He exuded strength, yet with her he could be so gentle.

Glenn was a tangled mass of contradictions. Yet Magda felt she had found in him the man with whom she wanted to share her life. And the life she pictured with Glenn was nothing like anything she had ever imagined in the past. No cool lingering days of quiet scholarship in this future, but rather endless nights of tangled limbs and heated passion. If she were to have a life after the keep, she wanted it to be with Glenn.

She didn’t understand how this man could affect her so. All she knew was how she felt…and she desperately wanted to be with him. Always. To cling to him through the night and bear his children and see him smile at her the way he had a moment ago.

But he wasn’t smiling now. He was staring at the keep. Something was tormenting him terribly, eating away at him from the inside. Magda wanted to share that pain, ease it if she could. But she was helpless until he opened up to her. Perhaps now was the time to try.

“Glenn,” she said softly. “Why are you really here?”

Instead of answering, he pointed to the keep. “Something’s happening.”

Magda looked. In the light that poured from the gate as it opened, she could make out six figures on the causeway, one of them in a wheelchair.

“Where could they be going with Papa?” she asked, tension tightening her throat.

“To the inn, most likely. It’s the only thing within walking distance.”

“They’ve come for me,” Magda said. It was the only explanation that occurred to her.

“No, I doubt that. They wouldn’t have brought your father along if they meant to drag you back to the keep. They have something else in mind.”

Chewing her lower lip uneasily, Magda watched the knot of dark figures move along the causeway over the rising river of fog, flashlights illuminating their way. They were passing not twenty feet away when Magda whispered to Glenn.

“Let’s stay hidden until we know what they’re after.”

“If they don’t find you they may think you’ve run off…and they may take their anger out on your father. If they decide to search for you, they’ll find you—we’re trapped between here and the edge of the gorge. Nowhere to go. Better to go out and meet them.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be here if you need me. But for now I think the less they see of me the better.”

Reluctantly Magda rose and pushed her way through the brush. The group had already passed by the time she reached the road. She watched them before speaking. Something was wrong here. She could not say what, but neither could she deny the feeling of danger that stole over her as she stood there on the side of the path. The SS major was there, and the troopers were SS too; yet Papa appeared to be traveling with them willingly, even appeared to be making small talk. It must be all right.

“Papa?”

The soldiers, even the one assigned to pushing the wheelchair, spun around as one, weapons raised and leveled. Papa spoke to them in rapid German.

“Hold—please! That is my daughter! Let me speak to her.”

Magda hurried to his side, skirting the menacing quintet of black uniformed shapes. When she spoke she used the Gypsy dialect.

“Why have they brought you here?”

He answered her in kind: “I’ll explain later. Where’s Glenn?”

“In the bushes behind me.” She replied without hesitation. After all, it was Papa who was asking. “Why do you want to know?”

Papa immediately turned to the major and spoke in German. “Over there!” He was pointing to the very spot Magda had told him.

The four troopers quickly fanned out into a semicircle and began moving into the brush.

Magda gaped in shock at her father. “Papa, what are you doing?” She instinctively moved toward the brush but he gripped her wrist.

“It’s all right,” he told her, reverting to the Gypsy dialect. “I learned only a few moments ago that Glenn is one of them!”

Magda heard her own voice speaking Romanian. She was too appalled by her father’s treachery to reply in anything but her native tongue.

“No! That’s—”

“He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He’s worse than a Nazi!”

“That’s a lie!” Papa’s gone mad!

“No it’s not! And I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. But better you hear it from me now than when it’s too late!”

“They’ll kill him!” she cried as panic filled her.

Frantically, she tried to pull away. But Papa held her tight with his newfound strength, all the time whispering to her, filling her ears with awful things:

“No! They’ll never kill him. They’ll just take him over for questioning, and that’s when he’ll be forced to reveal his link with Hitler so as to save his skin.” Papa’s eyes were bright, feverish, his voice intense as he spoke. “And that’s when you’ll thank me, Magda! That’s when you’ll know I did this for you!”

“You’ve done it for yourself!” she screamed, still trying to twist free of his grip. “You hate him because—”

Shouting in the brush, some minor scuffling, and then Glenn was led out into the open at gunpoint by two of the troopers. He was soon surrounded by all four, each with an automatic weapon trained on his middle.

“Leave him alone!” Magda cried, lunging toward the group. But Papa’s grip on her wrist would not yield.

“Stay back, Magda,” Glenn said, his expression grim in the dusky light as his eyes bored into Papa’s. “You’ll accomplish nothing by getting yourself shot.”

“How gallant!” Kaempffer said from behind her.

“And all a show!” Papa whispered.

“Take him across and we’ll find out what he knows.”

The troopers prodded Glenn toward the causeway with the muzzles of their weapons. He was just a dim figure now, backlit in the glow from the keep’s open gate. He walked steadily until he reached the causeway, then appeared to stumble on its leading edge and fall forward.

Magda gasped and then saw that he hadn’t actually fallen—he was diving for the side of the causeway. What could he possibly—?

She suddenly realized what he intended. He was going to swing over the side and try to hide beneath the causeway—perhaps even try to climb down the rocky wall of the gorge under protection of its overhang.

Magda began to run forward. God, let him escape!

If he could get under the causeway he would be lost in the fog and darkness. By the time the Germans could bring scaling ropes to go after him, Glenn might be able to reach the floor of the gorge and be on his way—if he didn’t slip and fall to his death.

Magda was within a dozen feet of the scene when the first Schmeisser burped a spray of bullets at Glenn. Then the others chorused in, lighting the night with their muzzle flashes, deafening her with their prolonged roar as she skidded to a stop, watching in openmouthed horror as the wooden planking of the causeway burst into countless flying splinters.

Glenn was leaning over the edge of the causeway when the first bullets caught him. She saw his body twist and jerk as streams of lead stitched red perforations in lines across his legs and back, saw him twitch and spin around with the impact of the bullets, saw more red lines crisscross his chest and abdomen. He went limp. His body seemed to fold in on itself as he fell over the edge.

He was gone.

For the next few nightmare moments Magda stood paralyzed and temporarily blinded by the afterimages of the flashes. Glenn could not be dead—he couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible! He was too alive to be dead! It was all a bad dream and soon she would awaken in his arms. But for now she must play out the dream: She must force herself forward, screaming silently through air that had thickened to clear jelly.

Oh no! Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!

She could only think the words—speech was impossible.

The soldiers were at the rim of the gorge, flashing their hand lamps down into the fog when she reached them. She pushed through to the edge but saw nothing below. She fought an urge to leap after Glenn, turning instead on the soldiers and flailing her fists against the nearest one, striking him on the chest and face. His reaction was automatic, almost casual. With the slightest tightening of his lips as the only warning, he brought the short barrel of his Schmeisser around and slammed it against the side of her head.

The world spun as she went down. She lost her breath as she struck the ground. Papa’s voice came from far off, calling her name. Blackness surged around her but she fought it off long enough to see him being wheeled onto the causeway and back toward the keep. He was twisted around in his chair, looking back at her, shouting.

“Magda! It will be all right—you’ll see! Everything will work out for the best and then you’ll understand! Then you’ll thank me! Don’t hate me, Magda!”

But Magda did hate him. She swore to hate him always. That was her last thought before the world slipped away.

An unidentified man had been shot resisting arrest and had fallen into the gorge. Woermann had seen the smug faces of the einsatzkommandos as they marched back into the keep. And he had seen the distraught look on the professor’s face. Both were understandable: The former had killed an unarmed man, the thing they did best; the latter for the first time in his life had witnessed a senseless killing.

But Woermann could not explain Kaempffer’s angry, disappointed expression. He stopped him in the courtyard.

“One man? All that shooting for one man?”

“The men are edgy,” Kaempffer said, obviously edgy himself. “He shouldn’t have tried to get away.”

“What did you want him for?”

“The Jew seemed to think he knew something about the keep.”

“I don’t suppose you told him that he was only wanted for questioning.”

“He tried to escape.”

“And the net result is that you now know no more than you did before. You probably frightened the poor man out of his wits. Of course he ran! And now he can’t tell you anything! You and your kind will never learn.”

Kaempffer turned toward his quarters without replying, leaving Woermann alone in the courtyard. The blaze of anger Kaempffer usually provoked failed to ignite this time. All he felt was cold resentment…and resignation.

He stood and watched the men who were not on guard duty shuffle dispiritedly back to their quarters. Only moments ago, when gunfire had erupted at the far end of the causeway, he had called them all to battle stations. But no battle had ensued and they were disappointed. He understood that. He too wished for a flesh-and-blood enemy to fight, to see, to strike at, to draw blood from. But the enemy remained unseen, elusive.

Woermann turned toward the cellar stairway. He was going to go down there again tonight. One final time. Alone.

It had to be alone. He could not let anyone know what he suspected. Not now—not after deciding to resign his commission. It had been a difficult decision, but he had made it: He would retire and have no more to do with this war. It was what the Party members in the High Command wanted from him. But if even a whisper of what he thought he’d find in the subcellar escaped, he would be discharged as a lunatic. He could not let these Nazis smear his name with insanity.

…muddied boots and shredded fingers…muddied boots and shredded fingers…

A litany of lunacy drawing him downward. Something foul and beyond all reason was afoot in those depths. He thought he knew what it might be but could not allow himself to vocalize it, or even form a mental image of it. His mind shied away from the image, leaving it blurred and murky, as if viewed from a safe distance through field glasses that refused to focus.

He crossed to the arched opening and went down the steps.

He had turned his back too long waiting for what was wrong with the Wehrmacht and the war it was fighting to work itself out. The problems were not going to work themselves out. He could see that now. Finally he could admit to himself that the atrocities following in the wake of the fighting were no momentary aberrations. He had been afraid to face the truth that everything had gone wrong with this war. Now he could, and he was ashamed of having been a part of it.

The subcellar would be his place of redemption. He would see with his own eyes what was happening there. He would face it alone and he would rectify it. He would not know peace until he did. Only after he had redeemed his honor would he be able to return to Rathenow and Helga. His mind would be satisfied, his guilt somewhat purged. He could then be a real father to Fritz…and would keep him out of the Jugendführer even if it meant breaking both his legs.

The guards assigned to the opening into the subcellar had not yet returned from their battle stations. All the better. Now he could enter unobserved and avoid offers of escort. He picked up one of the flashlights and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairway, looking down into the beckoning darkness.

It struck Woermann then that he must be mad. It would be insane to give up his commission! He had closed his eyes this long—why not keep them shut? Why not? He thought of the painting up in his room, the one with the shadow of the hanging corpse…a corpse that seemed to have developed a slight paunch when he had last looked at it.

Yes, he must be mad. He didn’t have to go down there. Not alone. And certainly not after sundown. Why not wait until morning?

…muddied boots and shredded fingers…

Now. It had to be now. He would not be venturing there unarmed. He had his Luger, and he had the silver cross he had lent the professor. He started down.

He had descended half the steps when he heard the noise. He stopped to listen…soft, chaotic scraping sounds off to his right, toward the rear, at the very heart of the keep. Rats? He swiveled the beam of his flashlight around but could see none. The trio of vermin that had greeted him on these steps at noon were nowhere in sight. He completed his descent and hurried to where the corpses had been laid out, but came to a stumbling, shuddering halt as he reached the spot.

They were gone.

As soon as he wheeled into his darkened quarters and heard the door slam behind him, Cuza leaped from his chair and went to the window. He strained his eyes toward the causeway, looking for Magda. Even in the light of the moon that had just crested the mountains, he could not see clearly to the far side of the gorge. But Iuliu and Lidia must have seen what had happened. They would help her. He was sure of that.

It had been the ultimate test of his will to remain in his chair instead of running to her side when that German animal had knocked her down. But he had had to sit fast. Revealing his ability to walk then might have ruined everything he and Molasar had planned. And the plan now was more important than anything. The destruction of Hitler had to take precedence over the welfare of a single woman, even if she was his own daughter.

“Where is he?”

Cuza spun at the sound of the voice behind him. He sensed menace in Molasar’s tone as he spoke from the darkness. Had he just arrived or had he been waiting there all along?

“Dead,” he said, searching for the source of the voice. He sensed Molasar moving closer.

“Impossible!”

“It’s true. I saw it myself. He tried to get away and the Germans riddled him with bullets. He must have been desperate. I guess he realized what would happen to him if he were brought into the keep.”

“Where is the body?”

“In the gorge.”

“It must be found!” Molasar had moved close enough so that some of the moonlight from the window glinted off his face. “I must be absolutely certain!”

“He’s dead. No one could have survived that many bullets. He suffered enough mortal wounds for a dozen men. He had to be dead even before he fell into the gorge. And the fall…”

Cuza shook his head at the memory. At another time, in another place, under different circumstances, Cuza would have been aghast at what he had witnessed. Now…

“He’s doubly dead.”

Molasar still appeared reluctant to accept this.

“I needed to kill him myself, to feel the life go out of him by my own hand. Then and only then can I be sure he is out of my way. As it is, I am forced to rely on your judgment that he cannot have survived.”

“Don’t rely on me—see for yourself. His body is down in the gorge. Why don’t you go find it and assure yourself?”

Molasar nodded slowly. “Yes…Yes, I believe I will do that…for I must be sure.” He backed away and was swallowed by the darkness. “I will return for you when all is ready.”

Cuza glanced once more out the window toward the inn, then returned to his wheelchair. Molasar’s discovery that the Glaeken still existed seemed to have profoundly shaken him. Perhaps it was not going to be so easy to rid the world of Adolf Hitler. But still he had to try. He had to!

He sat in the dark without bothering to relight the candle, and prayed Magda was all right.

His temples pounded and the flashlight wavered in his hand as Woermann stood in the chill stygian darkness and stared at the rumpled shrouds that covered nothing but the ground beneath them. Lutz’s head was there, open-eyed, openmouthed, lying on its left ear. All the rest were gone…just as Woermann had suspected. But the fact that he had half expected to face this scene did nothing to blunt its mind-numbing impact.

Where were they?

And still, from far off to the right, came those scraping sounds. Woermann knew he had to follow them to their source. Honor demanded it. But first…

Holstering the Luger, he dug into the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out the silver cross. He felt it might give him more protection than a pistol.

With the cross held out before him, he started in the direction of the scraping. The subcellar cavern narrowed down to a low tunnel that wound a serpentine path toward the rear of the keep. As he moved, the sound grew louder. Nearer. Then he began seeing the rats. A few at first—big fat ones, perched on small outcroppings of rock and staring at him as he passed. Farther on were more, hundreds of them, clinging to the walls, packed more and more tightly until the tunnel seemed to be lined with dull matted fur that squirmed and rippled and glared out at him with countless beady black eyes. Controlling his repugnance, he continued ahead. The rats on the floor scuttled out of his path but exhibited no real fear of him. He wished for a Schmeisser, yet it was unlikely any weapon could save him were they to pounce on him en masse.

Up ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the left, and Woermann stopped to listen. The scraping noises were louder still. So close he could almost imagine them originating around that next turn. Which meant he had to be very careful. He had to find a way of seeing what was going on without being seen.

He would have to turn off his light.

Woermann did not want to do that. The undulating layer of rats on the ground and on the walls made him fear the dark. Suppose the light were all that kept them at bay? Suppose…

It didn’t matter. He had to know what lay beyond. He estimated he could reach the turn in five long paces. He would go that far in the dark, then turn left and force himself to take another three paces. If by then he found nothing, he would turn the flashlight back on and continue ahead. For all he knew there might be nothing there. The nearness of the sounds could be an acoustical trick of the tunnel…he might have another hundred yards to go yet. Or he might not.

Bracing himself, Woermann flicked the flashlight off but kept his finger on the switch just in case something happened with the rats. He heard nothing, felt nothing. As he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he noted that the noise had grown louder, as if amplified by the absence of light. Utter absence. There was no glow, not even a hint of illumination from around the bend.

Whatever was making that noise had to have at least some light, didn’t it? Didn’t it?

He pushed himself forward, silently counting off the paces while every nerve in his body howled for him to turn and run. But he had to know! Where were those bodies? And what was making that noise? Maybe then the mysteries of the keep would be solved. It was his duty to learn. His duty…

Completing the fifth and final pace, he turned left and, in so doing, lost his balance. His left hand—the one with the flashlight—shot out reflexively to keep him from falling and came in contact with something furry that squealed and moved and bit with razor-sharp teeth. Pain knifed up his arm from the heel of his palm. He snatched his hand away and clamped his teeth on his lower lip until the pain subsided. It didn’t take long, and he had managed to hold on to the flashlight.

The scraping noises sounded much louder now, and directly ahead. Yet there was no light. No matter how he strained his eyes, he could see nothing. He began to perspire as fear reached deep into his intestines and squeezed. There had to be light somewhere ahead.

He took one pace—not so long as the previous ones—and stopped. The sounds now came from directly in front of him, ahead…and down…scraping, scratching, scrabbling.

Another pace.

Whatever the sounds were, they gave him the impression of concerted effort, yet he could hear no labored breathing accompanying them. Only his own ragged respirations and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears. That and the scratching.

One more pace and he would turn the light on again. He lifted his foot but found he could not move himself forward. Of its own volition, his body refused to take another step until he could see where he was going.

Woermann stood trembling. He wanted to go back. He didn’t want to see what was ahead. Nothing sane or of this world could move and exist in this blackness. Better not to know.

But the bodies…he had to know.

He made a sound that was almost a whimper and flicked the switch on the flashlight. It took a moment for his pupils to constrict in the sudden glare, and a much longer moment for his mind to register the horror of what the light revealed.

And then Woermann screamed…an agonized sound that started low and built in volume and pitch, echoing and re-echoing around him as he turned and fled back the way he had come. He rushed headlong past the staring rats and beyond. With perhaps thirty more feet of tunnel to go, Woermann brought himself to a wavering halt.

There was someone up ahead.

He flashed his beam at the figure blocking his path. He saw the waxy face, the cape, the clothes, the lank hair, the twin pools of madness where the eyes should be. And he knew. Here was the master of the house.

Woermann stood and stared in horrified fascination for a moment, then marshaled his quarter-century of military training.

“Let me pass!” he said and directed the beam onto the cross in his right hand, confident that he held an effective weapon. “In the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of all that is holy, let me pass!”

Instead of retreating, the figure moved forward, closer to Woermann, close enough so that the light picked up his sallow features. He was smiling—a gloating vulpine grimace that weakened Woermann’s knees and made his upheld hands shake violently.

His eyes…oh, God, his eyes…

Woermann stood rooted to the spot, unable to retreat because of what he had seen behind him, and blocked from escape ahead. He kept the quaking light trained on the silver cross—the cross! Vampires fear the cross!—as he thrust it forward, fighting fear as he had never known it.

Dear God, if you are my God, don’t desert me!

Unseen, a hand slipped through the dark and snatched the cross from Woermann’s grasp. The creature held it between his thumb and forefinger and let Woermann watch in horror and dismay as he began to bend it, folding it until it was doubled over on itself. Then he bent the crosspiece down until all that was left was a misshapen lump of silver. This he flipped away with no more thought than a soldier on leave would give to a cigarette butt.

Woermann shouted in terror as he saw the same hand dart toward him. He ducked away, but he was not quick enough.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Magda drifted slowly back to consciousness, drawn by rough prodding at her clothing and by a painful pressure in her right hand. She opened her eyes. The stars were out. A shadow loomed over her, pulling and pulling at her hand.

Where was she? And why did her head hurt so? Images flashed through her mind—Glenn…the causeway…gunfire…the gorge…

Glenn was dead! It hadn’t been a dream—Glenn was dead!

With a groan she sat up, causing whoever was pulling at her to scream in terror and run back toward the village. When the vertigo that rocked and spun the world about her subsided, she lifted her hand to the tender, swollen area near her right temple and winced in pain when she touched it.

She also became aware of a throbbing in her right ring finger. The flesh around her mother’s wedding band was cut and swollen. Whoever had been leaning over her must have been trying to pull it off her finger. One of the villagers! He had probably thought her dead and had been terrified when she had moved.

Magda rose to her feet and again the world began to spin and tilt. When the ground had steadied, when her nausea faded away and the roaring in her ears dimmed to a steady thrum, she began to walk. Every step she took caused a stab of pain in her head but she kept going, crossing to the far side of the path and pushing into the brush. A half moon drifted in a cloud-streaked sky. It hadn’t been out before. How long had she been unconscious? She had to get to Glenn!

He’s still alive, she told herself. He has to be!

It was the only way she could imagine him. Yet how could he live? How could anyone survive all those bullets…and that fall into the gorge?

Magda began to sob, as much for Glenn as for her own overwhelming sense of loss. She despised herself for that selfishness, yet it would not be denied. Thoughts of all the things they would never do together rushed in on her. After thirty-one years she finally had found a man she could love. She had spent one full day at his side, a sublime twenty-four hours immersing herself in the true magnificence of life, only to have him torn from her and brutally murdered.

It’s not fair!

She came to the rubble fall at the end of the gorge and paused to glare across the rising mist that filled it. Could you hate a stone building? She hated the keep. It held nothing but evil. Had she possessed the power she would have willed it to tumble into Hell, taking everyone inside—yes! Even Papa—with it.

But the keep floated, silent and implacable on its sea of fog, lit from within, dark and glowering without, ignoring her.

She prepared to descend into the gorge as she had two nights ago. Two nights…it seemed like an age. The fog had reached the rim, making the descent even more dangerous. It was insane to risk her life trying to find Glenn’s body in the dark down there. But her life did not matter as much now as it had a few hours ago. She had to find him…had to touch his wounds, feel his still heart and cold skin. She had to know for certain he was beyond all help. There would be no rest for her until then.

As she began to swing her legs over the edge she heard some pebbles slide and bounce down the slope beneath her. At first she thought her weight had dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge. But an instant later she heard it again. She stopped and listened. Another sound—labored breathing. Someone was climbing up through the fog!

Frightened, Magda backed away from the edge and waited in the brush, ready to run. She held her breath as she saw a hand rise out of the fog and claw the soft earth at the gorge’s rim, followed by another hand, followed by a head. Magda instantly recognized the shape of that head.

“Glenn!”

He did not seem to hear, but continued struggling to pull himself over the edge. Magda ran to him. Gripping him under both arms and calling on reserves of strength she never knew she possessed, she pulled him up onto level ground where he lay facedown, panting and groaning. She knelt over him, helpless and confused.

“Oh, Glenn, you’re”—her hands were wet and glistened darkly in the moonlight—“bleeding!” It was inane, it was obvious, it was expected, but it was all she could say at the moment.

You should be dead! she thought, but held back the words. If she didn’t say it, maybe it wouldn’t happen. But his clothing was soaked with blood oozing from dozens of mortal wounds. That he was still breathing was a miracle. That he had managed to pull himself out of the gorge was beyond belief! Yet here he was, prostrate before her…alive. If he had lasted this long, perhaps…

“I’ll get a doctor!” Another stupid remark—a reflex. There was no doctor anywhere in the Dinu Pass. “I’ll get Iuliu and Lidia! They’ll help me get you back to the—”

Glenn mumbled something, Magda bent over him, touching her ear to his lips.

“Go to my room,” he said in a weak, dry, tortured voice.

The odor of blood was fresh on his breath. He’s bleeding inside!

“I’ll take you there as soon as I get Iuliu.” But would Iuliu help?

His fingers plucked at her sleeve. “Listen to me! Get the case…you saw it yesterday…the one with the blade in it.”

“That’s not going to help you now! You need medical care!”

“You must! Nothing else can save me!”

She straightened, hesitated a moment, then jumped to her feet and ran. Her head started pounding again but now she found it easy to ignore the pain. Glenn wanted that sword blade. It didn’t make sense, but his voice had been so full of conviction…urgency…need. She had to get it for him.

Magda did not slacken her pace as she entered the inn, taking the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, slowing only when she entered the darkness of Glenn’s room. She felt her way to the closet and lifted the case. With a high-pitched creak it fell open—she hadn’t closed the catches when Glenn had surprised her here yesterday! The blade slipped out of the case and fell against the mirror with a crash. The glass shattered and cascaded onto the floor. Magda bent and quickly replaced the blade in its case, found the catches, closed them, then lifted the case into her arms, groaning under its unexpected weight. As she turned to leave, she pulled the blanket from the bed, then hurried across to her room for a second blanket.

Iuliu and Lidia, alerted by the commotion she was making on the second floor, stood with startled expressions at the foot of the stairs as she descended.

“Don’t you dare try to stop me!” Magda said as she rushed by.

Something in her voice must have warned them away, for they stepped aside and let her pass.

She stumbled back through the brush, the case and the blankets weighing her down, snagging on the branches, slowing her as she rushed toward Glenn, praying he was still alive. She found him lying on his back, weaker, his voice fainter.

“The blade,” he whispered as she leaned over him. “Take it out of the case.”

For an awful moment Magda feared he would ask for a coup de grâce. She would do anything for Glenn—anything but that. But would a man with his injuries make so desperate a climb out of the gorge just to ask for death? She opened the case. Two large pieces of the shattered mirror lay within. She brushed them aside and lifted the dark, cold blade with both her hands, feeling the shape of the runes carved in its surface press against her palms.

She passed it to his outstretched arms and almost dropped it when a faint blue glow, blue like a gas flame, leaped along its edges at his touch. As she released it to him, he sighed; his features relaxed, losing their pain, a look of contentment settling on them…the look of a man who has come home to a warm and familiar room after a long, arduous winter journey.

Glenn positioned the blade along the length of his battered, punctured, blood-soaked body, the point resting a few inches short of his ankles, the spike of the butt where the missing hilt should be almost to his chin. Folding his arms over the blade and across his chest, he closed his eyes.

“You shouldn’t stay here,” he said in a faint, slurred voice. “Come back later.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

He made no reply. His breathing became shallower and steadier. He appeared to be asleep. Magda watched him closely. The blue glow spread to his forearms, sheathing them in a faint patina of light. She covered him with a blanket, as much for warmth as to hide the glow from the keep. Then she moved away, wrapped the second blanket around her shoulders, and seated herself with her back against a rock. Myriad questions, held at bay until now, rushed in on her.

Who was he, really? What manner of man was this who suffered wounds enough to kill him many times over and then climbed a slope that would tax a strong man in perfect health? What manner of man hid his room’s mirror in a closet along with an ancient sword with no hilt—who now clasped that sword to his breast as he lay on the borderland of death? How could she entrust her love and her life to such a man? She knew nothing about him.

Then Papa’s ranting came back to her: He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He’s worse than a Nazi!

Could Papa be right? Could she be so blinded by her infatuation that she could not or would not see this? Glenn certainly was no ordinary man. And he did have secrets—he had been far from open with her. Was it possible that Glenn was the enemy and Molasar the ally?

She drew the blanket closer around her. All she could do was wait.

Magda’s eyelids began to droop—the aftereffects of the concussion and the rhythmic sounds of Glenn’s breathing lulled her. She struggled briefly, then succumbed…just for a moment…just to rest her eyes.

Klaus Woermann knew he was dead. And yet…not dead.

He clearly remembered his dying. He had been strangled with deliberate slowness here in the subcellar in darkness lit only by the feeble glow of his fallen flashlight. Icy fingers with incalculable strength had closed on his throat, choking off the air until his blood had thundered in his ears and blackness had closed in.

But not eternal blackness. Not yet.

He could not understand his continued awareness. He lay on his back, his eyes open and staring into the darkness. He did not know how long he had been this way. Time had lost all meaning. Except for his vision, he was cut off from the rest of his body. It was as if it belonged to someone else. He could feel nothing, not the rocky earth against his back or the cold air against his face. He could hear nothing. He was not breathing. He could not move—not even a finger. When a rat had crawled over his face, dragging its matted fur across his eyes, he could not even blink.

He was dead. And yet not dead.

Gone was all fear, all pain. He was devoid of all feeling except regret. He had ventured into the subcellar to find redemption and had found only horror and death—his own death.

Woermann suddenly realized that he was being moved. Although he could still feel nothing, he sensed he was being dragged through the darkness by the back of his tunic, along a narrow passage, into a dark room—

—and into light.

Woermann’s line of vision was along the limp length of his body. As he was dragged along a corridor strewn with granite rubble, his gaze swept across a wall he immediately recognized—a wall upon which words of an ancient tongue had been written in blood. The wall had been washed but brown smudges were still visible on the stone.

He was dropped to the floor. His field of vision was now limited to a section of the partially dismantled ceiling directly above him. At the periphery of his vision, moving about, was a dark shape. Woermann saw a length of heavy rope snake over an exposed ceiling beam, saw a loop of that same rope go over his face, and then he was moving again…

…upward…

…until his feet left the ground and his lifeless body began to sway and swing and twist in the air. A shadowy figure melted into a doorway down the corridor and Woermann was alone, hanging by his neck from a rope.

He wanted to scream a protest to God. For he now knew that the dark being who ruled the keep was waging war not only against the bodies of the soldiers who had entered his domain, but against their minds and their spirits as well.

And Woermann realized the role he was being forced to play in that war: a suicide. His men would think he had killed himself! It would completely demoralize them. Their officer, the man they looked to for leadership, had hanged himself—the ultimate cowardice, the ultimate desertion.

He could not allow that to happen. And yet he could do nothing to alter the course of events. He was dead.

Was this to be his penance for closing his eyes to the monstrousness of the war? If so, it was too much to pay! To hang here and watch his own men and the einsatzkommandos come and gawk at him. And the final ignominy: to see Erich Kaempffer smiling up at him.

Was this why he had been left teetering on the edge of eternal oblivion? To witness his own humiliation as a suicide?

If only he could do something!

One final act to redeem his pride and—yes—his manhood. One last gesture to give meaning to his death.

Something!

Anything!

But all he could do was hang and sway and wait to be found.

Cuza looked up as a grating sound filled the room. The section of the wall that led into the base of the tower was swinging open. When it stopped moving, Molasar’s voice came from the darkness beyond.

“All is ready.”

At last!

The wait had been almost unbearable. As the hours had edged by, Cuza had almost given up on seeing Molasar again tonight. Never had he been a patient man, but at no time could he remember being so consumed by an urgency such as he had known tonight. He had tried to distract himself by dredging up worries about how Magda was faring after that blow to the head…but it was no use. The coming destruction of “Lord Hitler” banished all other considerations from his mind. Cuza had paced the length, breadth, and perimeters of both rooms again and again, obsessed by his fierce longing to get on with it and yet unable to do a thing until word came from Molasar.

And now Molasar was here. As Cuza ducked through the opening, leaving his wheelchair behind forever, he felt a cold metal cylinder pressed against the bare skin of his palm.

“What—?” It was a flashlight.

“You will need this.”

Cuza switched it on. It was German Army issue. The lens was cracked. He wondered who—

“Follow me.”

Molasar sure-footedly led the way down the winding steps that clung to the inner surface of the tower wall. He did not seem to need any light to find his way. Cuza did. He stayed close behind Molasar, keeping the flashlight beam trained on the steps before him. He wished he could take a moment to look around. For such a long time he had wanted to explore the base of the tower; until now he’d had to do so vicariously through Magda. But there was no time to drink in the details. When all this was over he promised himself to return here and do a thorough inspection on his own.

After a while they came to a narrow opening in the wall. He followed Molasar through and found himself in the subcellar. Molasar quickened his pace and Cuza had to strain to keep up. But he voiced no complaint, so thankful was he to be able to walk at all, to brave the cold without his hands losing their circulation or his arthritic joints seizing up on him. He was actually working up a sweat! Wonderful!

Off to his right he saw light filtering down the stairway up to the cellar. He flashed his lamp to the left. The corpses were gone. The Germans must have shipped them out. Strange, their leaving the shrouds in a pile there.

Over the sound of his hurried footsteps Cuza began to hear another noise. A faint scraping. As he followed Molasar out of the large cavern that made up the subcellar and into a narrower, tunnel-like passage, the sound became progressively louder. He trailed Molasar through various turns until, after one particularly sharp left, Molasar stopped and beckoned Cuza to his side. The scraping sound was loud, echoing all about them.

“Prepare yourself,” Molasar said, his expression unreadable. “I have made certain use of the remains of the dead soldiers. What you see next may offend you, but it was necessary to retrieve my talisman. I could have found another way, but I found this convenient…and fitting.”

Cuza doubted there was much Molasar could do with the bodies of German soldiers that would offend him.

He then followed him into a large hemispherical chamber with a roof of icy living rock and a dirt floor. A deep excavation had been sunk into the middle of that floor. And still the scraping. Louder. Where was it coming from?

Cuza looked about, the beam from his flashlight reflecting off the glistening walls and ceiling, diffusing a glow throughout the chamber.

He noticed movement near his feet and all around the periphery of the excavation. Small movements. He gasped. Rats! Hundreds of rats surrounded the pit, squirming and jostling one another, agitated…expectant…

Cuza saw something much larger than a rat crawling up the wall of the excavation. He stepped forward and pointed the flashlight directly into the pit—and almost dropped it. It was like looking into one of the outer rings of Hell. Feeling suddenly weak, he lurched away from the edge and pressed his shoulder against the nearest wall to keep from toppling over. He closed his eyes and panted like a dog on a stifling August day, trying to calm himself, trying to hold down his rising gorge, trying to accept what he had seen.

Dead men…in the pit…ten of them, all in German uniforms of either gray or black, all moving about—even the one without the head!

Cuza opened his eyes again. In the hellish half light that suffused the chamber he watched one of the corpses crawl crablike up the side of the pit and throw an armful of dirt over the far edge, then slide back down to the bottom.

Cuza pushed himself away from the wall and staggered to the edge for another look.

They appeared not to need their eyes, for they never looked at their hands as they dug in the cold hard earth. Their dead joints moved stiffly, awkwardly, as if resisting the power that impelled them, yet they worked tirelessly, in utter silence, surprisingly efficient despite their ataxic movements. The scuffling and shuffling of their boots, the scraping of their bare hands on the near frozen soil as they deepened and widened the excavation…the noise rose and echoed off the walls and ceiling of the chamber, eerily amplified.

Suddenly, the noise stopped, gone as if it had never been. They had all halted their movements and now stood perfectly still.

Molasar spoke beside him. “My talisman lies buried beneath the last few inches of soil. You must remove it from the earth.”

“Can’t they—?” Cuza’s stomach turned at the thought of going down there.

“They are too clumsy.”

Looking pleadingly at Molasar, he asked, “Couldn’t you unearth it yourself? I’ll take it anywhere you want me to after that.”

Molasar’s eyes blazed with impatience. “It is part of your task! A simple one! With so much at stake do you balk now at dirtying your hands?”

“No! No, of course not! It’s just…” He glanced again at the corpses.

Molasar followed his gaze. Although he said nothing, made no signal, the corpses began to move, turning simultaneously and crawling out of the pit. When they were all out, they stood in a ring along its edge. The rats crawled around and over their feet. Molasar’s eyes swung back to Cuza.

Without waiting to be told again, Cuza eased himself over the edge and slid along the damp dirt to the bottom. He balanced the flashlight on a rock and began to scrape away the loose earth at the nadir point of the conical pit. The cold and the filth didn’t bother his hands. After the initial revulsion at digging in the same spot as the corpses, he found he actually enjoyed being able to work with his hands again, even at so menial a task as this. And he owed it all to Molasar. It was good to sink his fingers into the earth and feel the soil come away in chunks. It exhilarated him and he increased his pace, working feverishly.

His hands soon contacted something other than dirt. He pulled at it and unearthed a square packet, perhaps a foot long on each side and a few inches thick. And heavy—very heavy. He pulled off the half-rotted cloth wrapper and then unfolded the coarse fabric that made up the inner packing.

Something bright, metallic, and heavy lay within. Cuza caught his breath—at first he thought it was a cross. But that couldn’t be. It was an almost-cross, designed along the same eccentric lines as the thousands laid into the walls of the keep. Yet none of those could compare with this one. For here was the original, an inch thick all around, the template on which all the others had been modeled. The upright was rounded, almost cylindrical and, except for a deep slot in its top, appeared to be of solid gold. The crosspiece looked like silver. He studied it briefly through the lower lenses of his bifocals but could find no designs or inscriptions.

Molasar’s talisman—the key to his power. It stirred Cuza with awe. There was power in it—he could feel a strange energy surge into his hands as he held it. He lifted it for Molasar to see and thought he detected a glow around it—or was that merely a reflection of the flashlight beam off its bright surface?

“I’ve found it!”

He could not see Molasar above but noticed the animated corpses backing away as he lifted the crosslike object over his head.

“Molasar! Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” The voice seemed to come from somewhere back in the tunnel. “My power now resides in your hands. Guard it carefully until you have hidden it where no one will find it.”

Exhilarated, Cuza tightened his grip on the talisman. “When do I leave? And how?”

“Within the hour—as soon as I have finished with the German interlopers. They must all pay now for invading my keep.”

The pounding on the door was accompanied by someone’s calling his name. It sounded like Sergeant Oster’s voice…on the verge of hysteria. But Major Kaempffer was taking no chances. As he shook himself out of his bedroll, he grabbed his Luger.

“Who is it?” He let his annoyance show in his tone.

This was the second time tonight he had been disturbed. The first for that fruitless sortie across the causeway with the Jew, and now this. He glanced at his watch: almost four o’clock! It would be light soon. What could anyone want at this hour? Unless—someone else had been killed.

“It’s Sergeant Oster, sir.”

“What is it this time?” Kaempffer said, opening the door. One look at the sergeant’s white face and he knew something was terribly wrong. More than just another death.

“It’s the captain, sir…Captain Woermann—”

“It got him?”

Woermann? Murdered? An officer?

“He killed himself, sir.”

Kaempffer stared at the sergeant in mute shock, recovering only with great effort.

“Wait here.”

Kaempffer closed the door and hurriedly pulled on his trousers, slipped into his boots, and threw his uniform jacket over his undershirt without bothering to button it. Then he returned to the door.

“Take me to him.”

As he followed Oster through the disassembled portions of the keep, Kaempffer realized that the thought of Klaus Woermann killing himself disturbed him more than if he had been murdered like all the rest. It wasn’t in Woermann’s makeup. People do change, but Kaempffer could not imagine the teenager who had singlehandedly sent a company of British soldiers running in the last war to become a man who would take his own life in this war, no matter what the circumstances.

Still…Woermann was dead. The only man who could point to him and say “Coward!” had been rendered forever mute.

That was worth everything Kaempffer had endured since his arrival at this charnel house. And there was a special satisfaction to be gained from the manner of Woermann’s death. The final report would hide nothing: Captain Klaus Woermann would go down on record as a suicide. A disgraceful death, worse than desertion. Kaempffer would give much to see the look on the faces of the wife and the two boys Woermann had been so proud of—what would they think of their father, their hero, when they heard the news?

Instead of leading him across the courtyard to Woermann’s quarters, Oster made a sharp right turn that led Kaempffer down the corridor to where he had imprisoned the villagers on the night of his arrival. The area had been partially dismantled during the past few days. They made the final turn and there was Woermann.

He hung by a thick rope, his body swaying gently as if in a breeze; but the air was still. The rope had been thrown over an exposed ceiling beam and tied to it. Kaempffer saw no stool and wondered how Woermann had got himself up there. Perhaps he had stood on one of the piles of stone block here and there…

…the eyes. Woermann’s eyes bulged in their sockets. For an instant Kaempffer had the impression that the eyes shifted as he approached, then realized it was just a trick of the light from the bulbs along the ceiling.

He stopped before the dangling form of his fellow officer. Woermann’s belt buckle swung two inches in front of Kaempffer’s nose. He looked up at the engorged, puffed face, purple with stagnant blood.

…the eyes again. They seemed to be looking down at him. He glanced away and saw Woermann’s shadow on the wall. Its outline was the same—exactly the same—as the shadow of the hanging corpse he had seen in Woermann’s painting.

A chill ran over his skin.

Precognition? Had Woermann foreseen his death? Or had suicide been in the back of his mind all along?

Kaempffer’s exultation began to die as he realized he was now the only officer in the keep. All the responsibility from this moment on rested solely on him. In fact, he himself might be marked for death next. What was he to—?

Gunfire sounded from the courtyard.

Startled, Kaempffer wheeled, saw Oster look down the corridor, then back to him. But the questioning look on the sergeant’s face turned to one of wide-eyed horror as his gaze rose to a point above Kaempffer. The SS major was turning to see what could cause such a reaction when he felt thick, stone-cold fingers slip around his throat and begin to squeeze.

Kaempffer tried to leap away, tried to kick backward at whoever it was, but his feet struck only air. He opened his mouth to scream but no more than a strangled gurgle escaped. Pulling, clawing at the fingers that were inexorably cutting off his life, he twisted frantically to see who was attacking him. He already knew—in a horror-dimmed corner of his mind he knew. But he had to see! He twisted further, saw his attacker’s sleeve, gray, regular army gray, and he followed the sleeve back…up…to Woermann.

But he’s dead!

In desperate terror, Kaempffer began to writhe and claw at the dead hands. To no avail. He was being lifted into the air by his neck, slowly, steadily, until only his toes were touching the floor. Soon even they did not reach. He flung his arms out to Oster but the sergeant was useless. His face a mask of horror, Oster had flattened himself against the wall and was slowly inching himself away—away!—from him. He gave no sign that he even saw Kaempffer. His gaze was fixed higher, on his former commanding officer…dead…but committing murder.

Disjointed images flashed through Kaempffer’s mind, a parade of sights and sounds becoming more blurred and garbled with each thump of his slowing heart.

…gunfire continuing to echo from the courtyard, mixing with screams of pain and terror…Oster inching away down the corridor, not seeing the two walking dead men rounding the corner, one of them recognizable as einsatzkommando Private Flick, dead since his first night in the keep…Oster seeing them too late and not knowing which way to run…more shooting from without, barrages of bullets…shooting from within as Oster emptied his Schmeisser at the approaching corpses, ripping up their uniforms, rocking them backward, but doing little to impede their progress…screams from Oster as each of the corpses grabbed one of his arms to swing him headfirst toward the stone wall…the screams ending with a sickening thud as his skull cracked like an egg…

Kaempffer’s vision dimmed…sounds became muted…a prayer formed in his mind:

Oh, God! Please let me live! I’ll do anything you ask if you’ll just let me live!

A snap…a sudden fall to the floor…the hangman’s rope had broken under the weight of two bodies…but no break in the pressure on his throat…a great lethargy settled upon him…in the fading light he saw Sergeant Oster’s bloody-headed corpse rise and follow his two murderers out to the courtyard…and at the very end, in his terminal spasms, Kaempffer caught sight of Woermann’s distorted features…

…and saw a smile.

Chaos in the courtyard.

The walking corpses were everywhere, ravaging soldiers in their beds, at their posts. Bullets couldn’t kill them—they were already dead. Their horrified former comrades pumped round after round into them but the dead kept coming. And worse—as soon as one of the living was killed, the fresh corpse rose to its feet and joined the ranks of the attackers.

Two desperate, black-uniformed soldiers pulled the bar from the gate and began to swing it open; but before they could squeeze through to safety, they were caught from behind and dragged to the ground. A moment later they were standing again, arrayed with other corpses before the open gate, making sure that none of their live comrades passed through.

Abruptly all the lights went out as a wild burst of 9mm slugs slammed into the generators.

An SS corporal leaped into a jeep and started it up, hoping to ram his way to freedom; but when he slipped the clutch too quickly, the cold engine stalled. He was pulled from the seat and strangled before he could get it started again.

A private, quaking and shivering under his cot, was smothered with his bedroll by the headless corpse he had once known as Lutz.

The gunfire soon began to die off. From a continuous barrage of overlapping fusillades it diminished to random bursts, then to isolated shots. The men’s screaming faded to a lone voice wailing in the barracks. Then that, too, was cut off.

Finally, silence. All quiet as the cadavers, fresh and old, stood scattered about the courtyard, motionless, as if waiting.

Suddenly, soundlessly, all but two of them fell to the courtyard floor and lay still. The remaining pair began to move, shuffling through the entry to the cellar, leaving a tall, dark figure standing alone in the center of the courtyard, undisputed master of the keep at last.

As the fog swirled in through the open gates, inching across the stone, layering the courtyard and the inert cadavers with an undulating carpet of haze, he turned and made his way down to the subcellar.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Magda awoke with a start at the sound of gunfire from the keep. At first she feared the Germans had learned of Papa’s complicity and were executing him. But that hideous thought lasted only an instant. This was not the orderly sound of firing on command. This was the chaotic sound of a battle.

A brief battle.

Huddled on the damp ground, Magda noted that the stars had faded in the graying sky. The echoes of gunfire were soon swallowed by the chill, predawn air. Someone or something had emerged victorious over there. Magda felt sure it was Molasar.

She rose and went to Glenn’s side. His face was beaded with sweat and he was breathing rapidly. As she pulled back the blanket to check his wounds, a small cry escaped her: His body was bathed completely in the blue glow from the blade. Cautiously, she touched him. The glow didn’t burn, but it did make her hand tingle with warmth. Within the torn fabric of Glenn’s shirt she felt something hard, heavy, thimblelike. She pulled it out.

In the dim light it took her a moment to recognize the object that rolled about in her palm. It was made of lead. A bullet.

Magda ran her hands over Glenn again. She found more of them—all over him. And his wounds—there weren’t nearly so many now. The majority had disappeared, leaving only dimpled scars instead of gaping finger holes. She pulled the ripped and bloody shirt away from his abdomen to expose an area where she felt a lump beneath his skin. There to the right of the blade he clutched so tightly to his chest was an open wound with a hard lump just beneath its surface. As she watched, the lump broke through—another bullet, slowly, painfully extruding from the wound. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying: The sword blade and its glow were drawing the bullets from Glenn’s body and healing his wounds! Magda watched in awe.

The glow began to fade. “Magda…”

She jumped at the sound. Glenn’s voice was much stronger than it had been when she had covered him. She pulled the blanket back over him, tucking it around his neck. His eyes were open, staring at the keep.

“Rest some more,” she whispered.

“What’s happening over there?”

“Some shooting before—a lot of it.”

With a groan, Glenn tried to sit up. Magda pushed him back easily. He was still very weak.

“Got to get to the keep…stop Rasalom.”

“Who’s Rasalom?”

“The one you and your father call Molasar. He reversed the letters of his name for you…real name is Rasalom…got to stop him!”

He tried to rise again and again Magda pushed him back.

“It’s almost dawn. A vampire can’t go anywhere after sunrise, so just—”

“He’s no more afraid of sunlight than you are!”

“But a vampire—”

“He’s not a vampire! Never was! If he were,” Glenn said, a note of despair creeping into his voice, “I wouldn’t bother trying to stop him.”

Dread caressed her, a cold hand against the middle of her back.

“Not a vampire?”

“He’s the source of the vampire legends, but what he craves is nothing so simple as blood. That notion crept into the folktales because people can see blood, and touch it. No one can see or touch what Rasalom feeds on.”

“You mean what you were trying to tell me last night before the soldiers…came?” She did not want to remember last night.

“Yes. He draws strength from human pain, misery, and madness. He can feed on the agony of those who die by his hand but gains far more from man’s inhumanity to other men.”

“That’s ridiculous! Nothing could live on such things. They’re too…too insubstantial!”

“Is sunlight ‘too insubstantial’ for a flower to need for growth? Believe me: Rasalom feeds on things that cannot be seen or touched—all of them bad.”

“You make him sound like the Serpent himself!”

“You mean Satan? The Devil?” Glenn smiled weakly. “Put aside every religion you’ve ever heard of. They mean nothing here. Rasalom predates them all.”

“I can’t believe—”

“He is a survivor of the First Age. He pretended to be a five-hundred-year-old vampire because that fit the history of the keep and the region. And because it generated fear so easily—another one of his delights. But he’s much, much older. Everything he told your father—everything—was a lie…except for the part about being weak and having to build his strength.”

“Everything? But what about saving me? What about curing Papa? And what about those villagers the major took hostage? They would have been executed if he had not saved them!”

“He saved no one. You told me he killed the two soldiers guarding the villagers. But did he set the villagers free? No! He added insult to injury by marching the dead soldiers up to the major’s quarters and making a fool out of him. Rasalom was trying to provoke the major into executing all the villagers on the spot. That’s the sort of atrocity that swells his strength. And after half a millennium of imprisonment, he needed much strengthening. Fortunately, events conspired against him and the villagers survived.”

“Imprisonment? But he told Papa…” Her voice trailed off. “Another lie?”

Glenn nodded. “Rasalom did not build the keep as he said. Nor was he hiding in it. The keep was built to trap and hold him…forever. Who could have foretold that it or anything else in the Dinu Pass might someday be considered of military value? Or that some fool would break the seal on his cell? Now, if he ever gets loose in the world—”

“But he’s loose now.”

“No. Not yet. That’s another one of his lies. He wanted your father to believe he was free, but he’s still confined to the keep by the other piece of this.” He pulled the blanket down and showed her the butt end of the sword blade. “The hilt to this blade is the only thing on earth Rasalom fears. It’s the only thing that has power over him. It can bind him. The hilt is the key. It locks him within the keep. The blade is useless without it, but the two joined together can destroy him.”

Magda shook her head in an attempt to clear it. This was becoming more incredible every minute!

“But the hilt—where is it? What does it look like?”

“You’ve seen its image thousands of times in the walls of the keep.”

“The crosses!”

Magda’s mind whirled. Then they weren’t crosses after all! They were modeled on the hilt of a sword—no wonder the crosspiece was set so high! She had been looking at them for years and had never even come close to guessing. And if Molasar—she had to start thinking of him as Rasalom now—was truly the source of the vampire legends, she could see how his fear of the sword hilt might have been transmuted into a fear of the cross in the folktales.

“But where—”

“Buried deep in the subcellar. As long as the hilt remains within the walls of the keep, Rasalom is bound by them.”

“But all he has to do is dig it up and dispose of it.”

“He can’t touch it, or even get too close to it.”

“Then he’s trapped forever!”

“No,” Glenn said in a very low voice as he looked into Magda’s eyes. “He has your father.”

Magda wanted to be sick, to scream No! But she could not. She had been turned to stone by Glenn’s quiet words…words that for the life of her she could not deny.

“Let me tell you what I think has happened,” he said into the lengthening silence. “Rasalom was released the first night the Germans moved into the keep. He had strength enough then to kill only one. After that he rested and took stock. His initial strategy, I think, was to kill them one at a time, to feed on that daily agony and on the fear that increased among the living each time he claimed one of them. He was careful not to kill too many at once, especially not the officers, for that might drive them all away. He probably hoped for one of three things to occur: The Germans would become so frustrated that they would blow up the keep, thereby freeing him; or they would bring in more and more reinforcements, affording him more lives to take, more fear to grow strong on; or that he might find among the men a corruptible innocent.”

Magda could barely hear her own voice. “Papa.”

“Or you. From what you told me, Rasalom’s attention seemed to be centered on you when he first revealed himself. But the captain put you over here, out of reach. Therefore Rasalom had to concentrate on your father.”

“But he could have used one of the soldiers!”

“He gains his greatest strength from the destruction of everything that is good in a person. The corruption of the values of a single decent human being enriches him more than a thousand murders. It’s a feast for Rasalom! The soldiers were useless to him. Veterans of Poland and other campaigns, they had killed proudly for their Führer. Little of value in them for Rasalom. And their reinforcements—death camp troopers! Nothing left in those creatures to debase! So the only real use he’s had for the Germans, besides the fear and death agony gleaned from them, is as digging tools.”

Magda couldn’t imagine…“Digging?”

“To unearth the hilt. I suspect that the ‘thing’ you heard shuffling around in the subcellar after your father sent you away was a group of the dead soldiers returning to their shrouds.”

Walking corpses…the thought was grotesque, too fantastic even to consider, and yet she remembered that story about the two dead soldiers who had walked from the place of their dying to the major’s room.

“But if he has the power to make the dead walk, why can’t he have one of them dispose of the hilt?”

“Impossible. The hilt negates his power. A corpse under his control would return to its inanimate state the instant it touched the hilt.” He paused. “Your father will be the one to carry the hilt from the keep.”

“But as soon as Papa touches the hilt, won’t Rasalom lose control over him?”

Glenn shook his head sadly. “You must realize by now that he’s helping Rasalom willingly…enthusiastically. Your father will be able to handle the hilt with ease because he’ll be acting of his own free will.”

Magda felt dead inside. “But Papa doesn’t know! Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because it was his battle, not mine. And because I couldn’t risk letting Rasalom know I was here. Your father wouldn’t have believed me anyway—he preferred to hate me. Rasalom has done a masterful job on him, destroying his character by tiny increments, peeling away layer after layer of all the things he believed in, leaving only the base, venal aspects of his nature.”

It was true. Magda had seen it happening and had been afraid to admit it, but it was true.

“You could have helped him!”

“Perhaps. But I doubt it. Your father’s battle was against himself as much as against Rasalom. And in the end, evil must be faced alone. Your father made excuses for the evil he sensed within Rasalom, and soon he came to see Rasalom as the answer to all his problems. Rasalom started with your father’s religion. He does not fear the cross, yet he pretended to, causing your father to question his entire heritage, undermining all the beliefs and values derived from that heritage. Then Rasalom rescued you from your would-be rapists—a testimony to the quickness and adaptability of his mind—putting your father deep in his debt. Rasalom went on to promise him a chance to destroy Nazism and save your people. And then, the final stroke—the elimination of all the symptoms of the disease your father has suffered with for years. Rasalom had a willing slave then, one who would do just about anything he asked. He has not only stripped away most of the man you called ‘Papa,’ but has fashioned him into an instrument that will effect the release of mankind’s greatest enemy from the keep.”

Glenn struggled to a sitting position. “I’ve got to stop him once and for all!”

“Let him go,” Magda said through her misery as she contemplated what had happened to Papa—or rather, what Papa had allowed to happen to himself. She had to wonder: Would she or anybody else have been able to withstand such an assault on one’s character? “Perhaps that will free my father from Rasalom’s influence and we can go back to the way we were.”

“You will have no lives to go about if Rasalom is set free!”

“In this world of Hitler and the Iron Guard, what can Rasalom do that hasn’t been done already?”

“You haven’t been listening!” Glenn said angrily. “Once free, Rasalom will make Hitler seem a suitable playmate for whatever children you might have planned on having!”

“Nothing could be worse than Hitler,” Magda said. “Nothing.”

“Rasalom could. Don’t you see, Magda, that with Hitler, as evil as he is, there is still hope? Hitler is but a man. He is mortal. He will die or be killed someday…maybe tomorrow, maybe thirty years from now, but he will die. He only controls a small part of the world. And although he appears invincible now, he has yet to deal with Russia. Britain still defies him. And there is America—if those Americans decide to turn their vitality and productive capacity to war, no country, not even Hitler’s Germany, will be able to stand against them for long. So you see, there is still hope in this very dark hour.”

Magda nodded slowly. What Glenn said paralleled her own feelings—she had never given up hope.

“But Rasalom—”

“Rasalom, as I told you, feeds on human debasement. And never in the history of humankind has there been such a glut of it as there is today in Eastern Europe. As long as the hilt remains within the keep walls, Rasalom is not only trapped, but is insulated from what goes on outside. Remove the hilt and it will all rush in on him at once—all the death, misery, and butchery of Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, and all the other death camps, all the monstrousness of modern war. He’ll absorb it like a sponge, feast on it and grow incalculably strong. His power will balloon beyond all comprehension.

“But he’ll not be satisfied. He’ll want more. He’ll move swiftly around the world, slaying heads of state, throwing governments into confusion, reducing nations to terrified mobs. What army could stand against the legions of the dead he is capable of raising against it? Soon all will be in chaos. And then the real horror will begin. Nothing worse than Hitler, you say? Think of the entire world as a death camp!”

Magda’s mind rebelled at the vista Glenn was describing. “It couldn’t happen!”

“Why not? Do you think there will be a shortage of volunteers to run Rasalom’s death camps? The Nazis have shown that there are plenty of men more than willing to slaughter their fellows. But it will go far beyond that. You’ve seen what has happened to the villagers today, haven’t you? All the worst in their natures has been drawn to the surface. Their responses to the world have been reduced to anger, hate, and violence.”

“But how?”

“Rasalom’s influence. He has grown steadily stronger within the keep, feeding on the death and fear there, and on the slow disintegration of your father’s character. And as he has gained strength, the walls of the keep have been weakened by the soldiers. Every day they tear down a little more of the internal structure, compromising its integrity. And every day the influence of Rasalom’s presence extends farther beyond those walls.

“The keep was built to an ancient design, the images of the hilt placed in a specific pattern in the walls to cut Rasalom off from the world, to contain his power, to seal him in. Now that pattern has been tampered with and the villagers are paying the price. If Rasalom escapes and feeds on the death camps, the whole world will pay a similar price. For Rasalom will not be as selective as Hitler when it comes to victims: Everyone will be targeted. Race, religion, none of that will matter. Rasalom will be truly egalitarian. The rich will not be able to buy their way out, the pious will not be able to pray their way out, the crafty will not be able to sneak or lie their way out. Everyone will suffer. Women and children the most. People will be born into misery; they will spend their days in despair; they will die in agony. Generation after generation, all suffering to feed Rasalom.”

He paused for breath, then: “And the worst of it all, Magda, is that there will be no hope. And no end to it! Rasalom will be untouchable…invincible…deathless. If he is freed now, there will be no stopping him. Always in the past the sword has held him back. But now…with the world as it is…he will grow too strong for even this blade reunited with its hilt to stop him. He must never leave the keep!”

Magda saw that Glenn meant to go into the keep.

“No!” she cried, her arms reaching to hold him back. She couldn’t let him go. “He’ll destroy you in your condition! Isn’t there anybody else?”

“Only me. No one else can do this. Like your father, I have to face this alone. After all, it’s really my fault that Rasalom still exists at all.”

“How can that be?”

Glenn didn’t answer. Magda tried another approach. “Where did Rasalom come from?”

“He was a man…once. But he gave himself over to a dark power and was forever changed by it.”

Magda felt a catch in her throat. “But if Rasalom serves a ‘dark power,’ who do you serve?”

“Another power.”

She sensed his resistance, but she pressed on.

“A power for good?”

“Not quite.”

“For how long?”

“All my life.”

“How can it be…?” She was afraid of the answer. “How can it be your fault, Glenn?”

He looked away. “My name isn’t Glenn—it’s Glaeken. I’m as old as Rasalom. I built the keep.”

Cuza had not seen Molasar since descending into the pit to uncover the talisman. He had said something about making the Germans pay for invading his keep, then his voice had trailed off and he was gone. The corpses had begun to move then, filing out behind the miraculous being who controlled them.

Cuza was left alone with the cold, the rats, and the talisman. He wished he could have gone along. But he supposed what really mattered was that soon they would all be dead, officers and enlisted men alike. Yet he would have enjoyed seeing Major Kaempffer die, seeing him suffer some of the agonies he had inflicted on countless innocent and helpless people.

But Molasar had said to wait here. And now, with the faint echoes of gunfire seeping down from above, Cuza knew why: Molasar had not wanted the man to whom he had entrusted his source of power to be endangered by any stray bullets. After a while the shooting stopped. Leaving the talisman behind, Cuza took his flashlight and climbed to the top of the pit where he stood among the clustered rats. They no longer bothered him; he was too intent on listening for Molasar’s return.

Soon he heard it. Footsteps approaching. More than one pair. He flashed his light toward the entrance to the chamber and saw Major Kaempffer round the corner and approach him. A cry escaped Cuza and he almost fell over into the pit, but then he saw the glazed eyes, the slack expression, and realized that the SS major was dead. Woermann came filing in behind him, equally dead, a length of rope trailing from his neck.

“I thought you might like to see these two,” Molasar said, following the dead officers into the chamber. “Especially the one who proposed to build the so-called death camp for our fellow Wallachians. Now I shall seek out this Hitler and dispose of him and his minions.” He paused. “But first, my talisman. You must see to it that it is securely hidden. Only then can I devote my energies to ridding the world of our common foe.”

“Yes!” Cuza said, feeling his pulse begin to race. “It’s right here!”

He scrambled down into the pit and grabbed the talisman. As he tucked it under his arm and began to climb up again, he saw Molasar step back.

“Wrap it up,” he said. “Its precious metals will attract unwanted attention should someone see them.”

“Of course.” Cuza reached for the wadded wrapper and packing. “I’ll tie it up securely when I get into the better light upstairs. Don’t worry. I’ll see to it that it’s all—”

“Cover it now!” The command echoed through the chamber.

Cuza halted, struck by Molasar’s vehemence. He didn’t think he should be spoken to in such a manner. But then, one had to make allowances for fifteenth-century boyars.

He sighed. “Very well.” He squatted in the bottom of the pit and folded the coarse cloth packing over the talisman, then covered it all with the tattered wrapper.

“Good!” said the voice from above and behind him. Cuza looked up and saw that Molasar had moved to the other side of the pit, away from the entrance. “Now hurry. The sooner I know the talisman is safe, the sooner I can depart for Germany.”

Cuza hurried. He crawled from the pit as swiftly as he could and began to make his way through the tunnel to the steps that would take him upward to a new day, not only for himself and for his people, but for all the world.

“It’s a long story, Magda…ages long. And I fear there’s no time left to tell it to you.”

His voice sounded to Magda as if it were coming from the far end of a long, dark tunnel. He had said Rasalom predated Judaism…and then he had said he was as old as Rasalom. But that couldn’t be! The man who had loved her could not be some leftover from a forgotten age! He was real! He was human! Flesh and blood!

Movement caught her eye and brought her back to the here and now. Glenn was attempting to rise to his feet, using the sword blade for support. He managed to get to his knees but was too weak to rise farther.

“Who are you?” she said, staring at him, feeling as if she were seeing him for the first time. “And who is Rasalom?”

“The story starts long ago,” he said, sweating and swaying, leaning on the hiltless blade. “Long before the time of the Pharaohs, before Babylonia, even before Mesopotamia. There was another civilization then, in another age.”

“‘The First Age,’” Magda said. “You mentioned that before.”

It was not a new idea to her. She had run across the theory now and then in the historical and archeological journals she had read at various times while helping Papa with his research. The obscure theory contended that all of recorded history represented only the Second Age of Man; that long, long ago there had been a great civilization across Europe and Asia—some of its apologists even went so far as to include the island continents of Atlantis and Mu in this ancient world, a world they claimed had been destroyed in a global cataclysm.

“It’s a discredited idea,” Magda said, a defensive quaver in her voice. “All historians and archeologists of any repute condemn it as lunacy.”

“Yes, I know,” Glenn said with a sardonic twist to his lips. “The same type of ‘authorities’ who scoffed at the possibility that Troy might have truly existed—and then Schliemann found it. But I’m not going to debate you. The First Age was real. I was born into it.”

“But how—?”

“Let me finish quickly. There isn’t much time and I want you to understand a few things before I go to face Rasalom. Things were different in the First Age. This world was then a battleground between two…” He appeared to be groping for a word. “I don’t want to say ‘gods’ because that would give you the impression that they had discrete identities and personalities. There were two vast, incomprehensible…forces…powers abroad in the land then. One, the Dark Power, which was sometimes called Chaos, sometimes called the Otherness, reveled in anything inimical to mankind. The other Power was…”

He paused again, and Magda could not help but prompt him. “You mean the White Power…the Power of Good?”

“It’s not so simple as that. We merely called it Light. What mattered was that it opposed the Otherness. The First Age eventually became divided into two camps: those who sought dominion through the Otherness and those who resisted. Rasalom was a necromancer of his time, a brilliant adept to the Dark Power. He gave himself over to it completely and eventually became the champion of Chaos.”

“And you chose to be champion of Light—of Good.” She wanted him to say yes.

“No…I didn’t exactly choose. And I can’t say the Power I serve is all that good, or all that light. I was…conscripted, you might say. Circumstances too involved to explain now—circumstances that have long since lost any shred of meaning for me—led me to become involved with the armies of Light. I soon found it impossible to extricate myself, and before long I was at their forefront, leading them. I was given the sword. Its blade and hilt were forged by a race of small folk now long extinct. It was fashioned for one purpose: to destroy Rasalom. There came a final battle between the opposing forces—Armageddon, Ragnarök, all the doomsday battles rolled into one. The resulting cataclysm—earthquakes, firestorms, tidal waves—wiped out every trace of the First Age of Man. Only a few humans were left to begin all over again.”

“But what of the Powers?”

Glenn shrugged. “They still exist, but their interest waned after the cataclysm. There was not much left for them in a ruined world whose inhabitants were reverting to savagery. They turned their attention elsewhere while Rasalom and I fought on across the world and across the ages, neither one gaining the upper hand for long, neither one sickening or aging. And somewhere along the way we lost something…”

He glanced down at a broken fragment of mirror that had fallen out of the blade case and now lay near his knees.

“Hold that up to my face,” he told Magda.

Magda lifted the fragment and positioned it next to his cheek.

“How do I look in it?” he asked.

Magda glanced at the glass—and dropped it with a tiny scream. The mirror was empty! Just as Papa had said of Rasalom!

The man she loved cast no reflection!

“Our reflections were taken away by the Powers we serve, perhaps as a constant reminder to Rasalom and me that our lives were no longer our own.”

His mind seemed to drift for a moment. “It’s strange not to see yourself in a mirror or a pool of water. You never get used to it.” He smiled sadly. “I believe I’ve forgotten what I look like.”

Magda’s heart went out to him. “Glenn…?”

“But I never stopped pursuing Rasalom,” he said, shaking himself. “Wherever there was news of butchery and death, I would find him and drive him off. But as civilization gradually rebuilt itself, and people began to crowd together again, Rasalom became more ingenious in his methods. He was always spreading death and misery in any way he could, and in the fourteenth century, when he traveled from Constantinople throughout Europe, leaving plague-ridden rats in every city along his way—”

“The Black Death!”

“Yes. It would have been a minor epidemic without Rasalom, but as you know, it turned out to be one of the major catastrophes of the Middle Ages. That was when I knew I had to find a way to stop him before he devised something even more hideous. And if I’d done the job right, neither of us would be here right now.”

“But how can you blame yourself? How can Rasalom’s escape be your fault? The Germans let him loose.”

“He should be dead! I could have killed him half a millennium ago but I didn’t. I came here looking for Vlad the Impaler. I had heard of his atrocities and they fit Rasalom’s pattern. I expected to find him posing as Vlad. But I was wrong. Vlad was just a madman under Rasalom’s influence, feeding Rasalom’s strength by impaling thousands of innocents. But even at his worst, Vlad could not match by one tenth what is happening every day in today’s death camps.

“So I built the keep. I tricked Rasalom by luring him inside. I bound him with the power of the hilt and sealed him in the cellar wall where he would stay forever.” He sighed. “At least I thought it would be forever. I could have killed him then—I should have killed him then—but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

Glenn closed his eyes and was quiet for a long time before replying. “This isn’t easy to say…but I was afraid. You see, I’ve lived on as a counterbalance to Rasalom. But what happens if I’m finally victorious and kill him? When his threat is extinguished, what happens to me? I’ve lived for what seems like eons, but I’ve never grown tired of life. It may be hard to believe, but there’s always something new.” He opened his eyes again and looked squarely at Magda. “Always. But I fear Rasalom and I are a pair, the continued existence of one dependent on the other. I am yang to his yin. I’m not yet ready to die.”

Magda had to know: “Can you die?”

“Yes. It takes a lot to kill me, but I can die. The injuries I received tonight would have done me in had you not brought the blade to me. I had gone as far as I could…I would have died right here without you.” His eyes rested on her for a moment, then he looked over to the keep. “Rasalom probably thinks I’m dead. That could work to my advantage.”

Magda wanted to throw her arms around him but could not bring herself to touch him again just yet. At least now she understood the guilt she had seen in his face in unguarded moments.

“Don’t go over there, Glenn.”

“Call me Glaeken,” he said softly. “It’s been so long since someone called me by my real name.”

“All right…Glaeken.” The word felt good on her tongue, as if saying his true name linked her more closely to him. But there were still so many unanswered questions. “What about those awful books? Who hid them there?”

“I did. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but I couldn’t let them be destroyed. Knowledge of any kind—especially of evil—must be preserved.”

Magda had another question, one she hesitated to ask. She had come to realize as he spoke that it mattered little to her how old he was—it didn’t change him from the man she had come to know. But how did he feel about her?

“What of me?” she said finally. “You never told me…”

She wanted to ask him if she was just a stop along the way, another conquest. Was the love she had sensed in him and seen in his eyes just a trick he had learned? Was he even capable of love anymore? She couldn’t voice the thoughts. Even thinking them was painful.

Glaeken seemed to read her mind. “Would you have believed me if I had told you?”

“But yesterday—”

“I love you, Magda,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’ve been closed off for so long. You reached me. No one has been able to do that for a long time. I may be older than anyone or anything you’ve ever imagined, but I’m still a man. That was never taken away from me.”

Magda slowly put her arms around his shoulders, holding him gently but firmly. She wanted to hold him to this spot, root him here where he’d be safe outside the keep.

After a long moment he spoke into her ear. “Help me to my feet, Magda. I’ve got to stop your father.”

Magda knew she had to help him, even though she feared for him. She gripped his arm and tried to lift him but his knees buckled repeatedly. Finally, he slumped to the ground and pounded it with a closed fist.

“I need more time!”

“I’ll go,” Magda said, half wondering where the words came from. “I can meet my father at the gate.”

“No! It’s too dangerous!”

“I can talk to him. He’ll listen to me.”

“He’s beyond all reason now. He’ll listen only to Rasalom.”

“I have to try. Can you think of anything better?”

Glaeken was silent.

“Then I’ll go.” She wished she could have stood there and tossed her head in defiance to show him she wasn’t afraid. But she was terrified.

“Don’t cross the threshold,” Glaeken warned her. “Whatever you do, don’t step across into the keep. That’s Rasalom’s domain now.”

I know, Magda thought as she broke into a run toward the causeway. And I can’t allow Papa to step across to this side, either—at least not if he’s holding the hilt to a sword.

Cuza had hoped to be done with the flashlight after reaching the cellar level, but all the electric lights were dead. He found, however, that the corridor was not completely dark. There were glowing spots in the walls. He looked more closely and saw that the images of the crosslike talisman set in the stones were glowing softly. They brightened as he neared and faded slowly after he had passed, responding to the object he carried.

Theodor Cuza moved along the central corridor in a state of awe. Never had the supernatural been so real to him. Never would he be able to view the world or existence itself as he had before. He thought about how smug he had been, thinking he had seen it all, yet never realizing the blinders that had limited his vision. Well, now his blinders were off and the whole world was new all around him.

He hugged the wrapped talisman snugly against his chest, feeling close to the supernatural…and yet far from his God. But then, what had God done for his Chosen People? How many thousands, millions, had died in the past few years calling out his name, and had never been answered?

Soon there would be an answer, and Theodor Cuza was helping to bring it.

As he ascended toward the courtyard he felt a twinge of uneasiness and paused halfway up. He watched trailers of fog ooze down the steps like white honey while his thoughts whirled.

His moment of personal triumph was at hand. He was finally able to do something, to take an active role against the Nazis. Why, then, this feeling that all was not quite right? He had to admit to some nagging doubts about Molasar, but nothing specific. All the pieces fit…

Or did they?

Cuza could not help but find the shape of the talisman bothersome: It was too close to the shape of the cross Molasar feared so. But perhaps that was Molasar’s way of protecting it—make it resemble a holy object to throw his pursuers off the track, just as he had done with the keep. But then there was Molasar’s seeming reluctance to handle the talisman himself, his insistence that Cuza take charge of it immediately. If the talisman was so important to Molasar, if it was truly the source of all his power, why didn’t he find a hiding place for it himself?

Slowly, mechanically, Cuza took the final steps up to the courtyard. At the top he squinted into the unaccustomed gray light of predawn and found the answer to his questions: daylight. Of course! Molasar could not move around in the day and he needed someone who could! What a relief it was to erase those doubts. Daylight explained everything!

As Cuza’s eyes adjusted to the growing light, he looked across the foggy ruin of the courtyard to the gate and saw a figure standing there, waiting. For a single terrified moment he thought one of the sentries had escaped the slaughter; then he saw that the figure was too small and slim to be a German soldier.

It was Magda. Filled with joy, he hurried toward her.

From the threshold of the keep, Magda looked in on the courtyard. It was silent as a tomb, which it had become. It was utterly silent and deserted but showed signs of battle everywhere: bullet holes in the fabric and the metal of the lorries, smashed windshields, pock marks in the stone blocks of the walls, smoke rising from the shattered ruins of the generators. Nothing moved. She wondered what gore lay beneath the fog that floated knee-deep over the courtyard floor.

She also wondered what she was doing here shivering in the predawn chill, waiting for her father, who might or might not be carrying the future of the world in his hands. Now that she had a quiet moment to think, to calmly consider all that Glenn—Glaeken—had told her, doubt began to insinuate its way into her mind. Words whispered in the dark lost their impact with the approach of day. It had been so easy to believe Glaeken while she was listening to his voice and looking into his eyes. But now that she was away from him, standing here alone, waiting…she felt unsure.

It was mad—immense, unseen, unknowable forces…Light…Chaos…in opposition for control of humanity! Absurd! The stuff of fantasy, the deranged dream of an opium eater!

And yet…

…there was Molasar—or Rasalom or whatever he was truly called.

He was no dream, yet certainly more than human, certainly beyond anything she had ever experienced or wished to experience again. And certainly evil. She had known that from the first time he had touched her.

And then there was Glaeken—if that was his true name—who did not seem evil but who might well be mad. He was real, and he had a sword blade that glowed and healed wounds that were enough to kill a score of men. She had seen that with her own eyes. And he cast no reflection…

Perhaps it was she who was mad.

But oh, if she was not mad. If the world truly stood on the brink here in this remote mountain pass…who was she to trust?

Trust Rasalom, who by his own admission and confirmed by Glaeken had been locked away in some sort of limbo for five centuries and, now that he was free, was promising to put an end to Hitler and his atrocities?

Or trust the red-haired man who had become the love of her life but had lied to her about so many things, even his name? Who her own father accused of being an ally of the Nazis?

Why is it all coming to rest on me?

Why did she have to be the one to choose when everything was so confused? Who to believe? The father she had trusted all her life, or the stranger who had unlocked a part of her being she never even knew existed? It wasn’t fair!

She sighed. But nobody ever said life was fair.

She had to decide. And soon.

Glenn’s parting words came back to her: Whatever you do, don’t step across into the keep. That’s Rasalom’s domain now.

But she knew she had to step across. The malignant aura around the keep had made it an effort merely to walk across the causeway. Now she had to feel what it was like inside. It would help her decide.

She edged her foot forward, then pulled it back. Perspiration had broken out all over her body. She didn’t want to do this but circumstances left her little choice. Setting her jaw, she closed her eyes and stepped across the threshold.

The evil exploded against her, snatching her breath away, knotting her stomach, making her weave drunkenly about. It was more powerful, more intense than ever. She wavered in her resolve, wanting desperately to step back outside. But she fought this down, willing herself to weather the storm of malice she felt raging about her. The very air she was breathing confirmed what she had known all along: No good would ever come from within the keep.

And it was here inside the threshold where she would have to meet Papa. And here she would have to stop him if he carried the hilt to a sword.

A movement across the courtyard caught her eye. Papa had emerged from the cellar entry. He stood staring about for a moment, then spotted her and ran forward. After adjusting to the sight of her once crippled father running, she noticed that his clothes were caked with dirt. He was carrying a package of some sort, something heavy and carelessly wrapped.

“Magda! I have it!” he called, panting as he stopped before her.

“What do you have, Papa?” The sound of her own voice was flat and wooden in her ears. She dreaded his answer.

“Molasar’s talisman—the source of his power!”

“You’ve stolen it from him?”

“No. He gave it to me. I’m to find a safe hiding place for it while he goes to Germany.”

Magda went cold inside. Papa was removing an object from the keep, just as Glaeken had said he would.

She had to know what it looked like. “Let me see it.”

“There’s no time for that now. I’ve got to—”

He stepped to the side to go around her, but Magda moved in front of him, blocking his way, keeping him within the boundary of the keep.

“Please?” she pleaded. “Show it to me?”

He hesitated, studying her face questioningly, then pulled off the wrapper and showed her what he had called “Molasar’s talisman.”

Magda heard her breath suck in at the sight of it. Oh, God! It was obviously heavy, and appeared to be gold and silver—exactly like the strange crosses throughout the keep. And it even had a slot in its top, the perfect size to accept the spike she had seen at the butt end of Glaeken’s sword blade.

The hilt to Glaeken’s sword…the key to the keep…the only thing that protected the world from Rasalom.

Magda stood and stared at it while her father said something she could not hear. The words would not reach her. All she could hear was Glaeken’s description of what would happen should Rasalom be allowed to escape the keep. Everything within her revolted at the decision that faced her, but she had no choice. She had to stop her father—at any cost.

“Go back, Papa,” she said, searching his eyes for some remnant of the man she had loved so dearly all her life. “Leave it in the keep. Molasar has been lying to you all along. That’s not the source of his power—it’s the only thing that can withstand his power! He’s the enemy of everything good in this world! You can’t set him free!”

“Ridiculous! He’s already free! And he’s an ally! Look what he’s done for me! I can walk!”

“But only as far as the other side of this gateway. Only far enough to remove that from the keep—he can’t leave here as long as the hilt remains within the walls!”

“Lies! Molasar is going to kill Hitler and stop the death camps!”

“He’ll feed on the death camps, Papa!” It was like talking to a deaf man. “For once in your life listen to me! Trust me! Do as I say! Don’t remove that thing from the keep!”

He ignored her and pressed forward. “Let me by!”

Magda placed her hands against his chest, steeling herself to defy the man who had raised her, taught her so much, given her so much.

“Listen to me, Papa!”

“No!”

Magda set her feet and shoved with all her strength, sending him stumbling backward. She hated herself for doing it but he had left her no alternative. She had to stop thinking of him as a cripple; he was well and strong now—and as determined as she.

“You strike your own father?” he said in a hoarse, hushed voice. Shock and anger roiled on his face. “Is this what a night of rutting with your red-headed lover has done to you? I am your father! I command you to let me pass!”

“No, Papa,” she said, tears starting in her eyes.

She had never dared to stand up to him before, but she had to see this through—for both their sakes and for all the world.

The sight of her tears seemed to disconcert him. For an instant his features softened and he was himself again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap. Snarling with fury, he leaped forward and swung the hilt at her head.

Rasalom stood waiting in the subterranean chamber, immersed in darkness, the silence broken only by the sound of the rats crawling over the cadavers of the two officers which he had allowed to tumble to the dirt after the crippled one had left with that accursed hilt. Soon it would be gone from the keep and he would be free again.

Soon his hunger would be appeased. If what the crippled one had told him was true—and what he had heard from some of the German soldiers during their stay seemed to confirm it—Europe had now become a sinkhole of human misery. It meant that after ages of struggling, after so many defeats at Glaeken’s hands, his destiny at last was about to come to pass. He had feared all lost when Glaeken had trapped him in this stone prison, but in the end he had prevailed. Human greed had released him from the tiny cell that had held him for five centuries. Human hate and power lust were about to give him the strength to become master of this globe.

He waited. And still his hunger remained untouched. The expected surge of power did not come. Something was wrong. The crippled one could have journeyed through that gate twice by now. Three times!

Something had happened. He let his senses range the keep until he detected the presence of the crippled one’s daughter. It was she who must be the cause of the delay. But why? She couldn’t know—

—unless Glaeken had told her about the hilt before he died.

Rasalom made a tiny gesture with his left hand, and behind him in the dark the corpses of Major Kaempffer and Captain Woermann began to struggle to their feet again, to stand stiffly erect, waiting.

In a cold rage, Rasalom strode from the chamber. The daughter would be easy to handle. The two corpses stumbled after him. And after them followed the army of rats.

Magda watched in dumb awe as the gold-and-silver hilt swung toward her head with crushing force. Never had it occurred to her that Papa might actually try to harm her. Yet he was aiming a killing blow at her skull.

Only an instinctive reflex for self-preservation saved her—she stepped back at the last moment, then dove forward, knocking him to the ground as he tried to recover his balance after the wild swing. She fell on top of him, clutching at the silver crosspiece, finally gripping it with one hand on each side and twisting the hilt out of his grasp.

He clawed at her like an animal, scratching the flesh of her arms, trying to pull her down again to the point where the hilt would be in reach, screaming:

“Give it to me! Give it to me! You’re going to ruin everything!”

Magda regained her feet and backed away to the side of the gateway arch, holding the hilt with both hands by its golden handle. She was uncomfortably close to the threshold, but she had managed to retain the hilt within the bounds of the keep.

He struggled to his feet and ran at her with his head down, his arms outstretched. Magda dodged the full force of his charge but he managed to catch her elbow as he went by, twisting her around. Then he was on her, striking at her face and screeching incoherently.

“Stop it, Papa!” she cried, but he seemed not to hear. He was like a wild beast. As his ragged dirty fingernails raked toward her eyes, she swung the hilt at him; she didn’t think about what she was doing—it was an automatic move. “Stop it!”

The sound of the heavy metal striking Papa’s skull sickened her. Stunned, she stood and watched as his eyes rolled up behind his glasses. He slipped to the ground and lay still, tendrils of fog drifting over him.

What have I done?

“Why did you make me hit you?” she screamed at his unconscious form. “Couldn’t you trust me just once? Just once?”

She had to get him out—just a few feet beyond the threshold would be enough. But first she had to dispose of the hilt, put it somewhere well inside the keep. Then she would try to drag Papa out to safety.

Across the courtyard lay the entrance to the cellar. She could throw the hilt down there. She began running toward the entrance but stopped halfway there. Someone was coming up the steps.

Rasalom!

He seemed to float, rising from the cellar as a huge dead fish might rise from the bottom of a stagnant pond. At the sight of her, his eyes became twin spheres of dark fury, assaulting her, stabbing her. He bared his teeth as he seemed to glide through the mist toward her.

Magda held her ground. Glaeken had said the hilt had the power to counter Rasalom. She felt strong. She could face him.

She noticed movement behind Rasalom as he approached. Two other figures were emerging from the subcellar, figures with slack, white faces that followed Rasalom as he stalked forward. Magda recognized them: the captain and that awful major. She did not need a closer look to know that they were dead. Glaeken had told her about the walking corpses and she had been half expecting to see them. But that did not keep her blood from running cold at the sight of them. Yet she felt strangely safe.

Rasalom stopped within a dozen feet of her and slowly raised his arms until they were spread out like wings. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Magda noticed stirrings in the fog that blanketed the courtyard and swirled about her knees. All around her, hands rose out of the mist, clutching at the air, followed by heads, and then torsos. Like loathsome fungal growths sprouting from moldy soil, the German soldiers who had occupied the keep were rising from the dead.

Magda saw their ravaged bodies, their torn throats, yet she stood firm. She had the hilt. Glaeken had said the hilt could negate Rasalom’s animating power. She believed him. She had to!

The corpses arrayed themselves behind Rasalom and to his right and left. No one moved.

Maybe they’re afraid of the hilt! Magda thought, her heart leaping. Maybe they can’t get any closer!

Then she noticed a curious rippling in the fog around the corpses’ feet. She looked down. Through gaps in the mist she glimpsed scuttling forms, gray and brown.

Rats!

Revulsion tightened her throat and swept over her skin. Magda began to back away. They were moving toward her, not in a solid front, but in a chaotic scramble of crisscrossing paths and squat, bustling bodies. She could face anything—even the walking dead—anything but rats.

She saw a smile spread over Rasalom’s face and knew she was responding just as he had hoped—retreating from his final threat, edging ever closer to the gateway. She tried to stop, to will her legs to be still, but they kept backing her away from the rats.

Dark stone walls closed around her—she was back within the gate arch. Another yard or two and she would be over the threshold…and Rasalom would be set loose upon the world.

Magda closed her eyes and stopped moving.

This far will I go. This far and no farther…this far and no farther…

…Repeating it over and over in her mind—until something brushed her ankle and skittered away. Something small and furry. Another. Then another. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The hilt wasn’t working! The rats were attacking her! They’d be all over her soon. In a panic, she opened her eyes.

Rasalom was closer now, his depthless eyes fixed on her through the misty half light, his legion of the dead fanned out behind him, and the rats massed before him. He was driving the rats forward, forcing them against her feet and ankles. Magda knew she was going to break and run any second now…she could feel the overpowering terror welling up inside her, ready to drown and wash away all her resolve…the hilt isn’t protecting me!

She started to turn and then stopped. The rats were brushing against her, but they didn’t bite or claw her. They made contact and then ran. It was the hilt! Because she held the hilt, Rasalom lost control over the rats as soon as they touched her. Magda took heart and calmed herself.

They can’t bite me. They can’t touch me for more than an instant.

Her greatest horror had been that they might crawl up her legs. Now she knew they could not. She stood firm again.

Rasalom must have sensed this. He scowled and made a motion with his hands.

The corpses again began to move. They parted around him, then rejoined into a near-solid moving wall of dead flesh, scuffling, stumbling forward, crowding up to where she stood, stopping within inches of her. They gaped at her with slack, expressionless faces and glazed, empty eyes. No malevolence in their movements, no hatred, no real purpose. They were merely dead flesh.

But they were so close!

Had they been alive, their breath would have wafted against her face. As it was, a few of them smelled as if they had already begun to putrefy.

She closed her eyes again, fighting the loathing that weakened her knees, hugging the hilt against her.

…this far and no farther…this far and no farther…for Glaeken, for me, for what’s left of Papa, for everyone…this far and no farther…

Something heavy and cold slumped against her. She staggered back, crying out in surprise and disgust. The corpses nearest her had begun to go limp and fall against her. Another one slammed into her and she was rocked back again. She twisted to the side and let its slack bulk slip by her. Magda realized what Rasalom was doing—if he couldn’t frighten her out of the keep, then he would push her out by hurling the physical bulk of his dead army against her.

He was succeeding. There were only inches left to her.

As more corpses pressed forward, Magda made a desperate move. She grasped the gold handle of the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it in a wide arc, dragging it against the dead flesh of those closest to her.

Bright flashes of light and sizzling noises erupted upon contact with the bodies; wisps of acrid, yellow white smoke stung her nostrils…and the corpses—they jerked spasmodically and fell away like marionettes with severed strings. She stepped forward, waving the hilt again, this time in a wider arc, and again the flashes, the sizzle, the sudden limpness.

Even Rasalom retreated a step.

Magda allowed a small, grim smile to touch her lips. Now at least she had breathing room. She had a weapon and she was learning how to use it. She saw Rasalom’s gaze shift to her left and looked to see what had caught his attention.

Papa! He had regained consciousness and was on his feet, leaning against the wall of the gateway arch. It sickened Magda to see the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face—blood from the blow she had struck.

“You!” Rasalom said, pointing to Papa. “Take the talisman from her! She has joined our enemies!”

Magda saw her father shake his head, and her heart leaped with new hope.

“No!” Papa’s voice was a feeble croak, yet it echoed off the stone walls around them. “I’ve been watching! If what she holds is truly the source of your power, you do not need me to reclaim it. Take it yourself!”

Magda knew she had never been so proud of her father as at that moment when he stood up to the creature who had tried to plunder his soul. And had come so close to succeeding. She brushed away tears and smiled, taking strength from Papa and giving it back to him.

“Ingrate!” Rasalom hissed, his face contorted with rage. “You’ve failed me! Very well, then—welcome back your illness! Revel in your pain!”

Papa slumped to his knees with a stifled moan. He held his hands before him, watching them turn white and lock once again into the gnarled deformity that until yesterday had rendered them useless. His spine curved and he crumpled forward with a groan. Slowly, with agony seeping from every pore, his body curled in on itself. When it was over he lay whimpering in a twisted, tortured parody of the fetal position.

Magda stepped toward him, shouting through her horror.

“Papa!”

She could almost feel his pain. Yet he suffered through it all with no plea for mercy. This seemed to incite Rasalom further. Amid a chorus of shrill squeaks, the rats started forward, a dun wave that sluiced around Papa, then swept over him, tearing at him with tiny razor teeth.

Magda forgot her loathing and rushed to his side, batting at the rats with the hilt, swatting them away with her free hand. But for every few she swept away, more sets of tiny jaws darted in to redden themselves on Papa’s flesh. She cried, she sobbed, she called out to God in every language she knew.

The only answer came from Rasalom, a taunting whisper behind her. “Throw the hilt through the gate and you will save him! Remove that thing from these walls and he lives!”

Magda forced herself to ignore him, but deep within she sensed that Rasalom had won. She could not let this horror go on—Papa was being eaten alive by vermin! And she seemed helpless to save him. She had lost. She would have to surrender.

But not yet. The rats were not biting her, only Papa.

She sprawled across her father, covering his body with her own, pressing the hilt between them.

“He will die!” the hated voice whispered. “He will die and there will be no one to blame but you! Your fault! All your—”

Rasalom’s words suddenly broke off as his voice climbed to a screech—a sound full of rage, fear, and disbelief.

“YOU!”

Magda lifted her head and saw Glaeken—weak, pale, caked with dried blood, leaning against the keep’s gate a few feet away. There was no one in the world she wanted more to see right now.

“I knew you would come.”

But the way he looked, it seemed a miracle he had made it across the causeway. He could never stand up to Rasalom in his present condition.

And yet he was here. The sword blade was in one hand, the other he held out to her. No words were necessary. She knew what he had come for and knew what she must do. She lifted herself away from Papa and placed the hilt in Glaeken’s hand.

Somewhere behind her, Rasalom was screaming, “Nooooo!”

Glaeken smiled weakly at her, then in a single motion, smooth and swift, he stood the blade point down and poised the top of the hilt over the butt spike. As it slid home with a solid rasping click, a flash of light brighter than the sun at summer solstice, intolerably bright, spread in a ball from Glaeken and his sword to be caught and amplified by the images of the hilt inlaid throughout the keep.

The light struck Magda like a blast from a furnace, good and clean, dry and warm. Shadows disappeared as everything within sight was etched in blinding white light. The fog melted away as though it had never existed. The rats fled squealing in all directions. The light scythed through the standing corpses, toppling them like stalks of dry wheat. Even Rasalom reeled away with both arms covering his face.

The true master of the keep had returned.

The light faded slowly, drawing back into the sword, and a moment passed before Magda could see again. When she could, there stood Glaeken, his clothes still ripped and bloodied, but the man within renewed. All fatigue, all weakness, all injury had been wiped away. He was a man made whole again, radiating awesome power and implacable resolve. And his eyes were so fierce, so terrible in their determination that she was glad he was a friend and not a foe. This was the man who led the forces of Light against Chaos ages ago…the man she loved.

Glaeken held the reassembled sword out before him, its runes swirling and cascading over the blade. His blue eyes shining, he turned to Magda and saluted her with it.

“Thank you, my Lady,” he said softly. “I knew you had courage—I never dreamed how much.”

Magda glowed in his praise. My Lady…he called me his Lady.

Glaeken gestured to Papa. “Take him through the gate. I’ll stand guard until you’re safe on the causeway.”

Magda’s knees wobbled as she stood up. A quick glance around showed a jumble of fallen corpses. Rasalom had disappeared. “Where—?”

“I’ll find him,” Glaeken said. “But first I must see you where I know you’ll be safe.”

Magda bent and grabbed Papa under the arms and dragged his pitifully light form the few feet that took them across the threshold and onto the causeway. His breathing was shallow. He was bleeding from a thousand tiny wounds. She began dabbing at them with her skirt.

“Good-bye, Magda.”

It was Glaeken’s voice and it held a terrible note of finality. She looked up to see him staring at her with a look of infinite sadness on his face.

“Good-bye? Where are you going?”

“To finish a war that should have been over ages ago.” His voice faltered. “I wish…”

Dread gripped her. “You’re coming back to me, aren’t you?”

Glaeken turned and walked toward the courtyard.

“Glaeken?”

He disappeared into the maw of the tower. Her cry was half wail, half sob.

“Glaeken!”

TWENTY-NINE

Darkness within the tower…more than mere shadow, it was the blackness that only Rasalom could spawn. It engulfed Glaeken, but he was not entirely helpless against it. His rune sword began to glow with a pale blue light as soon as he stepped through the tower entrance. The images of the hilt laid into the walls responded immediately to the presence of the original and lit with white-and-yellow fire that pulsated slowly, dimly, as if to the rhythm of a massive and faraway heart.

The sound of Magda’s voice followed Glaeken within and he stood at the foot of the tower stairs trying to shut out the pain he heard as she called his name, knowing that if he listened he would weaken. He had to cut her off, just as he had to sever all other ties to the world outside the keep.

Only he and Rasalom now. Their millennia of conflict would end here today. He would see to that.

He let the power of the glowing sword surge through him. So good to hold it again—like being reunited with a lost part of his body. But even the power of the sword could not reach the growing knot of despair tangled deep within him.

He was not going to win today. Even if he succeeded in killing Rasalom, the victory would cost him everything…for victory would eliminate the purpose of his continued existence. He would no longer be of use to the Power he served.

If he could defeat Rasalom…

He pushed all that behind him. This was no way to enter battle. He had to set his mind to victory—that was the only way to win.

And he must win.

He looked around. He sensed Rasalom somewhere above. Why? There was no escape that way.

Glaeken ran up the steps to the second-level landing and stood, alert, wary, his senses bristling. He could still sense Rasalom far above him, yet the dark air here was thick with danger. The replicas of the hilts pulsed dully from the walls, cruciform beacons in a black fog. A short distance to his right he saw the dim outline of the steps to the third level. Nothing moved.

He started for the next set of steps, then stopped. Suddenly, there was movement all around him. As he watched, a crowd of dark shapes rose from the floor and the shadowed corners. Glaeken swiveled left and right, quickly counting a dozen German corpses.

So…Rasalom wasn’t alone when he retreated.

As the corpses lurched toward him, Glaeken positioned himself with the next flight of stairs to his rear and prepared to meet them. They didn’t frighten him—he knew the scope and limits of Rasalom’s powers and was familiar with all his tricks. Those animated lumps of dead flesh could not hurt him.

But they did puzzle him. What did Rasalom hope to gain by this grisly diversion?

With no conscious effort on his part, Glaeken’s body set itself for battle—legs spread, the right slightly rearward of the left, sword held ready before him in a two-handed grip—as the corpses closed in. He did not have to do battle with them; he knew he could stroll through their ranks and make them fall away to all sides by merely touching them. But that was not enough. His warrior instinct demanded that he strike out at them. And Glaeken willingly gave in to that demand. He ached to slash at anything connected with Rasalom. These dead Germans would feed the fire he would need for his final confrontation with their master.

The corpses had gained momentum and were now a closing semicircle of dim forms rushing toward him, arms outstretched, hands set into claws. As the first came within reach, Glaeken began to swing the sword in short, slicing arcs, severing an arm to his right, lopping off a head to his left. A white flash ran along the length of the blade each time it made contact, a hiss and sizzle as it seared its way effortlessly through the dead flesh, and a rising curl of oily yellow smoke from the wound as each cadaver went limp and sank to the floor.

Glaeken spun and swung and spun again, his mouth twisting at the nightmarish quality of the scene around him. It was not the pale voids of the oncoming faces, gray in the muted light, that disconcerted him, or the stench of them. It was the silence. No commands from officers, no cries of pain or rage, no shouts of bloodlust. Only shuffling feet, the sound of his own breathing, and the sizzle of the sword as it did its work.

This was not battle, this was cutting meat. He was only adding to the carnage the Germans had wrought upon one another hours earlier. Still they pressed toward him, undaunted, undauntable, the ones behind pushing against those closest to Glaeken, ever tightening the ring.

With half of the cadavers piled at his feet, Glaeken took a step backward to give himself more room to swing. His heel caught on one of the fallen bodies and he began to stagger back, off balance. In that instant he sensed movement above and behind him. Startled, he glanced up to see two cadavers come hurtling down off the steps leading to the next level. There was no time to dodge. Their combined weight struck him with numbing force and bore him to the floor. Before he could throw them off, the remaining cadavers were upon him, piling on one another and pinning Glaeken under half a ton of dead flesh.

He remained calm, although he could barely breathe under the weight. The little air that did reach him reeked with a mixture of burnt flesh, dried blood, and excrement from those cadavers with gut wounds. Gagging, grunting, he marshaled all his strength and forced his body upward through the suffocating pile.

As he raised himself to his hands and knees, he felt the stone blocks of the floor beneath him begin to vibrate. He did not know what it meant or what was causing it—Glaeken knew only that he had to get away from here. With a final convulsive heave, he threw off the remaining bodies and leaped to the steps.

Behind him came a loud grinding and scraping of stone upon stone. From the safety of the steps he turned and saw the section of the floor where he had been pinned disappear. It shattered and fell away, taking many of the cadavers with it. A muffled crash arose as the tumbling stone and flesh struck the first-floor landing directly below.

Shaken, Glaeken leaned against the wall to catch his breath and clear the stench of the cadavers from his nostrils. Rasalom had a reason for trying to hinder his progress—he never acted without a purpose—but what?

As Glaeken turned to make his way up to the third level, movement on the floor caught his eye. At the edge of the hole a severed arm from one of the corpses had begun dragging itself toward him, clawing its way along the floor with its fingers. Shaking his head in bafflement, Glaeken continued up the steps, his thoughts racing through what he knew of Rasalom, trying to guess what was going on in that twisted mind.

Halfway up, he felt a trickle of falling dust brush against his face. Without looking up, he slammed himself flat against the wall just in time to avoid a stone block falling from above. It landed with a shattering crash on the spot he had occupied an instant before.

An upward glance showed that the stone had dislodged itself from the inner edge of the stairwell. Rasalom’s doing again. Did Rasalom still harbor hopes of maiming or disabling him? He must know that he was only forestalling the inevitable confrontation.

But the outcome of that confrontation…that was anything but inevitable. In the powers each of them had been allotted, Rasalom had always had the upper hand. Chief among his powers were command over light and darkness, and the power to make animals and inanimate objects obey his will. Above all, Rasalom was invulnerable to trauma of any kind, from any weapon—save Glaeken’s rune sword.

Glaeken was not so well armed. Although he never aged or sickened and had been imbued with a fierce vitality and supernal strength, he could succumb to catastrophic injury. He had come close to succumbing in the gorge. Never in all his millennia had he felt death’s chill breath so close on the nape of his neck. He had managed to outrun it, but only with Magda’s help.

The scales were nearly balanced now. The hilt and blade were reunited—the sword was intact in Glaeken’s hands. Rasalom had his superior powers but was hemmed in by the walls of the keep; he could not retreat and plan to meet Glaeken another day. It had to be now. Now!

Glaeken approached the third level cautiously and found it deserted—nothing moving, nothing hiding in the dark. As he walked across the landing to the next flight of stairs, he felt the tower tremble. The landing shook, then cracked, then fell away, almost beneath his feet, leaving him pressed against a wall with his heels resting precariously on a tiny ledge. Peering over the toes of his boots, he saw the crumbling stone block of the floor crash down to the landing below in a choking cloud of dust.

Too close, he thought, allowing himself to breathe again. And yet, not close enough.

He surveyed the wreckage. Only the landing had fallen away. The third-level rooms were still intact behind the wall against his back. He turned around and inched his way along the ledge toward the next set of steps. As he passed the door to the rooms it suddenly jerked open and Glaeken found himself facing the lunging forms of two more German cadavers.

They flung themselves against him as one, going slack as soon as they made contact, but striking with enough force to knock him backward. Only the fingertips of his free hand saved him from falling by catching and clinging to the doorjamb as he swung out in a wide arc over the yawning opening below.

The pair of corpses, unable to cling to anything, fell limp and silent through the darkness to the rubble below.

Glaeken pulled himself inside the doorway and rested. Much too close.

But he could now venture a guess as to what his ancient enemy had in mind: Had Rasalom hoped to push him into the opening and then collapse all or part of the tower’s inner structure down on him? If the falling tons of rock did not kill Glaeken once and for all, they would at least trap him.

It could work, Glaeken thought, his eyes searching the shadows for more cadavers lying in wait. And if successful, Rasalom would be able to use the German corpses to remove just enough rubble to expose the sword. After that he would have to wait for some villager or traveler to happen by—someone he could induce to take the sword and carry it across the threshold. It might work, but Glaeken sensed that Rasalom had something else in mind.

Magda watched with dread and dismay as Glaeken disappeared into the tower. She yearned to run after him and pull him back, but Papa needed her—more now than at any time before. She tore her heart and mind away from Glaeken and bent to the task of tending her father’s wounds.

They were terrible wounds. Despite her best efforts to stanch its flow, Papa’s blood was soon pooled around him, seeping between the timbers of the causeway and making the long fall to the stream that trickled below.

With a sudden flutter his eyes opened and looked at her from a mask that was ghastly in its whiteness.

“Magda,” he said.

She could barely hear him. “Don’t talk, Papa. Save your strength.”

“There’s none left to save…I’m sorry…”

“Shush!” She bit her lower lip. He’s not going to die—I won’t let him!

“I have to say it now. I won’t have another chance.”

“That’s not—”

“Only wanted to make things right again. That was all. I meant you no harm. I want you to know—”

His voice was drowned out by a deep crashing rumble from within the keep. The causeway vibrated with the force of it. Magda saw clouds of dust billowing out of the second- and third-level windows of the tower.

Glaeken…?

“I’ve been a fool,” Papa was saying, his voice even weaker than before. “I forsook our faith and everything else I believed in—even my own daughter—because of his lies. I even caused the man you loved to be killed.”

“It’s all right,” she told him. “The man I love still lives! He’s in the keep right now. He’s going to put an end to this horror once and for all.”

Papa tried to smile. “I can see in your eyes how you feel about him…if you have any sons…”

Another rumble now, much louder than the first. Magda saw dust gush out from all the levels of the tower this time. Someone was standing alone on the edge of the tower roof. When she turned back to Papa his eyes were glazed and his chest was still.

“Papa?” She shook him. She pounded his chest and shoulders, refusing to believe what all her senses and instincts told her. “Papa, wake up! Wake up!”

She remembered how she had hated him last night, how she had wished him dead. And now…now she wanted to take it all back, to have him listen to her for just a single minute, to have him hear her say she had forgiven him, that she loved and revered him and that nothing had really changed. Papa couldn’t leave without letting her tell him that!

Glaeken! Glaeken would know what to do! She looked up at the tower and now saw two figures facing each other on the parapet.

Glaeken sprinted up the next two flights to the fifth level, dodging falling stone, skirting sudden holes in the floors. From there it was a quick climb out of the darkness to the tower roof.

He found Rasalom standing on the parapet at the far side. Below and behind him lay the mist-choked Dinu Pass; and beyond that, the high eastern wall of the pass, its crest etched in fire by the awakening sun, as yet unseen.

Glaeken stared at him. He’d had only a glimpse of this man who was more than a man when he’d reached the threshold. He didn’t recognize him now with his pale face, yellow teeth, and long, bedraggled hair, waiting with his cloak hanging limp in the expectant hush before sunrise.

“You can drop the sham,” Glaeken said. “I’m not impressed.”

Rasalom gave a careless shrug and changed. In a blink a tall, rather ordinary man with raven-black hair and piercing dark eyes stood naked where the vampire had been.

He might have meant his smile to be disarming, but it looked forced. “It worked so well on the mortals.”

Glaeken started forward, wondering why Rasalom waited so calmly in such a precarious position. When the roof suddenly began to crumble and fall away beneath his feet, he knew.

In a purely reflexive move, Glaeken made a headlong lunge to his right and managed to fling his free arm over the parapet. By the time he had pulled himself up to a crouching position, the roof and all the inner structure of the third, fourth, and fifth levels had fallen away to crash onto and break through the second level with an impact that shook the remaining structure of the tower. The tons of debris came to rest on the first level, leaving Glaeken and Rasalom balanced on the rim of a giant hollow cylinder of stone. But Rasalom could do nothing more to the tower. The images of the hilt laid into the outer walls made them proof against his powers.

Glaeken moved counterclockwise around the rim, expecting Rasalom to back away.

He did not. Instead, he spoke in the Forgotten Tongue.

“So, barbarian, it’s down to the two of us again, isn’t it?”

Glaeken did not reply. He was feeding his hatred, stoking the fires of rage with thoughts of what Magda had endured at Rasalom’s hands. Glaeken needed that rage to strike the final blow. He couldn’t allow himself to think or listen or reason or hesitate. He had to strike. He had weakened five centuries ago when he had imprisoned Rasalom instead of slaying him. He would not weaken now. This conflict had to find its end.

“Come now, Glaeken,” Rasalom said in a soft, conciliatory tone. “Isn’t it time we put an end to this war of ours?”

“Yes!” Glaeken said through clenched teeth.

He glanced down at the causeway and saw the miniature figure of Magda bending over her stricken father. The old berserker fury reared up in him, pushing him to run the last four paces with his sword poised for a two-handed decapitating blow.

“Truce!” Rasalom screamed and cowered back, his composure shattered at last.

“No truce!”

“Half a world! I offer you half a world, Glaeken! We’ll divide it evenly and you can keep whoever you wish with you! The other half will be mine.”

Glaeken slowed, then raised the sword again. “No! No half measures this time! Besides, how long before you decided half a world wasn’t enough?”

Rasalom ferreted out Glaeken’s worst fear and flung it at him. “Kill me and you seal your own doom!”

“Where is that written?”

Despite all his prior resolve, Glaeken could not help but hesitate.

“It doesn’t need to be written! It’s obvious! You continue to exist only to oppose me. Eliminate me and you eliminate your reason for being. Kill me and you kill yourself.”

It was obvious. Glaeken had dreaded this moment since that night in Tavira when he had first become aware of Rasalom’s release from the cell. Yet all the while, in the back of his mind, a tiny hope had burned, a hope that killing Rasalom would not be a suicidal act.

But it was a futile hope. He had to face that. The choice was clear: Strike now and end it all or consider a truce.

Why not a truce? Half a world was better than death. At least he would be alive…and he could have Magda at his side.

Rasalom must have guessed his thoughts.

“You seem to like the girl,” Rasalom said, looking down toward the causeway. “You could keep her with you. You wouldn’t have to lose her. She’s a brave little insect, isn’t she?”

“That’s all we are to you? Insects?”

“‘We’? Are you such a romantic that you still count yourself among them? We are above and beyond anything they could ever hope to be, as close to gods as they will ever see! We should unite and act the part instead of warring as we do.”

“I’ve never set myself apart from them. I’ve tried all along to live as a normal man.”

“But you’re not a normal man and you can’t live as one! They die while you go on living! You can’t be one of them. Don’t try! Be what you are—their superior! Join me and we’ll rule them. Kill me and we’ll both die!”

Half a world…

Glaeken wavered. If only he could have a little more time to decide. He wanted to be rid of Rasalom once and for all. But he didn’t want to die. Especially not now after he had just found Magda. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind. He needed more time with her.

Magda…Glaeken dared not look, but he could feel her eyes on him at this very moment. A great heaviness settled in his chest. Only moments ago she had risked everything to hold Rasalom in the keep and give him time. Could he do any less and still deserve her? He remembered her glowing eyes as she had handed him the hilt: I knew you would come.

He had lowered his sword while battling with himself. Seeing this, Rasalom smiled. And that smile was the final impetus.

For Magda! Glaeken thought and lifted the point.

At that moment the sun topped the eastern ridge and poured into his eyes. Through the glare he saw Rasalom diving toward him.

Glaeken realized in that instant why Rasalom had been so talkative, why he had tried so many seemingly fruitless delaying tactics, and why Rasalom had allowed him to approach within striking range of the sword: He had been waiting for the sun to crest the mountains behind him and momentarily blind Glaeken. And now Rasalom was making his move, a last, desperate attempt to remove Glaeken and the hilt from the keep by pushing them both over the edge of the tower.

He came in low under the point of Glaeken’s sword, his arms outstretched. Glaeken had no room to maneuver—he could not sidestep, nor could he safely retreat. All he could do was brace himself and lift the sword higher, dangerously high until his arms were almost straight up over his head. Glaeken knew it raised his center of gravity to a precarious level, but he was no less desperate than Rasalom.

Here and now, it had to end.

When the impact came—Rasalom’s hands ramming against his lower rib cage with numbing force—Glaeken felt himself driven backward. He concentrated on the sword, driving the point down into Rasalom’s bare back, piercing him through. With a scream of rage and agony, Rasalom tried to straighten, but Glaeken held on to the sword as he continued to fall backward.

Together they toppled over the edge and plummeted earthward.

Glaeken found himself unnaturally calm as they seemed to drift through the air toward the gorge below, locked in combat to the very end.

He had won.

And he had lost.

Rasalom’s scream wavered to a halt. His black, incredulous eyes bulged toward Glaeken, refusing to believe even now that he was dying. And then he began to shrivel—the rune sword was devouring him body and essence as they fell. Rasalom’s skin began to dry, peel, crack, flake off, and fly away. Before Glaeken’s eyes, his ancient enemy crumbled into dust.

As he approached the level of the fog, Glaeken looked away. He caught a glimpse of Magda’s horrified expression as she watched from the causeway. He began to lift his hand in farewell but the fog engulfed him too soon.

All that remained now was the shattering impact with the stones invisible below.

Magda stared at the two figures atop the tower parapet. They were close, almost touching. She saw the red of Glaeken’s hair turn to fire as it caught the light of the rising sun, saw that the other man was naked. A flash of metal and then the two figures grappled. They twisted and teetered on the edge. Then they fell as one.

Her own scream rose to join the fading wail from one of the struggling intertwined pair who seemed to dissolve as the other tumbled into the ebbing mist and was lost from sight.

For a long frozen moment, time stood still for Magda. She did not move, did not breathe. Glaeken and Rasalom had fallen together, and had been swallowed up by the fog in the gorge.

Glaeken had fallen!

She had watched helplessly as he plunged to certain death.

Dazed, she stepped to the edge of the causeway and looked down at the spot where this man who had come to mean everything to her had disappeared. Her mind and body were completely numb. Darkness encroached on the periphery of her vision, threatening to overwhelm her. With a start she shook off the awful lethargy, the creeping desire to lean farther and farther over the edge until she too toppled forward and joined Glaeken below.

She turned and began to run along the causeway.

It can’t be! she thought as her feet pounded the timbers. Not both of them! First Papa and now Glaeken—not the two of them at once!

Off the causeway, she ran to the right toward the closed end of the gorge. Glaeken had survived one fall into the gorge—he could survive two! Please, yes!

But this fall was so much farther! She scrambled down the wedge of rocky debris, unmindful of the scrapes and bruises she collected along the way. The sun, although not high enough yet to shine directly into the gorge, was warming the air in the pass and thinning the mist. She made her way swiftly across the floor of the gorge, stumbling, falling, picking herself up and pushing on, as close to a run as the broken, rutted terrain permitted. Passing under the causeway, she blotted out the thought of Papa’s body lying up there alone, unattended. She splashed across the stream to the base of the tower.

Panting, Magda stopped and turned in a slow circle, her frantic eyes searching among the boulders and rocks for some sign of life. She saw no one…nothing.

“Glaeken?” Her voice sounded weak and raspy. She called again, “Glaeken?”

No answer.

He has to be here!

Something glittered not far away. Magda ran over to look. It was the sword…what was left of it. The blade had shattered into countless fragments; and among the fragments lay the hilt, bereft of its glossy gold and silver hues. An immeasurable sense of loss settled over Magda as she lifted the hilt and ran her hands over its dull gray surface. A reverse alchemy had occurred; it had turned to lead. Magda fought against the conclusion, but deep within her she knew that the hilt had served the purpose for which it had been designed.

Rasalom was dead, so the sword was no longer necessary. Neither was the man who had wielded it.

She could expect no miracle this time.

Magda cried out in anguish, a formless sound that escaped her lips involuntarily and continued for as long and as loud as her lungs and voice could sustain it. A sound full of loss and despair, reverberating off the walls of the keep and the gorge, echoing away into the pass.

And when the last trace of it had died away, she stood with bowed head and slumped shoulders, wanting to cry but all cried out; wanting to strike out at whoever or whatever was to blame for this, but knowing everyone—everyone but her—was dead; wanting to scream and rage at the blind injustice of it all but too dead inside to do anything more than give way to deep, dry, wracking sobs from the very core of her being.

She stood there for what seemed like a long time and tried to find a reason to go on living. There was nothing left. Every single thing she had cherished in life had been torn from her. She could not think of one reason to go on…

And yet there had to be. Glaeken had lived so long and had never run out of reasons to go on living. He had admired her courage. Would it be an act of courage now to give up everything?

No. Glaeken would have wanted her to live. Everything he was, everything he did, had been for life. Even his death had been for life.

She hugged the hilt against her until the sobs stopped, then turned and began walking away, not knowing where she would go or what she would do, but knowing she would somehow find a way and a reason to keep going.

And she would keep the hilt. It was all she had left.

EPILOGUE

I’m alive.

He sat in the darkness, touching his body to reassure himself that he still existed. Rasalom was gone, reduced to a handful of dust flung into the air. At last, after ages, Rasalom was no more.

Yet I live on. Why?

He had plummeted through the fog, landing on the rocks with force enough to shatter every bone in his body. The blade had broken, the hilt had changed.

Yet he lived on.

At the moment of impact he had felt something go out of him and he had lain there waiting to die.

Yet he hadn’t.

His right leg hurt terribly. But he could see, he could feel, breathe, move. And he could hear. When he had picked up the sound of Magda approaching across the floor of the gorge, he had dragged himself to the hinged stone at the base of the tower, opened it, and crawled within. He had waited in silence as she called out his name, covering his ears to shut out the pain and bewilderment in her voice, longing to answer her, yet unable to. Not yet. Not until he was sure.

And now he heard her splashing away through the stream. He swung the stone open all the way and tried to stand. His right leg wouldn’t support him. Was it broken? He had never had a broken bone before. Unable to walk, he crawled down to the water. He had to look. He had to know before he did another thing.

At the edge of the stream he hesitated. He could see the growing blue of the sky in the rippled surface of the water. Would he see anything else when he leaned over it?

Please, he said in his mind to the Power he had served, the Power that might no longer be listening. Please let this be the end of it. Let me live out the rest of my allotted years like a normal man. Let me have this woman to grow old with instead of watching her wither away while I remain young. Let this be the end of it. I have completed the task. Set me free!

Setting his jaw, he thrust his head over the water. A weary red-haired man with blue eyes and an olive complexion stared back. His image was there! He could see himself! His reflection had been returned to him!

Joy and relief flooded through Glaeken. It’s over! It’s finally over!

He lifted his head and looked across the gorge to the slowly receding figure of the woman he loved like no other woman in all his long life.

“Magda!” He tried to stand but the damn leg still wouldn’t hold him up. He was going to have to let it heal like anybody else. “Magda!”

She turned and stood immobile for an eternity. He waved both his arms over his head. He would have sobbed aloud had he remembered how. Among other things, he would have to learn how to cry again.

“Magda!”

Something fell from her hands, something that looked like the hilt to his sword. Then she was running toward him, running as fast as her long legs would carry her, her expression a mixture of joy and doubt, as if she wanted him to be there more than anything in the world but could not allow herself to believe until she had touched him.

Glaeken was there, waiting to be touched.

And far above, a blue-winged bird with a beak full of straw fluttered to a gentle perch on a window ledge of the keep in search of a place to build a nest.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed these works below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.

Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.

The Past

“Demonsong” (prehistory)

“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923–1924)

Black Wind (1926–1945)

The Keep (1941)

Reborn (February–March 1968)

“Dat Tay Vao”*** (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories (1983)

Jack: Secret Circles (1983)

Year Zero Minus Three

Sibs (February)

“Faces”* (early summer)

The Tomb (summer)

“The Barrens”* (ends in September)

“The Wringer”

“A Day in the Life”* (October)

“The Long Way Home”

Legacies (December)

Year Zero Minus Two

Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)

“Interlude at Duane’s”** (April)

All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)

Hosts (June)

The Haunted Air (August)

Gateways (September)

Crisscross (November)

Infernal (December)

Year Zero Minus One

Harbingers (January)

Bloodline (April)

By the Sword (May)

Ground Zero (July)

The Touch (ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)

“Tenants”*

Year Zero

“Pelts”*

Reprisal (ends in February)

Fatal Error (February)

The Dark at the End (March)

Nightworld (starts in May)

Reprisal will be back in print before too long. I’m planning a total of fifteen Repairman Jack novels (not counting the young adult titles), ending the Secret History with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld.

*available in The Barrens and Others

**available in Aftershock & Others

***available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Rado L. Lencek, professor of Slavic languages at Columbia University, for his prompt and enthusiastic response to a very odd request from a stranger.

The author also wishes to acknowledge an obvious debt to Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert Ervin Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Thanks too to Blake Dollens for his proofing help.

F. PAUL WILSON
April 1979–January 1981

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

The Adversary Cycle*

The Tomb

The Touch

Reborn

Reprisal

Nightworld

Repairman Jack Novels*

The Tomb

Legacies

Conspiracies

All the Rage

Hosts

The Haunted Air

Gateways

Crisscross

Infernal

Harbingers

Bloodline

By the Sword

Ground Zero

Fatal Error

Young Adult*

Jack: Secret Histories

Jack: Secret Circles

Other Novels

Healer

Wheels Within Wheels

An Enemy of the State

Black Wind*

Dydeetown World

The Tery

Sibs*

The Select

Virgin

Implant

Deep as the Marrow

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Christmas Thingy

Sims

The Fifth Harmonic

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft and Others

The Barrens and Others*

Aftershock & Others*

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling

Circus & Oddity Emporium*

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis: Terminal

*See “The Secret History of the World”.

About the Author

F. Paul Wilson is the New York Times bestselling author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and virtually everything in between. His books include the Repairman Jack novels—including Ground Zero, The Tomb, and Fatal Error—the Adversary cycle—including The Keep—and a young adult series featuring the teenage Jack. Wilson has won the Prometheus Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Inkpot Award from the San Diego ComiCon, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers of America, among other honors. He lives in Wall, New Jersey. You can sign up for author updates here.

Thank you for buying this

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Map

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Epilogue

The Secret History of the World

Acknowledgments

Also by F. Paul Wilson

About the Author

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE KEEP

Copyright © 1981, 2003 by F. Paul Wilson

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension. 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, F. Paul (Francis Paul)

The keep / F. Paul Wilson—1st trade pbk. ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

eISBN 978-1-250-19679-8

1. Nazis—Fiction.  2. Supernatural—Fiction.  3. Castles—Fiction.

4. Good and evil—Fiction.  5. Jewish folklorists—Fiction.

6. Transylvania (Romania)—Fiction.  I. Title.

PS3573.I45695K42010

813’.54—dc22

2010035745

First Trade Paperback Edition: December 2010

Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Notice
4. Dedication
5. Map
6. Prologue
7. One
8. Two
9. Three
10. Four
11. Five
12. Six
13. Seven
14. Eight
15. Nine
16. Ten
17. Eleven
18. Twelve
19. Thirteen
20. Fourteen
21. Fifteen
22. Sixteen
23. Seventeen
24. Eighteen
25. Nineteen
26. Twenty
27. Twenty-One
28. Twenty-Two
29. Twenty-Three
30. Twenty-Four
31. Twenty-Five
32. Twenty-Six
33. Twenty-Seven
34. Twenty-Eight
35. Twenty-Nine
36. Epilogue
37. The Secret History of the World
38. Acknowledgments
39. Also by F. Paul Wilson
40. About the Author
41. Newsletter Sign-up
42. Table of Contents
43. Copyright

Guide

1. Cover
2. Copyright
3. Table of Contents

Nellie didn't scream.

The dark shape moving toward her couldn't be real. It was a nightmare, a hallucination. Nothing real could be that big and move that smoothly.

Then it came closer and she was suddenly terrified. This was no dream. She opened her mouth and a cold hand sealed itself across her face.

The hand was huge, it was foul. . . . And it was not human.

Berkley books by F. Paul Wilson

AN ENEMY OF THE STATE

HEALER

THE KEEP

THE TOMB

A limited first edition hardcover was published by Whispers Press, 70 Highland Avenue, Binghamton, N.Y. 13905

THE TOMB

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY Berkley edition / November 1984

All rights reserved. Copyright © 1984 by F. Paul Wilson. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

ISBN: 0-425-07295-9

A BERKLEY BOOK® TM 757,375 Berkley Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. The name "BERKLEY" and the stylized "B" with design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

Acknowledgements
chapter one

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21

chapter two
chapter three

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

chapter four
chapter five

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

chapter six
chapter seven

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

chapter eight

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

chapter nine

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34

Acknowledgements

Abe’s neon sign originally appeared in The Weapon Shops of Isher by A. E. van Vogt, © 1951 by A. E. van Vogt. Used here by permission of the author.

Knowingly and unknowingly, the following individuals have aided me in ways large and small during the course of writing this book: Betsy Bang and Molly Garrett Bang (The Demons of Rajpur), Richard Collier (The Great Indian Rebellion), Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre (Freedom at Midnight), Harlan Ellison (with the last line of “Crotoan”), Ken Follett, L. Neil Smith, Steven Spruill, Al Zuckerman, and, most of all, the old-time tellers of Weird Menace/Yellow Peril tales.

to my own Vickies:

Jennifer and Meggan

chapter one

manhattan
thursday, august 2, 198-

1

Repairman Jack awoke with light in his eyes, white noise in his ears, and an ache in his back.

He had fallen asleep on the couch in the spare bedroom where he kept his Betamax and projection tv. He turned his head toward the set. A nervous tweed pattern buzzed around on the six-foot screen while the air conditioner in the right half of the double window beside it worked full blast to keep the room at seventy.

He got to his feet with a groan and shut off the tv projector. The hiss of white noise stopped. He leaned over and touched his toes, then straightened and rotated his lower spine. His back was killing him. That couch was made for sitting, not sleeping.

He stepped to the Betamax and ejected the tape. He had fallen asleep during the closing credits of the 1931 Frankenstein, part one of Repairman Jack’s Unofficial James Whale Festival.

Poor Henry Frankenstein, he thought, slipping the cassette into its box. Despite all evidence to the contrary, despite what everyone around him thought, Henry had been sure he was sane.

Jack located the proper slot in the cassette rack on the wall, shoved Frankenstein in, and pulled out its neighbor: The Bride of Frankenstein, part two of his private James Whale Festival.

A glance out the window revealed the usual vista of sandy shore, still blue ocean, and supine sunbathers. He was tired of the view. Especially since some of the bricks had started showing through. It had been three years since he’d had the scene painted on the blank wall facing the windows of this and the other bedroom. Long enough. The beach scene no longer interested him. Perhaps a rain forest mural would be better. With lots of birds and reptiles and animals hiding in the foliage. Yes… a rain forest. He filed the thought away. He’d have to keep an eye out for someone who could do the job justice.

The phone began ringing in the front room. Who could that be? He’d changed his number a couple of months ago. Only a few people had it. He didn’t bother to lift the receiver. The answerphone would take care of that. He heard a click, heard his own voice start his standard salutation:

“Pinocchio Productions… I’m not in right now, but if you’ll—”

A woman’s voice broke in over his own, her tone impatient. “Pick up if you’re there, Jack. Otherwise I’ll call back later.”

Gia!

Jack nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to reach the phone. He turned off the answerphone with one hand and picked up the receiver with the other.

“Gia? That you?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Her voice was flat, almost resentful.

“God! It’s been a long time!” Two months. Forever. He had to sit down. “I’m so glad you called.”

“It’s not what you think, Jack.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not calling for myself. If it were up to me I wouldn’t be calling at all. But Nellie asked me to.”

His jubilation faded but he kept talking. “Who’s Nellie?” He drew a blank on the name.

“Nellie Paton. You must remember Nellie and Grace—the two English ladies?”

“Oh, yeah. How could I forget? They introduced us.”

“I’ve managed to forgive them.”

Jack let that go by without comment. “What’s the problem?”

“Grace has disappeared. She hasn’t been seen since she went to bed Monday night.”

He remembered Grace Westphalen: a very prim and proper Englishwoman pushing seventy. Not the eloping sort.

“Have the police—?”

“Of course. But Nellie wanted me to call you to see if you’d help. So I’m calling.”

“Does she want me to come over?”

“Yes. If you will.”

“Will you be there?”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes. Are you coming or not?”

“I’m on my way.”

“Better wait. The patrolmen who were here said a detective from the department would be coming by this morning.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t good.

“I thought that might slow you up.”

She didn’t have to sound so smug about it. “I’ll be there after lunch.”

“You know the address?”

“I know it’s a yellow townhouse on Sutton Square. There’s only one.”

“I’ll tell her to expect you.”

And then she hung up.

Jack tossed the receiver in his hand, cradled it on the answerphone again, and flipped the switch to ON.

He was going to see Gia today. She had called him. She hadn’t been friendly and she had said she was calling for someone else—but she had called. That was more than she had done since she had walked out. He couldn’t help feeling good.

He strolled through his third-floor apartment’s front room, which served as living room and dining room. He found the room immensely comfortable, but few visitors shared his enthusiasm. His best friend, Abe Grossman, had, in one of his more generous moods, described the room as “claustrophobic.” When Abe was feeling grumpy he said it made the Addams Family house look like it had been decorated by Bauhaus.

Old movie posters covered the walls along with bric-a-brac shelves loaded with the “neat stuff” Jack continually picked up in forgotten junk stores during his wanderings through the city. He wound his way through a collection of old Victorian golden oak furniture that left little room for anything else. There was a seven-foot hutch, intricately carved, a fold-out secretary, a sagging, high-backed sofa, a massive claw-foot dining table, two end-tables whose legs each ended in a bird’s foot clasping a crystal sphere, and his favorite, a big, wing-back chair.

He reached the bathroom and started the hated morning ritual of shaving. As he ran the Trac II over his cheeks and throat he considered the idea of a beard again. He didn’t have a bad face. Brown eyes, dark brown hair growing perhaps a little too low on his forehead. A nose neither too big nor too small. He smiled at himself in the mirror. Not an altogether hideous grimace—what they used to call a shit-eating grin. The teeth could have been whiter and straighter, and the lips were on the thin side, but not a bad smile. An inoffensive face. As an added bonus, there was a wiry, well-muscled, five-eleven frame that went along with the face at no extra charge.

So what’s not to like?

His smile faltered.

Ask Gia. She seems to think she knows what’s not to like.

But all that was going to change starting today.

After a quick shower, he dressed and downed a couple of bowls of Cocoa Puffs, then strapped on his ankle holster and slipped the world’s smallest .45, a Semmerling skeleton model LM-4, into it. He knew the holster was going to be hot against his leg, but he never went out unarmed. His peace of mind would compensate for any physical discomfort.

He checked the peephole in the front door, then twisted the central knob, retracting the four bolts at the top, bottom, and both sides. The heat in the third floor hall slammed against him at the threshold. He was wearing Levis and a lightweight short-sleeved shirt. He was glad he had skipped the undershirt. Already the humidity in the hall was worming its way into his clothes and oozing over his skin as he headed down to the street.

Jack stood on the front steps for a moment. Sunlight glared sullenly through the haze over the roof of the Museum of Natural History far down the street to his right. The wet air hung motionless above the pavement. He could see it, smell it, taste it—and it looked, smelled, and tasted dirty. Dust, soot, and lint laced with carbon monoxide, with perhaps a hint of rancid butter from the garbage can around the corner in the alley.

Ah! The Upper West Side in August.

He ambled down to the sidewalk and walked west, along the row of brownstones that lined his street, to the phone booth on the corner. Not a booth, actually; an open chrome and plastic crate on a pedestal. At least it was still in one piece. At regular intervals someone yanked out its receiver, leaving multicolored strands of wire dangling from the socket like nerves from an amputated limb stump. At other times someone would take the time and effort to jam a small wedge of paper into the coin slot, or the tips of toothpicks into the tiny spaces between the pushbuttons and the facing. He never ceased to be amazed by the strange hobbies of some of his fellow New Yorkers.

He dialed his office number and sounded his beeper into the mouthpiece. A recorded voice—not Jack’s—came over the wire with the familiar message:

“This is Repairman Jack. I’m out on a call now, but when you hear the tone, leave your name and number and give me a brief idea of the nature of your problem. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

There was a tone and then a woman’s voice talking about a problem with the timer on her dryer. Another beep and a man was looking for some free information on how to fix a blender. Jack ignored the numbers they gave; he had no intention of calling them back. But how did they get his number? He had restricted his name to the white pages—with an incorrect street address, naturally—to cut down on appliance repair calls, but people managed to find him anyway.

The third and last voice was unique: smooth in tone, the words clipped, rapid, tinged with Britain, but definitely not British. Jack knew a couple of Pakistanis who sounded like that. The man was obviously upset, and stumbled over his words.

“Mr. Jack… my mother—grandmother—was beaten terribly last night. I must speak to you immediately. It is terribly important.” He gave his name and a number where he could be reached.

That was one call Jack would return, even though he was going to have to turn the man down. He intended to devote all his time to Gia’s problem. And to Gia. This might be his last chance with her.

He punched in the number. The clipped voice answered in the middle of the second ring.

“Mr. Bahkti? This is Repairman Jack. You called my office during the night and—”

Mr. Bahkti was suddenly very guarded. “This is not the same voice on the answering machine.”

Sharp, Jack thought. The voice on the machine belonged to Abe Grossman. Jack never used his own voice on the office phone. But most people didn’t spot that.

“An old tape,” Jack told him.

“Ahhh. Well, then. I must see you immediately, Mr. Jack. It is a matter of the utmost importance. A matter of life and death.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Bahkti, I—”

“You must! There can be no refusal!” A new note had crept in: This was not a man used to being refused. The tone was one that never set well with Jack.

“You don’t understand. My time is already taken up with other—”

“Mr. Jack! Are the other matters crucial to a woman’s life? Can they not be put aside for even a short while? My… grandmother was mercilessly beaten on the streets of your city. She needs help that I cannot give her. So I’ve come to you.”

Jack knew what Mr. Bahkti was up to. He thought he was pushing Jack’s buttons. Jack mildly resented it, but he was used to it and decided to hear him out anyway.

Bahkti had already launched into his narrative.

“Her car—an American car, I might add—broke down last night. And when she—”

“Save it for later,” Jack told him, happy to be the one doing the cutting off for a change.

“You will meet me at the hospital? She is in St. Clare’s—”

“No. Our first meeting will be where I say. I meet all customers on my home turf. No exceptions.”

“Very well,” Bahkti said with a minimum of grace. “But we must meet very soon. There is so little time.”

Jack gave him the address of Julio’s Bar two blocks uptown from where he stood. He checked his watch. “It’s just shy of ten now. Be there at ten-thirty sharp.”

“Half an hour? I don’t know if I can be there by then!”

Fine! Jack liked to give customers as little time as possible to prepare for their first meeting.

“Ten-thirty. You’ve got ten minutes grace. Any later and I’ll be gone.”

“Ten-thirty,” Mr. Bahkti said and hung up.

That annoyed Jack. He had wanted to hang up first.

He walked north on Columbus Avenue, keeping to the shade on the right. It was opening time for some of the shops, but most had been going strong for hours.

Julio’s was open. But then, Julio’s rarely closed. Jack knew the first customers wandered in minutes after Julio unlocked at six in the morning. Some were just getting off their shift and stopped by for a beer, a hard boiled egg, and a soft seat; others stood at the bar and downed a quick bracer before starting the day’s work. And still others spent the better part of every day in the cool darkness.

“Jacko!” Julio cried from behind the bar. He was standing up but only his head and the top half of his chest were visible.

They didn’t shake hands. They knew each other too well and saw each other too often for that. They had been friends for many years, ever since the time Julio began to suspect that his sister Rosa was getting punched around by her husband. It had been a delicate matter. Jack had fixed it for him. Since then the little man had screened Jack’s customers. For Julio possessed a talent, a nose, a sixth sense of sorts for spotting members of officialdom. Much of Jack’s energy was devoted to avoiding such people; his way of life depended on it. And, too, in Jack’s line of work he very often found it necessary to make other people angry in the course of serving a customer’s interests. Julio also kept an eye out for angry people.

So far, Julio had never failed him.

“Beer or business?”

“Before noon? What do you think?”

The remark earned Jack a brief dirty look from a sweaty old codger nursing a boilermaker.

Julio came out from behind the bar and followed Jack to a rear booth, drying his hands on a towel as he swaggered along. A daily regime with free weights and gymnastics had earned him thickly muscled arms and shoulders. His hair was wavy and heavily oiled, his skin swarthy, his moustache a pencil line along his upper lip.

“How many and when?”

“One. Ten-thirty.” Jack slipped into the last booth and sat with a clear view of the door. The rear exit was two steps away. “Name’s Bahkti. Sounds like he’s from Pakistan or someplace around there.”

“A man of color.”

“More color than you, no doubt.”

“Gotcha. Coffee?”

“Sure.”

Jack thought about seeing Gia later today. A nice thought. They’d meet, they’d touch, and Gia would remember what they’d had, and maybe… just maybe… she’d realize that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. He began whistling through his teeth. Julio gave him a strange look as he returned with a coffee pot, a cup, and the morning’s Daily News.

“How come you’re in such a good mood?”

“Why not?”

“You been a grouch for months now, man.”

Jack hadn’t realized it had been so obvious. “Personal.”

Julio shrugged and poured him a cup of coffee. Jack sipped it black while he waited. He never liked first meetings with a customer. There was always a chance he wasn’t a customer but somebody with a score to settle. He got up and checked the exit door to make sure it was unlocked.

Two Con Ed workers came in for a coffee break. They took their coffee clear and golden with a foamy cap, poured into pilsner glasses as they watched the tv over the bar. Phil Donahue was interviewing three transvestite grammar school teachers; everyone on the screen, including Donahue, had green hair and pumpkin-colored complexions. Julio served the Con Ed men a second round, then came out from behind the bar and took a seat by the door.

Jack glanced at the paper. “WHERE ARE THE WINOS?” was the headline. The press was getting lots of mileage out of the rapid and mysterious dwindling of the city’s derelict population during the past few months.

At ten-thirty-two, Mr. Bahkti came in. No doubt it was him. He wore a white turban and a navy blue Nehru-type tunic. His dark skin seemed to blend into his clothes. For an instant after the door swung shut behind him, all Jack could see was a turban floating in the air at the other end of the dim tavern.

Julio approached him immediately. Words were exchanged and Jack noted the newcomer flinch away as Julio leaned against him. He seemed angry as Julio walked toward Jack with an elaborate shrug.

“He’s clean,” he said as he came back to Jack’s booth. “Clean but weird.”

“How do you read him?”

“That’s jus’ it—I don’t read him. He’s bottled up real tight. Nothing at all out of that guy. Nothing but creeps.”

“What?”

“Something ’bout him gives me the creeps, man. Wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side. You better be sure you can make him happy before you take him on.”

Jack drummed his fingers on the table. Julio’s reaction made him uneasy. The little man was all macho and braggadocio. He must have sensed something pretty unsettling about Mr. Bahkti to have even mentioned it.

“What’d you do to get him riled up?” Jack asked.

“Nothing special. He just got real ticked off when I gave him my ’accidental frisk.’ Didn’t like that one bit. Do I send him back, or you wanna take off?”

Jack hesitated, toying with the idea of getting out now. After all, he probably was going to have to turn the man down anyway. But he had agreed to meet him, and the guy had arrived on time.

“Send him back and let’s get this over with.”

Julio waved Bahkti toward the booth and headed back to his place behind the bar.

Bahkti strolled toward Jack with a smooth, gliding gait that reeked of confidence and self-assurance. He was halfway down the aisle when Jack realized with a start that his left arm was missing at the shoulder. But there was no pinned-up empty sleeve—the jacket had been tailored without a left sleeve. He was a tall man—six-three, Jack guessed—lean but sturdy. Well into his forties, maybe fifty. The nose was long; he wore a sculpted beard, neatly trimmed to a point at the chin. What could be seen of his mouth was wide and thin-lipped. The whites of his deep walnut eyes almost glowed in the darkness of his face, reminding Jack of John Barrymore in Svengali.

He stopped at the edge of the facing banquette and looked down at Jack, taking his measure just as Jack was taking his.

2

Kusum Bahkti did not like this place called Julio’s, stinking as it did of grilled beef and liquor, and peopled with the lower castes. Certainly one of the foulest locations he had had the misfortune to visit in this foul city. He was probably polluting his karma merely by standing here.

And surely this very average-looking mid-thirtyish man sitting before him was not the one he was looking for. He looked like any American’s brother, anyone’s son, someone you would pass anywhere in this city and never notice. He looked too normal, too ordinary, too everyday to supply the services Kusum had been told about.

If I were home…

Yes. If he were home in Bengal, in Calcutta, he would have everything under control. A thousand men would be combing the city for the transgressor. He would be found, and he would wail and curse the hour of his birth before being sent on to another life. But here in America Kusum was reduced to an impotent supplicant standing before this stranger, asking for help. It made him sick.

“Are you the one?” he asked.

“Depends on who you’re looking for,” the man said.

Kusum noted the difficulty the American was having trying to keep his eyes off his truncated left shoulder.

“He calls himself Repairman Jack.”

The man spread his hands. “Here I am.”

This couldn’t be him. “Perhaps I have made a mistake.”

“Perhaps so,” said the American. He seemed preoccupied, not the least bit interested in Kusum or what problem he might have.

Kusum turned to go, deciding he was constitutionally incapable of asking the help of a stranger, especially this stranger, then changed his mind. By Kali, he had no choice!

He sat down across the table from Repairman Jack. “I am Kusum Bahkti.”

“Jack Nelson.” The American proffered his right hand.

Kusum could not bring himself to grasp it, yet he did not want to insult this man. He needed him.

“Mr. Nelson—”

“Jack, please.”

“Very well… Jack.” He was uncomfortable with such informality upon meeting. “Your pardon. I dislike to be touched. An Eastern prejudice.”

Jack glanced at his hand, as if inspecting it for dirt.

“I do not wish to offend—”

“Forget it. Who gave you my number?”

“Time is short… Jack”—it took conscious effort to use that first name—”and I must insist—”

“I always insist on knowing where the customer came from. Who?”

“Very well: Mr. Burkes at the U.K. Mission to the United Nations.” Burkes had answered Kusum’s frantic call this morning and had told him how well this Jack fellow had handled a very dangerous and delicate problem for the U.K. Mission during the Falklands crisis.

Jack nodded. “I know Burkes. You with the U.N.?”

Kusum knotted his fist and managed to tolerate the interrogation.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose you Pakistani delegates are pretty tight with the British.”

Kusum felt as if he had been slapped in the face. He half-started from his seat. “Do you insult me? I am not one of those Moslem—!” He caught himself. Probably an innocent error. Americans were ignorant of the most basic information. “I am from Bengal, a member of the Indian Delegation. I am a Hindu. Pakistan, which used to be the Punjab region of India, is a Moslem country.”

The distinction appeared to be completely lost on Jack.

“Whatever. Most of what I know about India I learned from watching Gunga Din about a hundred times. So tell me about your grandmother.”

Kusum was momentarily baffled. Wasn’t “Gunga Din” a poem? How did one watch a poem? He set his confusion aside.

“Understand,” he said, absently brushing at a fly that had taken a liking to his face, “that if this were my own country I would resolve the matter in my own fashion.”

“Where is she now?”

“In St. Clare’s hospital on West Fif—”

“I know where it is. What happened to her?”

“Her car broke down in the early hours of this morning. While her driver went to find a taxicab for her, she foolishly got out of the car. She was assaulted and beaten. If a police car hadn’t come by, she would have been killed.”

“Happens all the time, I’m afraid.”

A callous remark, ostensibly that of a city-dweller saving his pity for personal friends who became victims. But in the eyes Kusum detected a flash of emotion that told him perhaps this man could be reached.

“Yes, much to the shame of your city.”

“No one ever gets mugged on the streets of Bombay or Calcutta?”

Kusum shrugged and brushed again at the fly. “What takes place between members of the lower castes is of no importance. In my homeland even the most desperate street hoodlum would think many times before daring to lay a finger on one of my grandmother’s caste.”

Something in this remark seemed to annoy Jack. “Ain’t democracy wonderful,” the American said with a sour expression.

Kusum frowned, concealing his desperation. This was not going to work. There seemed to be instinctive antagonism between him and this Repairman Jack.

“I believe I have made a mistake. Mr. Burkes recommended you very highly, but I do not think you are capable of handling this particular task. Your attitude is most disrespectful—”

“What can you expect from a guy who grew up watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?”

“—and you do not appear to have the physical resources to accomplish what I have in mind.”

Jack smiled, as if used to this reaction. His elbows were on the table, his hands folded in front of him. Without the slightest hint of warning, his right hand blurred across the table towards Kusum’s face. Kusum steeled himself for the blow and prepared to lash out with his feet.

The blow never landed. Jack’s hand passed within a millimeter of Kusum’s face and snatched the fly out of the air in front of his nose. Jack went to a nearby door and released the insect into the fetid air of a back alley.

Fast, Kusum thought. Extremely fast. And what was even more important: He didn’t kill the fly. Perhaps this was the man after all.

3

Jack returned to his seat and studied the Indian. To his credit, Kusum hadn’t flinched. Either his reflexes were extremely slow, or he had something akin to copper wire for nerves. Jack figured Kusum’s reflexes to be pretty good.

Score one for each of us, he thought. He wondered how Kusum had lost that arm.

“The point is probably moot,” Jack said. “Finding a particular mugger in this city is like poking at a hornets’ nest to find the one that bit you. If she saw enough of him to identify a mug shot, she should go to the police and—”

“No police!” Kusum said quickly.

Those were the very two words Jack was waiting to hear. If the police were involved, Jack would not be.

“They may well be successful eventually,” Kusum went on, “but they take much too long. This is a matter of the utmost urgency. My grandmother is dying. That is why I’ve gone outside official channels.”

“I don’t understand this whole thing.”

“Her necklace was stolen. It’s a priceless heirloom. She must have it back.”

“But you said she’s dying—”

“Before she dies! She must have it back before she dies!”

“Impossible. I can’t…” U.N. diplomat or not, the guy was obviously a nut. No use trying to explain how hard it would be just to find the mugger. After that, to learn the name of his fence, find that fence, and then hope that he hadn’t already removed whatever precious stones were in the necklace and melted down the settings, was simply beyond the wildest possibility. “It can’t be done.”

“You must do it! The man must be found. She scratched him across the eyes. There must be a way he can be traced!”

“That’s police work.”

“The police will take too long! It must be returned tonight!”

“I can’t.”

“You must!”

“The chances against finding that necklace are—”

“Try! Please!”

Kusum’s voice cracked on that last word, as if he had dragged it kicking and screaming from an unused part of his soul. Jack sensed how much it cost the Indian to say it. Here was an inordinately proud man begging him for help. He was moved.

“All right. I’ll do this: Let me talk to your grandmother. Let me see what I’ve got to work with.”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Of course it will be necessary. She’s the only one who knows what he looks like.” Was he trying to keep him away from his grandmother?

Kusum looked uncomfortable. “She’s quite distraught. Incoherent. She raves. I do not wish to expose her to a stranger.”

Jack said nothing. He merely stared at Kusum and waited. Finally the Indian relented.

“I shall take you there immediately.”

Jack allowed Kusum to lead him out the front door. As he left, he waved to Julio, who was setting up his infamous “FREE LUNCH: $2.50” sign.

They caught a taxi immediately on Columbus Avenue and headed downtown.

“About my fee,” Jack said once they had settled into the back of the cab.

A small, superior smile curled Kusum’s thin lips.

“Money? Are you not a defender of the downtrodden, a crusader for justice?”

“Justice doesn’t pay the bills. My landlord prefers cash. So do I.”

“Ah! A Capitalist!”

If that was supposed to rile Jack, it did not.

“If you don’t mind, I prefer to be called a Capitalist Swine or, at the very least, a Capitalist Running-dog. Plain old Capitalist has so little color. I hope Burkes didn’t let you think I do this out of the goodness of my heart.”

“No. He mentioned your fee for the U.K. Mission. A rather steep one. And in cash.”

“I don’t take checks or charges, and I don’t take physical danger lightly, especially when I could be on the receiving end.”

“Then here is my offer… Jack: Just for trying, I will pay you in advance half of what the British paid you last year. If you return the necklace to my grandmother before she dies, I will pay you the other half.”

This was going to be hard to turn down. The job for the U.K. Mission had involved terrorist threats. It had been complex, time-consuming, and very dicey at times. Normally he would have asked Kusum for only a fraction of that amount. But Kusum seemed quite willing and able to pay the full fee. And if Jack managed to bring that necklace back, it would be a bonafide miracle and he would deserve every penny of it.

“Sounds fair to me,” he said without missing a beat. “If I take the job.”

4

Jack followed Kusum through the halls of St. Clare’s until they came to a private room where a private-duty nurse hovered near the bed. The room was dark—curtains pulled, only a small lamp in a far corner throwing dim light across the bed. The lady in the bed was very old. White hair framed a dark face that was a mass of wrinkles; gnarled hands clutched at the sheet across her chest. Fear filled her eyes. Her ragged breathing and the hum of the blower by the window were the only sounds in the room.

Jack stood at the foot of the bed and felt the familiar tingle of rage spreading through his chest and limbs. With all he had seen, all he had done, he had yet to learn how to keep from taking something like this personally. An old woman, helpless, beaten up. It made him want to break something.

“Ask her what he looked like.”

Kusum rattled off something in Indian from beside the head of the bed. The woman replied in kind, slowly, painfully, in a hoarse, rasping voice.

“She says he looked like you, but younger,” Kusum said, “and with lighter hair.”

“Short or long?”

Another exchange, then: “Short. Very short.”

So: It was a young white, either a GI on leave or someone still into the punk look.

“Anything else?”

As the woman replied, she raked the air with clawed fingers.

“His eyes,” Kusum said. “She scratched him across his left eye before she was knocked unconscious.”

Good for you, Granny.

Jack smiled reassuringly at the old lady, then turned to Kusum. “I’ll see you out in the hall.” He didn’t want to talk in front of the private nurse.

As he stood outside the door, Jack glanced at the nurses’ station and thought he saw a familiar face. He walked over for a closer look at the junoesque blonde—every man’s fantasy nurse—writing on a chart. Yes—it was Marta. They had had a thing a few years back, in the days before Gia.

She greeted him with a friendly kiss and a hug, and they talked about old times for a while. Then Jack asked her about Mrs. Bahkti.

“Fading fast,” Marta said. “She’s gotten visibly worse since I came on. She’ll probably last out this shift, but I’ll be surprised if she’s here tomorrow. You know her?”

“I’ll be doing some work for her grandson.” As with most people Jack knew socially—and there weren’t many—Marta was under the impression that he was a “security consultant.” He saw Kusum come out into the hall. “There he is now. See you later.”

Jack led Kusum to a window at the end of the hall, where they were out of earshot of patients and hospital personnel.

“All right,” he told him. “I’ll give it a try. But I make no promises other than to do my best.” Jack had decided he wanted to catch up with this creep.

Kusum exhaled and muttered what sounded like a small prayer. “No more can be asked of any man. But if you cannot find the necklace by tomorrow morning, it will be too late. After that, the necklace will be of secondary importance. But I still want you to keep looking for the assailant. And when you find him, I want you to kill him.”

Jack tightened inside but smiled and shook his head. This guy thought he was some sort of hit man.

“I don’t do that.”

Kusum’s eyes said he didn’t believe him.

“Very well. Instead, you will bring him to me and I will—”

“I will work for you until tomorrow morning,” Jack said. “I’ll give you my best shot till then. After that, you’re on your own.”

Anger flitted across Kusum’s face. Not used to having someone say no to you, are you? Jack thought.

“When will you start?”

“Tonight.”

Kusum reached inside his tunic and brought out a thick envelope. “Here is half of the payment. I will wait here with the other half should you return with the necklace tonight.”

Feeling more than a twinge of guilt at taking so much money on such a hopeless venture, Jack nevertheless folded the envelope and stuffed it into his left rear pocket.

“I will pay you ten thousand extra if you kill him,” Kusum added.

Jack laughed to keep the mood light but shook his head again. “Uh-uh. But one more thing: Don’t you think it would help if I knew what the necklace looked like?”

“Of course!” Kusum opened the collar of his tunic to reveal a heavy chain perhaps fifteen inches long. Its links were crescent-shaped, each embossed with strange-looking script. Centered side-by-side on the necklace were two elliptical, bright yellow, topaz-like stones with black centers.

Jack held his hand out but Kusum shook his head.

“Every member of my family wears a necklace like this—it is never removed. And so it is very important that my grandmother’s be returned to her.”

Jack studied the necklace. It disturbed him. He could not say why, but deep in his bowels and along the middle of his back a primitive sensation raised warning. The two stones looked like eyes. The metal was silvery, but not silver.

“What’s it made of?”

“Iron.”

Jack looked closer. Yes, there was a hint of rust along the edges of a couple of the links.

“Who’d want an iron necklace?”

“A fool who thought it was silver.”

Jack nodded. For the first time since talking to Kusum this morning, he felt there might be a slim—very slim—chance of recovering the necklace. A piece of silver jewelry would be fenced by now and either hidden away or smelted down into a neat little ingot. But an heirloom like this, with no intrinsic value…

“Here is a picture,” Kusum said, handing over a Polaroid of the necklace. “I have a few friends searching the pawnshops of your city looking for it.”

“How long has she got?” he asked.

Kusum slowly closed his collar. His expression was grim.

“Twelve hours, the doctors say. Perhaps fifteen.”

Great. Maybe I can find Judge Crater by then, too.

“Where can I reach you?”

“Here. You will look for it, won’t you?” Kusum’s dark brown eyes bored into his. He seemed to be staring at the rear wall of Jack’s brain.

“I said I would.”

“And I believe you. Bring the necklace to me as soon as you find it.”

“Sure. As soon as I find it.”

Sure. He walked away wondering why he had agreed to help a stranger when Gia’s aunt needed him. Same old story—Jack the sucker.

Damn!

5

Once back in the darkened hospital room, Kusum returned immediately to the bedside and pulled up a chair. He grasped the withered hand that lay atop the covers and studied it. The skin was cool, dry, papery. There seemed to be no tissue other than bone under the skin. And no strength at all.

A great sadness filled him.

Kusum looked up and saw the plea in her eyes. And the fear. He did his best to hide his own fear.

“Kusum,” she said in Bengali, her voice painfully weak. “I’m dying.”

He knew that. And it was tearing him up inside.

“The American will get it back for you,” he said softly. “I’ve been told he’s very good.”

Burkes had said he was “incredibly good.” Kusum hated all Britishers on principle, but had to admit Burkes was no fool. But did it matter what Burkes had said? It was an impossible task. Jack had been honest enough to say so. But Kusum had to try something! Even with the foreknowledge of certain failure, he had to try!

He balled his only hand into a fist. Why did this have to happen? And now, of all times? How he despised this country and its empty people! Almost as much as the British. But this Jack was different. He was not a mass of jumbled fragments like his fellow Americans. Kusum had sensed a oneness within him. Repairman Jack did not come cheaply, but the money meant nothing. Only the knowledge that someone was out there searching gave him solace.

“He’ll get it back for you,” he said, patting the limp hand.

She seemed not to have heard.

“I’m dying,” she said.

6

The money was a nagging pressure against his left buttock as Jack walked the half block west to Tenth Avenue and turned downtown. His hand kept straying back to the pocket; he repeatedly hooked a thumb in and out of it to make sure the envelope was still there. The problem now was what to do with the money. It was times like this that almost made him wish he had a bank account. But the bank folks insisted on a Social Security number from anyone who opened an account.

He sighed to himself. That was one of the major drawbacks of living between the lines. If you didn’t have an SSN, you were barred from countless things. You couldn’t hold a regular job, couldn’t buy or sell stock, couldn’t take out a loan, couldn’t own a home, couldn’t even complete a Blue Shield form. The list went on and on.

His thumb casually hooked in his left rear pocket, Jack stopped in front of a rundown office building. He rented a ten-by-twelve cubicle here—the smallest he could find. He had never met the agent, nor anyone else connected with the office. He intended to keep it that way.

He took the creaking Otis with the penny-studded floor up to “4” and stepped off. The hall was empty. Jack’s office was 412. He walked past the door twice before pulling out the key and quickly letting himself in.

It always smelled the same: dry and dusty. The floor and windowsills were layered with dust. Dust bunnies clogged the corners. An upper corner of the only window was spanned by an abandoned spider web—out of business.

There was no furniture. The dull expanse of floor was broken only by the half dozen or so envelopes that had been shoved through the mail slot, and by a vinyl IBM typewriter cover and the wires that ran from it to the telephone and electrical outlets in the wall on the right.

Jack picked up the mail. Three were bills, all addressed to Jack Finch in care of this office. The rest belonged to Occupant. He next went over to the typewriter cover and lifted it. The phone and the answerphone beneath appeared to be in good shape. Even as he squatted over it, the machine clicked on and he heard Abe’s voice give the familiar salutation in the name of Repairman Jack, followed by a man complaining of an electric dryer that wasn’t drying.

He replaced the cover and went back to the door. A quick peek showed two secretaries from the shoe importing firm at the other end of the hall standing by the elevator. Jack waited until the door slid shut after them. He locked his office, then ducked for the stairway. His cheeks puffed with relief as he started down the worn steps. He hated coming here and made a point of doing so at rare, random intervals at odd times of the day. He did not want his face in any way connected with Repairman Jack; but there were bills to be paid, bills that he didn’t want delivered to his apartment. And popping into the office at random hours of the day or night seemed safer than having a post office box.

Most likely none of it was necessary. Most likely no one was looking to get even with Repairman Jack. He was always careful to stay far in the background when he fixed things. Only his clients ever saw him.

But there was always a chance. And as long as that chance existed, he made certain he was very hard to find.

Thumb hooked again into that important pocket, Jack moved into the growing lunch hour crush, luxuriating in the anonymity of the crowd. He turned east on Forty-second and strolled up to the brick-front post office between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. There he purchased three money orders—two in negligible amounts for the phone and electric bills, and the third for a figure he considered preposterous considering the square footage of office space he was renting. He signed all three Jack Finch and mailed them off. As he was leaving, it occurred to him that while he had the cash, he might as well pay the rent on his apartment, too. He went back and purchased a fourth money order which he made out to his landlord. This one he signed Jack Berger.

Then it was a short walk past an art deco building to the side of the Port Authority building, then across Eighth Avenue and he was in Sleazeville, U.S.A.—Times Square and environs. A never-ending freak show that would put Todd Browning to shame. Jack never passed up an opportunity to stroll through the area. He was a people-watcher and nowhere was there such a unique variety of Homo sapiens low-lificus as in Times Square.

He walked the next block under an almost continuous canopy of theatre marquees. Exploitation Row—films here were either triple-X sex, kung-fu imports, or psycho-with-a-knife splatter films from what Jack liked to call the Julia Childs slice-and-dice school of movie-making. Stuck in between were hole-in-the-wall porn shops, stairways to “modeling studios” and dance halls, the ubiquitous Nedicks and Orange Julius stands, and sundry stores perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy—or so their window signs claimed. Mingling among the patrons of these venerable establishments were hookers and derelicts of both sexes, plus an incredible array of epicene creatures who had probably looked like boys when they were little.

He crossed Broadway behind the building that had given the Square its name, then turned uptown on Seventh Avenue. Here the porn shops were slightly larger, the movie ticket prices higher, and the fast food of a better grade, such as Steak & Brew and Wienerwald. Set up on tables along the curb were chess and backgammon boards, where a couple of guys would play anyone for a buck. Further down were three-card monte set-ups on cardboard boxes. Pushcarts sold shish-kebab, Sabrett hot dogs, dried fruits and nuts, giant pretzels, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. The odors mingled in the air with the sounds and sights. All the record stores along Seventh were pushing the latest new wave group, Polio, playing cuts from their debut album onto the sidewalk. Jack stood waiting for the green at Forty-sixth next to a Puerto Rican with a giant cassette box on his shoulder blasting salsa at a volume that would probably cause sterility in most small mammals, while girls wearing tube tops that left their midriffs bare and satin gym shorts that left a smooth pink crescent of buttock protruding from each leg hole roller-skated through the traffic with tiny headphones on their ears and Sony Walkmans belted to their waists.

Standing directly in the middle of the flow was a big blind Black with a sign on his chest, a dog at his feet, and a cup in his hand. Jack threw some loose change into the cup as he slipped by. Further on, he passed the ’Frisco Theatre, which was once again showing its favorite double feature: Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones.

There was something about New York that got to Jack. He loved its sleaze, its color, the glory and crassness of its architecture. He couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Upon reaching the Fifties, he turned east until he came to Municipal Coins. He stopped in front and glanced briefly at the low-priced junk under the red-and-white WE BUY GOLD sign in the window—proof sets, Confederate paper, and the like—then went in.

Monte spotted him right away.

“Mr. O’Neil! How are you!”

“Fine. Just call me Jack. Remember?”

“Of course!” Monte said, grinning. “Always with the informality.” He was short, slight, balding, with scrawny arms and a big nose. A mosquito of a man. “Good to see you again!”

Of course it was good to see him again. Jack knew he was probably Monte’s best customer. Their relationship had begun back in the mid-seventies. Jack had been stashing away his cash earnings for a while and was at a loss as to what to do with it. Abe had told him to buy gold. Krugerrands, specifically. It had been the summer of 1976 and gold was selling for $103 an ounce. Jack thought that was ridiculously high, but Abe swore it was going to go up. He practically begged Jack to buy some.

It’s completely anonymous! Abe had said, saving his most persuasive argument for last. As anonymous as buying a loaf of bread!

Jack looked around the shop, remembering his anxiety that first day. He had bought a lot of ten coins, a small part of his savings, but all he dared risk on something like gold. By Christmas it hit $134 an ounce. That was a thirty percent increase in four months. Spurred by the profit, he began buying gold steadily, eventually putting every cent he had into Krugers. He became a welcome face at Municipal Coins.

Then gold really took off, approaching eight times the original value of his first coins. The volatility made him and Abe uneasy, so they got out for a while in January of 1980, selling off their holdings in small lots around the city, averaging well over five hundred percent profit, none of it recorded anywhere as income. He had bought the coins for cash, and he sold them for cash. He was supposed to report his profits to the IRS, but the IRS didn’t know he existed and he didn’t want to burden them with the information.

Jack had been in and out of gold since, and was buying it now. He figured the numismatic market was depressed, so he was investing in choice rare coins, too. They might not go up for many years, but he was buying for the long run. For his retirement—if he lived that long.

“I think I have something you’ll really like,” Monte was saying. “One of the finest Barber Halves I’ve seen.”

“What year?”

“1902.”

There followed the obligatory haggling over the quality of the strike, bag marks, and the like. When Jack left the store he had the Barber Half and a 1909 proof 63 Barber Quarter carefully wrapped and tucked in his left front pocket with a cylinder of Krugerrands. A hundred or so in cash was in the other front pocket. He was far more relaxed heading back uptown than he had been coming down.

Now he could turn his mind to Gia. He wondered if she’d have Vicky with her. Most likely. He didn’t want to arrive empty-handed. He stopped at a card shop and found what he was looking for: a pile of furry little spheres, somewhat smaller than golf balls, each with two slender antennae, flat little feet, and big rolling eyes. “Wuppets.” Vicky loved Wuppets almost as much as she loved oranges. He loved the look on her face when she reached into a pocket and found a present.

He picked out an orange Wuppet and headed for home.

7

Lunch was a can of Lite beer and a cylinder of Country Style Pringles in the cool of his apartment. He knew he should be up on the roof doing his daily exercises, but he also knew what the temperature would be like up there.

Later, he promised himself. Jack loathed his exercise routine and embraced any excuse to postpone it. He never missed a day, but never passed up an opportunity to put it off.

While nursing a second Lite, he went to the closet next to the bathroom to stash his two new acquisitions. It was a cedar closet, the air within heavy with the odor of the wood. He pulled a piece of molding loose from the base of a side wall, then slipped free one of the cedar planks above it. Behind the plank lay the bathroom water pipes, each wrapped in insulation. And taped to the insulation like ornaments on a Christmas tree were dozens of rare coins. Jack found empty spots for the latest.

He tapped the board and molding back into place, then stepped back to survey the work. A good hidey hole. More accessible than a safe deposit box. Better than a wall safe. With burglars using metal detectors these days, they could find a safe in minutes and either crack it or carry it off. But a metal detector here would only confirm that there were pipes behind the bathroom wall.

The only thing Jack had to worry about was fire.

He realized a psychiatrist would have a field day with him, labeling him a paranoid of one sort or another. But Jack had worked out a better explanation: When you lived in a city with one of the highest robbery rates in the world and you worked in a field that tended to get people violently angry with you, and you had no FDIC to protect your savings, extreme caution as a daily routine was not a symptom of mental illness; it was necessary for survival.

He was polishing off the second beer when the phone rang. Gia again? He listened to the Pinocchio Enterprises intro, then heard his father’s voice begin to leave a message. He picked up and cut in.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Don’t you ever turn that thing off, Jack?”

“The answerphone? I just got in. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to remind you about Sunday.”

Sunday? What the hell was—”You mean about the tennis match? How could I forget?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jack winced. “I told you, Dad. I got tied up with something and couldn’t get away.”

“Well, I hope it won’t happen again.” Dad’s tone said he couldn’t imagine what could be so important in the appliance repair business that could tie up a man for a whole day. “I’ve got us down for the father-and-son match.”

“I’ll be there bright and early Sunday morning.”

“Good. See you then.”

’’Looking forward to it.”

What a lie, he thought as he hung up. He dreaded seeing his father, even for something so simple as a father-and-son tennis match. Yet he kept on accepting invitations to go back to New Jersey and bask in parental disapproval. It wasn’t masochism that kept him coming back, it was duty. And love —a love that had lain unexpressed for years. After all, it wasn’t Dad’s fault that he thought of his son as a lazy do-nothing who had squandered an education and was in the process of squandering a life. Dad didn’t know what his son really did.

Jack reset the answerphone and changed into a pair of lightweight tan slacks. He wouldn’t feel right wearing Levis on Sutton Square.

He decided to walk. He took Columbus Avenue down to the circle. People were lined up outside the Coliseum there waiting to get into a hot rod show. He walked along Central Park South past the St. Moritz and under the ornate iron awning over the Plaza’s parkside entrance, amusing himself by counting Arabs and watching the rich tourists stroll in and out of the status hotels. He continued due east along Fifty-ninth toward the stratospheric rent district.

He was working up a sweat but barely noticed. The prospect of seeing Gia again made him almost giddy.

Images, pieces of the past, flashed through his brain as he walked. Gia’s big smile, her eyes, the way her whole face crinkled up when she laughed, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin… all denied him for the past two months.

He remembered his first feelings for her… so different. With almost all the other women in his life the most significant part of the relationship for both parties had been in bed. It was different with Gia. He wanted to know her. He had only thought about the others when there was nothing better to think about. Gia, on the other hand, had a nasty habit of popping into his thoughts at the most inopportune times. He had wanted to cook with her, eat with her, play tennis with her, see movies with her, listen to music with her. Be with her. He had found himself wanting to get in his car and drive past her apartment house just to make sure it was still there. He hated to talk on the phone but found himself calling her at the slightest excuse. He was hooked and he loved it.

For nearly a year it had been a treat to wake up every morning knowing he was probably going to see her at some time during the day. So good…

Other images crept unbidden to the front. Her face when she found out the truth about him, the hurt, and something worse—fear. The knowledge that Gia could even for an instant think that he would ever harm her, or even allow harm to come to her, was the deepest hurt of all. Nothing he had said or tried to say had worked to change her mind.

Now he had another chance. He wasn’t going to blow it.

8

“He’s late, isn’t he, Mom?”

Gia DiLauro kept both hands on her daughter’s shoulders as they stood at the window in the front parlor and watched the street. Vicky was fairly trembling with excitement.

“Not quite. Almost, but not quite.”

“I hope he doesn’t forget.”

“He won’t. I’m sure he won’t.” Although I wish he would.

Two months since she had walked out on Jack. She was adjusting. Sometimes she could go through a whole day without thinking about him. She had picked up where she had left off. There was even someone new creeping into her life.

Why couldn’t the past ever stay out of sight where it belonged? Take her ex-husband, for instance. After their divorce she had wanted to cut all ties with the Westphalen family, even going so far as to change her name back to the one she had been born with. But Richard’s aunts had made that impossible. They adored Vicky and used every imaginable pretext to lure Gia and her daughter over to Sutton Square. Gia had resisted at first, but their genuine affection for Vicky, their insistent pleas, and the fact that they had no illusions about their nephew—”a bounder and a cad!” as Nellie was wont to describe him after her third glass of sherry—finally changed her mind. Number Eight Sutton Square had become a second home of sorts. The aunts had even gone so far as to have a swing set and a wooden playhouse installed in the tiny backyard just for Vicky.

So when Nellie had called in a panic after Grace had been discovered missing on Tuesday morning, Gia had come right over. And had been here ever since.

Grace Westphalen. Such a sweet old lady. Gia couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to harm her, and no ransom demand had been made. So where was she? Gia was frightened and mystified by the disappearance and she ached for Nellie, whom she knew was suffering terribly behind her stoical front. It had only been out of love for Nellie and her deep concern for Grace that she had agreed to call Jack this morning. Not that Jack would be much help. From what she had learned of him, she could safely say that this was not his sort of job. But Nellie was desperate and it was the least Gia could do to ease her mind.

Gia told herself she was standing here at the window to keep Vicky company—the poor child had been watching for an hour already—yet there was an undeniable sense of anticipation rising inside her. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love.

What was it, then?

Probably just a residue of feeling, like a smear on a window that hadn’t been properly wiped after spring cleaning. What else could she expect? It had only been two months since the break-up and her feelings for Jack until then had been intense, as if compensating for all that had been missing from her aborted marriage. Jack is the one, she had told herself. The forever one. She didn’t want to think about that awful afternoon. She had held the memory off all day, but now, with Jack due any minute, it all rushed back at her…

SHE WAS CLEANING his apartment. A friendly gesture. He refused to hire a cleaning lady and usually did it himself. But to Gia’s mind, Jack’s household methods left much to be desired, so she decided to surprise him by giving the place a thorough going-over. She wanted to do something for him. He was always doing little things for her, yet he was so self-contained that she found it difficult to reciprocate. So she “borrowed” an extra key to his apartment and sneaked in after lunch one day when she knew he was out.

She knew Jack as a gentle eccentric who worked at odd intervals and odd hours as a security consultant—whatever that was—and lived in a three-room apartment stuffed with such an odd assortment of junk and hideous old furniture that she had attacks of vertigo the first few times she visited him. He was crazy about movies—old movies, new movies, good movies, awful movies. He was the only man she had ever known who did not have a Master or Visa card, and had such an aversion to signing his name that he didn’t even have a checking account. He paid cash for everything.

The cleaning chores went smoothly until she found the loose panel at the rear of the base of the old oak secretary. She had been polishing the secretary with lemon oil to bring up the grain and make the wood glow. Jack loved oak and she was learning to love it, too—it had such character. The panel swung out as she was storing away some of his latest “neat stuff”—an original red and green Little Orphan Annie Ovaltine shake-up mug and an official Tom Corbett Space Cadet badge.

Something gleamed in the darkness behind the panel. Curious, she reached in and touched cool, oiled metal. She pulled the object out and started in surprise at its weight and malignant blue color. A pistol.

Well, lots of people in the city had guns. For protection. Nothing unusual about that.

She glanced back into the opening. There were other gleaming things within. She began to pull them out. She fought the sick feeling that intensified in the pit of her stomach as each gun was delivered from the hiding place, telling herself that Jack was probably just a collector. After all, no two of the dozen or so guns were alike. But what about the rest of the contents: the boxes of bullets, the daggers, brass knuckles and other deadly-looking things she had never seen before? Among the weapons were three passports, an equal number of driver’s licenses, and sundry other forms of identification, all with different names.

Her insides knotted as she sat and stared at the collection. She tried to tell herself they were things he needed for his work as a security consultant, but deep inside she knew that much of what lay before her was illegal. Even if he had permits for all the guns, there was no way the passports and licenses could be legal.

Gia was still sitting there when he came back in from one of his mysterious errands. A guilty look ran over his face when he saw what she had found.

“Who are you?” she said, leaning away as he knelt beside her.

“I’m Jack. You know me.”

“Do I? I’m not even sure your name’s Jack anymore.” She could feel the terror growing within her. Her voice rose an octave. “Who are you and what do you do with all this?”

He gave her some garbled story about being a repairman of sorts who “fixes things.” For a fee he found stolen property or helped people get even when the police and the courts and all the various proper channels for redress have failed them.

“But all these guns and knives and things… they’re for hurting people!”

He nodded. “Sometimes it comes down to that.”

She had visions of him shooting someone, stabbing him, clubbing him to death. If someone else had told her this about the man she loved, she would have laughed and walked away. But the weapons lay in front of her. And Jack was telling her himself!

“Then you’re nothing but a hired thug!”

He reddened. “I work on my own terms—exclusively. And I don’t do anything to anybody that they haven’t already done to someone else. I was going to tell you when I thought—”

“But you hurt people!”

“Sometimes.”

This was becoming a nightmare! “What kind of thing is that to spend your life doing?”

“It’s what I do. More than that, it’s what I am.”

“Do you enjoy it when you hurt people?”

He looked away. And that was answer enough. It was like one of his knives thrust into her heart.

“Are the police after you?”

“No,” he said with a certain amount of pride. “They don’t even know I exist. Neither does the State of New York nor the IRS nor the entire U.S. government.”

Gia rose to her feet and hugged herself. She suddenly felt cold. She didn’t want to ask this question, but she had to. “What about killing? Have you ever killed someone?”

“Gia…” He rose and stepped toward her, but she backed away.

“Answer me, Jack! Have you ever killed someone?”

“It’s happened. But that doesn’t mean I make my living at it.”

She thought she was going to be sick. The man she loved was a murderer! “But you’ve killed!” “Only when there was no other way. Only when I had to.”

“You mean, only when they were going to kill you? Kill or be killed?” Please say yes. Please! He looked away again. “Sort of.” The world seemed to come apart at the seams. With hysteria clutching at her, Gia began running. She ran for the door, ran down the stairs, ran for a cab that took her home, where she huddled in a corner of her apartment listening to the phone ring and ring and ring. She took it off the hook when Vicky came home from school and had barely spoken to Jack since.

“COME AWAY FROM the window now. I’ll tell you when he arrives.”

“No, Mommy! I want to see him!”

“All right, but when he gets here, I don’t want you running around and making a fuss. Just say hello to him nice and politely, then go out back to the playhouse. Understand?”

“Is that him?” Vicky started bouncing up and down on her toes. “Is that him?”

Gia looked, then laughed and pulled on her daughter’s pigtails. “Not even close.”

Gia walked away from the window, then came back, resigned to standing and watching behind Vicky. Jack appeared to occupy a blind spot in Vicky’s unusually incisive assessment of people. But then, Jack had fooled Gia, too.

Jack fooled everyone, it seemed.

9

If Jack had his choice of any locale in Manhattan in which to live, he’d choose Sutton Square, the half block of ultra-high-priced real estate standing at the eastern tip of Fifty-eighth Street off Sutton Place, dead-ending at a low stone wall overlooking a sunken brick terrace with an unobstructed view of the East River. No high-rises, condos, or office buildings there, just neat four-story townhouses standing flush to the sidewalk, all brick-fronted, some with the brick bare, others painted pastel colors. Wooden shutters flanked the windows and the recessed front doors. Some of them even had backyards. A neighborhood of Bentleys and Rolls Royces, liveried chauffeurs and white-uniformed nannies. And two blocks to the north, looming over it all like some towering guardian, stood the graceful, surprisingly delicate-looking span of the Queensboro Bridge.

He remembered the place well. He had been here before. Last year when he had been doing that job for the U.K. Mission, he had met Gia’s aunts. They had invited him to a small gathering at their home. He hadn’t wanted to go, but Burkes had talked him into it. The evening had changed his life. He had met Gia.

He heard a child’s voice shouting as he crossed Sutton Place.

“Jack-Jack-Jack!”

Dark braids flying and arms outstretched, a little slip of a girl with wide blue eyes and a missing front tooth came dashing out the front door and down the sidewalk. She leaped into the air with the reckless abandon of a seven-year-old who had not the slightest doubt she would be caught and lifted and swung around.

Which is exactly what Jack did. Then he hugged her against his chest as she clamped her spindly arms around his neck.

“Where you been, Jack?” she said into his ear. “Where you been all this time?”

Jack’s answer was blocked by a lump in his throat the size of an apple. Shocked by the intensity of feeling welling up in him, he could only squeeze her tighter. Vicky! All the time he had spent missing Gia, never realizing how much he had missed the little one. For the better part of the year he and Gia had been together, Jack had seen Vicky almost every day, becoming a prime focus of her boundless store of affection. Losing Vicky had contributed much more than he had ever imagined to the emptiness inside him these past two months. Love you, little girl.

He had not truly known how much until this very instant. Over Vicky’s shoulder he could see Gia standing in the doorway of the house, her face grim. He spun away to hide the tears that had sprung into his eyes. “You’re squeezing me awful tight, Jack.” He put her down. “Yeah. Sorry, Vicks.” He cleared his throat, pulled himself together, then grasped her hand and walked up to the front door and Gia.

She looked good. Hell, she looked great in that light blue T-shirt and jeans. Short blond hair—to call it blond was to say the sun was sort of bright: It gleamed, it glowed. Blue eyes like winter sky after all the snow clouds have blown east. A strong, full mouth. High shoulders, high breasts, fair skin with high coloring along the cheeks. He still found it almost impossible to believe she was Italian.

10

Gia controlled her anger. She had told Vicky not to make a fuss, but at the first sight of Jack crossing the street she had been out the door and on her way before Gia could stop her. She wanted to punish Vicky for disobeying her, yet knew she wouldn’t. Vicky loved Jack.

He looked the same as ever. His brown hair was a little longer and he looked as if he had lost a few pounds since she’d last seen him, but no major differences. Still the same incredible vitality, making the very air around him seem to throb with life, the same feline grace to his movements, the same warm brown eyes, the same lopsided smile. The smile looked forced at the moment, and his face was flushed. He looked hot.

“Hello,” Jack said as he reached the top step. His voice was husky.

He leaned his face toward her. She wanted to pull away but affected sublime indifference instead. She would be cool. She would be detached. He no longer meant anything to her. She accepted a peck on the cheek.

“Come in,” she said, doing her best to sound businesslike. She felt she succeeded. But the brush of his lips against her cheek stirred old unwanted feelings, and she knew her face was coloring. Damn him! She turned away. “Aunt Nellie’s waiting.”

“You’re looking well,” he said, standing there and staring at her. Vicky’s hand was still clasped in his own.

“Thank you. So are you.” She had never felt this way before, but now that she knew the truth about Jack, the sight of him holding hands with her little girl made her skin crawl. She had to get Vicky away from him. “Honey, why don’t you go outside and play in your playhouse while Jack and I and Aunt Nellie talk about grown-up things.”

“No,” she said. “I want to stay with Jack!”

Gia started to speak but Jack raised a hand.

“First thing we do,” he said to Vicky as he guided her into the foyer, “is close the door behind us. This may be a ritzy neighborhood, but they still haven’t got around to air-conditioning the street.” He shut the door, then squatted in front of her. “Listen, Vicks. Your mother’s right. We’ve got some grown-up stuff to discuss and we’ve got to get down to business. But I’ll let you know as soon as we’re through.”

“Can I show you the playhouse?”

“Sure.”

“Neat! And Ms. Jelliroll wants to meet you. I told her all about you.”

“Great. I want to meet her, too. But first”—he pointed to the breast pocket of his shirt—”see what’s in there.”

Vicky reached in and pulled out an orange ball of fur. “A Wuppet!” she screeched. “Oh, ex!”

She kissed him and ran toward the back.

“Who or what is Ms. Jelliroll?” he asked Gia as he rose to his feet.

“A new doll,” Gia said as brusquely as she could manage. “Jack, I… I want you to stay away from her.”

Gia saw his eyes then and knew that she had cut him deeply. But his mouth smiled.

“I haven’t molested a child all week.”

“That’s not what I mean—”

“I’m a bad influence, right?”

“We’ve been through this before and I don’t want to get going on it again. Vicky was very attached to you. She’s just getting used to not having you around anymore, and now you come back and I don’t want her to think things are going back to the way they were.”

“I’m not the one who walked out.”

“Doesn’t matter. The result was the same. She was hurt.”

“So was I.”

“Jack,” she sighed, feeling very tired, “this is a pointless conversation.”

“Not to me. Gia, I’m crazy about that kid. There was a time when I had hopes of being her father.”

The sound of her own laugh was harsh and bitter in her ears. “Forget it! Her real father hasn’t been heard from in a year and you wouldn’t be much of an improvement. Vicky needs a real person for a father. Someone who lives in the real world. Someone with a last name—do you even remember your last name? The one you were christened with? Jack, you… you don’t even exist.”

He reached out and touched her arm.

“As real as you.”

“You know what I mean!” Gia said, pulling away. The words poured out of her. “What kind of a father could you be to anybody? And what kind of a husband?”

She was being hard on him, she knew, but he deserved it.

Jack’s face tightened. “Very well, Ms. DiLauro. Shall we get down to business? After all, I didn’t invite myself over.”

“Neither did I. It was Nellie’s idea. I was just the messenger. ’Get that friend of yours, that Jack fellow, to help.’ I tried to tell her you were no longer a friend but she insisted. She remembered that you worked with Mr. Burkes last year.”

“That’s when we met.”

“And the long string of deceptions began. Mr. Burkes called you ’a consultant,’ ’ a troubleshooter.’ “

Jack made a sour face. “But you came up with a better job description, didn’t you: thug.”

It jolted Gia to hear the pain in Jack’s voice as he said the word. Yes, she had called him that the last time she had seen him. She had hurt him then and had been glad of it. But she wasn’t glad now to know he was still bleeding from it. She turned away. “Nellie is waiting.”

11

With a mixture of pain and resentment rolling through him, Jack followed Gia down the hallway. For months he had nurtured a faint hope that someday soon he would make her understand. As of now he knew with leaden certainty that that would never happen. She had been a warm, passionate woman who had loved him, and unwittingly he had turned her to ice.

He studied the walnut paneling, the portraits on the walls, anything to keep from watching her as she walked ahead of him. Then they were through a pair of sliding doors and into the library. The dark paneling continued in from the hall, and there was lots of dark furniture: overstuffed velvet chairs with antimacassars on the arms, Persian rugs on the floor, Impressionist paintings on the walls, a Sony Trinitron in the corner. It looked lived-in.

He had met Gia in this room.

Aunt Nellie sat lost in a recliner by the cold fireplace. A chubby, white-haired woman in her late sixties in a long dark dress adorned with a small diamond brooch and a short string of pearls. A woman used to wealth and comfortable with it. At first glance she appeared depressed and shrunken, as if she were in mourning, or preparing for it. But as they entered she pumped herself up and arranged her face into a pleasant expression, putting on a smile that wiped away a good many of her years.

“Mr. Jeffers,” she said, rising. Her accent was thickly British. Not Lynn Redgrave British; more like a reedy Robert Morley. “So good of you to come.”

“Good to see you again, Mrs. Paton. But just call me Jack.”

“Only if you call me Nellie. Would you care for some tea?”

“Iced, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” She rang a little bell on the endtable next to her and a uniformed maid appeared. “Three iced teas, Eunice.” The maid nodded and left. An uncomfortable silence followed in which Nellie seemed to be lost in thought.

“How can I help you, Nellie?”

“What?” She looked startled. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I was just thinking about my sister, Grace. As I’m sure Gia told you, she’s been gone for three days now… disappeared between Monday night and Tuesday”—she pronounced it Chew sday—”morning. The police have come and gone and find no evidence of foul play, and there’s been no demand for ransom. She is merely listed as a missing person, but I’m quite certain something has happened to her. I shan’t rest until I find her.”

Jack’s heart went out to her, and he wanted to help, but…

“I don’t do missing-persons work as a rule.”

“Yes, Gia did say something about this not being in your line”—Jack glanced over to Gia but she avoided his gaze— “but I’m at my wits’ end. The police are no help. I’m sure that if we were back home we’d have more cooperation from Scotland Yard than we’ve had from the New York Police. They simply aren’t taking Grace’s disappearance seriously. I knew you and Gia were close and remembered Eddie Burkes mentioning last year that your assistance had proven invaluable at the Mission. Never would tell me what he needed you for, but he certainly seemed enthusiastic.”

Jack was seriously considering placing a call to “Eddie”— hard as it was to imagine someone calling the U.K. Mission’s security chief “Eddie”—and telling him to button his lip. Jack always appreciated referrals, and it was nice to know he had made such an impression on the man, but Burkes was getting just a little bit too free with his name.

“I’m flattered by your confidence, but—”

“Whatever your usual fee is, I daresay I’ll gladly pay it.”

“It’s a question of expertise rather than money. I just don’t think I’m the right man for the job.”

“You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“Sort of.” That was a lie. He wasn’t any sort of detective; he was a repairman. He could feel Gia staring at him. “The problem is, I’m not licensed as a detective, so I can’t have any contact with the police. They mustn’t know I’m involved in any way. They wouldn’t approve.”

Nellie’s face brightened. “Then you’ll help?”

The hope in her expression pushed the words to his lips.

“I’ll do what I can. And as far as payment goes, let’s make it contingent on success. If I don’t get anywhere, there’ll be no fee.”

“But your time is surely worth something, dear fellow!”

“I agree, but looking for Vicky’s Aunt Grace is a special case.”

Nellie nodded. “Then you may consider yourself hired on your terms.”

Jack forced a smile. He didn’t expect much success in finding Grace, but he’d give it his best shot. If nothing else, the job would keep him in contact with Gia. He wasn’t quitting yet.

The iced tea arrived and Jack sipped it appreciatively. Not a Lipton or Nestea mix, but fresh brewed from an English blend.

“Tell me about your sister,” he said when the maid had left.

Nellie leaned back and spoke in a low voice, rambling now and again, but keeping fairly close to hard facts. A picture slowly emerged. Unlike Nellie, the missing Grace Westphalen had never married. After Nellie’s husband was killed in the Battle of Britain, the two sisters, each with one-third of the Westphalen fortune, emigrated to the States. Except for brief trips back home, both had lived on Manhattan’s East Side ever since. And both were still loyal to the Queen. Never in all those years had the thought of becoming U.S. citizens ever crossed their minds. They very naturally fell in with the small British community in Manhattan, consisting mostly of well-heeled expatriates and people connected with the British Consulate and the United Kingdom’s Mission to the United Nations—”a colony within the Colonies,” as they liked to call themselves—and enjoyed an active social life and huddled with their countrymen during the Falkland Islands crisis. They rarely saw Americans. It was almost like living in London.

Grace Westphalen was sixty-nine—two years older than Nellie. A woman of many acquaintances but few real friends. Her sister had always been her best friend. No eccentricities. Certainly no enemies.

“When did you last see Grace?” Jack asked.

“Monday night. I finished watching Johnny Carson, and when I looked in to say good night, she was propped up in bed reading. That was the last time I saw her.” Nellie’s lower lip trembled for an instant, then she got control of it. “Perhaps the last time I’ll ever see her.”

Jack looked to Gia. “No signs of foul play?”

“I didn’t get here until late Tuesday,” Gia said with a shrug. “But I do know the police couldn’t figure out how Grace got out without tripping the alarm.”

“You’ve got the place wired?” he asked Nellie.

“Wired? Oh, you mean the burglar alarm system. Yes. And it was set—at least for downstairs. We’ve had so many false alarms over the years, however, that we had the upper floors disconnected.”

“What do you mean, ’false alarms’?”

“Well, sometimes we’d forget and get up at night to open a window. The racket is terrifying. So now when we set the system, only the downstairs doors and windows are activated.”

“Which means Grace couldn’t have left by the downstairs doors or windows without tripping an alarm…” A thought struck him. “Wait—all these systems have delays so you can arm it and get out the door without setting it off. That must have been what she did. She just walked out.”

“But her key to the system is still upstairs on her dresser. And all her clothes are in her closets.”

“May I see?”

“By all means, do come and look,” Nellie said, rising. They all trooped upstairs.

Jack found the small, frilly-feminine bedroom nauseating. Everything seemed to be pink or have a lace ruffle, or both.

The pair of French doors at the far end of the room claimed his attention immediately. He opened them and found himself on a card-table-sized balcony rimmed with a waist-high wrought iron railing, overlooking the backyard. A good dozen feet below was a rose garden. In a shady corner sat the playhouse Vicky had mentioned; it looked far too heavy to have been dragged under the window, and it would have flattened all the rose bushes if it had. Anyone wanting to climb up here had to bring a ladder with him or be one hell of a jumper.

“The police find any marks in the dirt down there?”

Nellie shook her head. “They thought someone might have used a ladder, but there was no sign. The ground is so hard and dry, with no rain—”

Eunice the maid appeared at the door. “Telephone, mum.”

Nellie excused herself and left Jack and Gia alone in the room.

“A locked room mystery,” he said. “I feel like Sherlock Holmes.”

He got down on his knees and examined the carpet for specks of dirt, but found none. He looked under the bed; only a pair of slippers there.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for clues. I’m supposed to be a detective, remember?”

“I don’t think a woman’s disappearance is anything to joke about,” Gia said, the frost returning to her words now that Nellie was out of earshot.

“I’m not joking, nor am I taking it lightly. But you’ve got to admit the whole thing has the air of a British drawing room mystery about it. I mean, either Aunt Grace had an extra alarm key made and ran off into the night in her nightie—a pink and frilly one, I’ll bet—or she jumped off her little balcony here in that same nightie, or someone climbed up the wall, knocked her out, and carried her off without a sound. None of those explanations seem too plausible. “

Gia appeared to be listening intently. That was something, at least.

He went over to the dressing table and glanced at the perfume bottles. There were dozens of them; some names were familiar, most were not. He wandered into the private bathroom and was there confronted by another array of bottles: Metamucil, Philips Milk of Magnesia, Haley’s M-O, Pericolace, Surfak, Ex-Lax and more. One bottle stood off to the side. Jack picked it up. It was clear glass, with a thick green fluid inside. The cap was the metal twist-off type, enameled white. All it needed was a Smirnoff label and it could have been an airline vodka bottle.

“Know what this is?”

“Ask Nellie.”

Jack screwed off the cap and sniffed. At least he was sure of one thing: It wasn’t perfume. The smell was heavily herbal, and not particularly pleasant.

As Nellie returned, she appeared to be finding it increasingly difficult to hide her anxiety. “That was the police. I rang up the detective in charge a while ago and he just told me that they have nothing new on Grace.”

Jack handed her the bottle.

“What’s this?”

Nellie looked it over, momentarily puzzled, then her face brightened.

“Oh, yes. Grace picked this up Monday. I’m not sure where, but she said it was a new product being test marketed, and this was a free sample.”

“But what’s it for?”

“It’s a physic.”

“Pardon?”

“A physic. A cathartic. A laxative. Grace was very concerned—obsessed, you might say—with regulating her bowels. She’s had that sort of problem all her life.”

Jack took the bottle back. Something about an unlabeled bottle amid all the brand names intrigued him.

“May I keep this?”

“Certainly.”

Jack looked around a while longer, for appearances more than anything else. He didn’t have the faintest idea how he was even going to begin looking for Grace Westphalen.

“Please remember to do two things,” he told Nellie as he started downstairs. “Keep me informed of any leads the police turn up, and don’t breathe a word of my involvement to the police.”

“Very well. But where are you going to start?”

He smiled—reassuringly, he hoped. “I’ve already started. I’ll have to do some thinking and then start looking.” He fingered the bottle in his pocket. Something about it…

They left Nellie on the second floor, standing and gazing into her sister’s empty room. Vicky came running in from the kitchen as Jack reached the bottom step. She held an orange section in her outstretched hand.

“Do the orange mouth! Do the orange mouth!”

He laughed, delighted that she remembered. “Sure!” He shoved the section into his mouth and clamped his teeth behind the skin. Then he gave Vicky a big orange grin. She clapped and laughed.

“Isn’t Jack funny, Mom? Isn’t he the funniest?”

“He’s a riot, Vicky.”

Jack pulled the orange slice from his mouth. “Where’s that doll you wanted to introduce me to?”

Vicky slapped the side of her head dramatically. “Ms. Jelliroll! She’s out back. I’ll go—”

“Jack doesn’t have time, honey,” Gia said from behind him. “Maybe next trip, okay?”

Vicky smiled and Jack noticed that a second tooth was starting to fill the gap left by her missing milk tooth.

“Okay. You coming back soon, Jack?”

“Real soon, Vicks.”

He hoisted her onto his hip and carried her to the front door, where he put her down and kissed her.

“See ya.” He glanced up at Gia. “You, too.”

She pulled Vicky back against the front of her jeans. “Yeah.”

As Jack went down the front steps, he thought the door slammed with unnecessary force.

12

Vicky pulled Gia to the window and together they watched Jack stroll out of sight.

“He’s going to find Aunt Grace, isn’t he?”

“He says he’s going to try.”

“He’ll do it.”

“Please don’t get your hopes up, honey,” she said, kneeling behind Vicky and enfolding her in her arms. “We may never find her.”

She felt Vicky stiffen and wished she hadn’t said it—wished she hadn’t thought it. Grace had to be alive and well.

“Jack’ll find her. Jack can do anything.”

“No, Vicky. He can’t. He really can’t.” Gia was torn between wanting Jack to fail, and wanting Grace returned to her home; between wanting to see Jack humbled in Vicky’s eyes, and the urge to protect her daughter from the pain of disillusionment.

“Why don’t you love him anymore, Mommy?”

The question took Gia by surprise. “Who said I ever did?”

“You did,” Vicky said, turning and facing her mother. Her guileless blue eyes looked straight into Gia’s. “Don’t you remember?”

“Well, maybe I did a little, but not anymore.” It’s true. I don’t love him anymore. Never did. Not really.

“Why not?”

“Sometimes things don’t work out.”

“Like with you and Daddy?”

“Ummm…” During the two and a half years she and Richard had been divorced, Gia had read every magazine article she could find on explaining the break-up of a marriage to a small child. There were all sorts of pat answers to give, answers that were satisfying when the father was still around for birthdays and holidays and weekends. But what to say to a child whose father had not only skipped town, but had left the continent before she was five? How to tell a child that her daddy doesn’t give a damn about her? Maybe Vicky knew. Maybe that’s why she was so infatuated with Jack, who never passed up an opportunity to give her a hug or slip her a little present, who talked to her and treated her like a real person.

“Do you love Carl?” Vicky said with a sour face. Apparently she had given up on an answer to her previous question and was trying a new one.

“No. We haven’t known each other that long.”

“He’s yucky.”

“He’s really very nice. You just have to get to know him.”

“Yucks. Mom. Yuck-o.”

Gia laughed and pulled on Vicky’s pigtails. Carl acted like any man unfamiliar with children. He was uncomfortable with Vicky; when he wasn’t stiff, he was condescending. He had been unable to break the ice, but he was trying.

Carl was an account exec at BBD&O. Bright, witty, sophisticated. A civilized man. Not like Jack. Not at all like Jack. They had met at the agency when she had delivered some art for one of his accounts. Phone calls, flowers, dinners had followed. Something was developing. Certainly not love yet, but a nice relationship. Carl was what they called “a good catch.” Gia didn’t like to think of a man that way; it made her feel predatory, and she wasn’t hunting. Richard and Jack, the only two men in the last ten years of her life, both had deeply disappointed her. So she was keeping Carl at arm’s length for now.

Yet… there were certain things to be considered. With Richard out of touch for over a year now, money was a constant problem. Gia didn’t want alimony, but some child support now and then would help. Richard had sent a few checks after running back to England—drawn in British pounds, just to make things more difficult for her. Not that he had any financial problems—he controlled one-third of the Westphalen fortune. He was most definitely what those who evaluated such things would consider “a good catch.” But as she had found out soon after their marriage, Richard had a long history of impulsive and irresponsible behavior. He had disappeared late last year. No one knew where he had gone, but no one was worried. It wasn’t the first time he had decided on a whim to take off without a word to anyone.

And so Gia did the best she could. Good freelance work for a commercial artist was hard to find on a steady basis, but she managed. Carl was seeing to it that she got assignments from his accounts, and she appreciated that, though it worried her. She didn’t want any of her decisions about their relationship to be influenced by economics.

But she needed those jobs. Freelance work was the only way she could be a breadwinner and a mother and father to Vicky—and do it right. She wanted to be home when Vicky got in from school. She wanted Vicky to know that even if her father had deserted her, her mother would always be there. But it wasn’t easy.

Money-money-money.

It always came down to money. There was nothing in particular she wanted desperately to buy, nothing she really needed that more money could get for her. She simply wanted enough money so she could stop worrying about it all the time. Her day-to-day life would be enormously simplified by hitting the state lottery or having some rich uncle pass on and leave her fifty thousand or so. But there were no rich uncles waiting in the wings, and Gia didn’t have enough left over at the end of the week for lottery tickets. She was going to have to make it on her own.

She was not so naive as to think that every problem could be solved by money—look at Nellie, lonely and miserable now, unable to buy back her sister despite all her riches—but a windfall would certainly let Gia sleep better at night.

All of which reminded Gia that her rent was due. The bill had been waiting for her when she had stopped back at the apartment yesterday. Staying here and keeping Nellie company was a pleasant change of scenery; it was posh, cool, comfortable. But it was keeping her from her work. Two assignments had deadlines coming up, and she needed those checks. Paying the rent now was going to drop her account to the danger level, but it had to be done.

Might as well find the checkbook and get it over with.

“Why don’t you go out to the playhouse,” she told Vicky.

“It’s dull out there, Mom.”

“I know. But they bought it ’specially for you, so why don’t you give it another try today. I’ll come out and play with you in a few minutes. Got to take care of some business first.”

Vicky brightened. “Okay! We’ll play Ms. Jelliroll. You can be Mr. Grape-grabber.”

“Sure.” Whatever would Vicky do without her Ms. Jelliroll doll?

Gia watched her race toward the rear of the house. Vicky loved to visit her aunts’ house, but she got lonely after a while. It was natural. There was no one her age around here; all her friends were back at the apartment house.

She went upstairs to the guest bedroom on the third floor, where she and Vicky had spent the last two nights. Maybe she could get some work done. She missed her art set-up back in her apartment, but she had brought a large sketch pad and she had to get going on the Burger-Meister placemat.

Burger-Meister was a McDonald’s clone and a new client for Carl. The company had been regional in the South but was preparing to go national in a big way. They had the usual assortment of burgers, including their own answer to the Big Mac: the vaguely fascist-sounding Meister Burger. But what set them apart was their desserts. They put a lot of effort into offering a wide array of pastries—éclairs, Napoleons, cream puffs, and the like.

Gia’s assignment was to come up with the art for a paper placemat to line the trays patrons used to carry food to the tables. The copywriter had decided the placemat should extol and catalog all the quick and wonderful services Burger-Meister offered. The art director had blocked it out: Around the edges would be scenes of children laughing, running, swinging, and sliding in the mini-playground, cars full of happy people going through the drive-thru, children celebrating birthdays in the special party room, all revolving around that jolly, official-looking fellow, Mr. Burgermeister, in the center.

Something about this approach struck Gia as wrong. There were missed opportunities here. This was for a placemat. That meant the person looking at it was already in the Burger-Meister and had already ordered a meal. There was no further need for a come-on. Why not tempt them with some of the goodies on the dessert list? Show them pictures of sundaes and cookies and éclairs and cream puffs. Get the kids howling for dessert. It was a good idea, and it excited her.

You’re a rat, Gia. Ten years ago this never would have crossed your mind. And if it had you’d have been horrified.

But she was not that same girl from Ottumwa who had arrived in the Big City fresh out of art school and looking for work. Since then she had been married to a crumb and in love with a killer.

She began sketching desserts.

After an hour of work, she took a break. Now that she was rolling on the Burger-Meister job, she didn’t feel too bad about paying the rent. She pulled the checkbook out of her purse but could not find the bill. It had been on the dresser this morning and now it was gone.

Gia went to the top of the stairs and called down.

“Eunice! Did you see an envelope on my dresser this morning?”

“No, mum,” came the faint reply.

That left only one possibility.

13

Nellie overheard the exchange between Gia and Eunice. Here it comes, she thought, knowing that Gia would explode when she learned what Nellie had done with the rent bill. A lovely girl, that Gia, but so hot-tempered. And so proud, unwilling to accept any financial aid, no matter how often it was offered. A most impractical attitude. And yet… if Gia had welcomed hand-outs, Nellie knew she would not be so anxious to offer them. Gia’s resistance to charity was like a red flag waving in Nellie’s face—it only made her more determined to find ways of helping her.

Preparing herself for the storm, Nellie stepped out onto the landing below Gia.

“I saw it.”

“What happened to it?”

“I paid it.”

Gia’s jaw dropped. “You what!”

Nellie twisted her hands in a show of anxiety. “Don’t think I was snooping, dearie. I simply went in to make sure that Eunice was taking proper care of you, and I saw it sitting on the bureau. I was paying a few of my own bills this morning and so I just paid yours, too.”

Gia hurried down the stairs, pounding her hand on the banister as she approached.

“Nellie, you had no right!”

Nellie stood her ground. “Rubbish! I can spend my money any way I please.”

“The least you could have done was ask me first!”

“True,” Nellie said, trying her best to look contrite, “but as you know, I’m an old woman and frightfully forgetful.”

The statement had the desired effect: Gia’s frown wavered, fighting against a smile, then she broke into a laugh. “You’re about as forgetful as a computer! “

“Ah, dearie,” Nellie said, drawing to Gia’s side and putting an arm around her waist, “I know I’ve taken you away from your work by asking you to stay with me, and that puts a strain on your finances. But I so love having you and Victoria here.”

And I need you here, she thought. I couldn’t bear to stay alone with only Eunice for company. I would surely go mad with grief and worry.

“Especially Victoria—I daresay she’s the only decent thing that nephew of mine has ever done in his entire life. She’s such a dear. I can’t quite believe Richard had anything to do with her.”

“Well, he doesn’t have much to do with her anymore. And if I have my way, he’ll never have anything to do with her again.”

Too much talk of her nephew Richard made Nellie uncomfortable. The man was a lout, a blot on the Westphalen name.

“Just as well. By the way, I never told you, but last year I had my will changed to leave Victoria most of my holdings when I go.”

“Nellie—!”

Nellie had expected objections and was ready for them: “She’s a Westphalen—the last of the Westphalens unless Richard remarries and fathers another child, which I gravely doubt—and I want her to have a part of the Westphalen fortune, curse and all.”

“Curse?”

How did that slip out? She hadn’t wanted to mention that. “Only joking, love.”

Gia seemed to have a sudden weak spell. She leaned against Nellie.

“Nellie, I don’t know what to say except I hope it’s a long, long time before we see any of it.”

“So do I! But until then, please don’t begrudge me the pleasure of helping out once in a while. I have so much money and so few pleasures left in life. You and Victoria are two of them. Anything I can do to lighten your load—”

“I’m not a charity case, Nellie.”

“I heartily agree. You’re family”—she directed a stern expression at Gia—”even if you did go back to your maiden name. And as your aunt by marriage I claim the right to help out once in a while. Now that’s the last I want to hear of it!”

So saying, she kissed Gia on the cheek and marched back into her bedroom. As soon as the door closed behind her, however, she felt her brave front crack. She stumbled across the room and sank onto the bed. She found it so much easier to bear the pain of Grace’s disappearance in the company of others—pretending to be composed and in control actually made her feel so. But when there was no one around to playact for, she fell apart.

Oh, Grace, Grace, Grace. Where can you be? And how long can I live without you?

Her sister had been Nellie’s best friend ever since they had fled to America during the war. Her purse-lipped smile, her tittering laugh, the pleasure she took in their daily sherry before dinner, even her infuriating obsession with the regularity of her bowels, Nellie missed them all.

Despite all her foibles and uppity ways, she’s a dear soul and I need her back.

The thought of living on without Grace suddenly overwhelmed Nellie and she began to cry. Quiet sobs that no one else would hear. She couldn’t let any of them—especially dear little Victoria—see her cry.

14

Jack didn’t feel like walking back across town, so he took a cab. The driver made a couple of tries at small talk about the Mets but the terse, grunted replies from the back seat soon shut him up. Jack could not remember another time in his life when he had felt so low—not even after his mother’s death. He needed to talk to someone, and it wasn’t a cabbie.

He had the hack drop him off at a little Mom-and-Pop on the corner west of his apartment: Nick’s Nook. An unappetizing place with New York City grime permanently imbedded in the plate glass windows. Some of that grime seemed to have filtered through the glass and onto the grocery display items behind it. Faded dummy boxes of Tide, Cheerios, Gainsburgers, and such had been there for years and would probably remain there for many more. Both Nick and his store needed a good scrubbing. His prices would shame an Exxon executive, but the Nook was handy, and baked goods were delivered fresh daily—at least he said they were.

Jack picked up an Entenmann’s crumb cake that didn’t look too dusty, checked the fresh date on the side and found it was good till next week.

“Going over to Abe’s, eh?” Nick said. He had three chins, one little one supported by two big ones, all in need of a shave.

“Yeah. Thought I’d bring the junky his fix.”

“Tell him I said ’lo.”

“Right.”

He walked over to Amsterdam Avenue and then down to the Isher Sports Shop. Here he knew he’d find Abe Grossman, friend and confidant for almost as long as he had been Repairman Jack. In fact, Abe was one of the reasons Jack had moved into this neighborhood. Abe was the ultimate pessimist. No matter how dark things looked, Abe’s outlook was darker. He could make a drowning man feel lucky.

Jack glanced through the window. A fiftyish man was alone inside, sitting on a stool behind the cash register, reading a paperback.

The store was too small for its stock. Bicycles hung from the ceiling; fishing rods, tennis racquets, and basketball hoops littered the walls while narrow aisles wound between pressing benches, hockey nets, scuba masks, soccer balls, and countless other weekend-making items hidden under or behind each other. Inventory was an annual nightmare.

“No customers?” Jack asked to the accompaniment of the bell that chimed when the door opened.

Abe peered over the halfmoons of his reading glasses. “None. And the census won’t be changed by your arrival, I’m sure.”

“Au contraire. I come with goodies in hand, and money in pocket.”

“Did you—?” Abe peered over the counter at the white box with the blue lettering. “You did! Crumb? Bring it over here.”

Just then a big burly fellow in a dirty sleeveless undershirt stuck his head in the door. “I need a box of twelve gauge double-O. Y’got any?”

Abe removed his glasses and gave the man a withering stare.

“You will note, sir, that the sign outside says ’Sporting Goods.’ Killing is not a sport!”

The man looked at Abe as if he had just turned green, and went away.

For a big man, Abe Grossman showed he could move quickly when he wanted to. He carried an easy two hundred pounds packed into a five-eight frame. His graying hair had receded back to the top of his head. His clothes never varied: black pants, short-sleeved white shirt, shiny black tie. The tie and shirt were a sort of scratch-and-sniff catalog of the food he had eaten that day. As Abe rounded the end of the counter, Jack spotted scrambled egg, mustard, and what could be either catsup or spaghetti sauce.

“You really know how to hurt a guy,” he said, breaking off a piece of cake and biting heartily. “You know I’m on a diet.” Powdered sugar speckled his tie as he spoke.

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“S’true. It’s my own special diet. Absolutely no carbohydrates—except for Entenmann’s cake. That’s a free food. All other portions have to be measured, but Entenmann’s is ad lib.” He took another big bite and spoke around it. Crumb cake always made him manic. “Did I tell you I added a codicil to my will? I’ve decided that after I’m cremated I want my ashes buried in an Entenmann’s box. Or if I’m not cremated, it should be a white, glass-topped coffin with blue lettering on the side.” He held up the cake box. “Just like this. Either way, I want to be interred on a grassy slope overlooking the Entenmann’s plant in Bay Shore.”

Jack tried to smile but it must have been a poor attempt. Abe stopped in mid-chew.

“What’s eating up your quderim?”

“Saw Gia today.”

“Nu?”

“It’s over. Really over.”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I knew it but I didn’t believe it.” Jack forced himself to ask a question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “Am I crazy, Abe? Is there something wrong in my head for wanting to live this way? Is my pilot light flickering and I don’t know it?”

Without taking his eyes from Jack’s face, Abe put down his piece of cake and made a half-hearted attempt to brush off his front. He succeeded only in smearing the sugar specks on his tie into large white blotches.

“What did she do to you?”

“Opened my eyes, maybe. Sometimes it takes an outsider to make you see yourself as you really are.”

“And you see what?”

Jack took a deep breath. “A crazy man. A violent crazy man.”

“That’s what her eyes see. But what does she know? Does she know about Mr. Canelli? Does she know about your mother? Does she know how you got to be Repairman Jack?”

“Nope. Didn’t wait to hear.”

“There! You see? She knows nothing! She understands nothing! And she’s closed her mind to you, so who wants someone like that?”

“Me!”

“Well,” Abe said, rubbing a hand across his forehead and leaving a white smear, “that I can’t argue with.” He glared at Jack. “How old are you?”

Jack had to think a second. He always felt stupid when he had to remember his age.

“Uhh… thirty-four.”

“Thirty-four. Surely you’ve been ditched before?”

“Abe… I can’t remember ever feeling about anyone the way I feel about Gia. And she’s afraid of me!”

“Fear of the unknown. She doesn’t know you, so she’s afraid of you. I know all about you. Am I afraid?”

“Aren’t you? Ever?”

“Never!” He trotted back behind the counter and picked up a copy of the New York Post. Rifling through the pages, he said, “Look—a five-year-old beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend! A guy with a straight razor slashes eight people in Times Square last night and then disappears into a subway! A headless, handless torso is found in a West Side hotel room! As a hit-and-run victim lays bleeding in the street, people run up to him, rob him, and then leave him there. I should be afraid of you?”

Jack shrugged, unconvinced. None of this would bring Gia back; it was what he was that had driven her away. He decided he wanted to do his business here and go home.

“I need something.”

“What?”

“A slapper. Lead and leather.”

Abe nodded. “Ten ounces do?”

“Sure.”

Abe locked the front door and hung the “Back In A Few Minutes” sign facing out through the glass. He passed Jack and led him toward the back, where they stepped into a closet and closed the door after them. A push swung the rear wall of the closet away from them. Abe hit a light switch and they started down a worn stone stairway. As they moved, a neon sign flickered to life:

FINE WEAPONS

THE RIGHT TO BUY WEAPONS IS THE

RIGHT TO BE FREE

Jack had often asked Abe why he had placed a neon sign where advertising would do no good; Abe unfailingly replied that every good weapons shop should have such a sign.

“When you get right down to it, Jack,” Abe was saying, “what I think of you or what Gia thinks of you isn’t going to matter much in the long run. Because there isn’t going to be a long run. Everything’s falling apart. You know that. There’s not much time left before civilization collapses completely. It’s going to start soon. The banks’ll start to go any day now. These people who think their savings are insured by the FDIC? Have they got a rude awakening coming! Just wait till the first couple of banks go under and they find out the FDIC only has enough to cover a pupik’s worth of the deposits it’s supposed to be insuring. Then you’ll see panic, my boy. That’s when the government will crank up the printing presses to full speed to cover those deposits and we’ll have runaway inflation on our hands. I tell you…”

Jack cut him off. He knew the routine by heart.

“You’ve been telling me for ten years, Abe! Economic ruin has been around the corner for a decade now. Where is it?”

“Coming, Jack. Coming. I’m glad my daughter’s fully grown and disinclined toward marriage and a family. I shudder at the thought of a child or a grandchild growing up in the coming time.”

Jack thought of Vicky. “Full of good cheer as usual, aren’t you? You’re the only man I know who lights up a room when he leaves.”

“Very funny. I’m only trying to open your eyes so you can take steps to protect yourself.”

“And what about you? You’ve got a bomb shelter somewhere in the sticks full of freeze-dried food?”

Abe shook his head. “Nah. I’ll take my chances here. I’m not built for a post-holocaust lifestyle. And I’m too old to learn.”

He flipped another wall switch at the bottom of the steps, bringing the ceiling lights to life.

The basement was as crowded as the upstairs, only there was no sporting equipment down here. The walls and floors were covered with every one-man weapon imaginable. There were switchblades, clubs, swords, brass knuckles, and a full array of firearms from derringers to bazookas.

Abe went over to a cardboard box and rummaged through it.

“You want a slapper or the braided kind.”

“Braided.”

Abe tossed him something in a Zip-lok bag. Jack removed it and hefted it in his hand. The sap, sometimes called a blackjack, was made of thin strips of leather woven around a lead weight; the weave tightened and tapered down to a firm handle that ended in a looped thong for the wrist. Jack fitted it on and tried a few short swings. The flexibility allowed him to get his wrist into the motion, a feature that might come in handy at close quarters.

He stood looking at the sap.

This was the sort of thing that had frightened Gia off. He swung it once more, harder, striking the edge of a wooden shipping crate. There was a loud crack; splinters flew.

“This’ll do fine. How much?”

“Ten.”

Jack reached into his pocket. “Used to be eight.”

“That was years ago. One of these should last you a lifetime.”

“I lose things.” He handed over a ten-dollar bill and put the sap into his pocket.

“Need anything else while we’re down here?”

Jack ran a mental inventory of his weapons and ammunition. “No. I’m pretty well set.”

“Good. Then let’s go upstairs and we’ll have some cake and talk. You look like you need some talk.”

“Thanks, Abe,” Jack said, leading the way upstairs, “but I’ve got some errands to run before dark, so I’ll take a rain-check.”

“You hold things in too much. I’ve told you that before. We’re supposed to be friends. So talk it out. You don’t trust me anymore?”

“I trust you like crazy. It’s just…”

“What?”

“I’ll see you, Abe.”

15

It was after six when Jack got back to the apartment. With all the shades pulled, the front room was dark. It matched his mood.

He had checked in with his office; there had been no calls of any importance waiting for him. The answerphone here had no messages waiting.

He had a two-wheel, wire shopping cart with him, and in it a paper bag full of old clothing—woman’s clothing. He leaned the cart in a corner, then went to his bedroom. His wallet, loose cash, and the new sap went on top of his dresser, then he stripped down and got into a T-shirt and shorts. Time for his work-out. He didn’t want to—he felt emotionally and physically spent—but this was the only thing in his daily routine he had promised himself he would never let slide. His life depended on it.

He locked his apartment and jogged up the stairs.

The sun had done its worst and was on its way down the sky, but the roof remained an inferno. Its black surface would hold the day’s heat long into the night. Jack looked west into the haze that was reddening the lowering sun. On a clear day you could see New Jersey over there. If you wanted to. Someone had once told him that if you died in sin your soul went to New Jersey.

The roof was crowded. Not with people, with things. There was Appleton’s tomato patch in the southeast corner; he had carried the topsoil up bag by fifty-pound bag. Harry Bok had a huge CB antenna in the northeast corner. Centrally located was the diesel generator everybody had pitched in to buy after the July ’77 blackout; clustered against its north side like suckling piglets against their mama were a dozen two-gallon cans of number-one oil. And above it all, waving proudly from its slim two-inch pole, was Neil the Anarchist’s black flag.

Jack went over to the small wooden platform he had built for himself and did some stretching exercises, then went into his routine. He did his push-ups, sit-ups, jumped rope, practiced his tai kwon do kicks and chops, always moving, never stopping, until his body was slick with sweat and his hair hung in limp wet strands about his face and neck.

He spun at footsteps behind him.

“Hey, Jack.”

“Oh, Neil. Hi. Must be about that time.”

“Right you are.”

Neil went over to the pole and reverently lowered his black flag. He folded it neatly, tucked it under his arm, and headed for the steps, waving as he went. Jack leaned against the generator and shook his head. Odd for a man who despised all rules to be so punctual, yet you could set your watch by the comings and goings of Neil the Anarchist.

Back in the apartment, Jack stuck six frozen egg rolls in the microwave and programmed it to heat them while he took a quick shower. With his hair still wet, he opened a jar of duck sauce and a can of Shasta diet cola, and sat down in the kitchen.

The apartment felt empty. It hadn’t seemed that way this morning, but it was too quiet now. He moved his dinner into the tv room. The big screen lit up in the middle of a comfy domestic scene with a husband, a wife, two kids, and a dog. It reminded him of Sunday afternoons when Gia would bring Vicky over and he would hook up the Atari and teach the little girl how to zap asteroids and space invaders. He remembered watching Gia putter about the apartment; he had liked the way she moved, so efficient and bustling. She moved like a person who got things done. He found that immensely appealing.

He couldn’t say the same about the homey show that filled the screen now. He quickly flipped around the dial and across the cable. There was everything from news to reruns to a bunch of couples two-stepping around hip-to-hip like a parade of Changs and Engs dancing to a country fiddler.

Definitely Betamax time. Time for part two of Repairman Jack’s Unofficial James Whale Festival. The triumph of Whale’s directorial career was ready to run: The Bride of Frankenstein.

16

“You think I’m mad. Perhaps I am. But listen, Henry Frankenstein. While you were digging in your graves, piecing together dead tiss-yoos, I, my dear pupil, went for my material to the source of life…”

Earnest Thesiger as Dr. Praetorius—the greatest performance of his career—was lecturing his former student. The movie was only half over, but it was time to go. He’d pick up where he left off before bedtime. Too bad. He loved this movie. Especially the score—Franz Waxman’s best ever. Who’d have thought that later on in his career, the creator of such a majestic, stirring piece would wind up doing the incidental music for turkeys like Return to Peyton Place. Some people never get the recognition they deserve.

He pulled on a T-shirt with “The Byrds” written on the front; next came the shoulder holster with the little Semmerling under his left arm; a loose short-sleeved shirt went over that, followed by a pair of cut-off jeans, and sneakers—no socks. By the time he had everything loaded in his mini-shopping cart and was ready to go, darkness had settled on the city.

He walked down Amsterdam Avenue to where Bahkti’s grandmother had been attacked last night, found a deserted alley, and slipped into the shadows. He hadn’t wanted to leave his apartment house in drag—his neighbors already considered him more than a little odd—and this was as good a dressing room as any place else.

First he took off his outer shirt. Then he reached into the bag and pulled out the dress—good quality but out of fashion and in need of ironing. That went over the T-shirt and shoulder holster, followed by a gray wig, then black shoes with no heels. He didn’t want to look like a shopping-bag lady; a derelict had nothing to attract the man Jack was after. He wanted a look of faded dignity. New Yorkers see women like this all the time, in their late fifties on up toward eighty. They’re all the same. They trudge along, humped over not so much from a softening of the vertebrae as from the weight of life itself, their center of gravity thrust way forward, usually looking down, or if the head is raised, never looking anyone in the eye. The key word with them is alone. They make irresistible targets.

And Jack was going to be one of them tonight. As an added inducement, he slipped a good quality paste diamond ring onto the fourth finger of his left hand. He couldn’t let anyone get a close look at him, but he was sure the type of man he was searching for would spot the gleam from that ring a good two blocks away. And as a back-up attraction: a fat roll of bills, mostly singles, tight against his skin under one of the straps of his shoulder holster.

Jack put his sneakers and the sap into the paper bag in the upper basket of the little shopping cart. He checked himself in a store window: He’d never make it as a transvestite. Then he began a slow course along the sidewalk, dragging the cart behind him.

Time to go to work.

17

Gia found herself thinking of Jack and resented it. She was sitting across a tiny dinner table from Carl, a handsome, urbane, witty, intelligent man who professed to be quite taken with her. They were in an expensive little restaurant below street level on the Upper East Side. The decor was spare and clean, the wine white, dry, cold, the cuisine nouvelle. Jack should have been miles from her thoughts, and yet he was here, slouched across the table between them.

She kept remembering the sound of his voice on the answerphone this morning… “Pinocchio Productions. I’m out at the moment”… triggering other memories further in the past…

Like the time she had asked him why his answerphone always started off with “Pinocchio Productions” when there was no such company. Sure there is, he had said, jumping up and spinning around. Look: no strings. She hadn’t understood all the implications at the time.

And then to learn that among the “neat stuff” he had been picking up in second-hand stores was a whole collection of Vernon Grant art. She found out about that the day he gave Vicky a copy of Flibbity Gibbit. Gia had become familiar with Grant’s commercial work during her art school days—he was the creator of Kellogg’s Snap, Crackle, and Pop—and she had even swiped from him now and again when an assignment called for something elfin. She felt she had found a truly kindred spirit upon discovering that Jack was a fan of Vernon Grant. And Vicky… Vicky treasured Flibbity Gibbit and had made “Wowie-kee-flowie!” her favorite expression.

She straightened herself in her chair. Out, damned Jack! Out, I say! She had to start answering Carl in something more than monosyllables.

She told him her idea about changing the thrust of the Burger-Meister placemats from services to desserts. He was effusive in his praise, saying she should be a copywriter as well as an artist. That launched him onto the subject of the new campaign for his biggest client, Wee Folk children’s clothes. There was work in it for Gia and perhaps even a modeling gig for Vicky.

Poor Carl… he had tried so hard to hit it off with Vicky tonight. As usual, he had failed miserably. Some people never learn how to talk to kids. They turn the volume up and enunciate with extra care, as if talking to a partially deaf immigrant. They sound like they’re reading lines somebody else wrote for them, or as if what they’re saying is really for the benefit of other adults listening and not just for the child. Kids sense that and turn off.

But Vicky hadn’t been turned off this afternoon. Jack knew how to talk to her. When he spoke it was to Vicky and to no one else. There was instant rapport between those two. Perhaps because there was a lot of little boy in Jack, a part of him that had never grown up. But if Jack was a little boy, he was a dangerous little boy. He—Why did he keep creeping back into her thoughts? Jack is the past. Carl is the future. Concentrate on Carl!

She drained her wine and stared at Carl. Good old Carl. Gia held her glass out for more wine. She wanted lots of wine tonight.

18

His eye was killing him.

He sat hunched in the dark recess of the doorway, glowering at the street. He’d probably have to spend the whole night here unless something came along soon.

The waiting was the worst part, man. The waiting and the hiding. Word was probably out among the pigs to be on the lookout for a guy with a scratched eye. Which meant he couldn’t hit the street and go looking, and he hadn’t been in town long enough to find someone to crash with. So he had to sit here and wait for something to come to him.

All because of that rotten bitch.

He fingered the gauze patch taped over his left eye and winced at the shock of pain elicited by even the gentlest touch. Bitch! She had damn near gouged his eye out last night. But he showed her. Fucking-ay right. Bounced her around good after that. And later on, in this very same doorway, when he’d gone through her wallet and found a grand total of seventeen bucks, and had seen that the necklace was nothing but junk, he’d been tempted to go back and do a tap dance on her head, but figured the pigs would’ve found her by then.

And then to top it all off, he’d had to spend most of the bread on eye patches and ointment. He was worse off now than when he’d rolled the bitch.

He hoped she was hurting now… hurting real good. He knew he was.

Should never have come east, man. He’d had to get out of Detroit fast after getting carried away with a pry bar on that guy changing a tire out by the interstate. Easier to get lost here than someplace like, say, Saginaw, but he didn’t know anybody.

He leaned back and watched the street with his good eye. Some weird-looking old lady was hobbling by on shoes that looked too small for her, pulling a shopping basket behind her. Not much there. He passed her over as not worth the trouble of a closer look.

19

Who am I kidding? Jack thought. He had been trudging up and down every West Side street in the area for hours now. His back was aching from walking hunched over. If the mugger had stayed in the neighborhood, Jack would have passed him by now.

Damn the heat and damn the dress and most of all damn the goddamn wig. I’ll never find this guy.

But it wasn’t only the futility of tonight’s quest that was getting to him. The afternoon had hit him hard.

Jack prided himself on being a man of few illusions. He believed there was a balance to life and he based that belief on Jack’s Law of Social Dynamics: For every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction wasn’t necessarily automatic or inevitable; life wasn’t like thermodynamics. Sometimes the reaction had to be helped along. That was where Repairman Jack came into the picture. He was in the business of making some of those reactions happen. He liked to think of himself as a sort of catalyst.

Jack knew he was a violent man. He made no excuses for that. He had come to terms with it. He had hoped Gia could eventually come to understand it.

When Gia had left him he’d convinced himself that it was all a big misunderstanding, that all he needed was a chance to talk to her and everything would be straightened out, that it was just her Italian pig-headedness keeping them apart. Well, he had had his chance this afternoon and it was obvious there was no hope of a common ground with Gia. She wanted no part of him.

He frightened her.

That was the hardest part to accept. He had scared her off. Not by wronging her or betraying her, but simply by letting her know the truth… by letting her know what Repairman Jack fixed, and how he went about his work, and what tools he used.

One of them was wrong. Until this afternoon it had been easy to believe that it was Gia. Not so easy tonight. He believed in Gia, believed in her sensitivity, her perceptiveness. And she found him repugnant.

A soul-numbing lethargy seeped through him.

What if she’s right? What if I am nothing more than a high-priced hoodlum who’s rationalized his way into believing he’s one of the good guys?

Jack shook himself. Self-doubt was a stranger to him. He wasn’t sure how to fight back. And he had to fight it. He wouldn’t change the way he lived; doubted he could if he wanted to. He had spent too long on the outside to find his way back in again—

Something about the guy sitting in the doorway he had just passed… something about that face in the shadows that his unconscious had spotted in passing but had not yet sent up to his forebrain. Something…

Jack let go of the shopping basket handle. It clattered to the sidewalk. As he bent to pick it up, he glanced back at the doorway.

The guy was young with short blond hair—and had a white gauze patch over his left eye. Jack felt his heart increase its tempo. This was almost too good to be true. Yet there he was, keeping back in the shadows, doubtlessly well-aware that his patch marked him. It had to be him. If not, it was one hell of a coincidence. Jack had to be sure.

He picked up the cart and stood still for a moment, deciding his next move. Patch had noticed him, but seemed indifferent. Jack would have to change that.

With a cry of delight, he bent and pretended to pick something out from under the wheel of the cart. As he straightened, he turned his back to the street—but remained in full view of Patch, whom he pretended not to see—and dug inside the top of his dress. He removed the roll of bills, made sure Patch got a good look at its thickness, then pretended to wrap a new bill around it. He stuffed it back in his ersatz bra, and continued on his way.

About a hundred feet on, he stopped to adjust a shoe and took advantage of the moment to sneak a look behind: Patch was out of the shadows and following him down the street.

Good. Now to arrange a rendezvous.

He removed the sap from the paper bag and slipped his wrist through the thong, then went on until he came to an alley. Without an apparent care in the world, he turned into it and let the darkness swallow him.

Jack had moved maybe two dozen feet down the littered path when he heard the sound he knew would come: quick, stealthy footsteps approaching from the rear. When the sound was almost upon him, he lurched to the left and flattened his back against the wall. A dark form hurtled by and fell sprawling over the cart.

Amid the clatter of metal and muttered curses, the figure scrambled to its feet and faced him. Jack felt truly alive now, reveling in the pulses of excitement crackling like bolts of lightning through his nervous system, anticipating one of the fringe benefits of his work—giving a punk like this a taste of his own medicine.

Patch seemed hesitant. Unless he was very stupid, he must have realized that his prey had moved a bit too fast for an old lady. Jack did not want to spook him, so he made no move. He simply crouched against the alley wall and let out a high-pitched howl that would have put Una O’Connor to shame.

Patch jumped and glanced up and down the alley.

“Hey! Shut up!”

Jack screamed again.

“Shut the fuck up!”

But Jack only crouched lower, gripped the handle of the sap tighter, and screamed once more.

“Awright, bitch!” Patch said through his teeth as he charged forward. “You asked for it.” There was anticipation in his voice. Jack could tell he liked beating up people who couldn’t fight back. As Patch loomed over him with raised fists, Jack straightened to his full height, bringing his left hand up from the floor. He caught Patch across the face with a hard, stinging, open-palmed slap that rocked him back on his heels.

Jack knew what would follow, so he was moving to his right even as he swung. Sure enough, as soon as Patch regained his balance, he started for the street. He had just made a big mistake and he knew it. Probably thought he had picked an undercover cop to roll. As he darted by on his way to freedom, Jack stepped in and swung the sap at Patch’s skull. Not a hard swing—a flick of the wrist, really—but it connected with a satisfying thunk. Patch’s body went slack, but not before his reflexes had jerked him away from Jack. His momentum carried him head first into the far wall. He settled to the floor of the alley with a sigh.

Jack shucked off the wig and dress and got back into his sneakers, then he went over and nudged Patch with his foot. He groaned and rolled over. He appeared dazed, so Jack reached out with his free hand and shook him by the shoulder. Without warning, Patch’s right arm whipped around, slashing at Jack with the four-inch blade protruding from his fist. Jack grabbed the wrist with one hand and poked at a spot behind Patch’s left ear, just below the mastoid. Patch grunted with pain; as Jack applied more and more pressure, he began flopping around like a fish on a hook. Finally he dropped the knife. As Jack relaxed his hold, Patch made a leap to retrieve the knife. Jack had half expected this. The sap still hung from his wrist by its thong. He grabbed it and smashed it across the back of Patch’s hand, putting all of his wrist and a good deal of his forearm behind the blow. The crunch of bone was followed by a scream of pain.

“You broke it!” He rolled onto his belly and then back onto his side. “I’ll have your ass for this, pig!” He moaned and whined and swore incoherently, all the while cradling his injured hand.

“Pig?” Jack said in his softest voice. “No such luck, friend. This is personal.”

The moaning stopped. Patch peered through the darkness with his good eye, a worried look on his face. As he placed his good hand against the wall to prop himself up, Jack raised the sap for another blow.

“No fair, man!” He quickly withdrew the hand and lay down again. “No fair!”

“Fair?” Jack laughed as nastily as he could. “Were you going to be fair to the old lady you thought you had trapped here? No rules in this alley, friend. Just you and me. And I’m here to get you.”

He saw Patch’s eye widen; his tone echoed the fear in his face.

“Look, man. I don’t know what’s goin’ down here, but you got the wrong guy. I only came in from Michigan last week.”

“Not interested in last week, friend. Just last night… the old lady you rolled.”

“Hey, I didn’t roll no old lady! No way!” Patch flinched and whimpered as Jack raised the sap menacingly. “I swear to God, man! I swear!”

Jack had to admit the guy was good. Very convincing. “I’ll help your memory a little: Her car broke down; she wore a heavy necklace that looked like silver and had two yellow stones in the middle; and she used her fingernails on your eye.” As he saw comprehension begin to dawn in Patch’s eye, he felt his anger climbing towards the danger point. “She wasn’t in the hospital yesterday, but she is today. And you put her there. She may kick off any time. And if she does, it’s your fault.”

“No, wait, man! Listen—”

He grabbed Patch by the hair at the top of his head and rapped his skull against the brick wall. “You listen! I want the necklace. Where’d you fence it?”

“Fence it? That piece of shit? I threw it away!”

“Where?”

“I don’t know!”

“Remember!” Jack rapped Patch’s head against the wall again for emphasis.

He kept seeing that frail old lady fading into the hospital bed, barely able to speak because of the beating she had received at this creep’s hands. A dark place was opening up inside him. Careful! Control! He needed Patch conscious.

“Alright! Lemme think!”

Jack managed a slow, deep breath. Then another.

“Think. You’ve got thirty seconds.”

It didn’t take that long.

“I thought it was silver. But when I got it under a light I saw it wasn’t.”

“You want me to believe you didn’t even try to get a few bucks for it?”

“I… I didn’t like it.”

Jack hesitated, not sure of how to take that.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t like it, man. Something about it didn’t feel right. I just threw it in some bushes.”

“No bushes around here.”

Patch flinched. “Are too! Two blocks down!”

Jack yanked him to his feet. “Show me.”

Patch was right. Between West End and Twelfth Avenues, where Fifty-eighth Street slopes down toward the Hudson River, was a small clump of privet hedge, the kind Jack had spent many a Saturday morning as a kid trimming in front of his parents’ home in Jersey. With Patch lying face down on the pavement by his feet, Jack reached into the bushes. A little rummaging around among the gum wrappers, used tissues, decaying leaves, and other less easily identifiable refuse produced the necklace.

Jack looked at it as it gleamed dully in the glow from a nearby streetlight. I’ve done it! Goddammit, I’ve done it!

He hefted it in his palm. Heavy. Had to be uncomfortable to wear. Why did Kusum want it back so badly? As he held it in his hand he began to understand what Patch had said to him about it not feeling right. It didn’t feel right. He found it hard to describe the sensation more clearly than that.

Crazy! he thought. This thing’s nothing more than sculpted iron and a couple of topaz-like stones.

Yet he could barely resist the primitive urge to hurl the necklace across the street and run the other way.

“You gonna let me go now?” Patch said, rising to his feet. His left hand was a dusky, mottled blue now, swollen to nearly twice its normal size. He cradled it gingerly against his chest.

Jack held up the necklace. “This is what you beat up an old lady for,” he said in a low voice, feeling the rage pushing toward the surface. “She’s all busted up in a hospital bed now because you wanted to rip this off, and then you threw it away.”

“Look, man!” Patch said, pointing his good hand at Jack. “You’ve got it wrong—”

Jack saw the hand gesturing in the air two feet in front of him and the rage within him suddenly exploded outward. Without warning, he swung the sap hard against Patch’s right hand. As before, there was a crunch and a howl of pain.

As Patch sank to his knees, moaning, Jack walked past him back toward West End Avenue.

“Let’s see you roll an old lady now, tough guy.”

The darkness within him began to retreat. Without looking back, he began walking toward the more populated sections of town. The necklace tingled uncomfortably against the inside of his palm.

He wasn’t far from the hospital. He broke into a run. He wanted to be rid of the necklace as soon as possible.

20

The end was near.

Kusum had sent the private duty nurse out into the hall and now stood alone at the head of the bed holding the withered hand in his. Anger had receded, as had frustration and bitterness. Not gone, simply tucked away out of sight until they would be needed. They had been moved aside to leave a void within him.

The futility of it all. All those years of life cancelled out by a moment of viciousness.

He could not dredge up a shred of hope for seeing the necklace returned before the end. No one could find it in time, not even the highly recommended Repairman Jack. If it was in her karma to die without the necklace, then Kusum would have to accept it. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing he had done everything in his power to retrieve it.

A knock at the door. The private duty nurse stuck her head in. “Mr. Bahkti?”

He repressed the urge to scream at her. It would feel so good to scream at someone.

“I told you I wished to be alone in here.”

“I know. But there’s a man out here. He insisted I give you this.” She held out her hand. “Said you were expecting it.”

Kusum stepped toward the door. He could not imagine…

Something dangled from her hand. It looked like—it wasn’t possible!

He snatched the necklace from her fingers.

It’s true! It’s real! He found it! Kusum wanted to sing out his joy, to dance with the startled nurse. Instead, he pushed her out the door and rushed to the bedside. The clasp was broken, so he wrapped the necklace about the throat of the nearly lifeless form there.

“It’s all right now!” he whispered in their native tongue. “You’re going to be all right!”

He stepped out into the hall and saw the private duty nurse.

“Where is he?”

She pointed down the hall. “At the nursing station. He’s not even supposed to be on the floor but he was very insistent.”

I’m sure he was. Kusum pointed toward the room. “See to her.” Then he hurried down the hall.

He found Jack, dressed in ragged shorts and mismatched shirts—he had seen better dressed stall attendants at the Calcutta bazaar—leaning against the counter at the nursing station, arguing with a burly head nurse who turned to Kusum as he approached.

“Mr. Bahkti, you are allowed on the floor because of your grandmother’s critical condition. But that doesn’t mean you can have your friends wandering in and out at all hours of the night!”

Kusum barely looked at her. “We will be but a minute. Go on about your business. “

He turned to Jack, who looked hot and tired and sweaty. Oh, for two arms to properly embrace this man, even though he probably smells like everyone else in this country of beef eaters. Certainly an extraordinary man. Thank Kali for extraordinary men, no matter what their race or dietary habits.

“I assume I made it in time?” Jack said.

“Yes. Just in time. She will be well now.”

The American’s brow furrowed. “It’s going to patch her up?”

“No, of course not. But knowing it has been returned will help her up here.” He tapped his forefinger against his temple. “For here is where all healing resides.”

“Sure,” Jack said, his expression hiding none of his skepticism. “Anything you say.”

“I suppose you wish the rest of your fee.”

Jack nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

He pulled the thick envelope out of his tunic and thrust it at Jack. Despite his prior conviction of the utter futility of his ever seeing the stolen necklace again, Kusum had kept the packet with him as a gesture of hope and of faith in the Goddess he prayed to. “I wish it were more. I don’t know how to thank you enough. Words cannot express how much—”

“It’s okay,” Jack said quickly. Kusum’s outpouring of gratitude seemed to embarrass him.

Kusum, too, was taken aback by the intensity of the emotions within him. He had completely given up hope. He had asked this man, a stranger, to perform an impossible task, and it had been done! He detested emotional displays, but his customary control over his feelings had slipped since the nurse had placed the necklace in his hand.

“Where did you find it?”

“I found the guy who stole it and convinced him to take me to it.”

Kusum felt his fist clench and the muscles at the back of his neck bunch involuntarily. “Did you kill him as I asked?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope. But he won’t be punching out old ladies for some time. In fact, he should be showing up in the emergency room here pretty soon to get something for the pain in his hands. Don’t worry. He’s been paid back in kind. I fixed it.”

Kusum nodded silently, hiding the storm of hatred raging across his mind. Mere pain was not enough, however—not nearly enough! The man responsible here must pay with his life!

“Very well, Mr. Jack. My… family and I owe you a debt of gratitude. If there is ever anything you need that is in my power to secure for you, any goal that is in my power to achieve, you have merely to ask. All efforts within the realm of human possibility”—he could not repress a smile here— “and perhaps even beyond, will be expended on your behalf.”

“Thank you,” Jack said with a smile and a slight bow. “I hope that won’t be necessary. I think I’ll be heading home now.”

“Yes. You look tired.” But as Kusum studied him, he sensed more than mere physical fatigue. There was an inner pain that hadn’t been present this morning… a spiritual exhaustion. Was something fragmenting this man? He hoped not. That would be tragic. He wished he could ask, but did not feel he had the right. “Rest well.”

He watched until the American had been swallowed by the elevator, then he returned to the room. The private duty nurse met him at the door.

“She seems to be rallying, Mr. Bahkti! Respirations are deeper, and her blood pressure’s up!”

“Excellent!” Nearly twenty-four hours of constant tension began to unravel within him. She would live. He was sure of it now. “Have you a safety pin?”

The nurse looked at him quizzically but went to her purse on the windowsill and produced one. Kusum took it and used it as a clasp for the necklace, then turned to the nurse.

“This necklace is not to be removed for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?”

The nurse nodded timidly. “Yes sir. Quite clear.”

“I will be elsewhere in the hospital for a while,” he said, starting for the door. “If you should need me, have me paged.”

Kusum took the elevator down to the first floor and followed signs to the emergency room. He had learned that this was the largest hospital serving the midtown West Side of Manhattan. Jack had said that he had injured the mugger’s hands. If he should seek medical care, it would be here.

He took a seat in the waiting area of the emergency department. It was crowded. People of all sizes and colors brushed against him on their way in and out of the examining rooms, back and forth to the receptionist counter. He found the odors and the company distasteful, but intended to wait a few hours here. He was vaguely aware of the attention he drew, but was used to it. A one-armed man dressing as he did in the company of westerners soon became immune to curious stares. He ignored them. They were not worthy of his concern.

It was less than half an hour before an injured man entered and grabbed Kusum’s attention. His left eye was patched and both his hands were swollen to twice their normal size.

This was the one! There could be no doubt. Kusum barely restrained himself from leaping up and attacking the man. He seethed as he sat and watched a secretary in the reception booth begin to help him fill out the standard questionnaire his useless hands could not. A man who broke people with his hands had had his hands broken. Kusum relished the poetry of it.

He walked over and stood next to the man. As he leaned against the counter, looking as if he wished to ask the secretary a question, he glanced down at the form. “Daniels, Ronald, 359 W. 53rd St.” Kusum stared at Ronald Daniels, who was too intent on hurrying the completion of the form to notice him. Between answers to the secretary’s questions, he whined about the pain in his hands. When asked about the circumstances of the injury, he said a jack had slipped while he had been changing a tire and his car had fallen on him.

Smiling, Kusum went back to his seat and waited. He saw Ronald Daniels led into an examining room, saw him wheeled out to x-ray in a chair, and then back to the examining room. There was a long wait, and then Ronald Daniels was wheeled out again, this time with casts from the middle of his fingers up to his elbows. And all the while there was not a single moment when he was not complaining of pain.

Another stroll over to the reception booth and Kusum learned that Mr. Daniels was being admitted overnight for observation. Kusum hid his annoyance. That would complicate matters. He had been hoping to catch up with him outside and deal with him personally. But there was another way to settle his score with Ronald Daniels.

He returned to the private room and received a very favorable update from the amazed nurse.

“She’s doing wonderfully—even spoke to me a moment ago! Such spirit!”

“Thank you for your help, Miss Wiles,” Kusum said. “I don’t think we’ll be requiring your services any longer.”

“But—”

“Have no fear: You shall be paid for the entire eight-hour shift.” He went to the windowsill, took her purse and handed it to her. “You’ve done a wonderful job. Thank you.”

Ignoring her confused protests, he guided her out the door and into the hall. As soon as he was sure she would not be returning out of some misguided sense of duty to her patient, he went to the bedside phone and dialed hospital information.

“I’d like to know the room number of a patient,” he said when the operator picked up. “His name is Ronald Daniels. He was just admitted through the emergency room.”

There was a pause, then: “Ronald Daniels is in 547C, North Wing.”

Kusum hung up and leaned back in the chair. How to go about this? He had seen where the doctors’ lounge was located. Perhaps he could find a set of whites or a scrub suit in there. Dressed in those and without his turban, he would be able to move about the hospital more freely.

As he considered his options, he pulled a tiny glass vial from his pocket and removed the stopper. He sniffed the familiar herbal odor of the green liquid within, then resealed it.

Mr. Ronald Daniels was in pain. He had suffered for his transgression. But not enough. No, not nearly enough.

21

“HELP ME!”

Ron had just been drifting off into sleep. Goddamn that old bastard! Every time he started to fall asleep, the old fart yelled.

Just my luck to get stuck in a ward with three geezers. He elbowed the call button. Where’s that fucking nurse? He needed a shot.

The pain was a living thing, grinding Ron’s hands in its teeth and gnawing his arms all the way up to the shoulders. All he wanted to do was sleep. But the pain kept him awake. The pain and the oldest of his three ancient roommates, the one over by the window, the one the nurses called Tommy. Every so often, in between his foghorn snores, he’d let out a yell that would rattle the windows.

Ron hit the call button again with his elbow. Because both his arms were resting in slings suspended from an overhead bar, the nurses had fastened the button to one of the side rails. He had asked them repeatedly for another pain shot, but they kept giving him the same old line over and over: “Sorry, Mr. Daniels, but the doctor left orders for a shot every four hours and no more. You’ll have to wait.”

Mr. Daniels. He could almost smile at that. His real name was Ronald Daniel Symes. Ron to his friends. He’d given the receptionist a phony name, a phony address, and told them his Blue Cross/Blue Shield card was at home in his wallet. And when they’d wanted to send him home he’d told them how he lived alone and had no one to feed him or even help him open his apartment door. They’d bought it all. So now he had a place to stay, three meals a day, air conditioning, and when it was all over, he’d skip out and they could take their bill and shove it.

Everything would be great if it weren’t for the pain.

“HELP ME!”

The pain and Tommy.

He hit the button again. Four hours had to be up! He needed that shot!

The door to the room swung open and someone came in. It wasn’t a nurse. It was a guy. But he was dressed in white. Maybe a male nurse. Great! All he needed now was some faggot trying to give him a bed bath in the middle of the night.

But the guy only leaned over the bed and held out one of those tiny plastic medicine cups. Half an inch of colored liquid was inside.

“What’s this?”

“For the pain.” The guy was dark and had some sort of accent.

“I want a shot, clown!”

“Not time yet for a shot. This will hold you until then.”

“It better.”

Ron let him tip the cup up to his lips. It was funny tasting stuff. As he swallowed it, he noticed the guy’s left arm was missing. He pulled his head away.

“And listen,” he said, feeling a sudden urge to throw his weight around—after all, he was a patient here. “Tell them out there I don’t want no more cripples coming in here.”

In the darkness, Ron thought he detected a smile on the face above him.

“Certainly, Mr. Daniels. I shall see to it that your next attendant is quite sound of limb.”

“Good. Now take off, geek.”

“Very well.”

Ron decided he liked being a patient. He could give orders and people had to listen. And why not? He was sick and—

“HELP ME!”

If only he could order Tommy to stop.

The junk the geek had given him didn’t seem to be helping his pain. Only thing to do was try to sleep. He thought about that bastard cop who’d busted up his hands tonight. He said it was private, but Ron knew a pig when he saw one. He swore he’d find that sadist bastard even if he had to hang around every precinct house in New York until winter. And then Ron would follow him home. He wouldn’t get back at him directly —Ron had a bad feeling about that guy and didn’t want to be around if he ever got really mad. But maybe he had a wife and kids…

Ron lay there in a half-doze for a good forty-five minutes planning what he’d do to get even with the pig. He was just tipping over the edge into a deep sleep, falling… finally falling…

“HELP ME!”

Ron jerked violently in the bed, pulling his right arm out of the suspensory sling and knocking it against the side rail. A fiery blast of pain shot up to his shoulder. Tears squeezed out of his eyes as breath hissed noisily through his bared teeth.

When the pain subsided to a more tolerable level, he knew what he had to do.

That old fucker, Tommy, had to go.

Ron pulled his left arm out of its sling, then eased himself over the side rail. The floor was cold. He lifted his pillow between his two casts and padded over to Tommy’s bed. All he had to do was lay it over the old guy’s face and lean on it. A few minutes of that and poof, no more snores, no more yells, no more Tommy.

He saw something move outside the window as he passed by it. He looked closer. It was a shadow, like somebody’s head and shoulders. A big somebody.

But this was the fifth floor!

He had to be hallucinating. That stuff in the cup must have been stronger than he thought. He bent closer to the window for a better look. What he saw there held him transfixed for a long, agonal heartbeat. It was a face out of a nightmare, worse than all his nightmares combined. And those glowing yellow eyes…

A scream started in his throat as he reflexively lurched backward. But before it could reach his lips, a taloned, three-fingered hand smashed through the double pane and clamped savagely, unerringly around his throat. Ron felt incredible pressure against his windpipe, crushing it closed against his cervical spine with an explosive crunch. The rough flesh against the skin of his throat was cool and damp, almost slimy, with a rotten stench arising from it. He caught a glimpse of smooth dark skin stretched over a long, lean, muscular arm leading out through the shattered glass to… what? He arched his back and clawed at the imprisoning fingers but they were like a steel collar around his neck. As he struggled vainly for air, his vision blurred. And then, with a smooth, almost casual motion, he felt himself yanked bodily through the window, felt the rest of the glass shatter with his passage, the shards either falling away or raking savagely at his flesh. He had one soul-numbing, moon-limned glimpse of his attacker before his vision was mercifully extinguished by his oxygen-starved brain.

And back in the room, after that final instant of crashing noise, all was quiet again. Two of the remaining patients, deep in Dalmane dreams, stirred in their beds and turned over. Tommy, the closest to the window, shouted “HELP ME!” and then went back to snoring.

chapter two

bharangpur, west bengal, india
wednesday, June 24, 1857

It’s all gone wrong. Every bleeding thing gone wrong!

Captain Sir Albert Westphalen of the Bengal European Fusiliers stood in the shade of an awning between two market stalls and sipped cool water from a jug freshly drawn from a well. It was a glorious relief to be shielded from direct attack by the Indian sun, but there was no escaping the glare. It bounced off the sand in the street, off the white stucco walls of the buildings, even off the pale hides of those nasty humpbacked bulls roaming freely through the marketplace. The glare drove the heat through his eyes to the very center of his brain. He dearly wished he could pour the contents of the jug over his head and let the water trickle down the length of his body.

But no. He was a gentleman in the uniform of Her Majesty’s army and surrounded by heathens. He couldn’t do anything so undignified. So he stood here in the shade, his high-domed pith helmet square upon his head, his buff uniform smelly and sopping in the armpits and buttoned up tight at the throat, and pretended the heat didn’t bother him. He ignored the sweat soaking the thin hair under his helmet, oozing down over his face, clinging to the dark moustache he had so carefully trimmed and waxed this morning, gathering in drops at his chin to fall off onto his tunic.

Oh, for a breeze. Or better still, rain. But neither was due for another month. He had heard that when the summer monsoon started blowing from the southwest in July there would be plenty of rain. Until then, he and his men would have to fry.

It could be worse.

He could have been sent with the others to retake Meerut and Delhi from the rebels… forced marches along the Ganges basin in full uniform and kit, rushing to face hordes of crazed Sepoys waving their bloody talwars and shouting “Din! Din! Din!”

He shuddered. Not for me, thank you very much.

Luckily, the rebellion had not spread this far east, at least not to any appreciable extent. That was fine with Westphalen. He intended to stay as far away from the pandies as he could. He knew from regimental records that there were a total of 20,000 British troops on the subcontinent. What if all of India’s untold millions decided to rise up and end the British Raj? It was a recurrent nightmare. There would be no more Raj.

And no more East India Company. Which, Westphalen knew, was the real reason the army was here—to protect “John Company’s” interests. He had sworn to fight for the Crown and he was willing—up to a point—to do that, but he’d be damned if he was going to die fighting for a bunch of tea traders. After all, he was a gentleman and had only accepted a commission out here to forestall the financial catastrophe threatening his estate. And perhaps to make some contacts during his term of service. He had arranged for a purely administrative job: no danger. All part of a simple plan to allow him time to find a way to recoup his considerable gambling losses—one might even say incredible losses for a man just forty years of age—and then go home and straighten out his debts. He grimaced at the enormous amount of money he had squandered since his father had died and the baronetcy had passed to him.

But his luck had run true here on the far side of the world—it stayed bad. There had been years of peace in India before he had come—a little trouble here and there, but nothing serious. The Raj had seemed totally secure. But now he knew that dissension and discontent among the native recruits had been bubbling beneath the surface, waiting, it seemed, for his arrival. He had been here not even a year, and what happened? The Sepoys go on a rampage!

It wasn’t fair.

But it could be worse, Albert, old boy, he told himself for the thousandth time that day. It could be worse.

And it most certainly could be far better. Better to be back in Calcutta at Fort William. Not much cooler, but closer to the sea there. If India explodes, it’s just a hop and a skip to a boat on the Hoogly River and then off to the safety of the Bay of Bengal.

He took another sip and leaned his back against the wall. It wasn’t an officerly posture but he really didn’t give a bloody damn at this point. His office was like a freshly stoked furnace. The only sane thing to do was to stay here under the awning with a water jug until the sun got lower in the sky. Three o’clock now. It should be cooling down soon.

He waved his hand through the air around his face. If he ever got out of India alive, the one thing he would remember more vividly than the heat and humidity were the flies. They were everywhere, encrusting everything in the marketplace— the pineapples, the oranges, the lemons, the piles of rice—all were covered with black dots that moved and flew and hovered, and lit again. Bold, arrogant flies that landed on your face and darted away just before you could slap them.

That incessant buzz—was it shoppers busy haggling with the merchants, or was it hordes of flies?

The smell of hot bread wafted by his nose. The couple in the stall across the alley to his left sold chupattis, little disks of unleavened bread that were a dietary staple of everyone in India, rich and poor alike. He remembered trying them on a couple of occasions and finding them tasteless. For the last hour the woman had been leaning over a dung fire cooking an endless stream of chupattis on flat iron plates. The temperature of the air around that fire had to be a hundred and thirty degrees.

How do these people stand it?

He closed his eyes and wished for a world free of heat, drought, avaricious creditors, senior officers, and rebellious Sepoys. He kept them closed, enjoying the relative darkness behind the lids. It would be nice to spend the rest of the day like this, just leaning here and—

It wasn’t a sound that snapped his eyes open; it was the lack of it. The street had gone utterly silent. As he straightened from the wall, he could see the shoppers who had been busy inspecting goods and haggling over prices now disappearing into alleys and side streets and doorways—no rush, no panic, but moving with deliberate swiftness, as if they had all suddenly remembered somewhere else they had to be.

Only the merchants remained… the merchants and their flies.

Wary and uneasy, Westphalen gripped the handle of the sabre slung at his left hip. He had been trained in its use but had never actually had to defend himself with it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to now.

He sensed movement off to his left and turned.

A squat little toad of a man swathed in the orange dhoti of a holy man was leading a train of six mules on a leisurely course down the middle of the street.

Westphalen allowed himself to relax. Just a svamin of some sort. There was always one or another of them about.

As he watched, the priest veered to the far side of the street and stopped his mules before a cheese stand. He did not move from his place at the head of the train, did not even look left or right. He simply stood and waited. The cheese maker quickly gathered up some of his biggest blocks and wheels and brought them out to the little man, who inclined his head a few degrees after an instant’s glance at the offering. The merchant put these in a sack tied to the back of one of the mules, then retreated to the rear of his stall.

Not a rupee had changed hands.

Westphalen watched with growing amazement.

Next stop was on Westphalen’s side of the street, the chupatti stall next door. The husband brought a basketful out for inspection. Another nod, and these too were deposited on the back of a mule.

Again, no money changed hands—and no questions about quality. Westphalen had never seen anything like it since his arrival in India. These merchants would haggle with their mothers over the price of breakfast.

He could imagine only one thing that could wring such cooperation from them: fear.

The priest moved on without stopping at the water stand.

“Something wrong with your water?” Westphalen said to the vendor squatting on the ground beside him. He spoke in English. He saw no reason to learn an Indian tongue, and had never tried. There were fourteen major languages on this Godforsaken subcontinent and something like two hundred and fifty dialects. An absurd situation. What few words he had picked up had been through osmosis rather than conscious effort. After all, it was the natives’ responsibility to learn to understand him. And most of them did, especially the merchants.

“The temple has its own water,” the vendor said without looking up.

“Which temple is that?”

Westphalen wanted to know what the priest held over these merchants’ heads to make them so compliant. It was information that might prove useful in the future.

“The Temple-in-the-Hills.”

“I didn’t know there was a temple in the hills.”

This time the water vendor raised his turbaned head and stared at him. The dark eyes held a disbelieving look, as if to say, How could you not know?

“And to which one of your heathen gods is this particular temple dedicated?” His words seemed to echo in the surrounding silence.

The water vendor whispered, “Kali, The Black Goddess.”

Oh, yes. He had heard that name before. She was supposedly popular in the Bengal region. These Hindus had more gods than you could shake a stick at. A strange religion, Hinduism. He had heard that it had little or no dogma, no founder, and no leader. Really—what kind of a religion was that?

“I thought her big temple was down near Calcutta, at Dakshinesvar.”

“There are many temples to Kali,” the water vendor said. “But none like the Temple-in-the-Hills.”

“Really? And what’s so special about this one?”

“Rakoshi.”

“What’s that?”

But the water vendor lowered his head and refused to respond any further. It was as if he thought he had said too much already.

Six weeks ago, Westphalen would not have tolerated such insolence. But six weeks ago a rebellion by the Sepoys had been unthinkable.

He took a final sip of the water, tossed a coin into the silent vendor’s lap, and stepped out into the full ferocity of the sun. The air in the open was like a blast from a burning house. He felt the dust that perpetually overhung the street mix with the beads of perspiration on his face, leaving him coated with a fine layer of salty mud.

He followed the svamin through the rest of the marketplace, watching the chosen merchants donate the best of their wares without a grumble or a whimper, as if glad of the opportunity. Westphalen tracked him through most of Bharangpur, along its widest thoroughfares, down its narrowest alleys. And everywhere the priest and his mule train went, the people faded away at his approach and reappeared in his wake.

Finally, as the sun was drifting down the western sky, the priest came to the north gate.

Now we’ve got him, Westphalen thought.

All pack animals were to be inspected for contraband before allowed exit from Bharangpur or any other garrisoned town. The fact that there was no known rebel activity anywhere in Bengal did not matter; it was a general order and as such had to be enforced.

Westphalen watched from a distance of about two hundred yards. He would wait until the lone British sentry had begun the inspection, then he would stroll over as if on a routine patrol of the gate and learn a little more about this svamin and his temple in the hills.

He saw the priest stop at the gate and speak to a sentry with an Enfield casually slung across his back. They seemed like old friends. After a few moments, without inspection or detention, the priest resumed his path through the gate—but not before Westphalen had seen him press something into the sentry’s palm. It was a flash of movement. If Westphalen had blinked he would have missed it.

The priest and his mules were beyond the wall and on their way toward the hills in the northwest by the time Westphalen reached the gate.

“Give me your rifle, soldier!”

The sentry saluted, then shrugged the Enfield off his shoulder and handed it to Westphalen without question. Westphalen knew him. His name was MacDougal, an enlisted man —young, red-faced, hard-fighting, hard-drinking, like most of his fellow Bengal European Fusiliers. In his three weeks as commander of the Bharangpur garrison, Westphalen had come to think of him as a good soldier.

“I’m placing you under arrest for dereliction of duty!”

MacDougal blanched. “Sir, I—”

“And for taking a bribe!”

“I tried to give it back to ’im, sir!”

Westphalen laughed. This soldier must think him blind as well as stupid!

“Of course you did! Just like you gave his mules a thorough inspection.”

“Old Jaggernath’s only bringing supplies to the temple, sir. I’ve been here two years, Captain, and ’e’s come by every month, like clockwork, every new moon. Only brings food out to the hills, ’e does, sir.”

“He must be inspected like everybody else.”

MacDougal glanced after the retreating mule train. “Jaggernath said they don’t like their food touched, sir. Only by their own kind.”

“Well, isn’t that a pity! And I suppose you let him pass uninspected out of the goodness of your heart?” Westphalen was steadily growing angrier at this soldier’s insolence. “Empty your pockets and let’s see how many pieces of silver it took to get you to betray your fellow soldiers.”

Color suddenly flooded back into MacDougal’s face. “I’d never betray me mates!”

For some reason, Westphalen believed him. But he couldn’t drop the matter now.

“Empty your pockets!”

MacDougal emptied only one: From his right-hand pocket he withdrew a small, rough stone, clear, dull red in color.

Westphalen withheld a gasp.

“Give it to me.”

He held it up to the light of the setting sun. He had seen his share of uncut stones as he had gradually turned the family valuables into cash to appease his more insistent creditors. This was an uncut ruby. A tiny thing, but polished up it could bring an easy hundred pounds. His hand trembled. If this is what the priest gave to a sentry as a casual reward for leaving his temple’s food untouched…

“Where is this temple?”

“Don’t know, sir.” MacDougal was watching him eagerly, probably looking for a way out of dereliction charges. “And I’ve never been able to find out. The locals don’t know and don’t seem to want to know. The Temple-in-the-Hills is supposed to be full of jewels but guarded by demons.”

Westphalen grunted. More heathen rubbish. But the stone in his hand was genuine enough. And the casual manner in which it had been given to MacDougal indicated that there could be many more where that came from. With the utmost reluctance, he handed the ruby back to MacDougal. He would play for bigger stakes. And to do so he had to appear completely unconcerned about money.

“I guess no harm has been done. Sell that for what you can and divide it up between the men. And divide it equally, hear?”

MacDougal appeared about to faint with surprise and relief, but he managed a sharp salute. “Yes sir!”

Westphalen tossed the Enfield back at him and walked away, knowing that in MacDougal’s eyes he was the fairest, most generous commanding officer he had ever known. Westphalen wanted the enlisted man to feel that way. He had use for MacDougal, and for any other soldier who had been in Bharangpur for a few years.

Westphalen had decided to find this Temple-in-the-Hills. It might well hold the answer to all his financial problems.

chapter three

manhattan
friday, august 3, 198-

1

Jack awoke shortly before ten a.m. feeling exhausted.

He had come home jubilant after last night’s success, but the glow had faded quickly. The apartment had had that empty feel to it. Worse: He felt empty. He had quickly downed two Lites, hid the second half of his fee behind the cedar plank, then crawled into bed. After a couple of hours of sleep, however, he had found himself wide awake for no good reason. An hour of twisting around in his sheets did no good, so he gave up and watched the end of The Bride of Frankenstein. As the dinky little Universal plane went around the world and said “THE END,” he had dozed off again for another couple of hours of fitful slumber.

He now pushed himself out of bed and took a wake-up shower. For breakfast he finished off the Cocoa Puffs and started on a box of Sugar Pops. As he shaved he saw that the thermometer outside his bedroom window read eighty-nine degrees—in the shade. He dressed accordingly in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, then sat by the phone. He had two calls to make: one to Gia, and one to the hospital. He decided to save Gia for last.

The hospital switchboard told him that the phone had been disconnected in the room number he gave them; there was no longer a Mrs. Bahkti listed as a patient. His heart sank. Damn! Even though he had spoken to the old lady for only a few minutes, the news of her passing hurt. So senseless. At least he had been able to get the necklace back to her before she packed it in. He told the operator to connect him with the nursing desk on the old lady’s floor. Soon he was talking to Marta.

“When did Mrs. Bahkti die?”

“Far as I know, she didn’t.”

A flash of hope: “Transferred to another floor?”

“No. It happened during the change of shift. The grandson and granddaughter—”

“Granddaughter?”

“You wouldn’t like her, Jack—she’s not a blond. Anyway, they came to the desk at shift change this morning while we were all taking report and thanked us for the concern we’d shown their grandmother. Said they’d take care of her from now on. Then they walked out. When we went to check on her, she was gone.”

Jack took the phone away from his ear and scowled at it before replying.

“How’d they get her out? She sure as hell couldn’t walk!”

He could almost feel Marta shrug at the other end of the line. “Beats me. But they tell me the guy with one arm was acting real strange toward the end of the shift, wouldn’t let anyone in to see her for the last few hours.”

“Why’d they let him get away with that?” For no good reason, Jack was angry, feeling like a protective relative. “That old lady needed all the help she could get. You can’t let someone interfere like that, even if he is the grandson! You should have called security and had them—”

“Cool it, Jack,” Marta said with an authoritative snap to her tone. “I wasn’t here then.”

“Yeah. Right. Sorry. It’s just that—”

“Besides, from what they tell me, this place was a zoo last night after a patient on Five North climbed out a window. Security was all tied up over there. Really weird! This guy with casts on both hands breaks through his room window and somehow gets down the wall and runs away.”

Jack felt his spine straighten involuntarily. “Casts? On both hands?”

“Yeah. Came in through the E.R. last night with comminuted fractures. Nobody can see how he climbed down the wall, especially since he must have got cut up pretty bad going through the window. But he wasn’t splattered on the pavement, so he must have made it.”

“Why the window? Was he under arrest or something?”

“That’s the really weird thing. He could have walked out the front door if he wanted to. Anyhow, we all figure the grandkids snuck old Mrs. Bahkti out during all the commotion.”

“What’d the guy who went through the window look like? Did he have a patch on his left eye?” Jack held his breath as he waited for the answer.

“I haven’t the faintest, Jack. Did you know the guy? I could find out his name for you.”

“Thanks, Marta, but that won’t help. Never mind.”

After saying goodbye, he cradled the receiver and sat staring at the floor. In his mind’s eye he was watching Kusum steal into a hospital room, grab a young man with a gauze patch over his left eye and casts on both arms, and hurl him through a window. But Jack couldn’t buy it. He knew Kusum would have liked to do just that, but he couldn’t see a one-armed man being capable of it. Especially not while he was busy spiriting his grandmother out of the hospital.

Irritably, he shook off the images and concentrated on his other problem: the disappearance of Grace Westphalen. He had nothing to go on but the unlabeled bottle of herbal fluid, and had only a vague gut suspicion that it was somehow involved. He didn’t trust hunches, but he decided to follow this one up for lack of anything better.

He picked up the bottle from where he had left it on the oak hutch last night and unscrewed the cap. The odor was unfamiliar, but definitely herbal. He placed a drop on a fingertip and tasted it. Not bad. Only thing to do was to have it analyzed and see where it came from. Maybe by some far out chance there was a connection to whatever happened to Grace.

He picked up the phone again, intending to call Gia, then put it down. He couldn’t bear to hear the ice in her voice. Not yet. There was something else he should do first: Call that crazy one-armed Indian and find out what he had done with the old lady. He dialed the number Kusum had left on the office answerphone yesterday.

A woman answered. Her voice was soft, unaccented, almost liquid. She told him Kusum was out.

“When will he be back?”

“This evening. Is… is this Jack?”

“Uh, yes.” He was startled and puzzled. “How did you know?”

Her laugh was musical. “Kusum said you’d probably be calling. I’m Kolabati, his sister. I was just going to call your office. I want to meet you, Repairman Jack.”

“And I want to know where your grandmother is!”

“On her way to India,” she said lightly, “where she will be cared for by our own doctors.”

Jack was relieved but still annoyed. “That could have been arranged without sneaking her out the back door or whatever it was you did.”

“Of course. But you do not know my brother. He always does things his way. Just like you, from what he tells me. I like that in a man. When can we meet?”

Something in her voice caused his concern for the grandmother to fade into the background. She was, after all, under medical care…

“Are you staying in the States long?” he asked, temporizing. He had a rule that once he was through with a job, he was through. But he had an urge to see what sort of face went with that incredible voice. And come to think of it, this woman wasn’t actually a customer—her brother was.

Jack, you should have been a lawyer.

“I live in Washington, D.C. I rushed up as soon as I heard about Grandmother. Do you know where the Waldorf is?”

“Heard of it.”

“Why don’t we meet in Peacock Alley at six?”

I do believe I’m being asked out for a date. Well, why not?

“Sure. How’ll I know you?”

“I’ll be wearing white.”

“See you at six.”

He hung up, wondering at his reckless mood. Blind dates were not his style at all.

But now for the hard part: a call to Gia. He dialed Nellie’s number. After precisely two rings, Eunice answered with “Paton residence,” and called Gia to the phone at Jack’s request. He waited with a curious mixture of dread and anticipation.

“Hello?” Her voice was cool, businesslike.

“How’d things go last night?”

“That’s none of your business, Jack!” she said with an immediate flare of anger in her voice. “What right have you got to pry into—”

“Hey!” he said. “I just want to know if there’s been any ransom note or phone calls or any word from Grace! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Oh… sorry. Nothing. No word at all. Nellie’s really down. Got any good news I can tell her?”

“Afraid not.”

“Are you doing anything?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Detective stuff. You know, tracing clues, following up leads. That kind of thing.”

Gia made no reply. Her silence was eloquent enough. And she was right: Wisecracks were out of place.

“I don’t have much to go on, Gia, but I’ll be doing whatever can be done.”

“I don’t suppose we can ask for more than that,” she said finally, her voice as cool as ever.

“How about lunch today?”

“No, Jack.”

“A late dinner, then?”

“Jack…” The pause here was long; it ended with a sigh. “Let’s just keep this businesslike, okay? Just business. Nothing has changed. Any lunches you want to have, you have them with Nellie. Maybe I’ll come along, but don’t count on it. Capisce?”

“Yeah.” He had an urge to rip the phone out of the wall and hurl it out the nearest window. But he made himself sit there, say a polite goodbye, hang up, and place the phone gently on the table, right where it belonged.

He forcefully removed Gia from his thoughts. He had things to do.

2

Gia put the phone down and leaned against the wall. She had almost made a fool out of herself a moment ago when Jack had asked her how things had gone last night. She’d suddenly had a vision of Jack trailing her and Carl to the restaurant, and from the restaurant to Carl’s place.

They had made love for the first time last night. She hadn’t wanted their relationship to get that far this soon. She had promised herself to take this one slow, to refuse to rush or to be rushed. After all, look what had happened with Jack. But last night she had changed her mind. Tension had been building up in her all day since seeing Jack, building until she had felt it was going to strangle her. She had needed someone. And Carl was there. And he wanted her very much.

In the past she had gently refused his invitations back to his apartment. But last night she had agreed. Everything had been right. The view of the city from his windows had been breathtaking, the brandy smooth and burning in her throat, the lighting in his bedroom so soft it had made her bare skin glow when he had undressed her, making her feel beautiful.

Carl was a good lover, a patient, skilled, gentle, considerate lover.

But nothing had happened last night. She had faked an orgasm in time with his. She didn’t like herself for that, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Carl had done everything right. It wasn’t his fault she hadn’t even come close to the release she needed.

It was all Jack’s fault.

Seeing him again had got her so uptight she couldn’t have enjoyed Carl last night if he had been the greatest lover in all the world! And he was certainly a better lover than Jack!

No… that wasn’t true. Jack had been good. Very good. There had been times when they had spent the whole night—Nellie’s front doorbell rang. Since Gia was nearby, she answered it. It was a messenger from Carl to pick up the artwork she had told him about last night. And there was something for her: a bouquet of mums and roses. She handed the messenger the artwork and opened the enclosed card as soon as the door was closed. “I’ll call you tonight.” A nice touch. Carl didn’t miss a trick. Too bad—

“What lovely flowers!”

Gia snapped alert at the sound of Nellie’s voice.

“Yes, aren’t they. From Carl. That was Jack on the phone, by the way. He wanted to know if there’d been any word.”

“Has he learned anything?”

Gia shook her head, pitying the almost childish eagerness in the old woman’s face. “He’ll let us know as soon as he does.”

“Something awful has happened, I just know it.”

“You know nothing of the kind,” Gia said, putting her arm around Nellie’s shoulders. “This is probably all a big misunderstanding.”

“I hope so. I really do.” She looked up at Gia. “Would you do me a favor, dear? Call the Mission and send them my regrets. I won’t be attending the reception tomorrow night.”

“You should go.”

“No. It would be unseemly.”

“Don’t be silly. Grace would want you to go. And besides, you need a change of scenery. You haven’t left this house all week.”

“What if she calls?”

“Eunice is here to relay any messages.”

“But to go out and have a good time—”

“I thought you told me you never had a good time at these affairs.”

Nellie smiled, and that was good to see. “True… very true. Well, I rather suppose you’re right. Perhaps I should go. But only on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You go with me.”

Gia was startled at the request. The last thing in the world she wanted to do on a Saturday night was stand around in a room full of U.N. diplomats.

“No. Really, I couldn’t—”

“Of course you can!”

“But Vicky is— “

“Eunice will be here.”

Gia racked her brain for excuses. There had to be a way out of this.

“I’ve nothing to wear.”

“We’ll go out and buy you something.”

“Out of the question!”

Nellie pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and dabbed her lips. “Then I shan’t be going either.”

Gia did her best to glare angrily at Nellie, but only managed to hold the expression for a few seconds, then she broke into a smile.

“All right, you old blackmailer—!”

“I resent being called old.”

“—I’ll go with you, but I’ll find something of my own to wear.”

“You’ll come with me tomorrow afternoon and put a dress on my account. If you’re to accompany me, you must have the proper clothes. And that’s all I shall say on the matter. We shall leave after lunch.”

With that, she turned and bustled away toward the library. Gia was filled with a mixture of affection and annoyance. Once again she had been outflanked by the old lady from London.

3

Jack walked in the main entrance of the Waldorf at six precisely and went up the steps to the bustling lobby. It had been a hectic day but he had managed to get here on time.

He had arranged for analysis of the contents of the bottle he had found in Grace’s room, then had gone down to the streets and looked up every shady character he knew—and he knew more than he cared to count. There was no talk anywhere about anybody snatching a rich old lady. By late afternoon he was drenched with sweat and feeling gritty all over. He had showered, shaved, dressed, and cabbed over to Park Avenue.

Jack had never had a reason to go to the Waldorf before so he didn’t know what to expect from this Peacock Alley where Kolabati wanted to meet him. To be safe, he had invested in a lightweight cream-colored suit and a pinkish shirt and paisley tie to go with it—at least the salesman said they went with it. He thought at first he might be overdoing it, then figured it would be hard to overdress for the Waldorf. From his brief conversation with Kolabati he sensed she would be dressed to the nines.

Jack absorbed the sights and sounds of the lobby as he walked through it. All races, all nationalities, all ages, shapes, and sizes milled or sat about. To his left, behind a low railing and an arch, people sat drinking at small tables. He walked over and saw a little oval sign that read “Peacock Alley.”

He glanced around. If the Waldorf Lobby were a sidewalk, Peacock Alley would be a sidewalk cafe, an air-conditioned model sans flies and fumes. He didn’t see anyone at the outer tables who fit his image of Kolabati. He studied the clientele. Everyone looked well-heeled and at ease. Jack felt very much out of his element here. This was not his scene. He felt exposed standing here. Maybe this was a mistake—

“A table, sir?”

A middle-aged maitre d’ was at his shoulder, looking at him expectantly. His accent was French with perhaps a soupçon of Brooklyn.

“I think so. I’m not sure. I’m supposed to meet someone. She’s in a white dress and—”

The man’s eyes lit up. “She is here! Come!”

Jack followed him into the rear section, wondering how this man could be so sure he had the right party. They passed a series of alcoves, each with a sofa and stuffed chairs around a cocktail table, like tiny living rooms all in a row. There were paintings on the wall, adding to the warm, comfortable atmosphere. They turned into a wing and were approaching its end when Jack saw her.

He knew then why there had been no hesitation on the part of the maître d”, why there could be no mistake. This was The Woman in the White Dress. She might as well have been the only woman in the room.

She sat alone on a divan against the rear wall, her shoes off, her legs drawn up sideways under her as if she were sitting at home listening to music—classical music, or maybe a raga. A wine glass half-full of faintly amber liquid swirled gently in her hand. There was a strong family resemblance to Kusum, but Kolabati was younger, late twenties, perhaps. She had bright, dark, wide-set, almond-shaped eyes, wide cheekbones, a fine nose dimpled over the flare of the left nostril where perhaps it had been pierced to set a jewel, and smooth, flawless, mocha-colored skin. Her hair too was dark, almost black, parted in the middle and curled at the sides around her ears and the nape of her neck. Old fashioned but curiously just right for her. She had a full lower lip, colored a deep glossy red. And all that was dark about her was made darker by the whiteness of her dress.

The necklace was the clincher, though. Had Jack the slightest doubt about her identity, the silvery iron necklace with the two yellow stones laid it immediately to rest.

She extended her hand from where she was seated on the couch. “It’s good to see you, Jack.” Her voice was rich and dark, like her; and her smile, so white and even, was breathtaking. She leaned forward, her breasts swelling against the thin fabric of her dress as it shaped itself around the minute nipple-bulge centered on each. She did not seem to have the slightest doubt as to who he was.

“Ms. Bahkti,” he said, taking her hand. Her nails, like her lips, were a deep red, her dusky skin soft and smooth as polished ivory. His mind seemed to go blank. He really should say something more. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your necklace.” That sounded good, didn’t it?

“Oh, no. Mine stays right where it is!” She released his hand and patted the cushion next to her. “Come. Sit. We’ve much to talk about.”

Close up, her eyes were wise and knowing, as if she had absorbed all the wonders of her race and its timeless culture.

The maître d’ did not call a waiter but stood by quietly as Jack took his place beside Kolabati. It was possible that he was a very patient man, but Jack noticed that his eyes never left Kolabati.

“May I get M’sieur something to drink?” he said when Jack was settled.

Jack looked at Kolabati’s glass. “What’s that?”

“Kir.”

He wanted a beer, but this was the Waldorf. “I’ll have one of those.”

She laughed. “Don’t be silly! Bring him a beer. They have Bass Ale here.”

“I’m not much for ale. But I’ll take a Beck’s light if you’ve got it.” At least he’d be drinking imported beer. What he really wanted was a Rolling Rock.

“Very good.” The maître d” finally went away.

“How’d you know I like beer?” The confidence with which she had said it made him uneasy.

“A lucky guess. I was sure you wouldn’t like kir.” She studied him. “So… you’re the man who retrieved the necklace. It was a seemingly impossible task, yet you did it. I owe you a debt of undying gratitude.”

“It was only a necklace.”

“A very important necklace.”

“Maybe, but it’s not as if I saved her life or anything.”

“Perhaps you did. Perhaps return of the necklace gave her the strength and the hope to go on living. It was very important to her. Our whole family wears them—every one of us. We’re never without it.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Full of eccentricities, these Bahktis.

The Beck’s arrived, delivered by the maitre d” himself, who poured the first glassful, lingered a moment, then wandered off with obvious reluctance.

“You realize, don’t you,” Kolabati said as Jack quaffed a few ounces of his beer, “that you have made two lifelong friends in the past twenty-four hours: my brother and myself.”

“What about your grandmother?”

Kolabati blinked. “Her, too, of course. Do not take our gratitude lightly, Jack. Not mine. And especially not my brother’s—Kusum never forgets a favor or a slight.”

“Just what does your brother do at the U.N.?” It was small talk. Jack really wanted to know all about Kolabati, but didn’t want to appear too interested.

“I’m not sure. A minor post.” She must have noticed Jack’s puzzled frown. “Yes, I know—he doesn’t seem to be a man who’d be satisfied with any sort of minor post. Believe me, he isn’t. Back home his name is known in every province.”

“Why?”

“He is the leader of a new Hindu fundamentalist movement. He and many others believe that India and Hinduism have become too Westernized. He wants a return to the old ways. He’s been picking up a surprising number of followers over the years and developing considerable political clout.”

“Sounds like the Moral Majority over here. What is he—the Jerry Falwell of India?”

Kolabati’s expression became grim. “Perhaps more. His singleness of purpose can be frightening at times. Some fear he may become the Ayatolla Khomeini of India. That’s why everyone was shocked early last year when he suddenly requested diplomatic assignment at the London Embassy. It was granted immediately—no doubt the government was delighted to have him out of the country. Recently he was transferred here to the U.N.—again at his request. I’m sure his followers and adversaries back home are mystified, but I know my brother. I’ll bet he’s getting enough international experience under his belt so he can go home and become a credible candidate for a major political office. But enough of Kusum…”

Jack felt Kolabati’s hand against his chest, pushing him back against the cushions.

“Get comfortable now,” she said, her dark eyes boring into him, “and tell me all about yourself. I want to know everything, especially how you came to be Repairman Jack.”

Jack took another swallow of beer and forced himself to pause. He had a sudden urge to tell her everything, to open up his whole past to her. It frightened him. He never opened up to anyone except Abe. Why Kolabati? Perhaps it was because she already knew something about him; perhaps because she was so effusive in her gratitude for achieving the “impossible” and returning her grandmother’s necklace. Telling all was out of the question, but pieces of the truth wouldn’t hurt. The question was: what to tell, what to edit?

“It just sort of happened.”

“There had to be a first time. Start there. Tell me about it.”

He settled into the cushions, adjusting his position until the lump of the holstered Mauser .380 sat comfortably in the small of his back, and began telling her about Mr. Canelli, his first fix-it customer.

4

Summer was drawing to a close. He was seventeen, still living in Johnson, New Jersey, a small, semi-rural town in Burlington County. His father was working as a C.P.A. then, and his mother was still alive. His brother was in the New Jersey State College of Medicine and his sister was in Rutgers pre-law.

On the corner down the street from his house lived Mr. Vito Canelli, a retired widower. From the time the ground thawed until the time it froze again, he worked in his yard. Especially on his lawn. He seeded and fertilized every couple of weeks, watered it daily. Mr. Canelli had the greenest lawn in the county. It was usually flawless. The only times it wasn’t was when someone cut the corner turning right off 541 onto Jack’s street. The first few times were probably accidents, but then some of the more vandalism-prone kids in the area started making a habit of it. Driving across “the old wop’s” lawn became a Friday and Saturday night ritual. Finally, old Mr. Canelli put up a three-foot white picket fence and that seemed to put an end to it. Or so he thought.

It was early. Jack was walking up to the highway towing the family Toro behind him. For the past few summers he had made his money doing gardening chores and cutting grass around town. He liked the work and liked even better the fact that he could adjust his hours almost any way he wished.

When he came into view of Mr. Canelli’s yard he stopped and gaped.

The picket fence was down—smashed and scattered all over the lawn in countless white splinters. The small flowering ornamental trees that blossomed in varied colors each spring-dwarf crabapples, dogwoods—had been broken off a foot above the ground. Yews and junipers were flattened and ground into the dirt. The plaster pink flamingos that everybody laughed about were shattered and crushed to powder. And the lawn… there weren’t just tire tracks across it, there were long, wide gouges up to six inches deep. Whoever had done it hadn’t been satisfied with simply driving across the lawn and flattening some grass; they had skidded and slewed their car or cars around until the entire yard had been ripped to pieces.

As Jack approached for a closer look, he saw a figure standing at the corner of the house looking out at the ruins. It was Mr. Canelli. His shoulders were slumped and quaking. Sunlight glistened off the tears on his cheeks. Jack knew little about Mr. Canelli. He was a quiet man who bothered no one. He had no wife, no children or grandchildren around. All he had was his yard: his hobby, his work of art, the focus of what was left of his life. Jack knew from his own small-time landscaping jobs around town how much sweat was invested in a yard like that. No man should have to see that kind of effort wantonly destroyed. No man that age should be reduced to standing in his own yard and crying.

Mr. Canelli’s helplessness unleashed something inside Jack. He had lost his temper before, but the rage he felt within him at that moment bordered on insanity. His jaw was clamped so tightly his teeth ached; his entire body trembled as his muscles bunched into knots. He had a good idea of who had done it and could confirm his suspicions with little difficulty. He had to fight off a wild urge to find them and run the Toro over their faces a few times.

Reason won out. No sense landing himself in jail while they got to play the roles of unfortunate victims.

There was another way. It leaped full-blown into Jack’s head as he stood there.

He walked over to Mr. Canelli and said, “I can fix it for you.”

The old man blotted his face with a handkerchief and glared at him. “Fix it why? So you an’ you friends can destroy it again?”

“I’ll fix it so it never happens again.”

Mr. Canelli looked at him a long time without speaking, then said, “Come inside. You tell me how.”

Jack didn’t give him all the details, just a list of the materials he would need. He added fifty dollars for labor. Mr. Canelli agreed but said he’d hold the fifty until he saw results. They shook hands and had a small glass of barbarone to seal the deal.

Jack began the following day. He bought three dozen small spreading yews and planted them three and a half feet apart along the perimeter of the corner lot while Mr. Canelli started restorative work on his lawn. They talked while they worked. Jack learned that the damage had been done by a smallish, low-riding, light-colored car and a dark van. Mr. Canelli hadn’t been able to get the license plate numbers. He had called the police but the vandals were long gone by the time one of the local cops came by. The police had been called before, but the incidents were so random and, until now, of such little consequence, that they hadn’t taken the complaints too seriously.

The next step was to secure three dozen four-foot lengths of six-inch pipe and hide them in Mr. Canelli’s garage. They used a post-hole digger to open a three-foot hole directly behind each yew. Late one night, Jack and Mr. Canelli mixed up a couple of bags of cement in the garage and filled each of the four-foot iron pipes. Three days later, again under cover of darkness, the cement-filled pipes were inserted into the holes behind the yews and the dirt packed tight around them. Each bush now had twelve to fifteen inches of makeshift lolly column hidden within its branches.

The white picket fence was rebuilt around the yard and Mr. Canelli continued to work at getting his lawn back into shape. The only thing left for Jack to do was sit back and wait.

It took a while. August ended, Labor Day passed, school began again. By the third week of September, Mr. Canelli had the yard graded again. The new grass had sprouted and was filling in nicely.

And that, apparently, was what they had been waiting for.

The sounds of sirens awoke Jack at one-thirty a.m. on a Sunday morning. Red lights were flashing up at the corner by Mr. Canelli’s house. Jack pulled on his jeans and ran to the scene.

Two first aid rigs were pulling away as he approached the top of the block. Straight ahead a black van lay on its side by the curb. The smell of gasoline filled the air. In the wash of light from a street lamp overhead he saw that the undercarriage was damaged beyond repair: The left front lower control arm was torn loose; the floor pan was ripped open, exposing a bent drive shaft; the differential was knocked out of line, and the gas tank was leaking. A fire truck stood by, readying to hose down the area.

He walked on to the front of Mr. Canelli’s house, where a yellow Camaro was stopped nose-on to the yard. The windshield was spider-webbed with cracks and steam plumed around the edges of the sprung hood. A quick glance under the hood revealed a ruptured radiator, bent front axle, and cracked engine block.

Mr. Canelli stood on his front steps. He waved Jack over and stuck a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.

Jack stood beside him and watched until both vehicles were towed away, until the street had been hosed down, until the fire truck and police cars were gone. He was bursting inside. He felt he could leap off the steps and fly around the yard if he wished. He could not remember ever feeling so good. Nothing smokable, ingestible, or injectable would ever give him a high like this.

He was hooked.

5

One hour, three beers, and two kirs later, it dawned upon Jack that he had told much more than he had intended. He had gone on from Mr. Canelli to describe some of his more interesting fix-it jobs. Kolabati seemed to enjoy them all, especially the ones where he had taken special pains to make the punishment fit the crime.

A combination of factors had loosened his tongue. First of all was a feeling of privacy. He and Kolabati seemed to have the far end of this wing of Peacock Alley to themselves. There were dozens of conversations going on in the wing, blending into a susurrant undertone that wound around them, masking their own words and making them indistinguishable from the rest. But most of all, there was Kolabati, so interested, so intent upon what he had to say that he kept talking, saying more than he wished, saying anything to keep that fascinated look in her eyes. He talked to her as he had talked to no one else he could remember—except perhaps Abe. Abe had learned about him over a period of years and had seen much of it happen. Kolabati was getting a big helping in one sitting.

Throughout his narrative, Jack watched for her reaction, fearing she might turn away like Gia had. But Kolabati was obviously not like Gia. Her eyes fairly glowed with enthusiasm and… admiration.

It was, however, time to shut up. He had said enough. They sat for a quiet moment, toying with their empty glasses. Jack was about to ask her if she wanted a refill when she turned to him.

“You don’t pay taxes, do you.”

The statement startled him. Uneasy, he wondered how she knew.

“Why do you say that?”

“I sense you are a self-made outcast. Am I right?”

“’Self-made outcast.’ I like that.”

“Liking it is not the same as answering the question.”

“I consider myself a sort of sovereign state. I don’t recognize other governments within my borders.”

“But you’ve exiled yourself from more than the government. You live and work completely outside society. Why?”

“I’m not an intellectual. I can’t give you a carefully reasoned manifesto. It’s just the way I want to live.”

Her eyes bored into him. “I don’t accept that. Something cut you off. What was it?”

This woman was uncanny! It was as if she could look into his mind and read all his secrets. Yes—there had been an incident that had caused him to withdraw from the rest of “civilized” society. But he couldn’t tell her about it. He felt at ease with Kolabati, but he wasn’t about to confess to murder.

“I’d rather not say.”

She studied him. “Are your parents alive?”

Jack felt his insides tighten. “Only my father.”

“I see. Did your mother die of natural causes?”

She can read minds! That’s the only explanation!

“No. And I don’t want to say any more.”

“Very well. But however you came to be what you are, I’m sure it was by honorable means.”

Her confidence in him simultaneously warmed and discomfitted him. He wanted to change the subject.

“Hungry?”

“Famished!”

“Any place in particular you’d like to go? There are some Indian restaurants—”

Her eyebrows arched. “If I were Chinese, would you offer me egg rolls? Am I dressed in a sari?”

No. That clinging white dress looked like it came straight from a designer’s shop in Paris.

“French, then?”

“I lived in France a while. Please: I live in America now. I want American food. “

“Well, I like to eat where I can relax.”

“I want to go to Beefsteak Charlie’s.”

Jack burst out laughing. “There’s one near where I live! I go there all the time! Mainly because when it comes to food, I tend to be impressed more by quantity than by quality.”

“Good. Then you know the way?”

He half-rose, then sat down again. “Wait a minute. They serve ribs there. Indians don’t eat pork, do they?”

“No. You’re thinking of Pakistanis. They’re Moslems and Moslems don’t eat pork. I’m Hindu. We don’t eat beef.”

“Then why Beefsteak—?”

“I hear they have a good salad bar, with lots of shrimp. And ’all the beer, wine, or sangria you can drink.’ “

“Then let’s go,” Jack said, rising and presenting his arm.

She slipped into her shoes and was up and close beside him in a single liquid motion. Jack threw a ten and a twenty on the table and started to walk away.

“No receipt?” Kolabati asked with a sly smile. “I’m sure you can make tonight deductible.”

“I use the short form.”

She laughed. A delightful sound.

On their way toward the front of Peacock Alley, Jack was very much aware of the warm pressure of Kolabati’s hand on the inside of his arm and around his biceps, just as he was aware of the veiled attention they drew from all sides as they passed.

From Peacock Alley in the Waldorf on Park Avenue to Beefsteak Charlie’s on the West Side—culture shock. But Kolabati moved from one stratum to the other as easily as she moved from garnish to garnish at the crowded salad bar, where the attention she attracted was much more openly admiring than at the Waldorf. She seemed infinitely adaptable, and Jack found that fascinating. In fact, he found everything about her fascinating.

He had begun probing her past during the cab ride uptown, learning that she and her brother were from a wealthy family in the Bengal region of India, that Kusum had lost his arm as a boy in a train wreck that had killed both of their parents, after which they had been raised by the grandmother Jack had met the night before. That explained their devotion to her. Kolabati was currently teaching in Washington at the Georgetown University School of Linguistics and now and again consulting for the School of Foreign Service.

Jack watched her eat the cold shrimp piled before her. Her fingers were nimble, her movements delicate but sure as she peeled the carapaces, dipped the pink bodies in either cocktail sauce or the little plate of Russian dressing she had brought to the table, then popped them into her mouth. She ate with a gusto he found exciting. It was rare these days to find a woman who so relished a big meal. He was sick to death of talk about calories and pounds and waistlines. Calorie-counting was for during the week. When he was out to eat with a woman, he wanted to see her relish the food as much as he did. It became a shared vice. It linked them in the sin of enjoying a full belly and reveling in the tasting, chewing, swallowing, and washing down that led up to it. They became partners in crime. It was erotic as all hell.

The meal was over.

Kolabati leaned back in her chair and stared at him. Between them lay the remains of a number of salads, two steak bones, an empty pitcher of sangria for her, an empty beer pitcher for him, and the casings of at least a hundred shrimp.

“We have met the enemy,” Jack said, “and he is in us. Just as well you don’t like steak, though. They were on the tough side.”

“Oh, I like steak. It’s just that beef is supposed to be bad for your karma.”

As she spoke her hand crept across the table and found his. Her touch was electrifying—a shock literally ran up his arm. Jack swallowed and tried to keep the conversation going. No point in letting her see how she was getting to him.

“Karma. There’s a word you hear an awful lot. What’s it mean, really? It’s like fate, isn’t it?”

Kolabati’s eyebrows drew together. “Not exactly. It’s not easy to explain. It starts with the idea of the transmigration of the soul—what we call the atman—and how it undergoes many successive incarnations or lives.”

“Reincarnation.” Jack had heard of that—Bridey Murphy and all.

Kolabati turned his hand over and began lightly running her fingernails over his palm. Gooseflesh sprang up all over his body.

“Right,” she said. “Karma is the burden of good or evil your atman carries with it from one life to the next. It’s not fate, because you are free to determine how much good or evil you do in each of your lives, but then again, the weight of good or evil in your karma determines the kind of life you will be born into—high born or low born.”

“And that goes on forever?” He wished what she was doing to his hand would go on forever.

“No. Your atman can be liberated from the karmic wheel by achieving a state of perfection in life. This is moksha. It frees the atman from further incarnations. It is the ultimate goal of every atman. “

“And eating beef would hold you back from moksha?” It sounded silly.

Kolabati seemed to read his mind again. “Not so odd, really. Jews and Moslems have a similar sanction against pork. For us, beef pollutes the karma.”

“’Pollutes.’ “

“That’s the word.”

“Do you worry that much about your karma?”

“Not as much as I should. Certainly not as much as Kusum does.” Her eyes clouded. “He’s become obsessed with his karma… his karma and Kali.”

That struck a dissonant chord in Jack. “Kali? Wasn’t she worshipped by a bunch of stranglers?” Again, his source was Gunga Din.

Kolabati’s eyes cleared and flashed as she dug her fingernails into his palm, turning pleasure to pain. “That wasn’t Kali but a diminished avatar of her called Bhavani who was worshipped by Thugges—low-caste criminals! Kali is the Supreme Goddess!”

“Woops! Sorry.”

She smiled. “Where do you live?”

“Not far.”

“Take me there.”

Jack hesitated, knowing it was his firm personal rule to never let people know where he lived unless he had known them for a good long while. But she was stroking his palm again.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

6

For certain is death for the born

And certain is birth for the dead;

Therefore over the inevitable

Thou shouldst not grieve.

Kusum lifted his head from his study of the Bhagavad Gita. There it was again. That sound from below. It came to him over the dull roar of the city beyond the dock, the city that never slept, over the nocturnal harbor sounds, and the creaks and rattles of the ship as the tide caressed its iron hull and stretched the ropes and cables that moored it. Kusum closed the Gita and went to his cabin door. It was too soon. The Mother could not have caught the Scent yet.

He went out and stood on the small deck that ran around the aft superstructure. The officers’ and crew’s quarters, galley, wheelhouse, and funnel were all clustered here at the stern. He looked forward along the entire length of the main deck, a flat surface broken only by the two hatches to the main cargo holds and the four cranes leaning out from the kingpost set between them. His ship. A good ship, but an old one. Small as freighters go—twenty-five hundred tons, running two hundred feet prow to stern, thirty feet across her main deck. Rusted and dented, but she rode high and true in the water. Her registry was Liberian, naturally.

Kusum had had her sailed here six months ago. No cargo at that time, only a sixty-foot enclosed barge towed three hundred feet behind the ship as it made its way across the Atlantic from London. The cable securing the barge came loose the night the ship entered New York Harbor. The next morning the barge was found drifting two miles off shore. Empty. Kusum sold it to a garbage hauling outfit. U.S. Customs inspected the two empty cargo holds and allowed the ship to dock. Kusum had secured a slip for it in the barren area above Pier 97 on the West Side, where there was little dock activity. It was moored nose first into the bulkhead. A rotting pier ran along its starboard flank. The crew had been paid and discharged. Kusum had been the only human aboard since.

The rasping sound came again. More insistent. Kusum went below. The sound grew in volume as he neared the lower decks. Opposite the engine room, he came to a watertight hatch and stopped.

The Mother wanted to get out. She had begun scraping her talons along the inner surface of the hatch and would keep it up until she was released. Kusum stood and listened for a while. He knew the sound well: long, grinding, irregular rasps in a steady, insistent rhythm. She showed all the signs of having caught the Scent. She was ready to hunt.

That puzzled him. It was too soon. The chocolates couldn’t have arrived yet. He knew precisely when they had been posted from London—a telegram had confirmed it—and knew they’d be delivered tomorrow at the very earliest.

Could it possibly be one of those specially treated bottles of cheap wine he had been handing out to the winos downtown for the past six months? The derelicts had served as a food supply and good training fodder for the nest as it matured. He doubted there could be any of the treated wine left—those untouchables usually finished off the bottle within hours of receiving it.

But there was no fooling the Mother. She had caught the Scent and wanted to follow it. Although he had planned to continue training the brighter ones as crew for the ship—in the six months since their arrival in New York they had learned to handle the ropes and follow commands in the engine room— the hunt took priority. Kusum spun the wheel that retracted the lugs, then stood behind the hatch as it swung open. The Mother stepped out, an eight-foot humanoid shadow, lithe and massive in the dimness. One of the younglings, a foot shorter but almost as massive, followed on her heels. And then another. Without warning she spun and hissed and raked her talons through the air a bare inch from the second youngling’s eyes. It retreated into the hold. Kusum closed the hatch and spun the wheel. Kusum felt the Mother’s faintly glowing yellow eyes pass over him without seeing him as she turned and swiftly, silently led her adolescent offspring up the steps and into the night.

This was as it should be. The rakoshi had to be taught how to follow the Scent, how to find the intended victim and return with it to the nest so that all might share. The Mother taught them one by one. This was as it always had been. This was as it would be.

The Scent must be coming from the chocolates. He could think of no other explanation. The thought sent a thrill through him. Tonight would bring him one step closer to completing the vow. Then he could return to India.

On his way back to the upper deck, Kusum once again looked along the length of his ship, but this time his gaze lifted above and beyond to the vista spread out before him. Night was a splendid cosmetician for this city at the edge of this rich, vulgar, noisome, fulsome land. It hid the seaminess of the dock area, the filth collecting under the crumbling West Side Highway, the garbage swirling in the Hudson, the blank-faced warehouses and the human refuse that crept in and out and around them. The upper levels of Manhattan rose above all that, ignoring it, displaying a magnificent array of lights like sequins on black velvet.

It never failed to make him pause and watch. It was so unlike his India. Mother India could well use the riches in this land. Her people would put them to good use. They would certainly appreciate them more than these pitiful Americans who were so rich in material things and so poor in spirit, so lacking in inner resources. Their chrome, their dazzle, their dim-witted pursuit of “fun” and “experience” and “self.” Only a culture such as theirs could construct such an architectural marvel as this city and refer to it as a large piece of fruit. They didn’t deserve this land. They were like a horde of children given free run of the bazaar in Calcutta.

The thought of Calcutta made him ache to go home. Tonight, and then one more.

One final death after tonight’s and he would be released from his vow. Kusum returned to his cabin to read his Gita.

7

“I believe I’ve been Kama Sutra ed.”

“I don’t think that’s a verb.”

“It just became one.”

Jack lay on his back, feeling divorced from his body. He was numb from his hair down. Every fiber of nerve and muscle was being taxed just to support his vital functions.

“I think I’m going to die.”

Kolabati stirred beside him, nude but for her iron necklace. “You did. But I resuscitated you.”

“Is that what you call it in India?”

They had arrived at his apartment after an uneventful walk from Beefsteak Charlie’s. Kolabati’s eyes had widened and she staggered a bit as she entered Jack’s apartment. It was a common reaction. Some said it was the bric-a-brac and movie posters on the walls, others said it was the Victorian furniture with all the gingerbread carving and the wavy grain of the golden oak that did it.

“Your decor,” she said, leaning against him. “It’s so… interesting.”

“I collect things— things. As for the furniture, hideous is what most people call it, and they’re right. All that carving and such is out of style. But I like furniture that looks like human beings touched it at one time or another during its construction, even human beings of dubious taste.”

Jack became acutely aware of the pressure of Kolabati’s body against his flank. Her scent was unlike any perfume. He could not even be sure it was perfume. More like scented oil. She looked up at him and he wanted her. And in her eyes he could see she wanted him.

Kolabati stepped away and began to remove her dress.

In the past, Jack had always felt himself in control during lovemaking. It had not been a conscious thing, but he had always set the pace and moved into the positions. Not tonight. With Kolabati it was different. It was all very subtle, but before long they were each cast in their roles. She was by far the hungrier of the two of them, the more insistent. And although younger, she seemed to be the more experienced. She became the director, he became an actor in her play.

And it was quite a play. Passion and laughter. She was skilled, yet there was nothing mechanical about her. She reveled in sensations, giggled, even laughed at times. She was a delight. She knew where to touch him, how to touch him in ways he had never known, lifting him to heights of sensation he had never dreamed possible. And though he knew he had brought her to thrashing peaks of pleasure numerous times, she was insatiable.

He watched her now as the light from the tiny leaded glass lamp in the corner of the bedroom cast a soft chiaroscuro effect over the rich color of her skin. Her breasts were perfect, their nipples the darkest brown he had ever seen. With her eyes still closed, she smiled and stretched, a slow, languorous movement that brought her dark and downy pubic mons against his thigh. Her hand crept across his chest, then trailed down over his abdomen toward his groin. He felt his abdominal muscles tighten.

“That’s not fair to do to a dying man.”

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

“Is this your way of thanking me for finding the necklace?” He hoped not. He had already been paid for the necklace.

She opened her eyes. “Yes… and no. You are a unique man in this world, Repairman Jack. I’ve traveled a lot, met many people. You stand out from all of them. Once my brother was like you, but he has changed. You are alone.”

“Not at the moment.”

She shook her head. “All men of honor are alone.”

Honor. This was the second time she had spoken of honor this evening. Once at Peacock Alley, and now here in his bed. Strange for a woman to think in terms of honor. That was supposed to be men’s territory, although nowadays the word rarely passed the lips of members of either sex. But when it did, it was most apt to be spoken by a man. Sexist, perhaps, but he could think of no exceptions to refute it.

“Can a man who lies, cheats, steals, and sometimes does violence to other people be a man of honor?”

Kolabati looked into his eyes. “He can if he lies to liars, cheats cheaters, steals from thieves, and limits his violence to those who are violent.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

An honorable man. He liked the sound of that. He liked the meaning that went with it. As Repairman Jack he had taken an honorable course without consciously setting out to do so. Autonomy had been his driving motive—to reduce to the barest minimum all external restraints upon his life. But honor… honor was an internal restraint. He hadn’t recognized the role it had played all along in guiding him.

Kolabati’s hand started moving again and thoughts of honor sank in the waves of pleasure washing over him. It was good to be aroused again.

He had led a monkish life since Gia had left him. Not that he had consciously avoided sex—he had simply stopped thinking about it. A number of weeks had gone by before he even realized what had happened to him. He had read that that was a sign of depression. Maybe. Whatever the cause, tonight made up for any period of abstention, no matter how long.

Her hand was gently working at him now, drawing responses from what he had thought was an empty well. He was rolling toward her when he caught the first whiff of the odor.

What the hell is that?

It smelled like a pigeon had got into the air conditioner and laid a rotten egg. Or died.

Kolabati stiffened beside him. He didn’t know whether she had smelled it, too, or whether something had frightened her. He thought he heard her say something that sounded like “Rakosh!” in a tense whisper. She rolled on top of him and clung like a drowning sailor to a floating spar.

An aura of nameless fear enveloped Jack. Something was terribly wrong, but he could not say what. He listened for a foreign sound, but all that came to him were the low hums, each in a different key, of the air conditioners in each of the three rooms. He reached for the .38 S&W Chief Special he always kept under the mattress, but Kolabati hugged him tighter.

“Don’t move,” she whispered in a voice he could barely hear. “Just lie here under me and don’t say a word.”

Jack opened his mouth to speak but she covered his lips with her own. The pressure of her bare breasts against his chest, her hips on his, the tingle of her necklace as it dangled from her neck against his throat, the caresses of her hands—all worked toward blotting out the odor.

Yet there was a desperation about her that prevented Jack from completely releasing himself to the sensations. His eyes kept opening and straying to the window, to the door, to the hall that led past the tv room to the darkened front room, then back to the window. There was no good reason for it, but a small part of him expected someone or something—a person, an animal—to come through the door. He knew it was impossible—the front door was locked, the windows were three stories up. Crazy. Yet the feeling persisted.

And persisted.

He did not know how long he lay there, tense and tight under Kolabati, itching for the comfortable feel of a pistol grip in his palm. It felt like half the night.

Nothing happened. Eventually, the odor began to fade. And with it the sensation of the presence of another. Jack felt himself begin to relax and, finally, begin to respond to Kolabati.

But Kolabati suddenly had different ideas. She jumped up from the bed and padded into the front room for her clothes.

Jack followed and watched her slip into her underwear with brisk, almost frantic movements.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to get home.”

“Back to D.C.?” His heart sank. Not yet. She intrigued him so.

“No. To my brother’s. I’m staying with him.”

“I don’t understand. Is it something I—”

Kolabati leaned over and kissed him. “Nothing you did. Something he did.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“I must speak to him immediately.”

She let the dress fall over her head and slipped her shoes on. She turned to go but the apartment door stopped her.

“How does this work?”

Jack turned the central knob that retracted the four bars, then pulled it open for her.

“Wait till I get some clothes on and I’ll find you a cab.”

“I haven’t time to wait. And I can wave my arm in the air as well as anyone.”

“You’ll be back?” The answer was very important to him at the moment. He didn’t know why. He hardly knew her.

“Yes, if I can be.” Her eyes were troubled. For an instant he thought he detected a hint of fear in them. “I hope so. I really do.”

She kissed him again, then was out the door and on her way down the stairs.

Jack closed the door, locked it, and leaned against it. If he weren’t so exhausted from lack of sleep and from the strenuous demands Kolabati had made upon him tonight, he would have tried to make some sense out of the evening’s events.

He headed for bed. This time to sleep.

But chase it as he might, sleep eluded him. The memory of the odor, Kolabati’s bizarre behavior… he couldn’t explain them. But it wasn’t what had happened tonight that bothered him so much as the gnawing, uneasy feeling that something awful had almost happened.

8

Kusum started out of his sleep, instantly alert. A sound had awakened him. His Gita slipped off his lap and onto the floor as he sprang to his feet and stepped to the cabin door. It was most likely the Mother and the young one returning, but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure. One never knew what kind of scum might be lurking about the docks. He didn’t care who came aboard in his absence—it would have to be a fairly determined thief or vandal because Kusum always kept the gangway raised. A silent beeper was needed to bring it down. But an industrious lower-caste type who climbed one of the ropes and sneaked aboard would find little of value in the superstructure. And should he venture below-decks to the cargo hold… that would mean one less untouchable prowling the streets.

But when Kusum was aboard—and he expected to be spending more time here than he wished now that Kolabati was in town—he liked to be careful. He didn’t want any unpleasant surprises.

Kolabati’s arrival had been a surprise. He had thought her safely away in Washington. She had already caused him an enormous amount of trouble this week and would undoubtedly cause him more. She knew him too well. He would have to avoid her whenever possible. And she must never learn of this ship or of its cargo.

He heard the sound again and saw two dark forms of unmistakable configuration lope along the deck. They should have been burdened with their prey, but they were not. Alarmed, Kusum ran down to the deck. He checked to make sure he was wearing his necklace, then stood in a corner and watched the rakoshi as they passed.

The youngling came first, prodded along by the Mother behind it. Both appeared agitated. If only they could talk! He had been able to teach the younglings a few words, but that was mere mimicry, not speech. He had never felt so much the need to communicate with the rakoshi as he did tonight. Yet he knew that was impossible. They were not stupid; they could learn simple tasks and follow simple commands—had he not been training them to act as crew for the ship?—but their minds did not operate on a level that permitted intelligent communication.

What had happened tonight? The Mother had never failed him before. When she caught the Scent, she invariably brought back the targeted victim. Tonight she had failed. Why?

Could there have been a mistake? Perhaps the chocolates hadn’t arrived. But how then had the Mother caught the Scent? No one but Kusum controlled the source of the Scent. None of it made sense.

He padded down the steps that led below-decks. The two rakoshi were waiting there, the Mother subdued by the knowledge that she had failed, the youngling restless, pacing about. Kusum slipped past them. The Mother raised her head, dimly aware of his presence, but the youngling only hissed and continued its pacing, oblivious to him. Kusum spun the wheel on the hatch and pulled it open. The youngling tried to retreat. It didn’t like being on the iron ship and rebelled at returning to the hold. Kusum watched patiently. They all did this after their first run through the city. They wanted to be out in the air, away from the iron hold that weakened them, out among the crowds where they could pick and choose among the fattened human cattle.

The Mother would have none of it. She gave the youngling a brutal shove that sent it stumbling into the arms of its siblings waiting inside. Then she followed.

Kusum slammed the hatch closed, secured it, then pounded his fist against it. Would he never be done with this? He had thought he would be closer to fulfilling the vow tonight. Something had gone wrong. It worried him almost as much as it angered him. Had a new variable been added, or were the rakoshi to blame?

Why was there no victim?

One thing was certain, however: There would have to be punishment. That was the way it always had been. That was the way it would be tonight.

9

Oh, Kusum! What have you done?

Kolabati’s insides writhed in terror as she sat huddled in the rear of the cab. The ride was mercifully brief—directly across Central Park to a stately building of white stone on Fifth Avenue.

The night doorman didn’t know Kolabati, so he stopped her. He was old, his face a mass of wrinkles. Kolabati detested old people. She found the thought of growing old disgusting. The doorman questioned her until she showed him her key and her Maryland driver’s license, confirming her last name to be the same as Kusum’s. She hurried through the marble lobby, past the modern low-backed couch and chairs and the uninspired abstract paintings on the walls, to the elevator. It stood open, waiting. She pressed “9,” the top floor, and stood impatiently until the door closed and the car started up.

Kolabati slumped against the rear wall and closed her eyes.

That odor! She had thought her heart would stop when she recognized it in Jack’s apartment tonight. She thought she had left it behind forever in India.

A rakosh!

One had been outside Jack’s apartment less than an hour ago. Her mind balked at the thought, yet there was no doubt in her mind. As sure as the night was dark, as sure as the number of her years—a rakosh! The knowledge nauseated her, made her weak inside and out. And the most terrifying part of it all: The only man who could be responsible—the only man in the world—was her brother.

But why Jack’s apartment?

And how? By the Black Goddess, how?

The elevator glided to a smooth halt, the doors slid open, and Kolabati headed directly for the door numbered 9B. She hesitated before inserting the key. This was not going to be easy. She loved Kusum, but there was no denying that he intimidated her. Not physically—for he would never raise his hand against her—but morally. It hadn’t always been so, but lately his righteousness had become impenetrable.

But not this time, she told herself. This time he’s wrong.

She turned the key and went in.

The apartment was dark and silent. She flipped the light switch, revealing a huge, low-ceilinged living room decorated by a hired professional. She had guessed that the first time she had walked in. There was no trace of Kusum in the decor. He hadn’t bothered to personalize it, which meant he didn’t intend to stay here very long.

“Kusum?”

She went down the two steps to the wool-carpeted living room floor and crossed to the closed door that led to her brother’s bedroom. It was dark and empty within.

She went back to the living room and called, louder now. “Kusum!”

No answer.

He had to be here! She had to find him! She was the only one who could stop him!

She walked past the door that led to the bedroom he had supplied for her and went to the picture window overlooking Central Park. The great body of the park was dark, cut at irregular intervals by lighted roads, luminescent serpents winding their way from Fifth Avenue to Central Park West.

Where are you, my brother, and what are you doing? What awfulness have you brought back to life?

10

The two propane torches on either side of him were lit and roaring blue flame straight up. Kusum made a final adjustment on the air draw to each one—he wanted to keep them noisy but didn’t want them to blow themselves out. When he was satisfied with the flames, he unclasped his necklace and laid it on the propane tank at the rear of the square platform. He had changed from his everyday clothes into his blood-red ceremonial dhoti, arranging the one-piece sarong-like garment in the traditional Maharatta style with the left end hooked beneath his leg and the bulk gathered at his right hip, leaving his legs bare. He picked up his coiled bullwhip, then stabbed the DOWN button with his middle finger.

The lift—an open elevator platform floored with wooden planks—lurched, then started a slow descent along the aft corner of the starboard wall of the main hold. It was dark below. Not completely dark, for he kept the emergency lights on at all times, but these were so scattered and of such low wattage that the illumination they provided was nominal at best.

When the lift reached the halfway point, there came a shuffling sound from below as rakoshi moved from directly beneath him, wary of the descending platform and the fire it carried. As he neared the floor of the hold and the light from the torches spread among its occupants, tiny spots of brightness began to pick up and return the glare—a few at first, then more and more until more than a hundred yellow eyes gleamed from the darkness.

A murmur rose among the rakoshi to become a whispery chant, low, throaty, guttural, one of the few words they could speak:

“Kaka-jiiiiii! Kaka-jiiiiii!”

Kusum loosed the coils of his whip and cracked it. The sound echoed like a gunshot through the hold. The chant stopped abruptly. They now knew he was angry; they would remain silent. As the platform and its roaring flames drew nearer the floor, they backed farther away. In all of heaven and earth, fire was all they feared—fire and their Kaka-ji.

He stopped the lift three or four feet above the floor, giving himself a raised platform from which to address the rakoshi assembled in a rough semi-circle just beyond the reach of the torchlight. They were barely visible except for an occasional highlight off a smooth scalp or a hulking shoulder. And the eyes. All the eyes were focused on Kusum.

He began speaking to them in the Bengali dialect, knowing they could understand little of what he was saying, but confident they would eventually get his meaning. Although he was not directly angry with them, he filled his voice with anger, for that was an integral part of what was to follow. He did not understand what had gone wrong tonight, and knew from the confusion he had sensed in the Mother upon her return that she did not understand either. Something had caused her to lose the Scent. Something extraordinary. She was a skilled hunter and he could be sure that whatever had happened had been beyond her control. That did not matter, however. A certain form must be followed. It was tradition.

He told the rakoshi that there would be no ceremony tonight, no sharing of flesh, because those who had been entrusted to bring the sacrifice had failed. Instead of the ceremony, there would be punishment.

He turned and lowered the propane feed to the torches, constricting the semi-circular pool of illumination, bringing the darkness—and the rakoshi—closer.

Then he called to the Mother. She knew what to do.

There came a scuffling and scraping from the darkness before him as the Mother brought forward the youngling that had accompanied her tonight. It came sullenly, unwillingly, but it came. For it knew it must. It was tradition.

Kusum reached back and further lowered the propane. The young rakoshi were especially afraid of fire and it would be foolish to panic this one. Discipline was imperative. If he lost his control over them, even for an instant, they might turn on him and tear him to pieces. There must be no instance of disobedience—such an act must ever remain unthinkable. But in order to bend them to his will, he must not push them too hard against their instincts.

He could barely see the creature as it slouched forward in a posture of humble submission. Kusum gestured with the whip and the Mother turned the youngling around, facing its back to him. He raised the whip and lashed it forward—one —two—three times and more, putting his body into it so that each stroke ended with the meaty slap of braided rawhide on cold, cobalt flesh.

He knew the young rakosh felt no pain from the lash, but that was of little consequence. His purpose was not to inflict pain but to assert his position of dominance. The lashing was a symbolic act, just as a rakosh’s submission to the lash was a reaffirmation of its loyalty and subservience to the will of Kusum, the Kaka-ji. The lash formed a bond between them. Both drew strength from it. With each stroke Kusum felt the power of Kali swell within him. He could almost imagine himself possessing two arms again.

After ten strokes, he stopped. The rakosh looked around, saw that he was finished, then slunk back into the group. Only the Mother remained. Kusum cracked the whip in the air. Yes, it seemed to say. You, too.

The Mother came forward, gave him a long look, then turned and presented her back to him. The eyes of the younger rakoshi grew brighter as they became agitated, shuffling their feet and clicking their talons together.

Kusum hesitated. The rakoshi were devoted to the Mother. They spent day after day in her presence. She guided them, gave order to their lives. They would die for her. Striking her was a perilous proposition. But a hierarchy had been established and it must be preserved. As the rakoshi were devoted to the Mother, so was the Mother devoted to Kusum. And to reaffirm the hierarchy, she must submit to the lash. For she was his lieutenant among the younglings and ultimately responsible for any failure to carry through the wishes of the Kaka-ji.

Yet despite her devotion, despite the knowledge that she would gladly die for him, despite the unspeakable bond that linked them—he had started the nest with her, nursing her, raising her from a mewing hatchling—Kusum was wary of the Mother. She was, after all, a rakosh—violence incarnate. Disciplining her was like juggling vials of high explosive. One lapse of concentration, one careless move…

Summoning his courage, Kusum let the whip fly, snapping its tip once against the floor far from where the Mother waited, and then he raised the whip no more. The hold had gone utterly still with the first stroke. All remained silent. The Mother continued to wait, and when no blow came, she turned toward the lift. Kusum had the bullwhip coiled by then, a difficult trick for a one-armed man, but he had long ago determined that there was a way to do almost anything with one hand. He held it out beside him, then dropped it onto the floor of the lift.

The Mother looked at him with shining eyes, her slit pupils dilating in worship. She had received no lashing, a public proclamation of the Kaka-ji’s respect and regard for her. Kusum knew this was a proud moment for her, one that would elevate her even higher in the eyes of her young. He had planned it this way.

He hit the UP switch and turned the torches to maximum as he rose. He was satisfied. Once more he had affirmed his position as absolute master of the nest. The Mother was more firmly in his grasp than ever before. And as he controlled her, so he controlled her young.

The field of brightly glowing eyes watched him from below, never leaving him until he reached the top of the hold. The instant they were blocked from view, Kusum reached for the necklace and clasped it around his throat.

chapter four
west bengal, india
friday, July 24, 1857

Jaggernath the svamin and his mule train were due to appear any minute.

Tension was coiled like a snake around Captain Westphalen. If he failed to net the equivalent of 50,000 pounds sterling out of this little sortie, he might have to reconsider returning to England at all. Only disgrace and poverty would await him.

He and his men huddled behind a grassy hillock approximately two miles northwest of Bharangpur. The rain had ended at midday, but more was on the way. The summer monsoon was upon Bengal, bringing a year’s rainfall in the space of a few months. Westphalen looked out along the rolling expanse of green that had been an arid wasteland only last month. An unpredictable land, this India.

As he waited beside his horse, Westphalen mentally reviewed the past four weeks. He had not been idle. Far from it. He had devoted part of each day to grilling every Englishman in Bharangpur on what he knew about the Hindu religion in general and the Temple-in-the-Hills in particular. And when he had exhausted the resources of his countrymen, he turned to local Hindus who had a decent command of English. They told him more than he wished to know about Hinduism, and almost nothing about the temple.

He did learn a lot about Kali, though. Very popular in Bengal—even the name of the region’s largest city, Calcutta, was an Anglicized form of Kalighata, the huge temple built to her there. The Black Goddess. Not a deity to take comfort in. She was called Mother Night, devouring all, slaying all, even Siva, her consort upon whose corpse she stood in many of the pictures Westphalen had seen. Blood sacrifices, usually goats and birds, were made regularly to Kali in her many temples, but there were whispers of other sacrifices… human sacrifices.

No one in Bharangpur had ever seen the Temple-in-the-Hills, nor known anyone who had. But he learned that every so often a curiosity-seeker or a pilgrim would venture off into the hills to find the temple. Some would follow Jaggernath at a discrete distance, others would seek their own path. The few who returned claimed their search had been fruitless, telling tales of shadowy beings creeping about the hills at night, always just beyond the firelight, but unmistakably there, watching. As to what happened to the rest, it was assumed that the pilgrims true of heart were accepted into the temple order, and that the adventurous and the merely curious became fodder for the rakoshi who guarded the temple and its treasure. A rakosh, he was assured by a colonel who was starting his third decade in India, was some sort of flesh-eating demon, the Bengali equivalent of the English bogeyman—used to frighten children.

Westphalen had little doubt the temple was guarded, but by human sentries, not demons. Guards would not deter him. He was not a lone traveler wandering aimlessly through the hills—he was a British officer leading six lancers armed with the new lightweight Enfield rifle.

As he stood beside his mount, Westphalen ran a finger up and down the stock of his Enfield. This simple construction of wood and steel had been the precipitating factor in the Sepoy rebellion.

All because of a tight-fitting cartridge.

Absurd, but true. The Enfield cartridge, like all other cartridges, came wrapped in glazed paper which had to be bitten open to be used. But unlike the heavier “Brown Bess” rifle the Sepoys had been using for forty years, the Enfield cartridge had to be greased to make the tight fit into the barrel. There had been no problem until rumors began circulating that the grease was a mixture of pork and bullock fat. The Moslem troops would not bite anything that might be pork, and the Hindus would not pollute themselves with cow grease. Tension between British officers and their Sepoy troops had built for months, culminating on May 10, a mere eleven weeks ago, when the Sepoys had mutinied in Meerut, perpetrating atrocities on the white populace. The mutiny had spread like a grass fire across most of northern India, and the Raj had not been the same since.

Westphalen had hated the Enfield for endangering him during what should have been a safe, peaceful tour of duty. Now he caressed it almost lovingly. If not for the rebellion he might still be far to the southeast in Fort William, unaware of the Temple-in-the-Hills and the promise of salvation it held for him and for the honor of the Westphalen name.

“I’ve spotted him, sir.” It was an enlisted man named Watts speaking.

Westphalen stepped up to where Watts lay against the rise and took the field glasses from him. After refocusing to correct for his near-sightedness, he spotted the squat little man and his mules traveling north at a brisk pace.

“We’ll wait until he’s well into the hills, then follow. Keep down until then.”

With the ground softened by monsoon rains, there would be no problem following Jaggernath and his mules. Westphalen wanted the element of surprise on his side when he entered the temple, but it wasn’t an absolute necessity. One way or another he was going to find the Temple-in-the-Hills. Some of the tales said it was made of pure gold. Westphalen did not believe that for an instant—gold was not fit for buildings. Other tales said the temple housed urns full of precious jewels. Westphalen might have laughed at that too had he not seen the ruby Jaggernath had given MacDougal last month simply for not handling the supplies on the backs of his mules.

If the temple housed anything of value, Westphalen intended to find it… and to make all or part of it his own.

He glanced around at the men he had brought with him: Tooke, Watts, Russell, Hunter, Lang, and Malleson. He had combed his records carefully for individuals with the precise blend of qualities he required. He detested aligning himself so closely with their sort. They were worse than commoners. These were the toughest men he could find, the dregs of the Bharangpur garrison, the hardest drinking, most unscrupulous soldiers under his command.

Two weeks ago he had begun dropping remarks to his lieutenant about rumors of a rebel encampment in the hills. In the past few days he had begun to refer to unspecified intelligence reports confirming the rumors, saying it was thought that the pandies were receiving assistance from a religious order in the hills. And just yesterday he had begun picking men to accompany him on “a brief reconnaissance mission.” The lieutenant had insisted on leading the patrol but Westphalen had overruled him.

During the entire time, Westphalen had grumbled incessantly about being so far from the fight, about letting all the glory of quelling the revolt go to others while he was stuck in northern Bengal battling administrative rubbish. His act had worked. It was now a common assumption among the officers and non-coms of the Bharangpur garrison that Captain Sir Albert Westphalen was not going to allow a post far from the battle lines to prevent him from earning a decoration or two. Perhaps he even had his eye on the brand new Victoria Cross.

He had also made a point of not wanting any support personnel. This would be a bare-bones scouting party, no pack animals, no bhistis—each trooper would carry his own food and water.

Westphalen went back and stood near his horse. He fervently prayed his plan would be successful, and swore to God that if things worked out the way he hoped, he would never turn another card or roll another die as long as he lived.

His plan had to work. If not, the great hall his family had called home since the eleventh century would be sold to pay his gambling debts. His profligate ways would be exposed to his peers, his reputation reduced to that of a wastrel, the Westphalen name dragged through the dirt… commoners cavorting in his ancestral home… Better to remain here on the wrong side of the world than face disgrace of that magnitude.

He walked up the rise again and took the field glasses from Watts. Jaggernath was almost into the hills. Westphalen had decided to give him a half-hour lead. It was four-fifteen. Despite the overcast sky and the late hour of the day, there was still plenty of light left.

By four-thirty-five Westphalen could wait no longer. The last twenty minutes had dragged by with sadistic slowness. He mounted his men up and led them after Jaggernath at a slow walk.

As he had expected, the trail was easy to follow. There was no traffic into the hills and the moist ground held unmistakable evidence of the passage of six mules. The trail wound a circuitous path in and around the coarse outcroppings of yellow-brown rock that typified the hills in the region. Westphalen held himself in check with difficulty, resisting the urge to spur his mount ahead. Patience… Patience must be the order of the day. When he came to fear they might be gaining too much on the Hindu, he had his men dismount and continue following on foot.

The trail led on and on, always upward. The grass died away, leaving barren rock in all directions; he saw no other travelers, no homes, no huts, no signs of human habitation. Westphalen wondered at the endurance of the old man out of sight ahead of him. He now knew why no one in Bharangpur had been able to tell him how to reach the temple: The path was a deep, rocky gully, its walls rising at times to a dozen feet or more over his head on either side, so narrow that he had to lead his men in a single defile, so tortuous and obscure, with so many branches leading off in random directions, that even with a map he doubted he would have been able to keep on course.

The light was waning when he saw the wall. He was leading his horse around one of the countless sharp twists in the path, wondering how they were going to follow the trail once night came, when he looked up and saw that the gully opened abruptly into a small canyon. He immediately jumped back and signaled his men to halt. He gave his reins to Watts and peered around the edge of an outcropping of rock.

The wall sat two hundred yards away, spanning the width of the canyon. It looked to be about ten feet high, made of black stone, with a single gate at its center. The gate stood open to the night.

“They’ve left the door open for us, sir,” Tooke said at his side. He had crept up for a look of his own.

Westphalen snapped around to glare at him. “Back with the others!”

“Aren’t we going in?”

“When I give the order and not before!”

Westphalen watched the soldier sulkily return to his proper place. Only a few hours away from the garrison and already discipline was showing signs of breaking down. Not unexpected with the likes of these. They had all heard the stories about the Temple-in-the-Hills. You couldn’t be in Bharangpur barracks for more than a week without hearing them. Westphalen was sure there was not a man among them who had not used the hope of pocketing something of value from within the temple to spur him along as they had followed the trail into the hills; now they had reached their goal and wanted to know if the stories were true. The looter within them was rising to the surface like something rotten from the bottom of a pond. He could almost smell the foul odor of their greed.

And what about me? Westphalen thought grimly. Do I reek as they do?

He looked back toward the canyon. Behind the wall, rising above it, was the dim shape of the temple itself. Details were lost in the long shadows; all he could make out was a vaguely domelike shape with a spire on top.

As he watched, the door in the wall swung closed with a crash that echoed off the rocky mountain walls, making the horses shy and causing his own heart to skip a beat.

Suddenly it was dark. Why couldn’t India have England’s lingering twilight? Night fell like a curtain here.

What to do now? He hadn’t planned on taking so long to reach the temple, hadn’t planned on darkness and a walled-off canyon. Yet why hesitate? He knew there were no rebels in the temple compound—that had been a fiction he had concocted. Most likely only a few Hindu priests. Why not scale the walls and have done with it?

No… he didn’t want to do that. He could find no rational reason to hesitate, yet something in his gut told him to wait for the sun.

“We’ll wait until morning.”

The men glanced at each other, muttering. Westphalen searched for a way to keep them in hand. He could neither shoot nor handle a lance half as well as they, and he had been in command of the garrison less than two months, nowhere near enough time to win their confidence as an officer. His only recourse was to show himself to be their superior in judgment. And that should be no problem. After all, they were only commoners.

He decided to single out the most vocal of the grumblers.

“Do you detect some flaw in my decision, Mr. Tooke? If so, please speak freely. This is no time for formality.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” the enlisted man said with a salute and exaggerated courtesy, “but we thought we’d be taking them right away. The morning’s a long way off and we’re anxious to be into the fighting. Aren’t I right, men?”

There were murmurs of approval.

Westphalen made a show of seating himself comfortably on a boulder before speaking. I hope this works.

“Very well, Mr. Tooke,” he said, keeping the mounting tension out of his voice. “You have my permission to lead an immediate assault on the temple.” As the men began to reach for their rifles, Westphalen added: “Of course, you realize that any pandies hiding within have been there for weeks and will know their way around the temple and its grounds quite well. Those of you who have never been on the other side of that wall will be lost in the dark.”

He saw the men stop in their tracks and glance at each other. Westphalen sighed with relief. Now, if he could deliver the coup de grace, he would be in command again.

“Charge, Mr. Tooke.”

After a long pause, Tooke said, “I think we’ll be waiting for morning, sir.”

Westphalen slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. “Good! With surprise and daylight on our side, we’ll route the pandies with a minimum of fuss. If all goes well, you’ll be back in your barracks by this time tomorrow night.”

If all goes well, he thought, you will never see tomorrow night.

chapter five

manhattan

Saturday, august 4, 198-

1

Gia stood inside the back door and let the air-conditioned interior cool and dry the fine sheen of perspiration coating her skin. Short, slick, blond curls were plastered against the nape of her neck. She was dressed in a Danskin body suit and jogging shorts, but even that was too much clothing. The temperature was pushing into the high eighties already and it was only nine-thirty.

She had been out in the back helping Vicky put up curtains in the playhouse. Even with screens on the windows and the breeze off the East River it was like an oven in that little thing. Vicky hadn’t seemed to notice, but Gia was sure she would have passed out if she had stayed in there another minute.

Nine-thirty. It should have been noon by now. She was slowly going crazy here on Sutton Square. Nice to have a live-in maid to see to your every need, nice to have meals prepared for you, your bed made, and central air conditioning… but it was so boring. She was out of her routine and found it almost impossible to work. She needed her work to keep these hours from dragging so.

She had to get out of here!

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it, Eunice!” she called as she headed for the door. Here was a break in the routine—a visitor. She was glad until she realized with a stab of apprehension that it could be someone from the police with bad news about Grace. She checked through the peephole before unlocking the deadbolt.

It was the mailman. Gia pulled open the door and was handed a flat box, maybe eight by twelve inches, weighing about a pound.

“Special delivery,” he said, giving her a frank head-to-toe appraisal before returning to his truck. Gia ignored him.

The box—could it be from Grace? She checked and saw it had been mailed from England. The return address was someplace in London called “The Divine Obsession.”

“Nellie! Package for you!”

Nellie was already half way downstairs. “Is it word from Grace?”

“I don’t think so. Not unless she’s gone back to England.”

Nellie’s brow furrowed as she glanced at the return address, then she began tearing at the brown paper wrapper. As it pulled away, she gasped.

“Oh! Black Magic!”

Gia stepped around for a look at what was inside. She saw a black rectangular cardboard box with gold trim and a red rose painted on the lid. It was an assortment of dark chocolates.

“These are my favorites! Who could have—?”

“There’s a card taped to the corner.”

Nellie pulled it free and opened it. “’Don’t worry,’ “she read. “’I haven’t forgotten you.’ It’s signed, ’Your favorite nephew, Richard!’ “

Gia was aghast. “Richard?”

“Yes! What a dear sweet boy to think of me! Oh, he knows Black Magic has always been my favorite. What a thoughtful present!”

“Could I see the card, please?”

Nellie handed it over without looking at it again. She was pulling the rest of the wrapper off and lifting the lid. The strong odor of dark chocolate filled the foyer. As the older woman inhaled deeply, Gia studied the card, her anger rising.

It was written in a cutesy female hand, with round circles above the i’s and little loops all over the place. Definitely not her ex-husband’s scrawl. He’d probably called the shop, gave them the address, told them what to put on the card, then came by later and paid for it. Or better yet, sent his latest girlfriend around with the money. Yes, that would be more Richard’s style.

Gia bottled the anger that had come to a full boil within her. Her ex-husband, controller of one third of the huge Westphalen fortune, had plenty of time to flit all over the world and send his aunt expensive chocolates from London, but not a penny to spare for child support, let alone the moment it would have taken to send his own daughter a birthday card back in April.

You sure can pick ’em, Gia.

She bent and picked up the wrapper. “The Divine Obsession.” At least she knew what city Richard was living in. And probably not too far from this shop—he was never one to go out of his way for anyone, especially his aunts. They had never thought much of him and had never been reticent about letting him know it. Which raised the question: Why the candy? What was behind this thoughtful little gift out of the blue?

“Imagine!” Nellie was saying. “A gift from Richard! How lovely! Who’d have ever thought—”

They were both suddenly aware of a third person in the room with them. Gia glanced up and saw Vicky standing in the hallway in her white jersey with her bony legs sticking out of her yellow shorts and her feet squeezed sockless into her sneakers, watching them with wide blue eyes.

“Is that a present from my daddy?”

“Why, yes, love,” Nellie said.

“Did he send one for me?”

Gia felt her heart break at those words. Poor Vicky…

Nellie glanced at Gia, her face distraught, then turned back to Vicky.

“Not yet, Victoria, but I’m sure one will be coming soon. Meanwhile, he said we should all share these chocolates until—” Nellie’s hand darted to her mouth, realizing what she had just said.

“Oh, no,” Vicky said. “My daddy would never send me chocolates. He knows I can’t have any.”

With her back straight and her chin high, she turned and walked quickly down the hall toward the backyard.

Nellie’s face seemed to crumble as she turned toward Gia. “I forgot she’s allergic. I’ll go get her—”

“Let me,” Gia said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We’ve been over this ground before and it looks like we’ll have to go over it again.”

She left Nellie standing there in the foyer, looking older than her years, unaware of the box of chocolates clutched so tightly in her spotted hands. Gia didn’t know who to feel sorrier for: Vicky or Nellie.

2

Vicky hadn’t wanted to cry in front of Aunt Nellie, who always said what a big girl she was. Mommy said it was all right to cry, but Vicky never saw Mommy cry. Well, hardly ever.

Vicky wanted to cry right now. It didn’t matter if this was one of the all right times or not, it was going to come out anyway. It was like a big balloon inside her chest, getting bigger and bigger until she either cried or exploded. She held it in until she reached the playhouse. There was one door, two windows with new curtains, and room enough inside for her to spin around with her arms spread out all the way and not touch the walls. She picked up her Ms. Jelliroll doll and hugged it to her chest. Then it began.

The sobs came first, like big hiccups, then the tears. She didn’t have a sleeve, so she tried to wipe them away with her arm but succeeded only in making her face and her arm wet and smeary.

Daddy doesn’t care. It made her feel sick way down in the bottom of her stomach to think that, but she knew it was true. She didn’t know why it should bother her so much. She couldn’t much remember what he looked like. Mommy threw away all his pictures a long time ago and as time went by it became harder and harder to see his face in her mind. He hadn’t been around at all in two years and Vicky didn’t remember seeing much of him even before that. So why should it hurt to say that Daddy didn’t care? Mommy was the only one who really mattered, who really cared, who was always there.

Mommy cared. And so did Jack. But now Jack didn’t come around anymore either. Except for yesterday. Thinking about Jack made her stop crying. When he had lifted her up and hugged her yesterday she’d felt so good inside. Warm. And safe. For the short while he had been in the house yesterday she hadn’t felt afraid. Vicky didn’t know what there was to be scared of, but lately she felt afraid all the time. Especially at night.

She heard the door open behind her and knew it was Mommy. That was okay. She had stopped crying now. She was all right now. But when she turned and saw that sad, pitying look on Mommy’s face, it all came out again and she burst into tears. Mommy squeezed into the little rocker and sat her on her knee and held her tight until the sobs went away. This time for good.

3

“Why doesn’t Daddy love us anymore?”

The question startled Gia. Vicky had asked her countless times why Daddy didn’t live with them anymore. But this was the first time she had mentioned love.

Answer a question with another question: “Why do you say that?”

But Vicky was not to be sidetracked.

“He doesn’t love us, does he, Mommy.” It was not a question.

No. He doesn’t. I don’t think he ever did.

That was the truth. Richard had never been a father. As far as he was concerned, Vicky had been an accident, a terrible inconvenience to him. He had never shown affection to her, had never been a presence in their home when they had lived together. He might as well have phoned in his paternal duties.

Gia sighed and hugged Vicky tighter. What an awful time that had been… the worst years of her life. Gia had been brought up a strict Catholic, and although the days had become one long siege of Gia and Vicky alone against the world, and the nights—those nights when her husband bothered to come home—had been Richard and Gia against each other, she had never considered divorce. Not until the night when Richard, in a particularly vicious mood, had told her why he’d married her. She was as good as anyone else for rutting when he was randy, he had said, but the real reason was taxes. Immediately after the death of his father, Richard had gone to work transferring his assets out of Britain and into either American or international holdings, all the while looking for an American to marry. He’d found such an American in Gia, fresh in from the Midwest looking to sell her commercial art talents to Madison Avenue. The urbane Richard Westphalen, with his refined British manners and accent, had swept her off her feet. They were married; he became an American citizen. There were other ways he could have acquired citizenship, but they were lengthy and this was more in keeping with his character. The taxes on the earnings of his portion of the Westphalen fortune would from then on be taxed at a maximum of seventy percent—which would drop to fifty percent starting in October 1981—rather than the British government’s ninety-plus percent. After that, he quickly lost interest in her.

“We might have had some fun for a while, but you had to go and become a mother.”

Those words seared themselves onto her brain. She started divorce proceedings the following day, ignoring her lawyer’s increasingly strident pleas for a whopping property settlement.

Perhaps she should have listened. She often would wonder about that later. But at the time all she wanted was out. She wanted nothing that came from his precious family fortune. She allowed her lawyer to ask for child support only because she knew she would need it until she revived her art career.

Was Richard contrite? Did the smallest mote of guilt come to rest on the featureless, diamond-hard surface of his conscience? No. Did he do anything to secure a future for the child he had fathered? No. In fact, he instructed his lawyer to fight for minimal child support.

“No, Vicky,” Gia said, “I don’t think he does.”

Gia expected tears, but Vicky fooled her by smiling up at her.

“Jack loves us.”

Not this again!

“I know he does, honey, but—”

“Then why can’t he be my daddy?”

“Because…” How was she going to say this? “… because sometimes love just isn’t enough. There have to be other things. You have to trust each other, have the same values—”

“What are values?”

“Ohhh… you have to believe in the same things, want to live the same way.”

“I like Jack.”

“I know you do, honey. But that doesn’t mean Jack is the right man to be your new father.” Vicky’s blind devotion to Jack undermined Gia’s confidence in the child’s character judgment. She was usually so astute.

She lifted Vicky off her lap and rose to a hands-on-knees crouch. The heat in the playhouse was suffocating.

“Let’s go inside and get some lemonade.”

“Not right now,” Vicky said. “I want to play with Ms. Jelliroll. She’s got to hide before Mr. Grape-grabber finds her.”

“Okay. But come in soon. It’s getting too hot.”

Vicky didn’t answer. She was already lost in a fantasy with her dolls. Gia stood outside the playhouse and wondered if Vicky might be spending too much time alone here. There were no children around Sutton Square for her to play with, just her mother, an elderly aunt, and her books and dolls. Gia wanted to get Vicky back home and into a normal routine as soon as possible.

“Miss Gia?” It was Eunice calling from the back door. “Mrs. Paton says lunch will be early today because of your trip to the dress shop.”

Gia bit down on the middle knuckle of her right index finger, a gesture of frustration she had picked up from her grandmother many years ago.

The dress shop… the reception tonight… two places she most definitely did not want to go, but would have to because she had promised. She had to get out of here!

4

Joey Diaz placed the little bottle of green liquid on the table between them.

“Where’d you get ahold of this stuff, Jack?”

Jack was buying Joey a late lunch at a midtown Burger King. They had a corner booth; each was munching on a Whopper. Joey, a Filipino with a bad case of post-adolescent acne, was a contact Jack treasured. He worked in the city Health Department lab. In the past, Jack had used him mostly for information and for suggestions on how to bring down the wrath of the Health Department upon the heads of certain targets of his fix-it work. Yesterday was the first time he had asked Joey to run an analysis for him.

“What’s wrong with it?” Jack had been finding it hard to concentrate on Joey or the food. His mind had been on Kolabati and how she had made him feel last night. From there it flowed to the odor that had crept into the apartment and her bizarre reaction to it. His thoughts kept drifting away from Joey, and so it was easy to appear laid-back about the analysis. He had been playing everything low-key for Joey. No big thing—just see if there’s anything really useful in it.

“Nothing wrong, exactly.” Joey had a bad habit of talking with his mouth full. Most people would swallow, then talk before the next bite; Joey preferred to sip his Coke between swallows, take another big bite, then talk. As he leaned forward, Jack leaned back. “But it ain’t gonna help you shit.”

“Not a laxative? What will it help me do? Sleep?”

He shook his head and filled his mouth with fries. “Not a chance.”

Jack drummed his fingers on the grease-patinaed, wood-grained Formica. Damn! It had occurred to him that the tonic might be some sort of sedative used to put Grace into a deep sleep so she wouldn’t make a fuss when her abductors—if in fact she had been abducted—came by and snatched her. So much for that possibility. He waited for Joey to go on, hoping he would finish his Whopper first. No such luck.

“I don’t think it does anything,” he said around his last mouthful. “It’s just a crazy conglomeration of odd stuff. None of it makes sense.”

“In other words, somebody just threw a lot of junk together to sell for whatever ails you. Some sort of Dr. Feelgood tonic.”

Joey shrugged. “Maybe. But if that’s the case, they could have done it a lot cheaper. Personally, I think it was put together by someone who believed in the mixture. There are crude flavorings and a twelve percent alcohol vehicle. Nothing special—I had them pegged in no time. But there was this strange alkaloid that I had the damnedest—”

“What’s an alkaloid? Sounds like poison.”

“Some of them are, like strychnine; others you take every day, like caffeine. They’re almost always derived from plants. This one came from a doozy. Wasn’t even in the computer. Took me most of the morning to track it down.” He shook his head. “What a way to spend a Saturday morning.”

Jack smiled to himself. Joey was going to ask a little extra for this job. That was okay. If it kept him happy, it was worth it.

“So where’s it from?” he asked, watching with relief as Joey washed down the last of his lunch.

“It’s from a kind of grass.”

“Dope?”

“Naw. A non-smoking kind called durba grass. And this particular alkaloid isn’t exactly a naturally occurring thing. It was cooked in some way to add an extra amine group. That’s what took me so long.”

“So it’s not a laxative, not a sedative, not a poison. What is it?”

“Beats hell out of me.”

“This is not exactly a big help to me, Joey.”

“What can I say?” Joey ran a hand through his lanky black hair, scratched at a pimple on his chin. “You wanted to know what was in it. I told you: some crude flavorings, an alcohol vehicle, and an alkaloid from an Indian grass.”

Jack felt something twist inside him. Memories of last night exploded around him. He said, “Indian? You mean American Indian, don’t you?” knowing even as he spoke that Joey had not meant that at all.

“Of course not! American Indian grass would be North American grass. No, this stuff is from India, the subcontinent. A tough compound to track down. Never would have figured it out if the department computer hadn’t referred me to the right textbook.”

India! How strange. After spending a number of delirious hours last night with Kolabati, to learn that the bottle of liquid found in a missing woman’s room was probably compounded by an Indian. Strange indeed.

Or perhaps not so strange. Grace and Nellie had close ties to the U.K. Mission and through there to the diplomatic community that centered around the U.N. Perhaps someone from the Indian Consulate had given Grace the bottle—perhaps Kusum himself. After all, wasn’t India once a British colony?

“Afraid it’s really an innocent little mixture, Jack. If you’re looking to sic the Health Department on whoever’s peddling it as a laxative, I think you’d be better off going to the Department of Consumer Affairs.”

Jack had been hoping the little bottle would yield a dazzling clue that would lead him directly to Aunt Grace, making him a hero in Gia’s eyes.

So much for hunches.

He asked Joey what he thought his unofficial analysis was worth, paid the hundred and fifty, and headed back to his apartment with the little bottle in the front pocket of his jeans. As he rode the bus uptown, he tried to figure what he should do next on the Grace Westphalen thing. He had spent much of the morning tracking down and talking to a few more of his street contacts, but there had been no leads. No one had heard a thing. There had to be other avenues, but he couldn’t think of any at the moment. Other thoughts pushed their way to the front.

Kolabati again. His mind was full of her. Why? As he tried to analyze it, he came to see that the sexual spell she had cast on him last night was only a small part of it. More important was the realization that she knew who he was, knew how he made a living, and somehow was able to accept it. No… accept wasn’t the right word. It almost seemed as if she looked on his lifestyle as a perfectly natural way of living. One that she wouldn’t mind for herself.

Jack knew he was on the rebound from Gia, knew he was vulnerable, especially to someone who appeared to be as open-minded as Kolabati. Almost against his will, he had laid himself bare for her, and she had found him… “honorable.”

She wasn’t afraid of him.

He had to call her.

But first he had to call Gia. He owed her some sort of progress report, even when there was no progress. He dialed the Paton number as soon as he reached his apartment.

“Any word on Grace?” he said after Gia was called to the other end.

“No.” Her voice didn’t seem nearly as cool as it had yesterday. Or was that just his imagination? “I hope you’ve got some good news. We could use it around here.”

“Well…” Jack grimaced. He really wished he had something encouraging to tell her. He was almost tempted to make up something, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “You know that stuff we thought was a laxative? It isn’t.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing. A dead end.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “Where do you go from here?”

“I wait.”

“Nellie’s already doing that. She doesn’t need any help waiting.”

Her sarcasm stung.

“Look, Gia. I’m not a detective—”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“—and I never promised to do a Sherlock Holmes number on this. If there’s a ransom note or something like that in the mail, I may be able to help. I’ve got people on the street keeping their ears open, but until something breaks…”

The silence on the other end of the line was nerve-wracking.

“Sorry, Gia. That’s all I can tell you now.”

“I’ll tell Nellie. Goodbye Jack.”

After a moment of deep breathing to calm himself, he dialed Kusum’s number. A now-familiar female voice answered.

“Kolabati?”

“Yes?”

“This is Jack.”

A gasp. “Jack! I can’t talk now. Kusum’s coming. I’ll call you later!”

She took his phone number and then hung up.

Jack sat and looked at the wall in bewilderment. Idly, he pressed the replay button on his answerphone. His father’s voice came out of the speaker.

“Just want to remind you about the tennis match tomorrow. Don’t forget to get here by ten. The tournament starts at noon.”

This had all the makings of a very bad weekend.

5

With trembling fingers, Kolabati pulled the jack clip from the back of the phone. Another minute or two from now and Jack’s call would have ruined everything. She wanted no interruptions when she confronted Kusum. It was taking all her courage, but she intended to face her brother and wring the truth from him. She would need time to position him for her assault… time and concentration. He was a master dissembler and she would have to be as circumspect and as devious as he if she was going to trap him into the truth.

She had even chosen her attire for maximum effect. Although she played neither well nor often, she found tennis clothes comfortable. She was dressed in a white sleeveless shirt and shorts set by Boast. And she wore her necklace, of course, exposed through the fully open collar of her shirt. Much of her skin was exposed: another weapon against Kusum.

At the sound of the elevator door opening down the hall, the tension that had been gathering within her since she had seen him step from the taxi on the street below balled itself into a tight, hard knot in the pit of her stomach.

Oh, Kusum. Why does it have to be like this? Why can’t you let it go?

As the key turned in the lock, she forced herself into an icy calm.

He opened the door, saw her, and smiled.

“Bati!” He came over as if to put his arm around her shoulders, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he ran a finger along her cheek. Kolabati willed herself not to shrink from his touch. He spoke in Bengali. “You’re looking better everyday.”

“Where were you all night, Kusum?”

He stiffened. “I was out. Praying. I have learned to pray again. Why do you ask?”

“I was worried. After what happened—”

“Do not fear for me on that account,” he said with a tight smile. “Pity instead the one who tries to steal my necklace.”

“Still I worry.”

“Do not.” He was becoming visibly annoyed now. “As I told you when you first arrived, I have a place I go to read my Gita in peace. I see no reason to change my routines simply because you are here.”

“I wouldn’t expect such a thing. I have my life to lead, you have yours.” She brushed past him and moved toward the door. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Like that?” His eyes were racing up and down her minimally clad body. “With your legs completely exposed and your blouse unbuttoned?”

“This is America.”

“But you are not an American! You are a woman of India! A Brahmin! I forbid it!”

Good—he was getting angry.

“You can’t forbid, Kusum,” she said with a smile. “You no longer tell me what to wear, what to eat, how to think. I am free of you. I’ll make my own decisions today, just as I did last night.”

“Last night? What did you do last night?”

“I had dinner with Jack.” She watched him closely for his reaction. He seemed confused for an instant, and that wasn’t what she expected.

“Jack who?” Then his eyes widened. “You don’t mean—?”

“Yes. Repairman Jack. I owe him something, don’t you think?”

“An American—!”

“Worried about my karma? Well, dear brother, my karma is already polluted, as is yours—especially yours—for reasons we both know too well.” She averted her thoughts from that. “And besides,” she said, tugging on her necklace, “what does karma mean to one who wears this?”

“A karma can be cleansed,” Kusum said in a subdued tone. “I am trying to cleanse mine.”

The sincerity of his words struck her and she grieved for him. Yes, he did want to remake his life; she could see that. But by what means was he going about it? Kusum had never shied away from extremes.

It suddenly occurred to Kolabati that this might be the moment to catch him off guard, but it passed. Besides, better to have him angry. She needed to know where he would be tonight. She did not intend to let him out of her sight.

“What are your plans for tonight, brother? More prayer?”

“Of course. But not until late. I must attend a reception hosted by the U.K. Mission at eight.”

“That sounds interesting. Would they mind if I came along?”

Kusum brightened. “You would come with me? That would be wonderful. I’m sure they would be glad to have you.”

“Good.” A perfect opportunity to keep an eye on him. Now… to anger him. “But I’ll have to find something to wear.”

“You will be expected to dress like a proper Indian woman.”

“In a sari?” She laughed in his face. “You must be joking!”

“I insist! Or I will not be seen with you!”

“Fine. Then I’ll bring my own escort: Jack.”

Kusum’s face darkened with rage. “I forbid it!”

Kolabati moved closer to him. Now was the moment. She watched his eyes carefully.

“What will you do to stop it? Send a rakosh after him as you did last night?”

“A rakosh? After Jack?” Kusum’s eyes, his face, the way the cords of his neck tightened—they all registered shock and bafflement. He was the consummate liar when he wished to be, but Kolabati knew she had caught him off guard, and everything in his reaction screamed the fact that he didn’t know. He didn’t know!

“There was one outside his apartment window last night!”

“Impossible!” His face still wore a bewildered expression. “I’m the only one who…”

“Who what?”

“Who has an egg.”

Kolabati reeled. “You have it withyou?”

“Of course. Where could it be safer?”

“In Bengal!”

Kusum shook his head. He appeared to be regaining some of his composure. “No. I feel better when I know exactly where it is at all times.”

“You had it with you when you were with the London Embassy, too?”

“Of course.”

“What if it had been stolen?”

He smiled. “Who would even know what it was?”

With an effort, Kolabati mastered her confusion. “I want to see it. Right now.”

“Certainly.”

He led her into his bedroom and pulled a small wooden crate from a corner of the closet. He lifted the lid, pushed the excelsior aside, and there it was. Kolabati recognized the egg. She knew every blue mottle on its gray surface, knew the texture of its cool, slippery surface like her own skin. She brushed her fingertips over the shell. Yes, this was it: a female rakosh egg.

Feeling weak, Kolabati backed up and sat on the bed.

“Kusum, do you know what this means? Someone has a nest of rakoshi here in New York! “

“Nonsense! This is the very last rakosh egg. It could be hatched, but without a male to fertilize the female, there could be no nest.”

“Kusum, I know there was a rakosh there!”

“Did you see it? Was it male or female?”

“I didn’t actually see it—”

“Then how can you say there are rakoshi in New York?”

“The odor!” Kolabati felt her own anger rise. “Don’t you think I know the odor?”

Kusum’s face had resolved itself into its usual mask. “You should. But perhaps you have forgotten, just as you have forgotten so many other things about our heritage.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“The subject is closed, as far as I’m concerned.”

Kolabati rose and faced her brother. “Swear to me, Kusum. Swear that you had nothing to do with that rakoshi last night.”

“On the grave of our mother and father,” he said, looking her squarely in the eyes, “I swear that I did not send a rakosh after our friend Jack. There are people in this world I wish ill, but he is not one of them.”

Kolabati had to believe him. His tone was sincere, and there was no more solemn oath for Kusum than the one he had just spoken.

And there, intact on its bed of excelsior, was the egg. As Kusum knelt to pack it away, he said:

“Besides, if a rakosh were truly after Jack, his life wouldn’t be worth a paisa. I assume he is alive and well?”

“Yes, he’s well. I protected him.”

Kusum’s head snapped toward her. Hurt and anger raced across his features. He understood exactly what she meant.

“Please leave me,” he said in a low voice as he faced away and lowered his head. “You disgust me.”

Kolabati spun and left the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Would she never be free of this man? She was sick of Kusum! Sick of his self-righteousness, his inflexibility, his monomania. No matter how good she felt—and she felt good about Jack—he could always manage to make her feel dirty. They both had plenty to feel guilty about, but Kusum had become obsessed with atoning for past transgressions and cleansing his karma. Not just his own karma, but hers as well. She had thought leaving India—to Europe first, then to America—would sever their relationship. But no. After years of no contact, he had arrived on these same shores.

She had to face it: She would never escape him. For they were bound by more than blood—the necklaces they wore linked them with a bond that went beyond time, beyond reason, even beyond karma.

But there had to be a way out for her, a way to free herself from Kusum’s endless attempts to dominate her.

Kolabati went to the window and looked out across the green expanse of Central Park. Jack was over there on the other side of the Park. Perhaps he was the answer. Perhaps he could free her.

She reached for the phone.

6

Even the moon’s frightened of me—frightened to death!

The whole world’s frightened to death!

Jack was well into part three of the James Whale Festival—Claude Raines was getting ready to start his reign of terror as The Invisible Man.

The phone rang. Jack turned down the sound and picked it up before his answerphone began its routine.

“Where are you?” said Kolabati’s voice.

“Home.”

“But this is not the number on your phone.”

“So you peeked, did you?”

“I knew I’d want to call you.”

It was good to hear her say that. “I had the number changed and never bothered to change the label.” Actually, he purposely had left the old label in place.

“I have a favor to ask you,” she said.

“Anything.” Almost anything.

“The U.K. Mission is holding a reception tonight. Will you accompany me?”

Jack mulled that for a few seconds. His first impulse was to refuse. He hated parties. He hated gatherings. And a gathering of U.N. types, the most useless people in the world… it was a grim prospect.

“I don’t know… “

“Please? As a personal favor? Otherwise I shall have to go with Kusum.”

It was a choice then between seeing Kolabati and not seeing her. That wasn’t a choice.

“Okay.” Besides, it would be fun to see Burkes’ face when he showed up at the reception. He might even rent a tux for the occasion. They set a time and a meeting place—for some reason, Kolabati didn’t want to be picked up at Kusum’s apartment—and then a question occurred to Jack.

“By the way, what’s durba grass used for?”

He heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Where did you find durba grass?”

“I didn’t find any. As far as I know, it only grows in India. I just want to know if it’s used for anything.”

“It has many uses in traditional Indian folk medicine.” She was speaking very carefully. “But where did you even hear about it?”

“Came up in conversation this morning.” Why was she so concerned?

“Stay away from it, Jack. Whatever it is you’ve found, stay away from it. At least until you see me tonight!”

She hung up. Jack stared uneasily at his big tv screen on which an empty pair of trousers was silently chasing a terrified woman down an English country lane. There had been something strange about Kolabati’s voice at the end there. It had sounded almost as if she were afraid for him.

7

“Stunning!” said the saleswoman. Vicky looked up from her book. “You look pretty,

Mommy.”

“Smashing!” Nellie said. “Absolutely smashing!” She had brought Gia to La Chanson. Nellie had always liked this particular boutique because it didn’t look like a dress shop. From the outside, with its canopied entrance, it looked more like a chic little restaurant. But the small display windows on either side of the door left little doubt as to what was sold within.

She watched Gia standing before a mirror, examining herself in a strapless cocktail dress. It was mauve and silk, and Nellie liked it best of the four Gia had tried on. Gia was making no bones, however, about what she thought of the idea of Nellie buying her a dress. But it had been part of the deal, and Nellie had insisted that Gia hold up her end.

Such a stubborn girl. Nellie had seen her examining all four dresses for a price tag, obviously intending to buy the cheapest one. But she hadn’t found one.

Nellie smiled to herself. Keep looking, dearie. They don’t come with price tags here.

It was only money, after all. And what was money?

Nellie signed, remembering what her father had told her about money when she was a girl. Those who don’t have enough of it are only aware of what it can buy them. When you finally have enough of it you become aware—acutely aware—of all the things it can’t buy… the really important things… like youth, health, love, peace of mind.

She felt her lips quiver and tightened them into a firm line. All the Westphalen fortune could not bring her dear John back to life, nor bring Grace back from wherever she was.

Nellie glanced to her right on the sofa to where Victoria sat next to her, reading a collection of Garfield cartoons. The child had been unusually quiet, almost withdrawn since the arrival of the chocolates this morning. She hoped she hadn’t been too badly hurt. Nellie put her arm around her and squeezed. Victoria rewarded her with a smile.

Dear, dear, Victoria. How did Richard ever father you?

The thought of her nephew brought a bitter taste into her mouth. Richard Westphalen was living proof of what a curse wealth can be. Look what inheriting control of his father’s share of the fortune at such a young age had done to him. He might have been a different person—a decent person—if her brother Teddy had lived longer.

Money! Sometimes she almost wished—

The saleswoman was speaking to Gia: “Did you see anything else you’d like to try on?”

Gia laughed. “About a hundred, but this is fine.” She turned to Nellie. “What do you think?”

Nellie studied her, delighted with the choice. The dress was perfect. The lines were clean, the color went well with her blond hair, and the silk clung everywhere it was supposed to.

“You’ll be the toast of the diplomats.”

“That’s a classic, my dear,” the saleswoman said.

And it was. If Gia kept to her current perfect size six, she could probably wear this dress ten years from now and still look good. Which would probably suit Gia just fine. To Nellie’s mind, Gia’s taste in clothing left a lot to be desired. She wished Gia would dress more fashionably. She had a good figure—enough bust and the long waist and long legs that dress designers dream about. She should have designer clothes.

“Yes,” Gia said to the mirror. “This is the one.”

The dress needed no alterations, so it was boxed up and Gia walked out with it under her arm. She hailed a cab for them on Third Avenue.

“I want to ask you something,” Gia said sotto voce as they rode back to Sutton Square. “It’s been bothering me for two days now. It’s about the… inheritance you’re leaving Vicky; you mentioned something about it Thursday.”

Nellie was startled for a moment. Had she spoken of the terms of her will? Yes… yes, she had. Her mind was so foggy lately.

“What bothers you?” It wasn’t at all like Gia to bring up the subject of money.

Gia smiled sheepishly. “Don’t laugh, but you mentioned a curse that went along with the Westphalen fortune.”

“Oh, dearie,” Nellie said, relieved that that was all that concerned her, “that’s just talk!”

“You mean you made it up?”

“Not I. It was something Sir Albert was heard to mutter when he was in his dotage and in his cups.”

“Sir Albert?”

“My great-grandfather. He was the one who actually started the fortune. It’s an interesting story. Back in the middle of the last century the family was in dire financial straits of some sort—I never knew the exact nature and I guess it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that shortly after his return from India, Sir Albert found an old diagram of the cellar of Westphalen Hall, which led him to a huge cache of jewels hidden there since the Norman invasion. Westphalen Hall was saved. Most of the jewels were converted to cash, which was carefully invested and the fortune has grown steadily for a century and a quarter.”

“But what about the curse?”

“Oh, pay no attention to that! I shouldn’t even have mentioned it! Something about the Westphalen line ending ’in blood and pain,’ about ’dark things’ that would come for us. But don’t worry, my dear. So far we’ve all lived long lives and died of natural causes.”

“Gia’s face relaxed. “That’s good to know.”

“Don’t give it another thought.”

But Nellie found her own thoughts dwelling on it. The Westphalen curse… she and Grace and Teddy used to joke about it. But if some of the stories were to be believed, Sir Albert had died a frightened old man, mortally afraid of the dark. It was said he spent his last years surrounded by guard dogs, and always kept a fire going in his room, even on the hottest nights.

Nellie shivered. It had.been easy to make jokes back then when they were young and there were three of them. But Teddy was long dead of leukemia—at least he hadn’t gone “in blood and pain”; more like fading away—and Grace was who knew where? Had some “dark thing” come for her? Could there possibly be something to—

Rubbish! How can I let myself be frightened by the rantings of a crazy old man who’s been dead for a century?

Still… Grace was gone and there was no explaining that. Not yet.

As they neared Sutton Square, Nellie felt anticipation mounting within her. There had been news of Grace while she was out—she was sure of it! She hadn’t budged from the house since Tuesday for fear of missing word from Grace. But wasn’t staying in the house like watching a pot? It wouldn’t boil until you turned your back on it. Leaving the house was the same thing: Grace had probably called as soon as they left Sutton Square.

Nellie hurried up to the front door and rang the bell while Gia paid the driver. Her fists clenched of their own volition as she waited impatiently for the door to open.

Grace is back.’ I know it! I just know it!

But the hope shriveled and died when the door opened and she saw Eunice’s grim face.

“Any word?”

The question was unnecessary. The sad, slow shake of Eunice’s head told Nellie what she already knew. Suddenly she felt exhausted, as if all her energy had been drained off.

She turned to Gia as she came in the door with Victoria. “I can’t go tonight.”

“You must,” Gia said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “What happened to that British stiff-upper-lip-and-all-that attitude? What would Sir Albert think if you just sat around and moped all night?”

Nellie appreciated what Gia was trying to do, but she truly did not give a damn about what Sir Albert might have thought.

“And what am I going to do with this dress?” Gia went on.

“The dress is yours,” Nellie said morosely. She didn’t have the will to put on a façade.

“Not if we don’t go tonight, it isn’t. I’ll take it back to La Chanson right now unless you promise me we’re going.”

“That’s not fair. I can’t go. Can’t you see that?”

“No, I can’t see that at all. What would Grace think? You know she’d want you to go. “

Would she? Nellie thought about that. Knowing Grace, she would want her to go. Grace was always one for keeping up appearances. No matter how bad you felt inside, you kept up your social obligations. And you never, never made a spectacle of your feelings.

“Do it for Grace,” Gia said.

Nellie managed a little smile. “Very well, we shall go, although I can’t guarantee how stiff my upper lip shall be.”

“You’ll do fine.” Gia gave her one last hug, then released her. Victoria was calling from the kitchen, asking her mother to cut an orange for her. Gia hurried off, leaving Nellie alone in the foyer.

How will I do this? It has always been Grace-and-Nellie, Nellie-and-Grace, the two as one, always together. How will I do it without her?

Feeling very old, Nellie started up the stairs to her room.

8

Nellie had neglected to tell her whom the reception was for, and Gia never did find out. She got the impression it was to welcome a new high-ranking official to the Mission.

The affair, while hardly exciting, was not nearly as deadly dull as Gia had expected. The Harley House where it was being held was convenient to the U.N. and a short drive from Sutton Square. Even Nellie seemed to enjoy herself after a while. Only the first fifteen minutes or so were rough on the old woman, for immediately upon her arrival she was surrounded by a score of people asking after Grace and expressing their concern. All were members of that unofficial club of wealthy British citizens living in New York, “the colony within the Colonies.”

Buoyed by the sympathy and encouragement of her fellow Britons, Nellie perked up, drank some champagne, and actually began to laugh. Gia gave herself a pat on the back for refusing to allow her to cancel out tonight. This was her good deed for the day. The year!

Not such a bad crowd after all, Gia decided after an hour or so. There were numerous nationalities, all well dressed, friendly, polite, offering a smorgasbord of accents. The new dress fit her beautifully and she felt very feminine. She was aware of the admiring glances she drew from more than a few of the guests, and she enjoyed that. She was nearly finished with her third fluted glass of champagne—she knew nothing about champagne but this was delicious—when Nellie grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward two men standing off to the side. Gia recognized the shorter of the pair as Edward Burkes, security chief at the Mission. The taller man was dark, dressed all in white, including his turban. When he turned she noticed with a start that he had no left arm.

“Eddie, how are you?” Nellie said, extending her hand.

“Nellie! How good to see you!” Burkes took her hand and kissed it. He was a burly man of about fifty with graying hair and a moustache. He looked at Gia and then smiled. “And Miss DiLauro! What an unexpected pleasure! You look wonderful! Allow me to introduce you both to Mr. Kusum Bahkti of the Indian delegation.”

The Indian made a small bow at the waist but did not extend his hand. “A pleasure to meet you both.”

Gia took an instant dislike to him. His dark, angular face was a mask, his eyes unreadable. He seemed to be hiding something. His gaze passed over her as if she were an ordinary piece of furniture, but came to rest and remain avidly on Nellie.

A waiter came around with a tray of champagne-filled glasses. Burkes gave one each to Nellie and Gia, then offered one to Mr. Bahkti, who shook his head.

“Sorry, Kusum,” Burkes said. “Forgot you don’t drink. Can I get you anything else? A fruit punch?”

Mr. Bahkti shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself. Perhaps I’ll examine the buffet table later and see if you’ve put out any of those good English chocolates.”

“Are you a chocolate fancier?” Nellie said. “I adore it.”

“Yes. I developed a taste for it when I was with the London embassy. I brought a small supply with me when I came to this country, but that was six months ago and it has long since been depleted.”

“Just today I received a box of Black Magic from London. Have you ever had those?”

Gia saw genuine pleasure in Mr. Bahkti’s smile. “Yes. Superior chocolates. “

“You must come by some time and have some.”

The smile widened. “Perhaps I shall do that.”

Gia began to revise her opinion of Mr. Bahkti. He seemed to have gone from aloof to quite charming. Or was it simply an effect of her fourth glass of champagne? She tingled all over, felt almost giddy.

“I heard about Grace,” Burkes said to Nellie. “If there’s anything I can do… “

“We’re doing all we can,” Nellie said with a brave smile, “but mostly it comes down to waiting.”

“Mr. Bahkti and I were just discussing a mutual acquaintance, Jack Jeffers.”

“I believe his surname is Nelson,” the Indian said.

“No, I’m sure it’s Jeffers. Isn’t it, Miss DiLauro? You know him best, I believe.”

Gia wanted to laugh. How could she tell them Jack’s last name when she wasn’t sure herself. “Jack is Jack,” she said as tactfully as she could.

“He is that!” Burkes said with a laugh. “He recently helped Mr. Bahkti with a difficult matter.”

“Oh?” Gia said, trying not to sound arch. “A security matter?” That was how Jack was first introduced to her: “a security consultant. “

“Personal,” the Indian said, and that was all.

Gia wondered about that. What had the U.K. Mission used Jack for? And Mr. Bahkti, a U.N. diplomat—why would he need Jack? These weren’t the type of men who had use for someone like him. They were respectable members of the international diplomatic community. What could they want “fixed”? To her surprise, she detected an enormous amount of respect in their voices when they spoke of him. It baffled her.

“But anyway,” Burkes said, “I was thinking perhaps he could be of use in finding your sister, Nellie.”

Gia was looking at Mr. Bahkti as Burkes was speaking and she could have sworn she saw the Indian flinch. She did not have time to confirm the impression because she turned to give Nellie a quick warning look: They had promised Jack no one would know he was working for her.

“A marvelous idea, Eddie,” Nellie said, catching Gia’s glance and not missing a beat. “But I’m sure the police are doing all that can be done. However, if it—”

“Well, speak of the devil!” Burkes said, interrupting her and staring toward the entrance.

Before Gia turned to follow his gaze, she glanced again at Mr. Bahkti, who was already looking in the direction Burkes had indicated. On his dark face she saw a look of fury so deep, so fierce, that she stepped away from him for fear that he might explode. She searched the other end of the room to see what could cause such a reaction. And then she saw him… and her.

It was Jack. He was dressed in an old fashioned tuxedo with tails, white tie, and winged collar. He looked wonderful. Against her will, her heart leaped at the sight of him— That’s only because he’s a fellow American among all these foreigners—and then crashed. For on his arm was one of the most striking women Gia had ever seen.

9

Vicky was supposed to be asleep. It was way past her bedtime. She had tried to push herself into slumber, but it just wouldn’t come. Too hot. She lay on top of the bedsheet to get cool. The air conditioning didn’t work as well up here on the third floor as it did downstairs. Despite her favorite pink shorty pajamas, her dolls, and her new Wuppet to keep her company, she still couldn’t sleep. Eunice had done all she could, from sliced oranges—Vicky loved oranges and couldn’t get enough of them—to reading her a story. Nothing worked. Finally, Vicky had faked sleep just so Eunice wouldn’t feel bad.

Usually when she couldn’t sleep it was because she was worrying about Mommy. There were times when Mommy went out at night that she had a bad feeling, a feeling that she’d never come back, that she’d been caught in an earthquake or a tornado or a car wreck. On those nights she’d pray and promise to be good forever if only Mommy got home safe. It hadn’t failed yet.

But Vicky wasn’t worried tonight. Mommy was out with Aunt Nellie and Aunt Nellie would take care of her. Worry wasn’t keeping her awake.

It was the chocolates.

Vicky could not get those chocolates out of her mind. She had never seen a box like that—black with gold trim and a big red rose on the top. All the way from England. And the name: Black Magic! The name alone was enough to keep her awake.

She had to see them. It was as simple as that. She had to go down there and look in that box and see the “Dark Assortment” promised on the lid.

With Ms. Jelliroll tucked securely under her arm, she crawled out of bed and headed for the stairs. Down to the second floor landing without a sound, and then down to the first. The slate floor of the foyer was cool under her feet. Down the hall came voices and music and flickery light from where Eunice was watching television in the library. Vicky tiptoed across the foyer to the front parlor where she had seen Aunt Nellie put the box of chocolates.

She found it on an endtable. The cellophane was off. Vicky placed Ms. Jelliroll on the little couch, seated herself beside her, then pulled the Black Magic box onto her lap. She started to lift the lid, then stopped.

Mommy would have a fit if she came in now and found her sitting here. Bad enough that she was out of bed, but to have Aunt Nellie’s chocolates, too!

Vicky felt no guilt, however. In a way, this box should be hers, even if she was allergic to chocolate. It was from her father, after all. She had hoped that when Mommy stopped home today she would find a package there just for her. But no. Nothing from Daddy.

Vicky ran her fingers over the rose on the lid. Pretty. Why couldn’t this be hers? Maybe after Aunt Nellie finished the chocolates she’d let Vicky keep the box.

How many are left?

She lifted the lid. The rich, heavy smell of dark chocolate enveloped her, and with it the subtler odors of all the different fillings. And another smell, hiding just underneath the others, a smell she wasn’t quite sure of. But that was of little concern. The chocolate overpowered everything else. Saliva poured into her mouth. She wanted one. Oh, how she wanted just one bite.

She tilted the box to better see the contents in the light from the foyer. No empty slots! None of the chocolates were missing! At this rate it would take forever before she got the empty box. But the box was really of secondary interest now. It was the chocolate she hungered for.

She picked up a piece from the middle, wondering what was inside. It was cool to the touch but within seconds the chocolate coating became soft. Jack had taught her how to poke her thumb into the bottom to see what color the middle was. But what if it was a liquid center? She had thumb-poked a chocolate-covered cherry once and wound up with a sticky mess all over her lap. No thumb-poking tonight.

She held it to her nose. It didn’t smell quite so good up close. Maybe it had something yucky inside, like raspberry goo or some such awful stuff. One bite wouldn’t hurt. Maybe just a nibble from the outer layer. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about what was inside. And maybe no one would notice.

No.

Vicky put the piece back. She remembered the last time she had sneaked a nibble of chocolate—her face swelled up like a big red balloon and her eyelids got so puffy all the kids at school had said she looked Chinese. Maybe no one would notice the nibble she took, but Mommy would sure notice her blown-up face. She took one last, longing look at the rows of dark lumps, then replaced the lid and put the box back on the table.

With Ms. Jelliroll under her arm again, she walked back to the bottom of the stairs and stood there looking up. It was dark up there. And she was scared. But she couldn’t stay down here all night. Slowly she started up, carefully watching the dark at the top. When she reached the second floor landing she clung to the newel post and peered around. Nothing moved. With her heart beating wildly, she broke into a scampering run around to the second flight and didn’t slow until she had reached the third floor, jumped into her bed, and pulled the sheet over her head.

10

“Working hard, I see.” Jack whirled at the sound of the voice, nearly spilling the two glasses of champagne he had just lifted from the tray of a passing waiter.

“Gia!” She was the last person he expected to see here. And the last person he wanted to see. He felt he should be out looking for Grace instead of hobnobbing with the diplomats. But he swallowed his guilt, smiled, and tried to say something brilliant. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I’m here with Nellie.”

“Oh. That explains it.”

He stood there looking at her, wanting to reach out his hand and have her take it the way she used to, knowing she’d only turn away if he did. He noticed a half-empty champagne glass in her hand and a glittery look in her eyes. He wondered how many she had had. She never was much of a drinker.

“So, what’ve you been doing with yourself?” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence between them.

Yes—definitely too much to drink. Her voice was slightly slurred.

“Shoot anybody lately?”

Oh, swell. Here we go.

He answered in a quiet, soothing voice. He wasn’t looking for an argument. “Reading a lot—”

“What? The Executioner series for the fourteenth time?”

“—and watching movies.”

“A Dirty Harry festival, I suppose.” ’You look great,” he said, refusing to let her irk him as he tried to turn the talk toward Gia. He wasn’t lying. She filled her dress nicely, and the pinkish color, whatever it was, seemed made for her blond hair and blue eyes.

“You’re not doing so bad yourself.”

“It’s my Fred Astaire suit. Always wanted to wear one of these. Like it?”

Gia nodded. “Is it as uncomfortable as it looks?”

“More so. Don’t know how anyone ever tap danced in one of these. Collar’s choking me.”

“It’s not your style, anyway.”

“You’re right.” Jack preferred to be unobtrusive. He was happiest when he could walk past with no one noticing. “But something got into me tonight. Couldn’t pass up the chance to be Fred Astaire just once.”

“You don’t dance and your date will never be mistaken for Ginger Rogers.”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

“Who is she?”

Jack studied Gia closely. Could there be just a trace of jealousy there? Was that possible?

“She’s…” He looked around the room until he spotted Kusum. “… that man’s sister.”

“Is she the ’personal matter’ you helped him out with?”

“Oh?” he said with a slow smile. “You’ve been asking about me?”

Gia’s eyes shifted away. “Burkes brought your name up. Not me.”

“You know something, Gia?” Jack said, knowing he shouldn’t but helpless to resist. “You’re beautiful when you’re jealous.”

Her eyes flashed and her cheeks turned red. “Don’t be absurd!” She turned and walked away.

Typical, Jack thought. She wanted nothing to do with him but didn’t want to see him with anybody else.

He looked around for Kolabati—not a typical woman by any standard—and found her standing beside her brother, who seemed to be doing his best to pretend she wasn’t there.

As he walked toward the silent pair, Jack marveled at the way Kolabati’s dress clung to her. It was made of a gauzy, dazzlingly white fabric that came across her right shoulder and wrapped itself around her breasts like a bandage. Her left shoulder was completely bare, exposing her dark, flawless skin for all to admire. And there were many admirers.

“Hello, Mr. Bahkti,” he said as he handed Kolabati her glass.

Kusum glanced at the champagne, at Kolabati, then turned an icy smile on Jack.

“May I compliment you on the decadence of your attire.”

“Thank you. I knew it wasn’t stylish, so I’ll settle for decadent. How’s your grandmother?”

“Physically well, but suffering from a mental aberration, I fear.”

“She’s doing fine,” Kolabati said with a scathing look at her brother. “I have the latest word and she’s doing just fine.” Then she smiled sweetly. “Oh, by the way, Kusum dear. Jack was asking about durba grass today. Anything you can tell him about it?”

Jack saw Kusum stiffen at the mention of durba grass. He knew Kolabati had been startled when he had asked her about it on the phone today. What did durba grass mean to these two?

Still smiling, Kolabati sauntered away as Kusum faced him.

“What did you wish to know?”

“Nothing in particular. Except… is it ever used as a laxative?”

Kusum’s face remained impassive. “It has many uses, but I have never heard it recommended for constipation. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. An old lady I know said she was using a concoction with a durba grass extract in it.”

“I’m surprised. I didn’t think you could find durba grass in the Americas. Where did she buy it?”

Jack was studying Kusum’s face. Something there… something he couldn’t quite define.

“Don’t know. She’s away on a trip right now. When she comes back, I’ll ask her.”

“Throw it away if you have any, my friend,” Kusum said gravely. “Certain durba grass preparations have undesirable side-effects. Throw it away.” Before Jack could say anything, Kusum gave one of his little bows. “Excuse me. There are some people I must speak to before the night is over.”

Undesirable side-effects? What the hell did that mean?

Jack wandered around the room. He spotted Gia again, but she avoided his eyes. Finally, the inevitable happened: He ran into Nellie Paton. He saw the pain behind her smile and suddenly felt absurd in his old fashioned tuxedo. This woman had asked him to help find her missing sister and here he was dressed up like a gigolo.

“Gia tells me you’re getting nowhere,” she said in a low voice after brief amenities.

“I’m trying. If only I had more to go on. I’m doing what I—”

“I know you are, dear,” Nellie said, patting his hand. “You were fair. You made no promises, and you warned me you might not be able to do any more than the police had already done. All I need to know is that someone is still looking.”

“I am.” He spread his arms. “I may not look like it, but I am.”

“Oh, rubbish!” she said with a smile. “Everyone needs a holiday. And you certainly seem to have a beautiful companion for it.”

Jack turned in the direction Nellie was looking and saw Kolabati approaching them. He introduced the two women.

“Oh, I met your brother tonight!” Nellie said. “A charming man.”

“When he wants to be, yes,” Kolabati replied. “By the way—has either of you seen him lately?”

Nellie nodded. “I saw him leave perhaps ten minutes ago.”

Kolabati said a word under her breath. Jack didn’t know Indian, but he could recognize a curse when he heard one.

“Something wrong?”

She smiled at him with her lips only. “Not at all. I just wanted to ask him something before he left.”

“Speaking of leaving,” Nellie said. “I think that’s a good idea. Excuse me while I go find Gia.” She bustled off.

Jack looked at Kolabati. “Not a bad idea. Had enough of the diplomatic crowd for one night?”

“For more than one night.”

“Where shall we go?”

“How about your apartment? Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

Jack could not think of one.

11

Kolabati had spent most of the evening cudgeling her brain for a way to broach the subject to Jack. She had to find out about the durba grass! Where did he learn about it? Did he have any? She had to know!

She settled on the direct approach. As soon as they entered his apartment, she asked:

“Where’s the durba grass?”

“Don’t have any,” Jack said as he took off his tailed coat and hung it on a hanger.

Kolabati glanced around the front room. She didn’t see any growing in pots. “You must.”

“Really, I don’t.”

“Then why did you ask me about it on the phone today?”

“I told you—”

“Truth, Jack.” She could tell it was going to be hard getting a straight answer out of him. But she had to know. “Please. It’s important.”

Jack made her wait while he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the winged collar. He seemed glad to be out of it. He looked into her eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to tell her the truth. Instead, he answered her question with one of his own.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just tell me, Jack.”

“Why is it so important?”

She bit her lip. She had to tell him something. “Prepared in certain ways it can be… dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“Please, Jack. Just let me see what you’ve got and I’ll tell you if there’s anything to worry about.”

“Your brother warned me about it, too.”

“Did he?” She still could not believe that Kusum was uninvolved in this. Yet he had warned Jack. “What did he say?”

“He mentioned side-effects. ’Undesirable’ side-effects. Just what they might be, he didn’t say. I was hoping maybe you could—”

“Jack! Why are you playing games with me?”

She was genuinely concerned for him. Frightened for him. Perhaps that finally got through to him. He stared at her, then shrugged.

“Okay, okay.” He went to the giant Victorian breakfront, removed a bottle from a tiny drawer hidden in the carvings, and brought it over to Kolabati. Instinctively, she reached for it. Jack pulled it away and shook his head as he unscrewed the top. “Smell first.”

He held it under her nose. At the first whiff, Kolabati thought her knees would fail her. Rakoshi elixir! She snatched at it but Jack was quicker and held it out of her reach. She had to get it away from him!

“Give that to me, Jack.” Her voice was trembling with the terror she felt for him.

“Why?”

Kolabati took a deep breath and began to walk around the room. Think!

“Who gave it to you? And please don’t ask me why I want to know. Just answer me.”

“All right. Answer: no one.”

She glared at him. “I’ll rephrase the question. Where did you get it?”

“From the dressing room of an old lady who disappeared between Monday night and Tuesday morning and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

So the elixir was not meant for Jack! He had come by it second-hand. She began to relax.

“Did you drink any?”

“No.”

That didn’t make sense. A rakosh had come here last night. She was sure of that. The elixir must have drawn it. She shuddered at what might have happened had Jack been here alone.

“You must have.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Oh, yes… I tasted it. Just a drop.”

She moved closer, feeling a tightness in her chest. “When?”

“Yesterday.”

“And today?”

“Nothing. It’s not exactly a soft drink.”

Relief. “You must never let a drop of that pass your lips again—or anybody else’s for that matter.”

“Why not?”

“Flush it down the toilet! Pour it down a sewer! Anything! But don’t let any of it get into your system again!’’

“What’s wrong with it?” Jack was becoming visibly annoyed now. Kolabati knew he wanted answers and she couldn’t tell him the truth without his thinking her insane.

“It’s a deadly poison,” she said off the top of her head. “You were lucky you took only a tiny amount. Any more and you would have—”

“Not true,” he said, holding up the still unstoppered bottle. “I had it analyzed today. No toxins in here.”

Kolabati cursed herself for not realizing that he’d have it analyzed. How else could he have known it contained durba grass?

“It’s poisonous in a different way,” she said, improvising poorly, knowing she wasn’t going to be believed. If only she could lie like Kusum! She felt tears of frustration fill her eyes. “Oh, Jack, please listen to me! I don’t want to see anything happen to you! Trust me!”

“I’ll trust you if you’ll tell me what’s going on. I find this stuff among the possessions of a missing woman and you tell me it’s dangerous but you won’t say how or why. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what’s going on! Really. All I can tell you is something awful will happen to anyone who drinks that mixture!”

“Is that so?” Jack looked at the bottle in his hand, then looked at Kolabati. Believe me! Please, believe me! Without warning, he tipped the bottle up to his mouth. “No!” Kolabati leaped at him, screaming. Too late. She saw his throat move. He had swallowed some. “You idiot!”

She raged at her own foolishness. She was the idiot! She hadn’t been thinking clearly. If she had she would have realized the inevitability of what had just happened. Next to her brother, Jack was the most relentlessly uncompromising man she had ever met. Knowing that, what could have made her think he would surrender the elixir without a full explanation as to what it was? Any fool could have foreseen that he would bring matters to a head this way. The very reasons she was attracted to Jack might just have doomed him.

And she was so attracted to him. She learned with an explosive shock the true depth of her feelings when she saw him swallow the rakoshi elixir. She had had more than her share of lovers. They had wandered in and out of her life in Bengal and Europe, and in Washington. But Jack was someone special. He made her feel complete. He had something the others didn’t have… a purity—was that the proper word?—that she wanted to make her own. She wanted to be with him, stay with him, keep him for herself.

But first she had to find a way to keep him alive through tonight.

12

The vow was made… the vow must be kept… the vow was made…

Kusum repeated the words over and over in his mind.

He sat in his cabin with his Gita spread out on his lap. He had stopped reading it. The gently rocking ship was silent but for the familiar rustlings from the main hold amidships. He didn’t hear them. Thoughts poured through his mind in a wild torrent. That woman he had met tonight, Nellie Paton. He knew her maiden name: Westphalen. A sweet, harmless old woman with a passion for chocolate, worrying about her missing sister, unaware that her sister was far beyond her concern, and that her worry should be reserved for herself. For her days were numbered on the fingers of a single hand. Perhaps a single finger.

And that blond woman, not a Westphalen herself, yet the mother of one. Mother of a child who would soon be the last Westphalen. Mother of a child who must die.

Am I sane?

When he thought of the journey he had embarked upon, the destruction he had already wrought, he shuddered. And he was only half done.

Richard Westphalen had been the first. He had been sacrificed to the rakoshi during Kusum’s stay at the London embassy. He remembered dear Richard: the fear-bulged eyes, the crying, the whimpering, the begging as he cringed before the rakoshi and answered in detail every question Kusum put to him about his aunts and daughter in the United States. He remembered how piteously Richard Westphalen had pleaded for his life, offering anything—even his current consort in his place—if only he would be allowed to live.

Richard Westphalen had not died honorably and his karma would carry that stain for many incarnations.

The pleasure Kusum had taken in delivering the screaming Richard Westphalen over to the rakoshi had dismayed him. He was performing a duty. He was not supposed to enjoy it. But he had thought at the time that if all three of the remaining Westphalens were creatures as reprehensible as Richard, fulfilling the vow would be a service to humanity.

It was not to be so, he had learned. The old woman, Grace Westphalen, had been made of sterner stuff. She had acquitted herself well before fainting. She had been unconscious when Kusum gave her over to the rakoshi.

But Richard and Grace had been strangers to Kusum. He had seen them only from afar before their sacrifices. He had investigated their personal habits and studied their routines, but he had never come close to them, never spoken to them.

Tonight he had stood not half a meter from Nellie Paton discussing English chocolates with her. He had found her pleasant and gracious and unassuming. And yet she must die by his design.

Kusum ground his only fist into his eyes, forcing himself to think about the pearls he had seen around her neck, the jewels on her fingers, the luxurious townhouse she owned, the wealth she commanded, all bought at a terrible price of death and destruction to his family. Nellie Paton’s ignorance of the source of her wealth was of no consequence.

Avow had been made…

And the road to a pure karma involved keeping that vow. Though he had fallen along the way, he could make everything right again by being true to his first vow, his vrata. The Goddess had whispered to him in the night. Kali had shown him the way.

Kusum wondered at the price others had paid—and soon would have to pay—for the purification of his karma. The soiling of that karma had been no one’s fault but his own. He had freely taken a vow of Brahmacharya and for many years had held to a life of chastity and sexual continence. Until…

His mind shied away from the days that ended his life as a Brahmachari. There were sins—patakas—that stained every life. But he had committed a mahapataka, thoroughly polluting his karma. It was a catastrophic blow to his quest for moksha, the liberation from the karmic wheel. It meant he would suffer greatly before being born again as an evil man of low caste. For he had forsaken his vow of Brahmacharya in the most abominable fashion.

But the vrata to his father he would not forsake: Although the crime was more than a century in the past, all the descendants of Sir Albert Westphalen must die for it. Only two were left.

A new noise rose from below. The Mother was scraping on the hatch. She had caught the Scent and wanted to hunt.

He rose and stepped to his cabin door, then stopped, uncertain of what to do. He knew the Paton woman had received the candies. Before leaving London he had injected each piece with a few drops of the elixir and had left the wrapped and addressed parcel in the care of an embassy secretary to hold until she received word to mail it. And now it had arrived. All would be perfect.

Except for Jack.

Jack obviously knew the Westphalens. A startling coincidence but not outlandish when one considered that both the Westphalens and Kusum knew Jack through Burkes at the U.K. Mission. And Jack had apparently come into possession of the small bottle of elixir Kusum had arranged for Grace Westphalen to receive last weekend. Had it been mere chance that he had picked that particular bottle to investigate? From what little Kusum knew of Jack, he doubted it.

For all the considerable risk Jack represented—his innate intuitive abilities and his capacity and willingness to do physical damage made him a very dangerous man—Kusum was loath to see him come to harm. He was indebted to him for returning the necklace in time. More importantly, Jack was too rare a creature in the Western world—Kusum did not want to be responsible for his extinction. And finally, there was a certain kinship he felt toward the man. He sensed Repairman Jack to be an outcast in his own land, just as Kusum had been in his until recently. True, Kusum had an ever-growing following at home and now moved in the upper circles of India’s diplomatic corps as if he belonged there, but he was still an outcast in his heart. For he would never—could never—be a part of the “new India.”

The “new India” indeed! Once he had fulfilled his vow he would return home with his rakoshi. And then he would begin the task of transforming the “new India” back into a land true to its heritage.

He had the time.

And he had the rakoshi.

The Mother’s scraping against the hatch door became more insistent. He would have to let her hunt tonight. All he could hope for was that the Paton woman had eaten a piece of the candy and that the Mother would lead her youngling there. He was quite sure Jack had the bottle of elixir, and that he had tasted it some time yesterday—a single drop was enough to draw a rakosh. It was unlikely he would taste it twice. And so it must be the Paton woman who now carried the scent.

Anticipation filled Kusum as he started below to free the Mother and her youngling.

13

They were entwined on the couch, Jack sitting, Kolabati sprawled across him, her hair a dark storm cloud across her face. It was a replay of last night, only this time they hadn’t made it to the bedroom.

After Kolabati’s initial frightened reaction to seeing him swallow the liquid, Jack had waited to see what she would say. Taking that swig had been a radical move on his part, but he had butted heads against this thing long enough. Maybe now he would get some answers.

But she had said nothing. Instead, she started undressing him. When he protested, she began doing things to him with her fingernails that drove all questions about mysterious liquids from his mind.

Questions could wait. Everything could wait.

Jack floated now on a languorous river of sensation, leading he knew not where. He had tried to take the helm but had given up, yielding to her superior knowledge of the various currents and tributaries alone the way. As far as he was concerned, Kolabati could steer him wherever she wished. They had explored new territories last night and more tonight. He was ready to push the frontiers back even further. He only hoped he could stay afloat during the ensuing excursions.

Kolabati was just beginning to guide him into the latest adventure when the odor returned. Just a trace, but enough to recognize as the same unforgettable stench as last night.

If Kolabati noticed it, too, she said nothing. But she immediately rose to her knees and swung her hips over him. As she settled astride his lap with a little sigh, she clamped her lips over his. This was the most conventional position they had used all night. Jack found her rhythm and began moving with her but, just like last night when the odor had invaded the apartment, he sensed a strange tension in her that took the edge off his ardor.

And the odor… it was nauseating, growing stronger and stronger, filling the air around them. It seemed to flow from the tv room. Jack raised his head from Kolabati’s throat where he had been nuzzling around her iron necklace. Over the rise and fall of her right shoulder he could look into the dark of that room. He saw nothing—

A noise.

A click, really, much like the whirring air conditioner in the tv room made from time to time. But different. Slightly louder. A little more solid. Something about it alerted Jack. He kept his eyes open…

And as he watched, two pairs of yellow eyes began to glow outside the tv room window.

It had to be a trick of the light. He squinted for a better look, but the eyes remained. They moved around, as if searching for something. One of the pair fixed on Jack for an instant. An icy fingernail scored the outer wall of his heart as he stared into those glowing yellow orbs… like looking into the very soul of evil. He felt himself wither inside Kolabati. He wanted to throw her off, run to the old oak secretary, pull out every gun behind the panel in its base and fire them out the window two at a time.

But he could not move! Fear as he had never known it gripped him in a clammy fist and pinned him to the couch. He was paralyzed by the alienness of those eyes and the sheer malevolence behind them.

Kolabati had to be aware that something was wrong—there was no way she could not be. She leaned back and looked at him.

“What do you see?” Her eyes were wide and her voice barely audible.

“Eyes,” Jack said. “Yellow eyes. Two pairs.”

She caught her breath. “In the other room?”

“Outside the window.”

“Don’t move, don’t say another word.”

“But—”

“For both our sakes. Please.”

Jack neither moved nor spoke. He stared at Kolabati’s face, trying to read it. She was afraid, but anything beyond that was closed off to him. Why hadn’t she been surprised when he told her there were eyes watching from the other side of a third-story window with no fire escape?

He glanced over her shoulder again. The eyes were still there, still searching for something. What? They appeared confused, and even when they looked directly at him, they did not seem to see him. Their gaze slid off him, slithered around him, passed through him.

This is crazy! Why am I sitting here?

He was angry with himself for yielding so easily to fear of the unknown. There was some sort of animal out there—two of them. Nothing he couldn’t deal with.

As Jack started to lift Kolabati off him, she gave a little cry. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a near stranglehold and dug her knees into his hips.

“Don’t move!” Her voice was hushed and frantic.

“Let me up.” He tried to slide out from under but she twisted around and pulled him down on top of her. It would have been comical but for her very genuine terror.

“Don’t leave me!”

“I’m going to see what’s out there.”

“No! If you value your life you’ll stay right where you are!”

This was beginning to sound like a bad movie.

“Come on! What could be out there?”

“Better you never find out.”

That did it. He gently but firmly tried to disengage himself from Kolabati. She protested all the way and would not let go of his neck. Had she gone crazy? What was wrong with her?

He finally managed to gain his feet with Kolabati still clinging to him, and had to drag her with him to the tv room door.

The eyes were gone.

Jack stumbled to the window. Nothing there. And nothing visible in the darkness of the alley below. He turned within the circle of Kolabati’s arms.

“What was out there?”

Her expression was charmingly innocent. “You saw for yourself: nothing.”

She released him and walked back into the front room, completely un-selfconscious in her nakedness. Jack watched the swaying flare of her hips silhouetted in the light as she walked away. Something had happened here tonight and Kolabati knew what it was. But Jack was at a loss as to how to make her tell him. He had failed to learn anything about Grace’s tonic—and now this.

“Why were you so afraid?” he said, following her.

“I wasn’t afraid.” She began to slip into her underwear.

He mimicked her: “’If you value your life’ and whatever else you said. You were scared! Of what?”

“Jack, I love you dearly,” she said in a voice that did not quite carry all the carefree lightness she no doubt intended it to, “but you can be so silly at times. It was just a game.”

Jack could see the pointlessness of pursuing this any further. She had no intention of telling him anything. He watched her finish dressing—it didn’t take long; she hadn’t been wearing much—with a sense of déjà-vu. Hadn’t they played this scene last night?

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I have to—”

“—see your brother?”

She looked at him. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

Kolabati stepped up to him and put her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry to run off like this again.” She kissed him. “Can we meet tomorrow?”

“I’ll be out of town.”

“Monday, then?”

He held back from saying yes.

“I don’t know. I’m not too crazy about our routine: We come here, we make love, a stink comes into the room, you get uptight and cling to me like a second skin, the stink goes away, you take off.”

Kolabati kissed him again and Jack felt himself begin to respond. She had her ways, this Indian woman. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just am,” she said with a smile.

Jack let her out, then locked the door behind her. Still naked, he went back to the window in the tv room and stood there looking out at the dark. The beach scene was barely visible on the shadowed wall across the alley. Nothing moved, no eyes glowed. He wasn’t crazy and he didn’t do drugs. Something—two somethings—had been out there tonight. Two pairs of yellow eyes had been looking in. Something about those eyes was familiar but he couldn’t quite make the connection. Jack didn’t push it. It would come sooner or later.

His attention was drawn to the sill outside his window where he saw three long white scratches in the concrete. He was sure they had never been there before. He was puzzled and uneasy, angry and frustrated—and what could he do? She was gone.

He walked through the front room to get a beer. On the way, he glanced at the shelf on the big hutch where he had left the bottle of herbal mixture after taking the swallow.

It was gone.

14

Kolabati hurried toward Central Park West. This was a residential district with trees near the curb and cars lining both sides of the street. Nice in the daytime, but at night there were too many deep shadows, too many dark hiding places. It was not rakoshi she feared—not while she wore her necklace. It was humans. And with good reason: Look what had happened Wednesday night because a hoodlum thought an iron and topaz necklace looked valuable.

She relaxed when she reached Central Park West. There was plenty of traffic there despite the lateness of the hour, and the sodium lamps high over the street made the very air around her seem to glow. Empty cabs cruised by. She let them pass. There was something she had to do before she flagged one down.

Kolabati walked along the curb until she found a sewer grate. She reached into her purse and removed the bottle of rakoshi elixir. She hadn’t liked stealing it from Jack, for she would have to fabricate a convincing explanation later. But it was his safety that counted, and to assure that, she would steal from him again and again.

She unscrewed the cap and poured the green mixture down the sewer, waiting until the last drop fell.

She sighed with relief. Jack was safe. No more rakoshi would come looking for him.

She sensed someone behind her and turned. An elderly woman stood a few dozen feet away, watching her bend over the sewer grate. A nosey old biddy. Kolabati was repulsed by her wrinkles and stooped posture. She never wanted to be that old.

As Kolabati straightened up, she recapped the bottle and returned it to her purse. She would save that for Kusum.

Yes, dear brother, she thought with determination, I don’t know how, or to what end, but I know you’re involved. And soon I’ll have the answers.

15

Kusum stood in the engine room at the stern of his ship, every cell in his body vibrating in time to the diesel monstrosities on either side of him. The drone, the roar, the clatter of twin engines capable of generating a total of nearly 3,000 b.h.p. at peak battered his eardrums. A man could die screaming down here in the bowels of the ship and no one on the deck directly above would hear him; with the engines running, he wouldn’t even hear himself.

Bowels of the ship… how apt. Pipes like masses of intestines coursed through the air, along the walls, under the catwalks, vertically, horizontally, diagonally.

The engines were warm. Time to get the crew.

The dozen or so rakoshi he had been training to run the ship had been doing well, but he wanted to keep them sharp. He wanted to be able to take his ship to sea on short notice. Hopefully that necessity would not arise, but the events of the past few days had made him wary of taking anything for granted. Tonight had only compounded his unease.

His mood was grim as he left the engine room. Again the Mother and her youngling had returned empty-handed. That meant only one thing. Jack had tried the elixir again and Kolabati had been there to protect him… with her body.

The thought filled Kusum with despair. Kolabati was destroying herself. She had spent too much time among westerners. She had already absorbed too many of their habits of dress. What other foul habits had she picked up? He had to find a way to save her from herself.

But not tonight. He had his own personal concerns: His evening prayers had been said; he had made his thrice-daily offering of water and sesame… He would make an offering more to the Goddess’s taste tomorrow night. Now he was ready for work. There would be no punishment for the rakoshi tonight, only work.

Kusum picked up his whip from where he had left it on the deck and rapped the handle on the hatch that led to the main hold. The Mother and the younglings that made up the crew would be waiting on the other side. The sound of the engines was their signal to be ready. He released the rakoshi. As the dark, rangy forms swarmed up the steps to the deck, he re-locked the hatch and headed for the wheelhouse.

Kusum stood before his controls. The green-on-black CRTs with their flickering graphs and read-outs would have been more at home on a lunar lander than on this old rustbucket. But they were familiar to Kusum by now. During his stay in London he had had most of the ship’s functions computerized, including navigation and steering. Once on the open sea, he could set a destination, phase in the computer, and tend to other business. The computer would choose the best course along the standard shipping lanes and leave him sixty miles off the coast of his target destination, disturbing him during the course of the voyage only if other vessels came within a designated proximity.

And it all worked. In its test run across the Atlantic—with a full human crew as back-up and the rakoshi towed behind in a barge—there had not been a single hitch.

But the system was useful only on the open sea. No computer was going to get him out of New York Harbor. It could help, but Kusum would have to do most of the work—without the aid of a tug or a pilot. Which was illegal, of course, but he could not risk allowing anyone, even a harbor pilot, aboard his ship. He was sure if he timed his departure carefully he could reach international waters before anyone could stop him. But should the Harbor Patrol or the Coast Guard pull alongside and try to board, Kusum would have his own boarding party ready.

The drills were important to him; they gave him peace of mind. Should something go awry, should his freighter’s living cargo somehow be discovered, he needed to know he could leave on short notice. And so he ran the rakoshi through their paces regularly, lest they forget.

The river was dark and still, the wharf deserted. Kusum checked his instruments. All was ready for tonight’s drill. A single blink of the running lights and the rakoshi leaped into action, loosening and untying the mooring ropes and cables. They were agile and tireless. They could leap to the wharf from the gunwales, cast off the ropes from the pilings, and then climb up those same ropes back to the ship. If one happened to fall in, it was of little consequence. They were quite at home in the water. After all, they had swum behind the ship after their barge had been cut loose off Staten Island and had climbed aboard after it had docked and been cleared by customs.

Within minutes, the Mother scrambled to the center of the forward hatch cover. This was the signal that all ropes were clear. Kusum threw the engines into reverse. The twin screws below began to pull the prow away from the pier. The computer aided Kusum in making tiny corrections for tidal drift, but most of the burden of the task was directly on his shoulders. With a larger freighter, such a maneuver would have been impossible. But with this particular vessel, equipped as it was and with Kusum at the wheel, it could be done. It had taken Kusum many tries over the months, many crunches against the wharf and one or two nerve-shattering moments when he thought he had lost all control over the vessel, before he had become competent. Now it was routine.

The ship backed toward New Jersey until it was clear of the wharf. Leaving the starboard engine in reverse, Kusum threw the port engine into neutral, and then into forward. The ship began to turn south. Kusum had searched long and hard to find this ship—few freighters this size had twin screws. But his patience had paid off. He now had a ship that could turn three hundred and sixty degrees within its own length.

When the prow had swung ninety degrees and was pointing toward the Battery, Kusum idled the engines. Had it been time to leave, he would have thrown both into forward and headed for the Narrows and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. If only he could! If only his duty here were done! Reluctantly, he put the starboard into forward and the port into reverse. The nose swung back toward the dock. Then it was alternating forward and reverse for both until the ship eased back into its slip. Two blinks of the running lights and the rakoshi were leaping to the pier and securing the ship in place.

Kusum allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. Yes, they were ready. It wouldn’t be long before they left this obscene land forever. Kusum would see to it that the rakoshi did not return empty-handed tomorrow night.

chapter six
west bengal, india
saturday, July 25, 1857

People were going to die today. Of that Sir Albert Westphalen had no doubt.

And he might be one of them.

Here, high up on this ledge, with the morning sun on his back, with the mythical Temple-in-the-Hills and its walled courtyard spread out below him, he wondered at his ability to carry his plans through to completion. The abstract scheme that had seemed so simple and direct in his office in Bharangpur had become something quite different in these forbidding hills under the cold light of dawn.

His heart ground against his sternum as he lay on his belly and peered at the temple through his field glasses. He must have been daft to think this would work! How deep and cold was his desperation that it could lead him to this? Was he willing to risk his own death to save the family name?

Westphalen glanced down at his men, all busy checking their gear and mounts. With their stubbly faces, their rumpled uniforms caked with dirt, dried sweat, and rain, they certainly didn’t look like Her Majesty’s finest this morning. They seemed not to notice, however. And well they might not, for Westphalen knew how these men lived—like animals in cramped quarters with a score and ten of their fellows, sleeping on canvas sheets changed once a month and eating and washing out of the same tin pot. Barracks life brutalized the best of them, and when there was no enemy to fight they fought each other. The only thing they loved more than battle, was liquor, and even now, when they should have been fortifying themselves with food, they were passing a bottle of raw spirits spiked with chopped capsicum. He could find no trace of his own disquiet in their faces; only anticipation of the battle and looting to come.

Despite the growing warmth of the sun, he shivered—the after-effect of a sleepless night spent huddled away from the rain under a rocky overhang, or simple fear of what was to come? He had certainly had his fill of fear last night. While the men had slept fitfully, he had remained awake, sure that there were wild things skulking about in the darkness beyond the small fire they had built. Occasionally he had glimpsed yellow glints of light in the dark, like pairs of fireflies. The horses, too, must have sensed something, for they were skittish all night.

But now it was day, and what was he to do?

He turned back to the temple and studied it anew through his field glasses. It sat hunched in the center of its courtyard behind the wall, alone but for a compound of some sort to its left against the base of a rocky cliff. The temple’s most striking feature was its blackness—not dull and muddy, but proud and gleaming, deep and shiny, as if it were made of solid onyx. It was an oddly shaped affair, box-like with rounded corners. It seemed to have been made in layers, with each upper level dripping down over the ones below. The temple walls were ringed with friezes and studded along their length with gargoyle-like figures, but Westphalen could make out no details from his present position. And atop it all was a huge obelisk, as black as the rest of the structure, pointing defiantly skyward.

Westphalen wondered how—short of a daguerreotype—he would ever do justice to any description of the Temple-in-the-Hills. It was simply alien. It looked… it looked like someone had driven a spike through an ornate block of licorice and left it out in the sun to melt.

As he watched, the door in the wall swung open. A man, younger than Jaggernath but swathed in a similar dhoti, came out carrying a large urn on his shoulder. He walked to the far corner of the wall, emptied the liquid contents of the urn onto the ground, and returned to the compound.

The door remained open behind him.

There was no longer any reason to delay, and no way in hell or on earth to turn his men back now. Westphalen felt as if he had started a huge juggernaut on its way down an incline; he had been able to guide it at first, but now its momentum was such that it was completely out of his control.

He clambered off the ledge and faced his men.

“We shall advance at full gallop in a double column with lances at the ready. Tooke will lead one column and take it left around the temple after entering the courtyard; Russell will lead the other column and go right. If there is no immediate resistance, you will all dismount and ready your rifles. We will then search the grounds for any pandies that might be hiding within. Any questions?”

The men shook their heads. They were more than ready— they were slavering for the fight. All they needed was someone to unleash them.

“Mount up!” Westphalen said.

The approach began in an orderly enough fashion. Westphalen let the six lancers lead the way while he gladly brought up the rear. The detail trotted up the path until they were in sight of the temple, then broke into a gallop as planned.

But something happened on the road leading down to the wall. The men started to woop and yell, whipping themselves and each other into a frenzy. Soon their lances were lowered and clamped under their arms in battle position as they leaned low over the necks of their mounts, bloodying the flanks as they spurred them to greater and greater speed.

They had been told that a band of rebel Sepoys were quartered beyond that wall; the lancers had to be ready to kill as soon as they cleared the gate. Westphalen alone knew that their only resistance would come from a handful of surprised and harmless Hindu priests.

Only that knowledge allowed him to keep up with them. Nothing to worry about, he told himself as the wall drew nearer and nearer. Only a few unarmed priests in there. Nothing to worry about.

He had a glimpse of bas-relief murals on the surrounding wall as he raced toward the gate, but his mind was too full of the uncertainty of what they might find on the other side to make any sense of them. He drew his sabre and charged into the courtyard behind his howling lancers.

Westphalen saw three priests standing in front of the temple, all unarmed. They ran forward, waving their hands in the air in what appeared to be an attempt to shoo the soldiers away.

The lancers never hesitated. Three of them fanned out on the run and drove their lances through the priests. They then circled the temple and came to a halt at its front entrance, where they dismounted, dropping their lances and pulling their Enfields from their saddle boots.

Westphalen remained mounted. He was uncomfortable at making himself an easy target, but felt more secure with his horse under him, able to wheel and gallop out the gate at an instant’s notice should something go wrong.

There was a brief lull during which Westphalen directed the men toward the temple entrance. They were almost to the steps when the svamin counterattacked from two directions. With shrill cries of rage, a half-dozen or so charged out from the temple; more than twice that number rushed from the compound. The former were armed with whips and pikes, the latter with curved swords much like Sepoy talwars.

It was not a battle—it was slaughter. Westphalen almost felt sorry for the priests. The soldiers first took aim at the closer group emerging from the temple. The Enfields left only one priest standing after the first volley; he ran around their flank to join the other group, which had slowed its advance after seeing the results of the withering fire. From his saddle, Westphalen directed his men to retreat to the steps of the black temple where the light weight and rapid reloading capacity of the Enfield allowed them second and third volleys that left only two priests standing. Hunter and Malleson picked up their lances, remounted, and ran down the survivors.

And then it was over.

Westphalen sat numb and silent in his saddle as he let his gaze roam the courtyard. So easy. So final. They had all died so quickly. More than a score of bodies lay sprawled in the morning sun, their blood pooling and soaking into the sand as India’s omnipresent opportunists, the flies, began to gather. Some of the bodies were curled into limp parodies of sleep, others, still transfixed by lances, looked like insects pinned to a board.

He glanced down at his pristine blade. He had bloodied neither his hands nor his sword. Somehow, that made him feel innocent of what had just happened all around him.

“Don’t look like pandies to me,” Tooke was saying as he rolled a corpse over onto its back with his foot.

“Never mind them,” Westphalen said, dismounting at last. “Check inside and see if there’s any more hiding around.”

He ached to explore the temple, but not until it had been scouted by a few of the men. After watching Tooke and Russell disappear into the darkness within, he sheathed his sword and took a moment to inspect the temple close up. It was not made of stone as he had originally thought, but of solid ebony that had been cut and worked and polished to a gloss. There did not seem to be a square inch anywhere on its surface that had not been decorated with carvings.

The friezes were the most striking—four-foot-high belts of illustration girding each level up to the spire. He tried to follow one from the right of the temple door. The art was crudely stylized and he found whatever story it was telling impossible to follow. But the violence depicted was inescapable. Every few feet there were killings and dismemberments and demon-like creatures devouring the flesh.

He felt a chill despite the growing heat of the day. What sort of a place had he invaded?

Further speculation was cut off by a cry from within the temple. It was Tooke’s voice, telling everyone that he’d found something.

Westphalen led the rest of the men inside. It was cool within, and very dark. Oil lamps set on pedestals along the ebony walls gave scant, flickering illumination. He had the impression of cyclopean sculptures rising against the black walls all around him, but could make out only an occasional highlight where pinpoints of light gleamed from a shiny surface. After seeing the friezes outside, he was quite content to let the details remain in shadow.

He turned his thoughts to other matters more immediately pressing. He wondered if Tooke and Russell had found the jewels. His mind raced over various strategies he would have to employ to keep what he needed for himself. For all he knew, he might need it all.

But the two scouts had found no jewels. Instead, they had found a man. He was seated in one of two chairs high on a dais in the center of the temple. Four oil lamps, each set on a pedestal placed every ninety degrees around the dais, lit the scene.

Rising above and behind the priest was an enormous statue made of the same black wood as the temple. It was a four-armed woman, naked but for an ornate headdress and a garland of human skulls. She was smiling, protruding her pointed tongue between her filed teeth. One hand held a sword, another a severed human head; the third and fourth hands were empty.

Westphalen had seen this deity before, but as a book-sized drawing—not as a giant. He knew her name.

Kali.

With difficulty, Westphalen tore his gaze away from the statue and brought it to bear on the priest. He had typical Indian coloring and features but was a little heavier than most of his fellow countrymen Westphalen had seen. His hairline was receding. He looked like a Buddha dressed in a white robe. And he showed no trace of fear.

“I been talking to ’im, Captain,” Tooke said, “but ’e ain’t been—”

“I was merely waiting,” the priest suddenly said in deep tones that resonated through the temple, “for someone worth speaking to. Whom am I addressing, please?”

“Captain Sir Albert Westphalen.”

“Welcome to the temple of Kali, Captain Westphalen.” There was no hint of welcome in his voice.

Westphalen’s eye was caught by the priest’s necklace—an intricate thing, silvery, inscribed with strange script, with a pair of yellow stones with black centers spaced by two links at the front.

“So, you speak English, do you?” he said for want of something better. This priest—the high priest of the temple, no doubt—unsettled him with his icy calm and penetrating gaze.

“Yes. When it appeared that the British were determined to make my country a colony, I decided it might be a useful language to know.”

Westphalen put down his anger at the smug arrogance of this heathen and concentrated on the matter at hand. He wanted to find the jewels and leave this place.

“We know you are hiding rebel Sepoys here. Where are they?”

“There are no Sepoys here. Only devotees of Kali.”

“Then what about this?” It was Tooke. He was standing by a row of waist-high urns. He had slashed through the waxy fabric that sealed the mouth of the nearest one and now held up his dripping knife. “Oil! Enough for a year. And there’s sacks of rice over there. More than any twenty ’devotees’ need!”

The high priest never looked in Tooke’s direction. It was as if the soldier didn’t exist.

“Well?” Westphalen said at last. “What about the rice and oil?”

“Merely stocking in provisions against the turmoil of the times, Captain,” the high priest said blandly. “One never knows when supplies might be cut off.”

“If you won’t reveal the whereabouts of the rebels, I shall be forced to order my men to search the temple from top to bottom. This will cause needless destruction.”

“That will not be necessary, Captain.”

Westphalen and his men jumped at the sound of the woman’s voice. As he watched, she seemed to take form out of the darkness behind the statue of Kali. She was shorter than the high priest, but well-proportioned. She too wore a robe of pure white.

The high priest rattled something in a heathen tongue as she joined him on the dais; the woman replied in kind.

“What did they say?” Westphalen said to anyone who was listening.

Tooke replied: “He asked about the children; she said they were safe.”

For the first time, the priest admitted Tooke’s existence by looking at him, nothing more.

“What you seek, Captain Westphalen,” the woman said quickly, “lies beneath our feet. The only way to it is through that grate.”

She pointed to a spot beyond the rows of oil urns and sacks of rice. Tooke hopped over them and knelt down.

“Here it is! But”—he jumped to his feet again—“whoosh! The stink!”

Westphalen pointed to the soldier nearest him. “Hunter! Watch those two. If they try to escape, shoot them!”

Hunter nodded and aimed his Enfield at the pair on the dais. Westphalen joined the rest of the men at the grate.

The grate was square, measuring perhaps ten feet on a side. It was made of heavy iron bars criss-crossing about six inches apart. Damp air, reeking of putrefaction, wafted up through the bars. The darkness below was impenetrable.

Westphalen sent Malleson for one of the lamps from the dais. When it was brought to him, he dropped it through the grate. Its copper body rang against the bare stone floor twenty feet below as it bounced and landed on its side. The flame sputtered and almost died, then wavered to life again. The brightening light flickered off the smooth stone surfaces on three sides of the well. A dark, arched opening gaped in the wall opposite them. They were looking down into what appeared to be the terminus of a subterranean passage.

And there in the two corners flanking the tunnel mouth stood small urns filled with colored stones—some green, some red, and some crystal clear.

Westphalen experienced an instant of vertigo. He had to lean forward against the grate to keep himself from collapsing. Saved!

He quickly glanced around at his men. They had seen the urns, too. Accommodations would have to be made. If those urns were full of jewels, there would be plenty for all. But first they had to get them up here.

He began barking orders: Malleson was sent out to the horses for a rope; the remaining four were told to spread out around the grate and lift it off. They bent to it, strained until their faces reddened in the light filtering up from below, but could not budge it. Westphalen was about to return to the dais and threaten the priest when he noticed simple sliding bolts securing the grate to rings in the stone floor at two of the corners; on the far side along one edge was a row of hinges. As Westphalen freed the bolts—which were chained to the floor rings—it occurred to him how odd it was to lock up a treasure with such simple devices. But his mind was too full of the sight of those jewels below to dwell for long on bolts.

The grate was raised on its hinges and propped open with an Enfield. Malleson arrived with the rope then. At Westphalen’s direction, he tied it to one of the temple’s support columns and tossed it into the opening. Westphalen was about to ask for a volunteer when Tooke squatted on the rim.

“Me father was a jeweler’s assistant,” he announced. “I’ll tell ye if there be anything down there to get excited about.”

He grasped the rope and began to slide down. Westphalen watched Tooke reach the floor and fairly leap upon the nearest urn. He grabbed a handful of stones and brought them over to the sputtering lamp. He righted it, then poured the stones from one hand to the other in the light.

“They’re real!” he shouted. “B’God, they’re real!”

Westphalen was speechless for a moment. Everything was going to be all right. He could go back to England, settle his debts, and never, never gamble again. He tapped Watts, Russell, and Lang on the shoulders and pointed below.

“Give him a hand.”

The three men slid down the rope in rapid succession. Each made a personal inspection of the jewels. Westphalen watched their long shadows interweaving in the lamplight as they scurried around below. It was all he could do to keep from screaming at them to send up the jewels. But he could not appear too eager. No, that wouldn’t do at all. He had to be calm. Finally they dragged an urn over to the side and tied the rope around its neck. Westphalen and Malleson hauled it up, lifted it over the rim, and set it on the floor.

Malleson dipped both hands into the jewels and brought up two fistfuls. Westphalen restrained himself from doing the same. He picked up a single emerald and studied it, outwardly casual, inwardly wanting to crush it against his lips and cry for joy.

“C’mon up there!” said Tooke from below. “Let’s ’ave the rope, what? There be plenty more to come up and it stinks down ’ere. Let’s ’urry it up.”

Westphalen gestured to Malleson, who untied the rope from the urn and tossed the end over the edge. He continued to study the emerald, thinking it the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, until he heard one of the men say:

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“A noise. I thought I ’eard a noise in the tunnel there.”

“Yer daft, mate. Nothing in that black ’ole but stink.”

“I ’eard something, I tell you.”

Westphalen stepped up to the edge and looked down at the four men. He was about to tell them to stop talking and keep working when the priest and the woman broke into song. Westphalen whirled at the sound. It was like no music he had ever heard. The woman’s voice was a keening wail, grating against the man’s baritone. There were no words to the song, only disconnected notes, and none of the notes they sang seemed to belong together. There was no harmony, only discord. It set his teeth on edge.

They stopped abruptly.

And then came another sound. It rose from below, seeping from the mouth of the tunnel that terminated in the pit, growing in volume. A grumbled cacophony of moans and grunts and snarls that made each hair on the nape of his neck stand up one by one.

The sounds from the tunnel ceased, to be replaced by the dissonant singing of the priest and priestess. They stopped and the inhuman sounds from the tunnel answered, louder still. It was a litany from hell.

Suddenly the singing was joined by a scream of pain and terror from below. Westphalen looked over the edge and saw one of the men—Watts, he thought—being dragged by his legs into the black maw of the tunnel, shrieking, “It’s got me! It’s got me!”

But what had him? The tunnel mouth was a darker shadow within the shadows below. What was pulling him?

Tooke and Russell had him by the arms and were trying to hold him back, but the force drawing him into the dark was as inexorable as the tide. It seemed Watts’ arms would be pulled from their sockets at any moment when a dark shape leaped from the tunnel and grabbed Tooke around the neck. It had a lean body and towered over Tooke. Westphalen could make out no details in the poor light and dancing shadows of the pandemonium below, but what little he saw was enough to make his skin tighten and shrink against his insides, and set his heart to beating madly.

The priest and the woman sang again. He knew he should stop them, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.

Russell let go of Watts, who was quickly swallowed by the tunnel, and rushed to Tooke’s aid. But as soon as he moved, another dark figure leaped from the shadows and pulled him into the tunnel. With a final convulsive heave, Tooke too was dragged off.

Westphalen had never heard grown men scream in such fear. The sound sickened him. Yet he could not react.

And still the priest and the woman sang, no longer stopping for an answering phrase from the tunnel.

Only Lang remained below. He had the rope in his fists and was halfway up the wall, his face a white mask of fear, when two dark shapes darted out of the darkness and leaped upon him, pulling him down. He screamed for help, his eyes wild as he was dragged twisting and kicking into the blackness below. Westphalen managed to break the paralysis that had gripped him since his first glimpse of the denizens of the tunnel. He pulled his pistol from its holster. Beside him, Malleson had already moved into action—he aimed his Enfield and fired at one of the creatures. Westphalen was sure he saw it take the hit, but it seemed to take no notice of the bullet. He fired three shots into the two creatures before they disappeared from sight, taking the howling Lang with them.

Behind him the ghastly song went on, playing counterpoint to the agonized screams from the tunnel below, and all around him the stench… Westphalen felt himself teetering on the edge of madness. He charged up to the dais.

“Stop it!” he screeched. “Stop it or I’ll have you shot!”

But they only smiled and continued their hellish song.

He gestured to Hunter, who had been guarding them. Hunter didn’t hesitate. He raised his Enfield to his shoulder and fired.

The shot rang like an explosion through the temple. A red splatter bloomed upon the priest’s chest as he was thrown back against his chair. Slowly he slid to the floor. His mouth worked, his glazing eyes blinked twice, and then he lay still. The woman cried out and knelt beside him.

The song had stopped. And so had the screams from below.

Once again silence ruled the temple. Westphalen drew a tremulous breath. If he could just have a moment to think, he could—

“Captain! They’re coming up!” There was an edge of hysteria to Malleson’s voice as he backed away from the pit. “They’re coming up!”

Panic clutching at him, Westphalen ran to the opening. The chamber below was filled with shadowy forms. There were no growls or barks or hissing noises from down there, only the slither of moist skin against moist skin, and the rasp of talon against stone. The lamp had been extinguished and all he could see were dark milling bodies crowded against the walls—

—and climbing the rope!

He saw a pair of yellow eyes rising toward him. One of the things was almost to the top!

Westphalen holstered his pistol and drew his sword. With shaking hands he raised it above his head and chopped down with all his strength. The heavy rope parted cleanly and the distal end whipped away into the darkness below.

Pleased with his swordplay, he peered over the edge to see what the creatures would do now. Before his disbelieving eyes they began to climb the wall. But that was impossible. Those walls were as smooth as—

Now he saw what they were doing: the things were scrambling over and upon each other, reaching higher and higher, like a wave of black, foul water filling a cistern from below. He dropped his sword and turned to run, then forced himself to hold his position. If those things got out, there would be no escape for him. And he couldn’t die here. Not now. Not with a fortune sitting in the urn at his feet.

Westphalen mustered all his courage and stepped over to where Tooke’s Enfield propped up the grate. With teeth clenched and sweat springing out along the length of his body, he gingerly extended a foot and kicked the rifle into the pit. The grate slammed down with a resounding clang as Westphalen stumbled back against a pillar, sagging with relief. He was safe now.

The grate rattled, it shook, it began to rise.

Moaning with terror and frustration, Westphalen edged back toward the grate.

The bolts had to be fastened!

As he drew nearer, Westphalen witnessed a scene of relentless, incalculable ferocity. He saw dark bodies massed beneath the grate, saw talons gripping, raking, scoring the bars, saw teeth sharp and white gnash at the iron, saw flashes of yellow eyes utterly feral, devoid of fear, of any hint of mercy, consumed by a bloodthirst beyond reason and sanity. And the stench… it was almost overpowering.

Now he understood why the grate had been fastened as it had.

Westphalen sank to his knees, then to his belly. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to run, but he would not. He had come too far! He would not be robbed of his salvation! He could order his two remaining men toward the grate, but he knew Malleson and Hunter would rebel. That would waste time and he had none to waste. He had to do it!

He began to crawl forward, inching his way toward the nearest bolt, where it lay chained to the steel eye driven into the floor. He would have to wait until the corresponding ring on the shuddering, convulsing grate became aligned with the floor ring, and then shove the bolt home through both of them. Then and only then would he feel it safe to run.

Stretching his arm to the limit, he grasped the bolt and waited. The blows against the underside of the grate were coming with greater frequency and greater force. The ring on the grate rarely touched the floor, and when it did clank down next to the floor ring, it was there for but an instant. Twice he shoved the bolt through the first and missed the second. In desperation, he rose up and placed his left hand atop the corner of the grate and threw all his weight against it. He had to lock this down!

It worked. The grate slammed against the floor and the bolt slid home, locking one corner down. But as he leaned against the grate, something snaked out between the bars and clamped on his wrist like a vise. It was a hand of sorts, three-fingered, each finger tapering to a long yellow talon; the skin was blue-black, its touch cold and wet against his skin.

Westphalen screamed in terror and loathing as his arm was pulled toward the seething mass of shadows below. He reared up and placed both boots against the edge of the grate, trying with all his strength to pull himself free. But the hand only tightened its grip. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of his sabre on the floor where he had dropped it, not two feet from where he stood. With a desperate lunge, he grabbed it by the hilt and started hacking at the arm that held him. Blood as dark as the skin that covered it spouted from the arm. Westphalen’s tenth swing severed the arm and he fell back onto the floor. He was free—

Yet the taloned hand still gripped his wrist with a life of its own!

Westphalen dropped the sword and pried at the fingers. Malleson rushed over and helped. Together they pulled the fingers far enough apart to allow Westphalen to extricate his arm. Malleson hurled it onto the grate, where it clung to a bar until pulled loose by one of the fiends below.

As Westphalen lay gasping on the ground, trying to massage life back into the crushed and bruised tissues of his wrist, the woman’s voice rose over the clatter of the shaking grate.

“Pray to your god, Captain Westphalen. The rakoshi will not let you leave the temple alive!”

She was right. Those things—What had she called them? Rakoshi?—would rip the lone securing eye from the stone floor and have that grate up in a minute if he didn’t find some means to weigh it down. His eyes ranged the small area of the temple visible to him. There had to be a way! His gaze came to rest on the urns of lamp oil. They looked heavy enough. If he, Malleson, and Hunter could set enough of them on the grate. No… wait…

Fire! Nothing could withstand burning oil! He leapt to his feet and ran to the urn Tooke had opened with his knife.

“Malleson! Here! We’ll pour it through the grate!” He turned to Hunter and pointed to one of the lamps around the dais. “Bring that over here!”

Groaning under the weight, Westphalen and Malleson dragged the urn across the floor and upended it on the shuddering grate, pouring its contents onto the things below. Directly behind them came Hunter, who didn’t have to be told what to do with the lamp. He gave it a gentle underhand toss onto the grate.

The oil on the iron bars caught first, the flames licking along the upper surfaces to form a meshwork of fire, then dropping in a fine rain onto the creatures directly beneath. As dark, oil-splashed bodies burst into flame, a caterwauling howl arose from the pit. The thrashing below became more violent. And still the flames spread. Black, acrid smoke began to rise toward the ceiling of the temple.

“More!” Westphalen shouted above the shrieking din. He used his sabre to slice open the tops, then watched as Malleson and Hunter poured the contents of a second urn, and then a third into the pit. The howls of the creatures began to fade away as the flames leapt higher and higher.

He bent his own back to the task, pouring urn after urn through the grate, flooding the pit and sending a river of fire into the tunnel, creating an inferno that even Shadrach and his two friends would have shied from.

“Curse you, Captain Westphalen!”

It was the woman. She had risen from beside the priest’s corpse and was pointing a long, red-nailed finger at a spot between Westphalen’s eyes. “Curse you and all who spring from you!”

Westphalen took a step toward her, his sword raised. “Shut up!”

“Your line shall die in blood and pain, cursing you and the day you set your hand against this temple!”

The woman meant it, there was no denying that. She really believed she was laying a curse upon Westphalen and his progeny, and that shook him. He gestured to Hunter.

“Stop her!”

Hunter unslung his Enfield and aimed it at her. “You ’eard what ’e said.”

But the woman ignored the certain death pointed her way and kept ranting.

“You’ve slain my husband, desecrated the temple of Kali! There will be no peace for you, Captain Sir Albert Westphalen! Nor for you”—she pointed to Hunter—”or you!”— then to Malleson. “The rakoshi shall find you all!”

Hunter looked at Westphalen, who nodded. For the second time that day, a rifle shot rang out in the Temple-in-the-Hills. The woman’s face exploded as the bullet tore into her head. She fell to the floor beside her husband.

Westphalen glanced at her inert form for a moment, then turned away toward the jewel-filled urn. He was forming a plan on how to arrange a three-way split that would give him the largest share, when a shrill screech of rage and an agonized grunt swung him around again.

Hunter stood stiff and straight at the edge of the dais, his face the color of soured whey, his shoulders thrown back, eyes wide, mouth working soundlessly. His rifle clattered to the floor as blood began to trickle from a corner of his mouth. He seemed to lose substance. Slowly, like a giant festival balloon leaking hot air from all its seams, he crumbled, his knees folding beneath him as he pitched forward onto his face.

It was with a faint sense of relief that Westphalen saw the bloody hole in the center of Hunter’s back—he had died by physical means, not from a heathen woman’s curse. He was further relieved to see the dark-eyed, barefoot boy, no more than twelve years old, standing behind Hunter, staring down at the fallen British soldier. In his hand was a sword, the distal third of its blade smeared red with blood.

The boy lifted his gaze from Hunter and saw Westphalen. With a high-pitched cry, he raised his sword and charged forward. Westphalen had no time to reach for his pistol, no choice but to defend himself with the oil-soaked sabre he still clutched in his hand.

There was no cunning, no strategy, no skill to the boy’s swordplay, only a ceaseless, driving barrage of slashing strokes, high and low, powered by blind, mindless rage. Westphalen gave way, as much from the ferocity of the attack as from the maniacal look on the boy’s tear-streaked face: His eyes were twin slits of fury; spittle flecked his lips and dribbled onto his chin as he grunted with each thrust of his blade. Westphalen saw Malleson standing off to the side with his rifle raised.

“For God’s sake, shoot him!”

“Waiting for a clear shot!”

Westphalen backpedaled faster, increasing the distance between himself and the boy. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Malleson fired.

And missed!

But the boom of the rifle shot startled the boy. He dropped his guard and looked around. Westphalen struck then, a fierce, downward cut aimed at the neck. The boy saw it coming and tried to dodge, but too late. Westphalen felt the blade slice through flesh and bone, saw the boy go down in a spray of crimson. That was enough. He jerked his sabre free and turned away in the same motion. He felt sick. He found he much preferred to let others do the actual killing.

Malleson had dropped his rifle and was scooping handfuls of gems into his pockets. He looked up at his commanding officer. “It’s all right, isn’t it, sir?” He gestured toward the priest and his wife. “I mean, they won’t be needing ’em.”

Westphalen knew he’d have to be very careful now. He and Malleson were the only survivors, accomplices in what would surely be described as mass murder should the facts ever come to light. If neither of them spoke a word of what had happened here today, if they were both extremely careful as to how they turned the jewels into cash over the next few years, if neither got drunk enough for guilt or boastfulness to cause the story to spill out, they could both live out their lives as rich, free men. Westphalen was quite sure he could trust himself; he was equally sure that trusting Malleson would be a catastrophic mistake.

He put on what he hoped was a sly grin. “Don’t waste your time with pockets,” he told the soldier. “Get a couple of saddlebags.”

Malleson laughed and jumped up. “Right, sir!”

He ran out the entry arch. Westphalen waited uneasily. He was alone in the temple—at least he prayed he was. He hoped all those things, those monsters were dead. They had to be. Nothing could have survived that conflagration in the pit. He glanced over to the dead bodies of the priest and priestess, remembering her curse. Empty words of a crazed heathen woman. Nothing more. But those things in the pit…

Malleson finally returned with two sets of saddlebags. Westphalen helped him fill the four large pouches, then each stood up with a pair slung over a shoulder.

“Looks like we’re rich, sir,” Malleson said with a smile that faded when he saw the pistol Westphalen was pointing at his middle.

Westphalen didn’t let him begin to plead. It would only delay matters without changing the outcome. He simply couldn’t let the future of his name and his line depend on the discretion of a commoner who would doubtless get himself sotted at the first opportunity upon his return to Bharangpur. He aimed at where he assumed Malleson’s heart would be, and fired. The soldier reeled back with outflung arms and fell flat on his back. He gasped once or twice as a red flower blossomed on the fabric of his tunic, then lay still.

Holstering his pistol, Westphalen went over and gingerly removed the saddlebags from Malleson’s shoulder, then looked around him. All remained still. Foul, oily smoke still poured from the pit; a shaft of sunlight breaking through a vent in the vaulted ceiling pierced the spreading cloud. The remaining lamps flickered on their pedestals. He went to the two nearest oil urns, sliced open their tops, and kicked them over. Their contents spread over the floor and washed up against the nearest wall. He then took one of the remaining lamps and threw it into the center of the puddle. Flame spread quickly to the wall where the wood began to catch.

He was turning to leave when a movement over by the dais caught his eye, frightening him and causing him to drop one of the saddlebags as he clawed for his pistol again.

It was the boy. He had somehow managed to crawl up the dais to where the priest lay. He was reaching for the necklace around the man’s throat. As Westphalen watched, the fingers of the right hand closed around the two yellow stones. Then he lay still. The whole of the boy’s upper back was soaked a deep crimson. He had left a trail of red from where he had fallen to where he now lay. Westphalen returned his pistol to his holster and picked up the fallen saddlebag. There was no one and nothing left in the temple to do him any harm. He remembered that the woman had mentioned “children,” but he could not see any remaining children as a threat, especially with the way the fire was eating up the ebony. Soon the temple would be a smoldering memory.

He strode from the smoke-filled interior into the morning sunlight, already planning where he would bury the saddlebags and plotting the story he would tell of how they had become lost in the hills and were ambushed by a superior force of Sepoy rebels. And how he alone escaped.

After that, he would have to find a way to maneuver himself into a trip back to England as soon as possible. Once home, it would not be too long before he would just happen to find a large cache of uncut gems behind some stonework in the basement level of Westphalen Hall.

Already he was blotting the memory of the events of the morning from his mind. It would do no good to dwell on them. Better to let the curse, the demons, and the dead float away with the black smoke rising from the burning temple that was now a pyre and a tomb for that nameless sect. He had done what he had to do and that was that. He felt good as he rode away from the temple. He did not look back. Not once.

chapter seven

manhattan
sunday, august 5, 198-

1

Tennis!

Jack rolled out of bed with a groan. He’d almost forgotten. He had been lying there dreaming of a big brunch at the Perkins Pancakes down on Seventh Avenue when he remembered the father-son tennis match he’d promised to play in today.

And he had no racquet. He’d lent it to someone in April and couldn’t remember who. Only one thing to do: Call Abe and tell him it was an emergency.

Abe said he would meet him at the store right away. Jack showered, shaved, pulled on white tennis shorts, a dark blue jersey, sneakers, and socks, and hurried down to the street. The morning sky had lost the humid haze it had carried for most of the week. Looked like it was going to be a nice day.

As he neared the Isher Sports Shop he saw Abe waddling up from the other direction. Abe looked him up and down as they met before the folding iron grille that protected the store during off-hours.

“You’re going to tell me you want a can of tennis balls, are you?”

Jack shook his head and said, “Naw. I wouldn’t get you up early on a Sunday morning for tennis balls.”

“Glad to hear it.” He unlocked the grille and pushed it back far enough to expose the door. “Did you see the business section of the Times this morning? All that talk about the economy picking up? Don’t believe it. We’re on the Titanic and the iceberg’s straight ahead.”

“It’s too nice a day for an economic holocaust, Abe.”

“All right,” he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “Go ahead, close your eyes to it. But it’s coming and the weather has nothing to do with it.”

After disarming the alarm system, Abe headed for the back of the store. Jack didn’t follow. He went directly to the tennis racquets and stood before a display of the oversized Prince models. After a moment’s consideration, he rejected them. Jack figured he’d need all the help he could get today, but he still had his pride. He’d play with a normal size racquet. He picked out a Wilson Triumph—the one with little weights on each side of the head that were supposed to enlarge the sweet spot. The grip felt good in his hand, and it was already strung.

He was about to call out that he’d take this one when he noticed Abe glaring at him from the end of the aisle.

“For this you took me away from my breakfast? A tennis racquet?”

“And balls, too. I’ll need some balls.”

“Balls you’ve got! Too much balls to do such a thing to me! You said it was an emergency!”

Jack had been expecting this reaction. Sunday was the only morning Abe allowed himself the forbidden foods: lox and bagels. The first was verboten because of his blood pressure, the second because of his weight.

“It is an emergency. I’m supposed to be playing with my father in a couple of hours.”

Abe’s eyebrows rose and wrinkled his forehead all the way up to where his hairline had once been.

“Your father? First Gia, now your father. What is this— National Masochism Week?”

“I like my dad.”

“Then why are you in such a black mood every time you return from one of these jaunts into Jersey?”

“Because he’s a good guy who happens to be a pain in the ass.”

They both knew that wasn’t the whole story but by tacit agreement neither said any more. Jack paid for the racquet and a couple of cans of Penn balls. “I’ll bring you back some tomatoes,” he said as the grille was locked across the storefront again.

Abe brightened. “That’s right! Beefsteaks are in season. Get me some.”

Next stop was Julio’s, where Jack picked up Ralph, the car Julio kept for him. It was a ’63 Corvair, white with a black convertible top and a rebuilt engine. An unremarkable, everyday kind of car. Not at all Julio’s style, but Julio hadn’t paid for it. Jack had seen it in the window of a “classic” car store; he had given Julio the cash to go make the best deal he could and have it registered in his name. Legally it was Julio’s car, but Jack paid the insurance and the garage fee and reserved pre-emptive right of use for the rare occasions when he needed it.

Today was such an occasion. Julio had it gassed up and waiting for him. He had also decorated it a bit since the last time Jack had taken it out: There was a “Hi!” hand waving from the left rear window, fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror, and in the rear window a little dog whose head wobbled and whose eyes blinked red in unison with the tail lights.

“You expect me to ride around with those?” Jack said, giving Julio what he hoped was a withering stare.

Julio did his elaborate shrug. “What can I say, Jack? It’s in the blood.”

Jack didn’t have time to remove the cultural paraphernalia, so he took the car as it was. Armed with the finest New York State driver’s license money could buy—in the name of Jack Howard—he slipped the Semmerling and its holster into the special compartment under the front seat and began a leisurely drive crosstown.

Sunday morning is a unique time in midtown Manhattan. The streets are deserted. No buses, no cabs, no trucks being unloaded, no Con Ed crews tearing up the streets, and only a rare pedestrian or two here and there. Quiet. It would all change as noon approached, but at the moment Jack found it almost spooky.

He followed Fifty-eighth Street all the way to its eastern end and pulled in to the curb before 8 Sutton Square.

2

Gia answered the doorbell. It was Eunice’s day off and Nellie was still asleep, so the job was left to her. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her and walked slowly and carefully from the kitchen to the front of the house. The inside of her head felt too big for her skull; her tongue was thick, her stomach slightly turned. Champagne… Why should something that made you feel so good at night leave you feeling so awful the next day?

A look through the peephole showed Jack standing there in white shorts and a dark blue shirt.

“Tennis anyone?” he said with a lopsided grin as she opened the door.

He looked good. Gia had always liked a lean, wiry build on a man. She liked the linear cords of muscle in his forearms, and the curly hair on his legs. Why did he look so healthy when she felt so sick?

“Well? Can I come in?”

Gia realized she had been staring at him. She had seen him three times in the past four days. She was getting used to having him around again. That wasn’t good. But there would be no defense against it until Grace was found—one way or another.

“Sure.” When the door was closed behind him, she said, “Who’re you playing? Your Indian lady?” She regretted that immediately, remembering his crack last night about jealousy. She wasn’t jealous… just curious.

“No. My father.”

“Oh.” Gia knew from the past how painful it was for Jack to spend time with his father.

“But the reason I’m here…” He paused uncertainly and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not sure how to say this, but here goes: Don’t drink anything strange.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No tonics or laxatives or anything new you find around the house.”

Gia was not in the mood for games. “I may have had a little too much champagne last night, but I don’t go around swigging from bottles.”

“I’m serious, Gia.”

She could see that, and it made her uneasy. His gaze was steady and concerned.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But there was something bad about that laxative of Grace’s. Just stay away from anything like it. If you find any more of it, lock it away and save it for me.”

“Do you think it has anything to do—?”

“I don’t know. But I want to play it safe.”

Gia could sense a certain amount of evasiveness in Jack. He wasn’t telling her everything. Her unease mounted.

“What do you know?”

“That’s just it—I don’t know anything. Just a gut feeling. So play it safe and stay away from anything strange.” He gave her a slip of paper with a telephone number on it. It had a 609 area code. “Here’s my father’s number. Call me there if you need me or there’s any word from Grace.” He glanced up the stairs and toward the rear of the house. “Where’s Vicks?”

“Still in bed. She had a hard time falling asleep last night, according to Eunice.” Gia opened the front door. “Have a good game.”

Jack’s expression turned sour. “Sure.”

She watched him drive back to the corner and turn downtown on Sutton Place. She wondered what was going on in his mind; why the odd warning against drinking “anything strange.” Something about Grace’s laxative bothered him but he hadn’t said what. Just to be sure, Gia went up to the second floor and checked through all the bottles on Grace’s vanity and in her bathroom closet. Everything had a brand name. There was nothing like the unlabeled bottle Jack had found on Thursday.

She took two Tylenol Extra Strength capsules and a long hot shower. The combination worked to ease her headache. By the time she had dried off and dressed in plaid shorts and a blouse, Vicky was up and looking for breakfast.

“What do you feel like eating?” she asked as they passed the parlor on their way to the kitchen. She looked cute in her pink nighty and her fuzzy pink Dearfoams.

“Chocolate!”

“Vicky!”

“But it looks so good!” She pointed to where Eunice had set out a candy dish full of the Black Magic pieces from England before going out for the day.

“You know what it does to you.”

“But it would be delicious!”

“All right,” Gia said. “Have a piece. If you think a couple of bites and a couple of minutes is worth a whole day of swelling up and itching and feeling sick, go ahead and take one.”

Vicky looked up at her, and then at the chocolates. Gia held her breath, praying Vicky would make the right choice. If she chose the chocolate, Gia would have to stop her, but there was a chance she would use her head and refuse. Gia wanted to know which it would be. Those chocolates would be sitting there for days, a constant temptation to sneak one behind her mother’s back. But if Vicky could overcome the temptation now, Gia was sure she would be able to resist for the rest of their stay.

“I think I’ll have an orange, Mom.”

Gia swept her up into her arms and swung her around.

“I’m so proud of you, Vicky! That was a very grown-up decision.”

“Well, what I’d really like is a chocolate-covered orange.”

Laughing, she led Vicky by the hand to the kitchen, feeling pretty good about her daughter and about herself as a mother.

3

Jack had the Lincoln Tunnel pretty much to himself. He passed the stripe which marked the border of New York and New Jersey, remembering how his brother and sister and he used to cheer whenever they crossed the line after spending a day in The City with their parents. It had always been a thrill then to be back in good ol’ New Jersey. Those days were gone with the two-way toll collections. Now they charged you a double toll to get to Manhattan and let you leave for nothing. And he didn’t cheer as he crossed the line.

He cruised out of the tunnel mouth, squinting into the sudden glare of the morning sun. The ramp made a nearly circular turn up to and through Union City, then down to the meadowlands and the N.J. Turnpike. Jack collected his ticket from the “Cars Only” machine, set his cruise control for fifty miles per hour and settled into the right-hand lane for the trip. He was running a little late, but the last thing he wanted was to be stopped by a state cop.

The olfactory adventure began as the Turnpike wound its ways through the swampy lowlands, past the Port of Newark and all the surrounding refineries and chemical plants. Smoke poured from stacks and torch-like flames roared from ten-story discharge towers. The odors he encountered on the strip between Exits 16 and 12 were varied and uniformly noxious. Even on a Sunday morning.

But as the road drifted inland, the scenery gradually turned rural and hilly and sweet-smelling. The farther south he drove, the farther his thoughts were pulled into the past. Images streaked by with the mile markers: Mr. Canelli and his lawn… early fix-it jobs around Burlington County during his late teens, usually involving vandals, always contracted sub rosa… starting Rutgers but keeping his repairs business going on the side… the first trips to New York to do fix-it work for relatives of former customers…

Tension began building in him after he passed Exit 7. Jack knew the reason: He was approaching the spot where his mother was killed.

It was also the spot where he had—how had Kolabati put it?—”drawn the line between yourself and the rest of the human race.”

It had happened during his third year at Rutgers. A Sunday night in early January. Jack was on semester break. He and his parents were driving south on the Turnpike after visiting his Aunt Doris in Heightstown; Jack was in the back seat, his parents in the front, his father driving. Jack had offered to take the wheel but his mother said the way he wove in and out of all those trucks made her nervous. As he remembered it, he and his father had been discussing the upcoming Superbowl while his mother watched the speedometer to make sure it didn’t stray too far over sixty. The easy, peaceful feeling that comes with a full stomach after a lazy winter afternoon spent with relatives was shattered as they cruised under an overpass. With a crash like thunder and an impact that shook the car, the right half of the windshield exploded into countless flying, glittering fragments. He heard his father shout with surprise, his mother scream in pain, felt a blast of icy air rip through the car. His mother moaned and vomited.

As his father swerved the car to the side of the road, Jack jumped into the front seat and realized what had happened: A cinderblock had crashed through the windshield and landed against his mother’s lower ribs and upper abdomen. Jack didn’t know what to do. As he watched helplessly, his mother passed out and slumped forward. He shouted to get to the nearest hospital. His father drove like a demon, flooring the pedal, blowing the horn, and blinking the headlights while Jack pushed his mother’s limp body back and pulled the cinderblock off her. Then he removed his coat and wrapped it around her as protection against the cold gale whistling through the hole in the windshield. His mother vomited once more—this time it was all blood and it splattered the dashboard and what was left of the windshield. As he held her, Jack could feel her growing cold, could almost feel the life slipping out of her. He knew she was bleeding internally, but there was nothing he could do about it. He screamed at his father to hurry but he was already driving as fast as he could without risking loss of control of the car.

She was in deep shock by the time they got her to the emergency room. She died in surgery of a lacerated liver and a ruptured spleen. She had exsanguinated into her abdominal cavity.

The incalculable grief. The interminable wake and funeral. And afterwards, questions: Who? Why? The police didn’t know and doubted very much that they would ever find out. It was common for kids to go up on the overpasses at night and drop things through the cyclone fencing onto the cars streaming by below. By the time an incident was reported, the culprits were long gone. The State Police response to any and all appeals from Jack and his father was a helpless shrug.

His father’s response was withdrawal; the senselessness of the tragedy had thrown him into a sort of emotional catatonia in which he appeared to function normally but felt absolutely nothing. Jack’s response was something else: cold, nerveless, consuming rage. He was faced with a new kind of fix-it job. He knew where it had happened. He knew how. All he had to do was find out who.

He would do nothing else, think of nothing else, until that job was done.

And eventually it was done.

It was long over now, a part of the past. Yet as he approached that overpass he felt his throat constrict. He could almost see a cinderblock falling… falling toward the windshield… crashing through in a blizzard of glass fragments… crushing him. Then he was under and in shadow, and for an instant it was nighttime and snowing, and hanging off the other side of the overpass he saw a limp, battered body dangling from a rope tied to its feet, swinging and spinning crazily. Then it was gone and he was back in the August sun again.

He shivered. He hated New Jersey.

4

Jack got off at Exit 5. He took 541 through Mount Holly and continued south on the two-lane blacktop through towns that were little more than groups of buildings clustered along a stretch of road like a crowd around an accident. The spaces between were all open cultivated field. Fresh produce stands advertising Jersey Beefsteak tomatoes “5 lbs/$1” dotted the roadside. He reminded himself to pick up a basketful for Abe on the way back.

He passed through Lumberton, a name that always conjured up ponderous images of morbidly obese people waddling in and out of oversized stores and houses. Next came Fostertown, which should have been populated by a horde of homeless runny-nosed waifs, but wasn’t.

And then he was home, turning the corner by what had been Mr. Canelli’s house; Canelli had died and the new owner must have been trying to save water because the lawn had burnt to a uniform shade of pale brown. He pulled into the driveway of the three-bedroom ranch in which he, his brother, and his sister had all grown up, turned off the car, and sat a moment wishing he were someplace else.

But there was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so he got out and walked up to the door. Dad pushed it open just as he reached it.

“Jack!” He thrust out his hand. “You had me worried. Thought you’d forgotten.”

His father was a tall, thin, balding man tanned a dark brown from daily workouts on the local tennis courts. His beakish nose was pink and peeling from sunburn, and the age spots on his forehead had multiplied and coalesced since the last time Jack had visited. But his grip was firm and his blue eyes bright behind the steel-rimmed glasses as Jack shook hands with him.

“Only a few minutes late.”

Dad reached down and picked up his tennis racquet from where it had been leaning against the door molding. “Yeah, but I reserved a court so we could warm up a little before the match.” He closed the door behind him. “Let’s take your car. You remember where the courts are?”

“Of course.”

As he slid into the front seat, Dad glanced around the interior of the Corvair. He touched the dice, either to see if they were fuzzy or if they were real.

“You really drive around in this?”

“Sure. Why?”

“It’s…”

“Unsafe At Any Speed?”

“Yeah. That, too.”

“Best car I ever owned.” Jack pushed the little lever in the far left of the dashboard into reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

For a couple of blocks they made inconsequential small talk about the weather and how smoothly Jack’s car was running after twenty years and the traffic on the Turnpike. Jack tried to keep the conversation on neutral ground. He and Dad hadn’t had much to say to each other since he’d quit college nearly fifteen years ago.

“How’s business?”

Dad smiled. “Great. You’ve been buying any of those stocks I told you about?”

“I bought two thousand of Arizona Petrol at one-and-an-eighth. It was up to four last time I looked.”

“Closed at four-and-a-quarter on Friday. Hold onto it.”

“Okay. Just let me know when to dump it.”

A lie. Jack couldn’t own stock. He needed a Social Security number for that. No broker would open an account for him without it. So he lied to his father about following his stock tips and looked up the NASDAQ listings every so often to see how his imaginary investments were doing.

They were all doing well. Dad had a knack for finding low-priced, out-of-the-way OTC stocks that were undervalued. He’d buy a few thousand shares, watch the price double, triple, or quadruple, then sell off and find another. He had done so well at it over the years that he finally quit his accounting job to see if he could live off his stock market earnings. He had an Apple Lisa with a Wall Street hook-up and spent his days wheeling and dealing. He was happy. He was making as much as he had as an accountant, his hours were his own, and no one could tell him he had to stop when he reached sixty-five. He was living by his wits and seemed to love it, looking more relaxed than Jack could ever remember.

“If I come up with something better, I’ll let you know. Then you can parlay your AriPet earnings into even more. By the way, did you buy the stock through a personal account or your IRA?”

“Uh… the IRA.” Another lie. Jack couldn’t have an IRA account either. Sometimes he wearied of lying to everybody, especially people he should be able to trust.

“Good! When you don’t think you’ll be holding them long enough to qualify for capital gains, use the IRA.”

He knew what his father was up to. Dad figured that as an appliance repairman, Jack would wind up depending on Social Security after he retired, and nobody could live off that. He was trying to help his prodigal son build up a nest egg for his old age.

They pulled into the lot by the two municipal courts. Both were occupied.

“Guess we’re out of luck.”

Dad waved a slip of paper. “No worry. This says court two is reserved for us between 10:00 and 11:00.”

While Jack fished in the back seat for his new racquet and the can of balls, his father went over to the couple who now occupied court two. The fellow was grumpily packing up their gear as Jack arrived. The girl—she looked to be about nineteen—glared at him as she sipped from a half-pint container of chocolate milk.

“Guess it’s who you know instead of who got here first.”

Jack tried a friendly smile. “No. Just who thinks ahead and gets a reservation.”

She shrugged. “It’s a rich man’s sport. Should’ve known better than to try to take it up.”

“Let’s not turn this into a class war, shall we?”

“Who? Me?” she said with an innocent smile. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

With that she poured the rest of her chocolate milk onto the court just behind the baseline.

Jack set his teeth and turned his back on her. What he really wanted to do was see if she could swallow a tennis racquet. He relaxed a little after she and her boyfriend left and he began to rally with his father. Jack’s tennis game had long since stabilized at a level of mediocrity he felt he could live with.

He was feeling fit today; he liked the balance of the racquet, the way the ball came off the strings, but the knowledge that there was a puddle of souring chocolate milk somewhere behind him on the asphalt rippled his concentration.

“You’re taking your eye off the ball!” Dad yelled from the other end of the court after Jack’s third wild shot in a row.

I know!

The last thing he needed now was a tennis lesson. He concentrated fully on the next ball, backpedaling, watching it all the way up to his racquet strings. He threw his body into the forehand shot, giving it as much top spin as he could to make it go low over the net and kick when it bounced. Suddenly his right foot was slipping. He went down in a spray of warm chocolate milk.

Across the net, his father returned the ball with a drop shot that rolled dead two feet from the service line. He looked at Jack and began to laugh.

It was going to be a very long day.

5

Kolabati paced the apartment, clutching the empty bottle that had once held the rakoshi elixir, waiting for Kusum. Again and again her mind ranged over the sequence of events last night: First, her brother disappeared from the reception; then the rakoshi odor at Jack’s apartment and the eyes he said he had seen. There had to be a link between Kusum and the rakoshi. And she was determined to find it. But first she had to find Kusum and keep track of him. Where did he go at night?

The morning wore on. By noon, when she had begun to fear he would not show up at all, there came the sound of his key in the door.

Kusum entered, looking tired and preoccupied. He glanced up and saw her.

“Bati. I thought you’d be with your American lover.”

“I’ve been waiting all morning for you.”

“Why? Have you thought of a new way to torment me since last night?”

This wasn’t going the way Kolabati wanted. She had planned a rational discussion with her brother. To this end, she had dressed in a long-sleeved, high-collared white blouse and baggy white slacks.

“No one has tormented you,” she said with a small smile and a placating tone. “At least not intentionally.”

He made a guttural sound. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“The world is changing. I’ve learned to change with it. So must you.”

“Certain things never change.”

He started toward his room. Kolabati had to stop him before he locked himself away in there.

“That’s true. I have one of those unchanging things in my hand.”

Kusum stopped and looked at her questioningly. She held up the bottle, watching his face closely. His expression registered nothing but puzzlement. If he recognized the bottle, he hid it well.

“I’m in no mood for games, Bati.”

“I assure you, my brother, this is no game.” She removed the top and held the bottle out to him. “Tell me if you recognize the odor.”

Kusum took the bottle and held it under his long nose. His eyes widened. “This cannot be! It’s impossible!”

“You can’t deny the testament of your senses.” He glared at her. “First you embarrass me, now you try to make a fool of me as well!”

“It was in Jack’s apartment last night!” Kusum held it up to his nose again. Shaking his head, he went to an overstuffed couch nearby and sank into it. “I don’t understand this,” he said in a tired voice. Kolabati seated herself opposite him. “Of course you do.” His head snapped up, his eyes challenging her. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Kolabati looked away. There were rakoshi in New York. Kusum was in New York. She possessed a logical mind and could imagine no circumstances under which these two facts could exist independently of each other. Yet she sensed that now was not the right time to let Kusum know how certain she was of his involvement. He was already on guard. Any more signs of suspicion on her part and he would shut her out completely.

“What am I supposed to think?” she told him. “Are we not Keepers? The only Keepers?”

“But you saw the egg. How can you doubt me?” There was a note of pleading in his voice, of a man who wanted very much to be believed. He was so convincing. Kolabati was sorely tempted to take his word. “Then explain to me what you smell in that bottle.” Kusum shrugged. “A hoax. An elaborate, foul hoax.”

“Kusum, they were there! Last night and the night before as well!”

“Listen to me.” He rose and stood over her. “Did you ever actually see a rakosh these last two nights?”

“No, but there was the odor. There was no mistaking that.”

“I don’t doubt there was an odor, but an odor can be faked—”

“There was something there!”

“—and so we’re left with only your impressions. Nothing tangible.”

“Isn’t that bottle in your hand tangible enough?”

Kusum handed it to her. “An interesting imitation. It almost had me fooled, but I’m quite sure it’s not genuine. By the way, what happened to the contents?”

“Poured down a sewer.”

His expression remained bland. “Too bad. I could have had it analyzed and perhaps we could learn who is perpetrating this hoax. I want to know that before I do another thing.”

“Why would someone go to all the trouble?”

His gaze penetrated her. “A political enemy, perhaps. One who has uncovered our secret.”

Kolabati felt the clutch of fear at her throat. She shook it off. This was absurd! It was Kusum behind it all. She was sure of it. But for a moment there he almost had her believing him.

“That isn’t possible!”

He pointed to the bottle in her hand. “A few moments ago I would have said the same about that.”

Kolabati continued to play along.

“What do we do?”

“We find out who is behind this.” He started for the door. “And I’ll begin right now.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He paused. “No. You’d better wait here. I’m expecting an important call on Consulate business. That’s why I came home. You’ll have to wait here and take the message for me.”

“All right. But won’t you need me?”

“If I do, I’ll call you. And don’t follow me—you know what happened last time.”

Kolabati allowed him to leave. She watched through the peephole in the apartment door until he entered the elevator. As soon as the doors slid closed behind him, she ran into the hall and pressed the button for the second elevator. It opened a moment later and took her down to the lobby in time to see Kusum stroll out the front entrance of the building.

This will be easy, she thought. There should be no problem trailing a tall, slender, turbaned Indian through midtown Manhattan.

Excitement pushed her on. At last she would find where Kusum spent his time. And there, she was quite sure, she would find what should not be. She still did not see how it was possible, but all the evidence pointed to the existence of rakoshi in New York. And despite all his protests to the contrary, Kusum was involved. She knew it.

Staying half a block behind, she followed Kusum down Fifth Avenue to Central Park South with no trouble. The going became rougher after that. Sunday shoppers were out in force and the sidewalks became congested. Still she managed to keep him in view until he entered Rockefeller Plaza. She had been here once in the winter when the area had been mobbed with ice skaters and Christmas shoppers wandering about the huge Rockefeller Center tree. Today there was a different kind of crowd, but no less dense. A jazz group was playing imitation Coltrane and every few feet there were men with pushcarts selling fruit, candy, or balloons. Instead of ice skating, people were milling about or taking the sun with their shirts off.

Kusum was nowhere to be seen.

Kolabati frantically pushed her way through the crowd. She circled the dry, sun-drenched ice rink. Kusum was gone. He must have spotted her and ducked into a cab or down a subway entrance.

She stood amid the happy, carefree crowd, biting her lower lip, so frustrated she wanted to cry.

6

Gia picked up the phone on the third ring. A soft, accented voice asked to speak to Mrs. Paton.

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Kusum Bahkti.”

She thought the voice sounded familiar. “Oh, Mr. Bahkti. This is Gia DiLauro. We met last night.”

“Miss DiLauro—a pleasure to speak to you again. May I say you looked very beautiful last night.”

“Yes, you may. As often as you wish.” As he laughed politely, Gia said, “Wait a second and I’ll get Nellie.”

Gia was in the third floor hall. Nellie was in the library watching one of those public affairs panels that dominate Sunday afternoon television. Shouting down to her seemed more appropriate to a tenement than a Sutton Square townhouse. Especially when an Indian diplomat was on the phone. So Gia hurried down to the first floor.

As she descended the stairs she told herself that Mr. Bahkti was a good lesson on not trusting one’s first impressions. She had disliked him immediately upon meeting him, yet he had turned out to be quite a nice man. She smiled grimly. No one should count on her as much of a judge of character. She had thought Richard Westphalen charming enough to marry, and look how he had turned out. And after that there had been Jack. Not an impressive track record.

Nellie took the call from her seat in front of the tv. As the older woman spoke to Mr. Bahkti, Gia turned her attention to the screen where the Secretary of State was being grilled by a panel of reporters.

“Such a nice man,” Nellie said as she hung up. She was chewing on something.

“Seems to be. What did he want?”

“He said he wished to order some Black Magic for himself and wanted to know where I got it. “’The Divine Obsession,’ wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Gia had committed the address to memory. “In London.”

“That’s what I told him.” Nellie giggled. “He was so cute: He wanted me to taste one and tell him if it was as good as I remembered. So I did. They’re lovely! I think I’ll have another.” She held up the dish. “Do help yourself.”

Gia shook her head. “No, thanks. With Vicky allergic to it, I’ve kept it out of the house for so long I’ve lost my taste for it.”

“That’s a shame,” Nellie said, holding another between a thumb and forefinger with her pinky raised and taking a dainty bite out of it. “These are simply lovely.”

7

Match point at the Mount Holly Lawn Tennis Club: Jack was drenched with sweat. He and his father had scraped through the first elimination on a tie-breaker: six-four, three-six, seven-six. After a few hours of rest they started the second round. The father-son team they now faced was much younger—the father only slightly older than Jack, and the son no more than twelve. But they could play! Jack and his father won only one game in the first set, but the easy victory must have lulled their opponents into a false sense of security, for they made a number of unforced errors in the second set and lost it four-six.

So, with one set apiece, it was now four-five, and Jack was losing his serve. It was deuce with the advantage to the receiver. Jack’s right shoulder was on fire. He had been putting everything he had into his serves, but the pair facing him across the net had returned every single one. This was it. If he lost this point, the match was over and he and Dad would be out of the tournament. Which would not break Jack’s heart. If they won it meant he’d have to return next Sunday. He didn’t relish that thought. But he wasn’t going to throw the match. His father had a right to one hundred percent and that was what he was going to get.

He faced the boy. For three sets now Jack had been trying to find a weakness in the kid’s game. The twelve-year-old had a Borg topspin forehand, a flat, two-handed Connors backhand, and a serve that could challenge Tanner’s for pace. Jack’s only hope lay in the kid’s short legs, which made him relatively slow, but he hit so many winners that Jack had been unable to take advantage of it.

Jack served to the kid’s backhand and charged the net, hoping to take a weak return and put it away. The return came back strong and Jack made a weak volley to the father, who slammed it up the alley to Jack’s left. Without thinking, Jack shifted the racquet to his left hand and lunged. He made the return, but then the kid passed Dad up the other alley.

The boy’s father came up to the net and shook Jack’s hand.

“Good game. If your dad had your speed he’d be club champ.” He turned to his father. “Look at him, Tom—not even breathing hard. And did you see that last shot of his? That left-handed volley? You trying to slip a ringer in on us?”

His father smiled. “You can tell by his ground strokes he’s no ringer. But I never knew he was ambidextrous.”

They all shook hands, and as the other pair walked off, Jack’s father looked at him intently.

“I’ve been watching you all day. You’re in good shape.”

“I try to stay healthy.” His father was a shrewd cookie and Jack was uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

“You move fast. Damn fast. Faster than any appliance repairman I’ve ever known.”

Jack coughed. “What say we have a beer or two. I’m buying.”

“Your money’s no good here. Only members can sign for drinks. So the beer’s on me.” They began to walk toward the clubhouse. His father was shaking his head. “I’ve got to say, Jack, you really surprised me today.”

Gia’s hurt and angry face popped into Jack’s mind.

“I’m full of surprises.”

8

Kusum could wait no longer. He had watched sunset come and go, hurling orange fire against the myriad empty windows of the Sunday-silent office towers. He had seen darkness creep over the city with agonizing slowness. And now, with the moon rising above the skyscrapers, night finally ruled.

Time for the Mother to take her youngling on the hunt.

It was not yet midnight, but Kusum felt it safe to let them go. Sunday night was a relatively quiet time in Manhattan; most people were home, resting in anticipation of the coming week.

The Paton woman would be taken tonight, of that he was certain. Kolabati had unwittingly cleared the way by taking the bottle of rakoshi elixir from Jack and disposing of its contents. And had not the Paton woman eaten one of the treated chocolates as she spoke to him on the phone this morning?

Tonight he would be one step closer to fulfilling the vow. He would follow the same procedures with the Paton woman as he had with her nephew and her sister. Once she was in his power, he would reveal to her the origin of the Westphalen fortune and allow her a day to reflect on her ancestor’s atrocities.

Tomorrow evening her life would be offered to Kali and she would be given over to the rakoshi.

9

Something was rotten somewhere.

Nellie had never thought one could be awakened by an odor, but this…

She lifted her head from the pillow and sniffed the air in the darkened room… a carrion odor. Warm air brushed by her. The French doors out to the balcony were ajar. She could have sworn they had been closed all day, what with the air conditioner going. But that had to be where the odor was coming from. It smelled as if some dog had unearthed a dead animal in the garden directly below the balcony.

Nellie sensed movement by the doors. No doubt the breeze on the curtains. Still…

She pulled herself up, reaching to the night table for her glasses. She found them and held them up to her eyes without bothering to fit the endpieces over her ears. Even then she wasn’t sure what she saw.

A dark shape was moving toward her as swiftly and as soundlessly as a puff of smoke in the wind. It couldn’t be real. A nightmare, a hallucination, an optical illusion—nothing so big and solid-looking could move so smoothly and silently.

But there was no illusion about the odor that became progressively worse at the shadow’s approach.

Nellie was suddenly terrified. This was no dream! She opened her mouth to scream but a cold, clammy hand sealed itself over the lower half of her face before a sound could escape.

The hand was huge, it was incredibly foul, and it was not human.

In a violent spasm of terror, she struggled against whatever held her. It was like fighting the tide. Bright colors began to explode before her eyes as she fought for air. Soon the explosions blotted out everything else. And then she saw no more.

10

Vicky was awake. She shivered under the sheet, not from cold but from the dream she had just lived through in which Mr. Grape-grabber had kidnapped Ms. Jelliroll and was trying to bake her in a pie. With her heart pounding in her throat she peered through the darkness at the night table next to the bed. Moonlight filtered through the curtains on the window to her left, enough to reveal Ms. Jelliroll and Mr. Grape-grabber resting peacefully where she had left them. Nothing to worry about. Just a dream. Anyway, didn’t the package say that Mr. Grape-grabber was Ms. Jelliroll’s “friendly rival”? And he didn’t want Ms. Jelliroll herself for his jams, just her grapes.

Still, Vicky trembled. She rolled over and clung to her mother. This was the part she liked best about staying here at Aunt Nellie and Aunt Grace’s—she got to sleep with Mommy. Back at the apartment she had her own room and had to sleep alone. When she got scared from a dream or during a storm she could always run in and huddle with Mommy, but most of the time she had to keep to her own bed.

She tried to go back to sleep but found it impossible. Visions of the tall, lanky Mr. Grape-grabber putting Ms. Jelliroll into a pot and cooking her along with her grapes kept popping into her head. Finally, she let go of her mother and turned over to face the window.

The moon was out. She wondered if it was full. She liked to look at its face. Slipping out of bed, she went to the window and parted the curtains. The moon was almost to the top of the sky, and nearly full. And there was its smiling face. It made everything so bright. Almost like daytime.

With the air conditioner on and the windows closed against the heat, all the outside sounds were blocked out. Everything was so still and quiet out there, like a picture.

She looked down at her playhouse roof, white with moonlight. It looked so small from up here on the third floor.

Something moved in the shadows below. Something tall and dark and angular, man-like yet very unman-like. It moved across the backyard with a fluid motion, a shadow among the shadows, looking like it was carrying something. And there seemed to be another of its kind waiting for it by the wall. The second one looked up and seemed to be gazing right at her with glowing yellow eyes. There was hunger in them… hunger for her.

Vicky’s blood congealed in her veins. She wanted to leap back into bed with her mother but could not move. All she could do was stand there and scream.

11

Gia awoke on her feet. There was a moment of complete disorientation during which she had no idea where she was or what she was doing. The room was dark, a child was screaming, and she could hear her own terror-filled voice shouting a garbled version of Vicky’s name.

Frantic thoughts raced through her slowly awakening mind.

Where’s Vicky… the bed’s empty... where’s Vicky? She could hear her but couldn’t see her. Where in God’s name is Vicky?

She stumbled to the switch by the door and turned on the light. The sudden glare blinded Gia for an instant, and then she saw Vicky standing by the window, still screaming. She ran over and lifted the child against her.

“It’s all right, Vicky! It’s all right!”

The screaming stopped but not the trembling. Gia held her tighter, trying to absorb Vicky’s shudders into her own body. Finally the child was calm, only an occasional sob escaping from where she had her face buried between Gia’s breasts.

Night horrors. Vicky had had them frequently during her fifth year, but only rarely since. Gia knew how to handle them: Wait until Vicky was fully awake and then talk to her quietly and reassuringly.

“Just a dream, honey. That’s all. Just a dream.”

“No! It wasn’t a dream!” Vicky lifted her tear-streaked face. “It was Mr. Grape-grabber! I saw him!”

“Just a dream, Vicky.”

“He was stealing Ms. Jelliroll!”

“No, he wasn’t. They’re both right behind you.” She turned Vicky around and faced her toward the night table. “See?”

“But he was outside by the playhouse! I saw him!”

Gia didn’t like the sound of that. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the backyard.

“Let’s take a look. I’ll turn out the light so we can see better.”

Vicky’s face twisted in sudden panic. “Don’t turn out the lights! Please don’t!”

“Okay. I’ll leave them on. But there’s nothing to worry about. I’m right here.”

They both pressed their faces against the glass and cupped their hands around their eyes to shut off the glare from the room light. Gia quickly scanned the yard, praying she wouldn’t see anything.

Everything was as they had left it. Nothing moved. The backyard was empty. Gia sighed with relief and put her arm around Vicky.

“See? Everything’s fine. It was a dream. You just thought you saw Mr. Grape-grabber.”

“But I did!”

“Dreams can be very real, honey. And you know Mr. Grape-grabber is just a doll. He can only do what you want him to. He can’t do a single thing on his own.”

Vicky said no more but Gia sensed that she remained unconvinced.

That settles it, she thought. Vicky’s been here long enough.

The child needed her friends—real, live, flesh and blood friends. With nothing else to occupy her time, she had been getting too involved with these dolls. Now they were even in her dreams.

“What do you say we go home tomorrow? I think we’ve stayed here long enough.”

“I like it here. And Aunt Nellie will be lonely.”

“She’ll have Eunice back again tomorrow. And besides, I have to get back to my work.”

“Can’t we stay a little longer? “

“We’ll see.”

Vicky pouted. “’We’ll see.’ Whenever you say ’We’ll see’ it ends up meaning’no.’ “

“Not always,” Gia said with a laugh, knowing that Vicky was right. The child was getting too sharp for her. “But we’ll see. Okay?”

Reluctantly: “Okay.”

She put Vicky back between the covers. As she went to the door to switch off the light she thought of Nellie in the bedroom below. She could not imagine anyone sleeping through Vicky’s screams, yet Nellie had not called up to ask what was wrong. Gia turned on the hall light and leaned over the bannister. Nellie’s door was open and her bedroom dark. It didn’t seem possible she could still be asleep.

Uneasy now, Gia started down the stairs.

“Where’re you going, Mommy?” Vicky asked with a frightened voice from the bed.

“Just down to Aunt Nellie’s room for a second. I’ll be right back.”

Poor Vicky, she thought. She really got a scare.

Gia stood at Nellie’s door. It was dark and still within. Nothing out of the ordinary except an odor… a faint whiff of putrefaction. Nothing to fear, yet she was afraid. Hesitantly, she tapped on the doorjamb.

“Nellie?”

No answer.

“Nellie, are you all right?”

When only silence answered her, she reached inside the door and found the light switch. She hesitated, afraid of what she might find. Nellie wasn’t young. What if she had died in her sleep? She seemed to be in good health, but you never knew. And that odor, faint as it was, made her think of death. Finally she could wait no longer. She flipped the switch.

The bed was empty. It obviously had been slept in—the pillow was rumpled, the covers pulled down—but there was no sign of Nellie. Gia stepped around to the far side of the bed, walking as if she expected something to rise out of the rug and attack her. No… Nellie was not lying on the floor. Gia turned to the bathroom. It stood open and empty.

Frightened now, she ran downstairs, going from room to room, turning on all the lights in each, calling Nellie’s name over and over. She headed back upstairs, checking Grace’s empty room on the second floor, and the other guest room on the third.

Empty. All empty.

Nellie was gone—just like Grace!

Gia stood in the hall, shivering, fighting panic, unsure of what to do. She and Vicky were alone in a house from which people disappeared without a sound or a trace—

Vicky!

Gia rushed to their bedroom. The light was still on. Vicky lay curled up under the sheet, sound asleep. Thank God! She sagged against the doorframe, relieved yet still afraid. What to do now? She went out to the phone on the hall table. She had Jack’s number and he had said to call if she needed him. But he was in South Jersey and couldn’t be here for hours. Gia wanted somebody here now. She didn’t want to stay alone with Vicky in this house for a minute longer than she had to.

With a trembling finger she dialed 911 for the police.

12

“You still renting in the city?”

Jack nodded. “Yep.”

His father grimaced and shook his head. “That’s like throwing your money away.”

Jack had changed into the shirt and slacks he had brought along, and now they were back at the house after a late, leisurely dinner at a Mount Holly seafood restaurant. They sat in the living room sipping Jack Daniels in near-total darkness, the only light coming in from the adjoining dining room.

“You’re right, Dad. No argument there.”

“I know houses are ridiculously expensive these days, and a guy in your position really doesn’t need one, but how about a condo? Get ahold of something you can build up equity in.”

It was an oft-held discussion, one they had whenever they got together. Dad would go on about the tax benefits of owning your own home while Jack lied and hedged, unable to say that tax deductions were irrelevant to a man who didn’t pay taxes.

“I don’t know why you stay in that city, Jack. Not only’ve you got federal and state taxes, but the goddamn city sticks its hand in your pocket, too.”

“My business is there.”

His father stood up and took both glasses into the dining room for refills. When they had returned to the house after dinner, he hadn’t asked Jack what he wanted; he’d simply poured a couple of fingers on the rocks and handed him one. Jack Daniels wasn’t something he ordered much, but by the end of the first glass he found himself enjoying it. He didn’t know how many glasses they had had since the first.

Jack closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of the house. He had grown up here. He knew every crack in the walls, every squeaky step, every hiding place. This living room had been so big then; now it seemed tiny. He could still remember that man in the next room carrying him around the house on his shoulders when he was about five. And when he was older they had played catch out in the backyard. Jack had been the youngest of the three kids. There had been something special between his father and him. They used to go everywhere together on weekends, and whenever he had the chance, his father would float a little propaganda toward him. Not lectures really, but a pitch on getting into a profession when he grew up. He worked on all the kids that way, telling them how much better it was to be your own boss rather than be like him and have to work for somebody else. They had been close then. Not anymore. Now they were like acquaintances… near-friends… almost-relatives.

His father handed him the glass of fresh ice and sour mash, then returned to his seat.

“Why don’t you move down here?”

“Dad—”

“Hear me out. I’m doing better than I ever dreamed. I could take you in with me and show you how it’s done. You could take some business courses and learn the ropes. And while you’re going to school I could manage a portfolio for you to pay your expenses. ’Earn while you learn,’ as the saying goes.”

Jack was silent. His body felt leaden, his mind sluggish. Too much Jack Daniels? Or the weight of all those years of lying? He knew Dad’s bottom line: He wanted his youngest to finish college and establish himself in some sort of respectable field. Jack’s brother was a judge, his sister a pediatrician. What was Jack? In his father’s eyes he was a college drop-out with no drive, no goals, no ambition, no wife, no children; he was somebody who was going to drift through life putting very little in and getting very little out, leaving no trace or evidence that he had even passed through. In short: a failure.

That hurt. He wanted more than almost anything else for his father to be proud of him. Dad’s disappointment in him was like a festering sore. It altered their entire relationship, making Jack want to avoid a man he loved and respected.

He was tempted to lay it out for him—put all the lies aside and tell him what his son really did for a living.

Alarmed at the trend of his thoughts, Jack straightened up in his chair and got a grip on himself. That was the Jack Daniels talking. Leveling with his father would accomplish nothing. First off, he wouldn’t believe it; and if he believed it, he wouldn’t understand; and if he believed and understood, he’d be horrified… just like Gia.

“You like what you’re doing, don’t you, Dad?” he said finally.

“Yes. Very much. And you would, too, if—”

“I don’t think so.” After all, what was his father making besides money? He was buying and selling, but he wasn’t producing anything. Jack didn’t mention this to his father—it would only start an argument. The guy was happy, and the only thing that kept him from being completely at peace with himself was his youngest son. If Jack could have helped him there he would have. But he couldn’t. So he only said, “I like what I’m doing. Can’t we leave it at that?”

Dad said nothing.

The phone rang. He went into the kitchen to answer it. A moment later he came out again.

“It’s for you. A woman. She sounds upset.”

The lethargy that had been slipping over Jack suddenly dropped away. Only Gia had this number. He pushed himself out of the chair and hurried to the phone.

“Nellie’s gone, Jack!”

“Where?”

“Gone! Disappeared! Just like Grace! Remember Grace? She was the one you were supposed to find instead of going to diplomatic receptions with your Indian lady friend.”

“Calm down, will you? Did you call the cops?”

“They’re on their way.”

“I’ll see you after they leave.”

“Don’t bother. I just wanted you to know what a good job you’ve done!”

She hung up.

“Something the matter?” his father asked.

“Yeah. A friend’s been hurt.” Another lie. But what was one more added to the mountain of lies he had told people over the years? “Gotta get back to the city.” They shook hands. “Thanks. It’s been great. Let’s do it again soon.”

He had his racquet and was out to his car before Dad could warn him about driving after all those drinks. He was fully alert now. Gia’s call had evaporated all effects of the alcohol.

Jack was in a foul mood as he drove up the Turnpike. He’d really blown this one. It hadn’t even occurred to him that if one sister disappeared, the other might do the same. He wanted to push the car to eighty but didn’t dare. He turned on the Fuzzbuster and set the cruise control at fifty-nine. The best radar detector in the world wouldn’t protect you from the cop driving behind you at night and clocking you on his speedometer. Jack figured no one would bother him if he kept it just under 60.

At least the traffic was light. No trucks. The night was clear. The near-full moon hanging over the road was flat on one edge, like a grapefruit someone had dropped and left on the floor too long.

As he passed Exit 6 and approached the spot where his mother had been killed, his thoughts began to flow backwards in time. He rarely permitted that. He preferred to keep them focused on the present and the future; the past was dead and gone. But in his present state of mind he allowed himself to remember a snowy winter night almost a month after his mother’s death…

13

He had been watching the fatal overpass every night, sometimes in the open, sometimes in the bushes. The January wind ate at his face, chapped his lips, numbed his fingers and toes. Still he waited. Cars passed, people passed, time passed, but no one threw anything off.

February came. A few days after the official groundhog had supposedly seen its shadow and returned to its burrow for another six weeks of winter, it snowed. An inch was on the ground already and at least half a dozen more predicted. Jack stood on the overpass looking at the thinning southbound traffic slushing along beneath him. He was cold, tired, and ready to call it a night.

As he turned to go, he saw a figure hesitantly approaching through the snow. Continuing his turning motion, Jack bent, scooped up some wet snow, packed it into a ball, and lobbed it over the cyclone fencing to drop on a car below. After two more snowballs, he glanced again at the figure and saw that it was approaching more confidently now. Jack stopped his bombardment and stared at the traffic as if waiting for the newcomer to pass. But he didn’t. He stopped next to Jack.

“Whatcha putting in them?”

Jack looked at him. “Putting in what?”

“The snowballs.”

“Get lost.”

The guy laughed. “Hey, it’s all right. Help yourself.” He held out a handful of walnut-sized rocks.

Jack sneered. “If I wanted to throw rocks I could sure as hell do better’n those.”

“This is just for starters.”

The newcomer, who said his name was Ed, laid his stones atop the guard rail, and together they formed new snowballs with rocky cores. Then Ed showed him a spot where the fencing could be stretched out over the road to allow room for a more direct shot… a space big enough to slip a cinderblock through. Jack managed to hit the tops of trucks with his rock-centered snowballs or miss completely. But Ed landed a good share of his dead center on oncoming windshields.

Jack watched his face as he threw. Not much was visible under the knitted cap pulled down to his pale eyebrows and above the navy peacoat collar turned up around his fuzzy cheeks, but there was a wild light in Ed’s eyes as he threw his snowballs, and a smile as he saw them smash against the windshields. He was getting a real thrill out of this.

That didn’t mean Ed was the one who had dropped the cinderblock that killed his mother. He could be just another one of a million petty terrorists who got their jollies destroying or disfiguring something that belonged to someone else. But what he was doing was dangerous. The road below was slippery. The impact of one of his special snowballs—even if it didn’t shatter the windshield—could cause a driver to swerve or slam on his breaks. And that could be lethal under the present conditions.

Either that had never crossed Ed’s mind, or it was what had brought him out tonight.

It could be him.

Jack fought to think clearly. He had to find out. And he had to be absolutely sure.

Jack made a disgusted noise. “Fucking waste of time. I don’t think we even cracked one.” He turned to go. “See ya.”

“Hey!” Ed said, grabbing his arm. “I said we’re just getting started.”

“This is diddley-shit.”

“Follow me. I’m a pro at this.”

Ed led him down the road to where a 280-Z was parked. He opened the trunk and pointed to an icy cinderblock wedged up against the spare tire.

“You call that diddley-shit?”

It took all of Jack’s will to keep from leaping upon Ed and tearing his throat out with his teeth. He had to be sure. What Jack was planning left no room for error. There could be no going back and apologizing for making a mistake.

“I call that big trouble,” Jack managed to say. “You’ll get the heat down on you somethin’ awful.”

“Naw! I dropped one of these bombs last month. You shoulda seen it—perfect shot! Right in somebody’s lap!”

Jack felt himself begin to shake. “Hurt bad?”

Ed shrugged. “Who knows? I didn’t hang around to find out.” He barked a laugh. “I just wish I coulda been there to see the look on their faces when that thing came through the windshield. Blam! Can you see it?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Let’s do it.”

As Ed leaned over to grab the block, Jack slammed the trunk lid down on his head. Ed yelled and tried to straighten up, but Jack slammed it down again. And again. He kept on slamming it down until Ed stopped moving. Then he ran to the bushes, where twenty feet of heavy duty rope had lain hidden for the past month.

“WAKE UP!”

Jack had tied Ed’s hands behind his back. He had cut a large opening in the cyclone wire and now held him seated on the top rung of the guard rail. A rope ran from Ed’s ankles to the base of one of the guard rail supports. They were on the south side of the overpass; Ed’s legs dangled over the southbound lanes.

Jack rubbed snow in Ed’s face.

“Wake up!”

Ed sputtered and shook his head. His eyes opened. He looked dully at Jack, then around him. He looked down and stiffened. Panic flashed in his eyes.

“Hey! What—?”

“You’re dead, Ed. Ed is dead. It rhymes, Ed. That’s ’cause it’s meant to be.”

Jack was barely in control. He would look back in later years and know what he had done was crazy. A car could have come down the road and along the overpass at any time, or someone in the northbound lanes could have looked up and spotted them through the heavy snow. But good sense had fled along with mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

This man had to die. Jack had decided that after talking to the State Police before his mother’s funeral. It had been clear then that even if they learned the name of whoever had dropped the cinderblock, there was no way to convict him short of an eyewitness to the incident or a full confession freely given in the presence of the defendant’s attorney.

Jack refused to accept that. The killer had to die—not just any way, but Jack’s way. He had to know he was going to die. And why.

Jack’s voice sounded flat in his ears, and as cold as the snow drifting out of the featureless night sky.

“You know who’s lap your ’bomb’ landed in last month, Ed? My mother’s. You know what? She’s dead. A lady who never hurt anyone in her whole life was riding along minding her own business and you killed her. Now she’s dead and you’re alive. That’s not fair, Ed.”

He took bleak satisfaction from the growing horror in Ed’s face.

“Hey, look! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”

“Too late, Ed. You already told me it was.”

Ed let out a scream as he slid off the guard rail, but Jack held him by the back of his coat until his tied feet found purchase on the ledge.

“Please don’t do this! I’m sorry! It was an accident! I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt! I’ll do anything to make it up! Anything!”

“Anything? Good. Don’t move.”

Together they stood over the right southbound lane, Jack inside the guard rail, Ed outside. Both watched the traffic roar out from beneath the overpass and flee down the Turnpike away from them. With his hand gripping the collar of Ed’s peacoat to steady him, Jack glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming traffic.

As the snow had continued to fall, the traffic had slowed and thinned. The left lane had built up an accumulation of slush and no one was using it, but there were still plenty of cars and trucks in the middle and right lanes, most doing forty-five or fifty. Jack saw the headlights and clearance lights of a tractor-semitrailer approaching down the right lane. As it neared the overpass he gave a gentle shove.

Ed toppled forward slowly, gracefully, his bleat of terror rising briefly above the noise of the traffic echoing from below. Jack had measured the rope carefully. Ed fell feet first until the rope ran out of slack, then his feet were jerked up as the rest of his body snapped downward. Ed’s head and upper torso swung over the cab of the oncoming truck and smashed against the leading edge of the trailer with a solid thunk, then his body bounced and dragged limply along the length of the trailer top, then swung into the air, spinning and swaying crazily from the rope around its feet.

The truck kept going, its driver undoubtedly aware that something had struck his trailer but probably blaming it on a clump of wet snow that had shaken loose from the overpass and landed on him. There was another truck rolling down the lane but Jack didn’t wait for the second impact. He walked to Ed’s car and removed the cinderblock from the trunk. He threw it into a field as he walked the mile farther down the road to his own car. There would be no connection to his mother’s death, no connection to him.

It was over.

He went home and put himself to bed, secure in the belief that starting tomorrow he could pick up his life again where he had left off.

He was wrong.

He slept into the afternoon of the following day. When he awoke, the enormity of what he had done descended on him with the weight of the earth itself. He had killed. More than that: He had executed another man.

He was tempted to cop an insanity plea, say it hadn’t been him up there on the overpass but a monster wearing his skin. Someone else had been in control.

It wouldn’t wash. It hadn’t been someone else. It had been him. Jack. No one else. And he hadn’t been in a fog or a fugue or consumed by a red haze of rage. He remembered every detail, every word, every move with crystal clarity.

No guilt. No remorse. That was the truly frightening part: The realization that if he could go back and relive those moments he wouldn’t change a thing.

He knew that afternoon as he sat hunched on the edge of the bed that his life would never be the same. The young man in the mirror today was not the same one he had seen there yesterday. Everything looked subtly different. The angles and curves of his surroundings hadn’t changed; faces and architecture and geography all stayed the same topographically. But someone had shifted the lighting. There were shadows where there had been light before.

Jack went back to Rutgers, but college no longer seemed to make any sense. He could sit and laugh and drink with his friends but he no longer felt a part of them. He was one step removed. He could still see and hear them, but could no longer touch them, as if a glass wall had risen between him and everyone he thought he knew.

He searched for a way to make some sense of it all. He went through the existentialist canon, devouring Camus and Sartre and Kierkegaard. Camus seemed to know the questions Jack was asking, but he gave no answers.

Jack flunked most of his second semester courses. He drifted away from his friends. When summer came he took all his savings and moved to New York, where the fix-it work continued with a gradually escalating level of danger and violence. He learned how to pick locks and pick the right gun and ammo for any given situation, how to break into a house and break an arm. He had been there ever since.

Everyone, including his father, blamed the change on the death of his mother. In a very roundabout way, they were right.

14

The overpass receded in his rear-view mirror, and with it the memory of that night. Jack wiped his sweaty palms against his slacks. He wondered where he’d be and what he’d be doing now if Ed had dropped that cinderblock a half-second earlier or later, letting it bounce relatively harmlessly off the hood or roof of his folks’ car. Half a second would have meant the difference between life and death for his mother—and for Ed. Jack would have finished school, had a regular job with regular hours by now, a wife, kids, stability, identity, security. He’d be able to go through a whole conversation without lying. He’d be able to drive under that overpass without reliving two deaths.

Jack arrived in Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel and went directly crosstown. He drove past Sutton Square and saw a black-and-white parked outside Nellie’s townhouse. After making a U-turn under the bridge, he drove back down to the mid-fifties and parked near a hydrant on Sutton Place South. He waited and watched. Before too long he saw the black-and-white pull out of Sutton Square and head uptown. He cruised around until he found a working pay phone and used it to call Nellie’s.

“Hello?” Gia’s voice was tense, expectant.

“It’s Jack, Gia. Everything okay?”

“No.” She seemed to relax. Now she just sounded tired.

“Police gone?”

“Just left.”

“I’m coming over—that is, if you don’t mind.”

Jack expected an argument and some abuse; instead, Gia said, “No, I don’t mind.”

“Be there in a minute.”

He got back into the car, pulled the Semmerling from under the seat and strapped it to his ankle. Gia hadn’t given him an argument. She must be terrified.

15

Gia had never thought she would be glad to see Jack again. But when she opened the door and he was standing there on the front step, it required all her reserve to keep from leaping into his arms. The police had been no help. In fact, the two officers who finally showed up in response to her call had acted as if she were wasting their time. They had given the house a cursory once-over inside and out, had seen no sign of forced entry, had hung around asking a few questions, then had gone, leaving her alone with Vicky in this big empty house.

Jack stepped into the foyer. For a moment it seemed he would lift his arms and hold them out to her. Instead, he turned and closed the door behind him. He looked tired.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Vicky, too?”

“Yes. She’s asleep.” Gia felt as ill at ease as Jack looked.

“What happened?”

She told him about Vicky’s nightmare and her subsequent search of the house for Nellie.

“The police find anything?”

“Nothing. ’No sign of foul play,’ as they so quaintly put it. I believe they think Nellie’s gone off to meet Grace somewhere on some kind of senile lark!”

“Is that possible?”

Gia’s immediate reaction was anger that Jack could even consider such a thing, then realized that to someone who didn’t know Nellie and Grace the way she did, it might seem as good an explanation as any.

“No! Utterly impossible!”

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. How about the alarm system?”

“The first floor was set. As you know, they had the upper levels disconnected. “

“So it’s the same as with Grace: The Lady Vanishes.”

“I don’t think this is the time for cute movie references, Jack.”

“I know,” he said apologetically. “It’s just my frame of reference. Let’s take a look at her room.”

As Gia led him up to the second floor, she realized that for the first time since she had seen Nellie’s empty bed she was beginning to relax. Jack exuded competence. There was an air about him that made her feel that things were finally under control here, that nothing was going to happen without his say-so.

He wandered through Nellie’s bedroom in a seemingly nonchalant manner, but she noticed that his eyes constantly darted about, and that he never touched anything with his fingertips—with the side or back of a hand, with the flat edge of a fingernail or a knuckle, but never in any way that might conceivably leave a print. All of which served as an uncomfortable reminder of Jack’s state of mind and his relationship with the law.

He nudged the French doors open with a foot. Warm humid air swam into the room.

“Did the cops unlock this?”

Gia shook her head. “No. It wasn’t even latched, just closed over.”

Jack stepped out onto the tiny balcony and looked over the railing.

“Just like Grace’s,” he said. “Did they check below?”

“They were out there with flashlights—said there was no sign that a ladder or the like had been used.”

“Just like Grace.” He came in and elbowed the doors closed. “Doesn’t make sense. And the oddest part is that you wouldn’t have found out she was gone until sometime tomorrow if it hadn’t been for Vicky’s nightmare.” He looked at her. “You’re sure it was a nightmare? Is it possible she heard something that woke her up and scared her and you only thought it was a nightmare?”

“Oh, it was a nightmare, all right. She thought Mr. Grape-grabber was stealing Ms. Jelliroll.” Gia’s insides gave a small lurch as she remembered Vicky’s scream—”She even thought she saw him in the backyard.”

Jack stiffened. “She saw someone?”

“Not someone. Mr. Grape-grabber. Her doll.”

“Go through it all step by step, from the time you awoke until you called the police.”

“I went through it all for those two cops.”

“Do it again for me. Please. It may be important.”

Gia told him of awakening to Vicky’s screams, of looking out the window and seeing nothing, of going down to Nellie’s room…

“One thing I didn’t mention to the police was the smell in the room.”

“Perfume? After shave?”

“No. A rotten smell.” Recalling the odor made her uneasy. “Putrid.”

Jack’s face tightened. “Like a dead animal?”

“Yes. Exactly. How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” He suddenly seemed tense. He went into Nellie’s bathroom and checked all the bottles. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for. “Did you catch that odor anywhere else in the house?”

“No. What’s so important about an odor?”

He turned to her. “I’m not sure. But remember what I told you this morning?”

“You mean about not drinking anything strange like Grace’s laxative?”

“Right. Did Nellie buy anything like that? Or did anything like it come to the house?”

Gia thought for a moment. “No… the only thing we’ve received lately is a box of chocolates from my ex-husband.”

“For you?”

“Hardly! For Nellie. They’re her favorite. Seem to be a pretty popular brand. Nellie mentioned them to your Indian lady’s brother last night.” Was last night Saturday night? It seemed so long ago. “He called today to find out where he could order some.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Kusum?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Just that he doesn’t strike me as a chocolate fan. More like a brown rice and water type.”

Gia knew what he meant. Kusum had ascetic written all over him.

As they walked back into the hall, Jack said, “What’s this Mr. Grape-grabber look like?”

“Like a purple Snidely Whiplash. I’ll get it for you.”

She led Jack up to the third floor and left him outside in the hall while she tip-toed over to the night table and picked up the doll.

“Mommy?”

Gia started at the unexpected sound. Vicky had a habit of doing that. Late at night, when she should have been sound asleep, she would let her mother walk in and bend over to kiss her good night; at the last moment she would open her eyes and say, “Hi.” It was spooky sometimes.

“Yes, honey?”

“I heard you talking downstairs. Is Jack here?”

Gia hesitated, but could see no way to get out of telling her.

“Yes. But I want you to lie there and go back to—”

Too late. Vicky was out of bed and running for the hall.

“Jack-Jack-Jack!”

He had her up in his arms and she was hugging him by the time Gia reached the hall.

“Hiya, Vicks.”

“Oh, Jack, I’m so glad you’re here! I was so scared before.”

“So I heard. Your Mommy said you had a bad dream.”

As Vicky launched into her account of Mr. Grape-grabber’s plots against Ms. Jelliroll, Gia marveled again at the rapport between Jack and her daughter. They were like old friends. At a time like this she sorely wished Jack were a different sort of man. Vicky needed a father so, but not one whose work required guns and knives.

Jack held his hand out to Gia for the doll. Mr. Grape-grabber was made of plastic; a lean, wiry fellow with long arms and legs, entirely purple but for his face and a black top hat. Jack studied the doll.

“He does sort of look like Snidely Whiplash. Put a crow on his shoulder and he’d be Will Eisner’s Mr. Carrion.” He held the doll up to Vicky. “Is this the guy you thought you saw outside?”

“Yes,” Vicky said, nodding. “Only he wasn’t wearing his hat.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I couldn’t see. All I could see was his eyes. They were yellow.”

Jack started violently, almost dropping Vicky. Gia instinctively reached out a hand to catch her daughter in case she fell.

“Jack, what’s the matter?”

He smiled—weakly, she thought.

“Nothing. Just a spasm in my arm from playing tennis. Gone now.” He looked at Vicky. “But about those eyes—it must have been a cat you saw. Mr. Grape-grabber doesn’t have yellow eyes.”

Vicky nodded vigorously. “He did tonight. So did the other one.”

Gia was watching Jack and could swear a sick look passed over his face. It worried her because it was not an expression she ever expected to see there.

“Other one?” he said.

“Uh-huh. Mr. Grape-grabber must have brought along a helper.”

Jack was silent a moment, then he hefted Vicky in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom.

“Time for sleep, Vicks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Vicky made some half-hearted protests as he left the bedroom, then rolled over and lay quiet as soon as Gia tucked her in. Jack was nowhere in sight when Gia returned to the hall. She found him downstairs in the walnut paneled library, working on the alarm box with a tiny screwdriver.

“What are you doing?”

“Reconnecting the upper floors. This should have been done right after Grace disappeared. There! Now no one gets in or out without raising cain.”

Gia could tell he was hiding something from her and that was unfair.

“What do you know?”

“Nothing.” He continued to study the insides of the box. “Nothing that makes any sense, anyway.”

That wasn’t what Gia wanted to hear. She wanted someone —anyone—to make some sense out of what had happened here in the past week. Something Vicky said had disturbed Jack. Gia wanted to know what it was.

“Maybe it will make sense to me.”

“I doubt it.”

Gia flared into anger. “I’ll be the judge of that! Vicky and I have been here most of the week and we’ll probably have to stay here a few more days in case there’s any word from Nellie. If you’ve got any information about what’s going on here, I want to hear it!”

Jack looked at her for the first time since she had entered the room.

“Okay. Here it is: There’s been a rotten smell that has come and gone in my apartment for the last two nights. And last night there were two sets of yellow eyes looking in the window of my tv room.”

“Jack, you’re on the third floor!”

“They were there.”

Gia felt something twist inside her. She sat down on the settee and shivered.

“God! That gives me the creeps!”

“It had to be cats.”

Gia looked at him and knew that he didn’t believe that. She pulled her robe more tightly about her. She wished she hadn’t demanded to know what he was thinking, and wished even more that he hadn’t told her.

“Right,” she said, playing along with the game. “Cats. Had to be.”

Jack stretched and yawned as he moved toward the center of the room. “It’s late and I’m tired. Think it’d be all right if I spent the night here?”

Gia bottled a sudden gush of relief to keep it from showing on her face.

“I suppose so.”

“Good.” He settled into Nellie’s recliner and pushed it all the way back. “I’ll just bed down right here while you go up with Vicky.”

He turned on the reading lamp next to the chair and reached for a magazine from the pile next to the dish full of the Black Magic chocolates. Gia felt a lump swell in her throat at the thought of Nellie’s child-like glee at receiving that box of candy.

“Need a blanket?”

“No. I’m fine. I’ll just read for a little while. Good night.”

Gia rose and walked toward the door.

“Goodnight.”

She flipped off the room lights, leaving Jack in a pool of light in the center of the darkened room. She hurried up to Vicky’s side and snuggled against her, hunting sleep. But despite the quiet and the knowledge that Jack was on guard downstairs, sleep never came.

Jack… He had come when needed and had single-handedly accomplished what the New York Police force had been unable to do: He had made her feel safe tonight. Without him she would have spent the remaining hours until daylight in a shuddering panic. She had a growing urge to be with him. She fought it but found herself losing. Vicky breathed slowly and rhythmically at her side. She was safe. They all were safe now that the alarm system was working again—no window or outer door could be opened without setting it off.

Gia slipped out of bed and stole downstairs, taking a lightweight summer blanket with her. She hesitated at the door to the library. What if he rejected her? She had been so cold to him… what if he… ?

Only one way to find out.

She stepped inside the door and found Jack looking at her. He must have heard her come down.

“Sure you don’t need a blanket?” she asked.

His expression was serious. “I could use someone to share it with me.”

Her mouth dry, Gia went to the chair and stretched herself alongside Jack, who spread the blanket over both of them. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say, at least for her. All she could do was lie beside him and contain the hunger within her.

After an eternity, Jack lifted her chin and kissed her. It must have taken him as much courage to do that as it had taken her to come down to him. Gia let herself respond, releasing all the pent-up need in her. She pulled at his clothes, he lifted her nightgown, and then nothing separated them. She clung to him as if to keep him from being torn away from her. This was it, this was what she needed, this was what had been missing from her life.

God help her, this was the man she wanted.

16

Jack lay back in the recliner and tried unsuccessfully to sleep. Gia had taken him completely by surprise tonight. They had made love twice—furiously the first time, more leisurely the second—and now he was alone, more satisfied and content than he could ever remember. For all her knowledge and inventiveness and seemingly inexhaustible passion, Kolabati hadn’t left him feeling like this. This was special. He had always known that he and Gia belonged together. Tonight proved it. There had to be a way for them to get back together and stay that way.

After a long time of drowsy, sated snuggling, Gia had gone back upstairs, saying she didn’t want Vicky to find them both down here in the morning. She had been warm, loving, passionate… everything she hadn’t been the past few months. It baffled him, but he wasn’t fighting it. He must have done something right. Whatever it was, he wanted to keep doing it.

The change in Gia wasn’t all that was keeping him awake, however. The events of the night had sent a confusion of facts, theories, guesses, impressions, and fears whirling through his mind.

Vicky’s description of the yellow eyes had shocked him. Until then he had almost been able to convince himself that the eyes outside his window had been some sort of illusion. But first had come Gia’s casual mention of the putrid smell in Nellie’s room—it had to be the same odor that had invaded his apartment Friday and Saturday night. Then the mention of the eyes. The two phenomena together on two different nights in two different locations could not be mere coincidence.

There was a link between what had happened last night at his apartment and Nellie’s disappearance from here tonight. But Jack was damned if he knew what it was. Tonight he had looked for more of the herbal liquid he had found in Grace’s room last week. He had been disappointed when he could not find any. He couldn’t say why he thought so, and he certainly couldn’t say how, but he was sure the odor, the eyes, the liquid, and the disappearances of the two old women were connected.

Idly, he picked up a piece of chocolate from the candy dish beside his chair. He really wasn’t hungry but he wouldn’t mind something sweet right now. Trouble with these things was you never knew what was inside. There was always the old thumb-puncture-on-the-bottom trick, but that didn’t seem right on a missing person’s candy. He debated popping it into his mouth, then decided against it. He dropped it back in the bowl and returned to his musings.

If he had found some more of the liquid among Nellie’s effects, he would have had one more piece of the puzzle. He wouldn’t have been any closer to a solution but at least he would have had a firmer base to work from. Jack reached down and checked the position of the little Semmerling where he had squeezed it and its ankle holster between the seat cushion and armrest of the recliner. It was still handy. He closed his eyes and thought of other eyes… yellow eyes…

And then it struck him—the thought that had eluded him last night. Those eyes… yellow with dark pupils… why they had seemed vaguely familiar to him: They resembled the pair of black-centered topazes on the necklaces worn by Kolabati and Kusum and on the one he had retrieved for their grandmother!

He should have seen it before! Those two yellow stones had been staring at him for days, just as the eyes had stared at him last night. His spirits rose slightly. He didn’t know what the resemblance meant, but now he had a link between the Bahktis and the eyes, and perhaps the disappearances of Grace and Nellie. It might well turn out to be pure coincidence, but at least he had a path to follow. Jack knew what he’d be doing in the morning.

chapter eight

manhattan
monday, august 6

1

Gia watched Jack and Vicky playing with their breakfasts. Vicky had been up at dawn and delighted to find Jack asleep in the library. Before long she had her mother up and making breakfast for them.

As soon as they were all seated Vicky had begun a chant: “We want Moony! We want Moony!” So Jack had dutifully borrowed Gia’s lipstick and a felt-tipped pen and drawn a face Senor Wences-style on his left hand. The hand then became a very rude, boisterous entity known as Moony. Jack was presently screeching in a falsetto voice as Vicky stuffed Cheerios into Moony’s mouth. She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Vicky had such a good laugh, an unselfconscious belly-laugh from the very heart of her being. Gia loved to hear it and was in turn laughing at Vicky.

When was the last time she and Vicky had laughed at breakfast?

“Okay. That’s enough for now,” Jack said at last. “Moony’s got to rest and I’ve got to eat.” He went to the sink to wash Moony away.

“Isn’t Jack funny, Mom?” Vicky said, her eyes bright. “Isn’t he the funniest?”

As Gia replied, Jack turned around at the sink and mouthed her words in perfect synchronization: “He’s a riot, Vicky.” Gia threw her napkin at him. “Sit down and eat.”

Gia watched Jack finish off the eggs she had fried for him. There was happiness at this table, even after Vicky’s nightmare and Nellie’s disappearance—Vicky hadn’t been told yet. She had a warm, contented feeling inside. Last night had been so good. She didn’t understand what had come over her, but was glad she had given in to it. She didn’t know what it meant… maybe a new beginning… maybe nothing. If only she could go on feeling this way. If only…

“Jack,” she said slowly, not knowing how she was going to phrase this, “have you ever thought of switching jobs?”

“All the time. And I will—or at least get out of this one.”

A small spark of hope ignited in her. “When?”

“Don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I know I can’t do it forever, but… “He shrugged again, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.

“But what?”

“It’s what I do. I don’t know how to say it any better than that. It’s what I do and I do it well. So I want to keep on doing it.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah,” he said, concentrating on the last of his eggs. “I like it.”

The growing spark winked out as the old resentment returned with an icy blast. For want of something to do with her hands, Gia got up and began clearing the table. Why bother? she thought. The man’s a hopeless case.

And so, breakfast ended on a tense note.

Afterwards, Jack caught her alone in the hallway.

“I think you ought to get out of here and back to your own place.”

Gia would have liked nothing better. “I can’t. What about Nellie? I don’t want her to come back to an empty house.”

“Eunice will be here.”

“I don’t know that and neither do you. With Nellie and Grace gone, she’s officially unemployed. She may not want to stay here alone, and I can’t say I’d blame her.”

Jack scratched his head. “I guess you’re right. But I don’t like the idea of you and Vicks here alone, either.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” she said, refusing to acknowledge his concern. “You do your part and we’ll do ours.”

Jack’s mouth tightened. “Fine. Just fine. What was last night, then? Just a roll in the hay?”

“Maybe. It could have meant something, but I guess nothing’s changed, not you, not me. You’re the same Jack I left, and I still can’t accept what you do. And you are what you do.”

He walked out, and she found herself alone. The house suddenly seemed enormous and ominous. She hoped Eunice would show up soon.

2

A day in the life of Kusum Bahkti…

Jack had buried the hurt of his most recent parting with Gia and attacked the task of learning all he could about how Kusum spent his days. It had come down to a choice between trailing Kusum or Kolabati, but Kolabati was just a visitor from Washington, so Kusum won.

His first stop after leaving Sutton Square had been his apartment, where Jack had called Kusum’s number. Kolabati had answered and they’d had a brief conversation during which he learned that Kusum could probably be found either at the consulate or the U.N. Jack had also managed to wrangle the apartment address out of her. He might need that later. He called the Indian Consulate and learned that Mr. Bahkti was expected to be at the U.N. all day.

So now he stood in line in the General Assembly building of the United Nations and waited for the tour to start. The morning sun stung the sunburned nose and forearms he had acquired yesterday on the tennis courts in Jersey. He knew nothing about the U.N. Most people he knew in Manhattan had never been here unless it was to show a visiting friend or relative.

He was wearing dark glasses, a dark blue banlon buttoned up to the neck, an “I Love NY” button pinned to his breast pocket, light blue bermudas, knee-high black socks, and sandals. A Kodak disk camera and a pair of binoculars were slung around his neck. He had decided his best bet was to look like a tourist. He blended perfectly.

The tombstone-like Secretariat building was off-limits to the public. An iron fence surrounded it and guards checked IDs at all the gates. In the General Assembly building there were airport-style metal detectors. Jack had reluctantly resigned himself to being an unarmed tourist for the day.

The tour began. As they moved through the halls, the guide gave them a brief history and a glowing description of the accomplishments and the future goals of the United Nations. Jack only half listened. He kept remembering a remark he had once heard that if all the diplomats were kicked out, the U.N. could be turned into the finest bordello in the world and do just as much, if not more, for international harmony.

The tour served to give him an idea of how the building was laid out. There were public areas and restricted areas. Jack decided his best bet was to sit in the public gallery of the General Assembly, which was in session all day due to some new international crisis somewhere. Soon after seating himself, Jack learned that the Indians were directly involved in the matter under discussion: escalating hostile incidents along the Sino-Indian border. India was charging Red China with aggression.

He suffered through endless discussion that he was sure he had heard a thousand times. Every dinky little country, most unknown to him, had to have its say and usually it said the same thing as the dinky little country before it. Jack finally turned his headphones off. But he kept his binoculars trained on the area around the Indian delegation’s table. So far he had seen no sign of Kusum. He found a public phone and called the Indian Consulate again: No, Mr. Bahkti was with the delegation at the U.N. and was not expected back for hours.

He was just about to nod off when Kusum finally appeared. He walked in with a dignified, businesslike stride and handed a sheaf of papers to the chief delegate, then seated himself in one of the chairs to the rear.

Jack was immediately alert, watching him closely through the glasses. Kusum was easy to keep track of: He was the only member of the delegation wearing a turban. He exchanged a few words with the other diplomats seated near him, but for the most part kept to himself. He seemed aloof, preoccupied, almost as if he were under some sort of strain, fidgeting in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, tapping his toes, glancing repeatedly at the clock, twisting a ring on his finger: the picture of a man with something on his mind, a man who wanted to be somewhere else.

Jack wanted to know where that somewhere else was.

He left Kusum sitting in the General Assembly and went out to the U.N. Plaza. A brief reconnaissance revealed the location of the diplomats’ private parking lot in front of the Secretariat. Jack fixed the image of the Indian flag in his mind, then found a shady spot across the street that afforded a clear view of the exit ramp.

3

It took most of the afternoon. Jack’s eyes burned after hours of being trained on the exit ramp from the diplomats’ parking lot. If he hadn’t happened to glance across the Plaza toward the General Assembly building at a quarter to four, he might have spent half the night waiting for Kusum. For there he was, looking like a mirage as he walked through the shimmering heat rising from the sun-baked concrete. For some reason, perhaps because he was leaving before the session was through, Kusum had bypassed an official car and was walking to the curb. He hailed a cab and got in.

Fearful he might lose him, Jack ran to the street and flagged down a cab of his own.

“I hate to say this,” he said to the driver as he jumped into the rear seat, “but follow that cab.”

The driver didn’t even look back. “Which one?”

“It’s just pulling away over there—the one with the Times ad on the back.”

“Got it.”

As they moved into the uptown flow of traffic on First Avenue, Jack leaned back and studied the driver’s ID photo taped to the other side of the plastic partition that separated him from the passenger area. It showed a beefy black face sitting on a bull neck. Arnold Green was the name under it. A hand-lettered sign saying “The Green Machine” was taped to the dashboard. The Green Machine was one of the extra-roomy Checker Cabs. A vanishing breed. They weren’t making them any more. Compact cabs were taking over. Jack would be sad to see the big ones go.

“You get many ’Follow that cab’ fares?” Jack asked.

“Almost never.”

“You didn’t act surprised.”

“As long as you’re paying, I’ll follow. Drive you around and around the block till the gas runs out if you want. As long as the meter’s running.”

Kusum’s cab turned west on Sixty-sixth, one of the few streets that broke the “evens-run-east” rule of Manhattan, and Green’s Machine followed. Together they crawled west to Fifth Avenue. Kusum’s apartment was in the upper Sixties on Fifth. He was going home. But the cab ahead turned downtown on Fifth. Kusum emerged at the corner of Sixty-fourth and began to walk east. Jack followed in his cab. He saw Kusum enter a doorway next to a brass plaque that read:

NEW

INDIA HOUSE

He checked the address of the Indian Consulate he had jotted down that morning. It matched. He had expected something looking like a Hindu temple. Instead, this was an ordinary building of white stone and iron-barred windows with a large Indian flag—orange, white, and green stripes with a wheel-like mandala in the center—hanging over double oak doors.

“Pull over,” he told the cabbie. “We’re going to wait a while.”

The Green Machine pulled into a loading zone across the street from the building. “How long?”

“As long as it takes.”

“That could run into money.”

“That’s okay. I’ll pay you every fifteen minutes so the meter doesn’t get too far ahead. How’s that sound?”

He stuck a huge brown hand through the slot in the plastic partition. “How about the first installment?”

Jack gave him a five dollar bill. Arnold turned off the engine and slouched down in the seat.

“You from around here?” he asked without turning around.

“Sort of.”

“You look like you’re from Cleveland.”

“I’m in disguise.”

“You a detective?”

That seemed like a reasonable explanation for following cabs around Manhattan, so Jack said, “Sort of.”

“You on an expense account?”

“Sort of.” Not true: He was on his own time and using his own money, but it sounded better to agree.

“Well, sort of let me know when you sort of want to get moving again.”

Jack laughed and got himself comfortable. His only worry was that there might be a back way out of the building.

People began drifting out of the building at 5:00. Kusum wasn’t among them. Jack waited another hour and still no sign of Kusum. By 6:30 Arnold was sound asleep in the front seat and Jack feared that Kusum had somehow slipped out of the building unseen. He decided to give it another half hour. If Kusum didn’t show by then, Jack would either go inside or find a phone and call the Consulate.

It was nearly seven o’clock when two Indians in business suits stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk. Jack nudged Arnold.

“Start your engine. We may be rolling soon.”

Arnold grunted and reached for the ignition. The Green Machine grumbled to life.

Another pair of Indians came out. Neither was Kusum. Jack was edgy. There was still plenty of light, no chance for Kusum to slip past him, yet he had a feeling that Kusum could be a pretty slippery character if he wanted to be.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

He watched the two Indians walk up toward Fifth Avenue. They were walking west! With a flash of dismay, Jack realized that he was parked on a one-way street going east. If Kusum followed the same path as these last two, Jack would have to leave this cab and find another on Fifth Avenue. And the next cabbie might not be so easy-going as Arnold.

“We’ve got to get onto Fifth!” he told Arnold.

“Okay.”

Arnold put his cab in forward and started to pull out into the crosstown traffic.

“No, wait! It’ll take too long to go around the block. I’ll miss him.”

Arnold gave him a baleful stare through the partition. “You’re not telling me to go the wrong way on a one-way street, are you?”

“Of course not,” Jack said. Something in the cabbie’s voice told him to play along. “That would be against the law.”

Arnold smiled. “Just wanted to make sure you wasn’t telling.”

Without warning he threw the Green Machine into reverse and floored it. The tires screeched, terrified pedestrians leaped for the curb, cars coming out of the Central Park traverse swerved and honked angrily while Jack hung on to the passenger straps as the car lunged the hundred feet or so back to the corner, skewed to a halt across the mouth of the street, then nosed along the curb on Fifth Avenue.

“This okay?” Arnold said.

Jack peered through the rear window. He had a clear view of the doorway in question.

“It’ll do. Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

And suddenly Kusum was there, pushing through the door and walking up toward Fifth Avenue. He crossed Sixty-fourth and walked Jack’s way. Jack pressed himself into a corner of the seat so he could see without being seen. Kusum came closer. With a start Jack realized that Kusum was angling across the sidewalk directly toward the Green Machine.

Jack slapped his hand against the partition. “Take off! He thinks you’re looking for a fare!”

The Green Machine slipped away from the curb just as Kusum was reaching for the door handle. Jack peeked through the rear window. Kusum didn’t seem the least bit disturbed. He merely held his hand up for another cab. He seemed far more intent on getting where he was going than on what was going on around him.

Without being told to, Arnold slowed to a halt half a block down and waited until Kusum got in his cab. When the cab went by, he pulled into traffic behind it.

“On the road again, Momma,” he said to no one in particular.

Jack leaned forward intently and fixed his eyes on Kusum’s cab. He was almost afraid to blink for fear of losing sight of it. Kusum’s apartment was only a few blocks uptown from the Indian Consulate—walking distance. But he was taking a cab downtown. This could be what Jack had been waiting for. They chased it down to Fifty-seventh, where it turned right and headed west along what used to be known as Art Gallery Row.

They followed Kusum farther and farther west. They were nearing the Hudson River docks. With a start, Jack realized that this was the area where Kusum’s grandmother had been mugged. The cab went as far west as it could and stopped at Twelfth Avenue and Fifty-seventh. Kusum got out and began to walk.

Jack had Arnold pull into the curb. He stuck his head out the window and squinted against the glare of the sinking sun as Kusum crossed Twelfth Avenue and disappeared into the shadows under the partially repaired West Side Highway.

“Be back in a second,” he told Arnold.

He walked to the corner and saw Kusum hurry along the crumbling waterside pavement to a rotting pier where a rust-bucket freighter was moored. As Jack watched, a gangplank lowered itself as if by magic. Kusum climbed aboard and disappeared from view. The gangplank hoisted itself back to the raised position after he was gone.

A ship. What the hell could Kusum be doing on a floating heap like that? It had been a long, boring day, but now things were getting interesting.

Jack went back to the Green Machine.

“Looks like this is it,” he said to Arnold. He glanced at the meter, calculated what he still owed of the total, added twenty dollars for good will, and handed it to Arnold. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help. “

“This ain’t such a good neighborhood during the day,” Arnold said, glancing around. “And after dark it really gets rough, especially for someone dressed like you.”

“I’ll be okay,” he said, grateful for the concern of a man he had known for only a few hours. He slapped the roof of the car. “Thanks again.”

Jack watched the Green Machine until it disappeared into the traffic, then he studied his surroundings. There was a vacant lot on the corner across the street, and an old, boarded-up brick warehouse next to him.

He felt exposed standing there in an outfit that shouted “Mug me” to anyone so inclined. And since he hadn’t dared to bring a weapon to the U.N., he was unarmed. Officially, unarmed. He could permanently disable a man with a ballpoint pen and knew half a dozen ways to kill with a key ring, but didn’t like to work that close unless he had to. He would have been much more comfortable knowing the Semmerling was strapped against his leg.

He had to hide. He decided his best bet would be under the West Side Highway. He jogged over and perched himself high up in the notch of one of the supports. It offered a clear view of the pier and the ship. Best of all, it would keep him out of sight of any troublemakers.

Dusk came and went. The streetlights came on as night slipped over the city. He was away from the streets, but he saw the traffic to the west and south of him thin out to a rare car cruising by. There was still plenty of rumbling on the West Side Highway overhead, however, as the cars slowed for the ramp down to street level just two blocks from where he crouched. The ship remained silent. Nothing moved on its decks, no lights showed from the superstructure. It had all the appearances of a deserted wreck. What was Kusum doing in there?

Finally, when full darkness settled in at nine o’clock, Jack could wait no longer. In the dark he was pretty sure he could reach the deck and do some hunting around without being seen.

He jumped down from his perch and crossed over to the shadows by the pier. The moon was rising in the east. It was big and low now, slightly rounder than last night, glowing ruddily. He wanted to get aboard and off again before it reached full brightness and started lighting up the waterfront.

At the water’s edge, Jack crouched against a huge piling under the looming shadow of the freighter and listened. All was quiet but for the lapping of the water under the pier. A sour smell—a mixture of sea salt, mildew, rotting wood, creosote, and garbage—permeated the air. Movement to the left caught his eye: a lone wharf rat scurried along the bulkhead in search of dinner. Nothing else moved.

He jumped as something splashed near the hull. An automatic bilge pump was spewing a stream of water out a small port near the waterline of the hull.

He was edgy and couldn’t say why. He had done clandestine searches under more precarious conditions than these. And with less apprehension. Yet the nearer he got to the boat, the less he felt like boarding her. Something within him was warning him away. Through the years he had come to recognize a certain instinct for danger; listening to it had kept him alive in a dangerous profession. That instinct was ringing frantically with alarm right now.

Jack shrugged off the feeling of impending disaster as he took the binoculars and camera from around his neck and laid them at the base of the piling. The rope that ran from the piling up to the bow of the ship was a good two inches thick. It would be rough on his hands but easy to climb.

He leaned forward, got a firm two-handed grip on the rope, then swung out over the water. As he hung from the rope, he raised his legs until his ankles locked around it. Now began the climb: Hanging like an orangutan from a branch with his face to the sky and his back to the water below, he pulled himself up hand-over-hand while his heels caught the finger-thick strands of the rope and pushed from behind.

The angle of ascent steepened and the climb got progressively tougher as he neared the gunwale of the ship. The tiny fibers of the rope were coarse and stiff. His palms were burning; each handful of rope felt like a handful of thistles, especially painful where he had started a few blisters playing tennis yesterday. It was a pleasure to grab the smooth, cool steel of the gunwale and pull himself up to eye-level with its upper edge. He hung there and scanned the deck. Still no sign of life.

He pulled himself over the gunwale and onto the deck, then ran in a crouch to the anchor windlass.

His skin prickled in warning—danger here. But where? He peered over the windlass. There was no sign that he had been seen, no sign that there was anyone else aboard. Still the feeling persisted, a nagging sensation, almost as if he were being watched.

Again, he shrugged it off and set his mind to the problem of reaching the deckhouse. Well over a hundred feet of open deck lay between him and the aft superstructure. And aft was where he wanted to go. He couldn’t imagine much going on in the cargo holds.

Jack set himself, then sprinted around the forward cargo hatch to the kingpost and crane assembly that stood between the two holds. He waited. Still no sign that he had been seen… or that there was anyone here to see him. Another sprint took him to the forward wall of the deckhouse.

He slid along the wall to the port side where he found some steps and took these up to the bridge. The wheelhouse was locked, but through the side window he could see a wide array of sophisticated controls.

Maybe this tub was more seaworthy than it looked.

He crossed in front of the bridge and began checking all the doors. On the second deck on the starboard side he found one open. The hallway within was dark but for a single, dim emergency bulb glowing at the far end. One by one he checked the three cabins on this deck. They looked fairly comfortable— probably for the ship’s officers. Only one looked like it had been recently occupied. The bed was rumpled and a book written in an exotic-looking language lay open on a table. That at least confirmed Kusum’s recent presence.

Next he checked the crew’s quarters below. They were deserted. The galley showed no signs of recent use.

What next? The emptiness, the silence, the stale, musty air were getting on Jack’s nerves. He wanted to get back to dry land and fresh air. But Kusum was aboard and Jack wasn’t leaving until he found him.

He descended to the deck below and found a door marked ENGINE ROOM. He was reaching for the handle when he heard it.

A sound… barely audible… like a baritone chorus chanting in a distant valley. And it came not from the engine room but from somewhere behind him.

Jack turned and moved silently to the outer end of the short corridor. There was a watertight hatch there. A central wheel retracted the lugs at its edges. Hoping it still had some oil in its works, Jack grasped the wheel and turned it counterclockwise, half-expecting a loud screech to echo throughout the ship and give him away. But there came only a soft scrape and a faint squeak. When the wheel had turned as far as it would go, he gently swung the door open.

The odor struck him an almost physical blow, rocking him back on his heels. It was the same stink of putrescence that had invaded his apartment two nights in a row, only now a hundred, a thousand times stronger, gripping him, jamming itself against his face like a graverobber’s glove.

Jack gagged and fought the urge to turn and run. This was it! This was the source, the very heart of the stench. It was here he would learn whether the eyes he had seen outside his window Saturday night were real or imagined. He couldn’t let an odor, no matter how nauseating, turn him back now.

He forced himself to step through the hatch and into a dark, narrow corridor. The dank air clung to him. The corridor walls stretched into the blackness above him. And with each step the odor grew stronger. He could taste it in the air, almost touch it. Faint, flickering light was visible maybe twenty feet ahead. Jack fought his way toward it, passing small, room-sized storage areas on either side. They seemed empty—he hoped they were.

The chant he had dimly heard before had ceased, but there were rustling noises ahead, and as he neared the light, the sound of a voice speaking in a foreign language.

Indian, I’ll bet.

He slowed his advance as he neared the end of the corridor. The light was brighter in a larger, open area ahead. He had been traveling forward from the stern. By rough calculation he figured he should be almost to the main cargo hold.

The corridor opened along the port wall of the hold; across the floor in the forward wall was another opening, no doubt a similar passage leading to the forward hold. Jack reached the end and cautiously peeked around the corner. What he saw stopped his breath. Shock swept through him front to back, like a storm front.

The high, black iron walls of the hold rose and disappeared into the darkness above. Wild shadows cavorted on them. Glistening beads of moisture clung to their oily surfaces, catching and holding the light from the two roaring gas torches set upon an elevated platform at the other end of the hold. The wall over there was a different color, a bloody red, with the huge form of a many-armed goddess painted in black upon it. And between the two torches stood Kusum, naked but for some sort of long cloth twisted and wrapped around his torso. Even his necklace was off. His left shoulder was horribly scarred where he had lost his arm, his right arm was raised, as he shouted in his native tongue to the crowd assembled before him.

But it wasn’t Kusum who seized and held Jack’s attention in a stranglehold, who made the muscles of his jaw bunch with the effort to hold back a cry of horror, who made his hands grip the slimy walls so fiercely.

It was the audience. There were four or five dozen of them, cobalt-skinned, six or seven feet tall, all huddled in a semicircular crowd before Kusum. Each had a head, a body, two arms and two legs—but they weren’t human. They weren’t even close to human. Their proportions, the way they moved, everything about them was all wrong. There was a bestial savagery about them combined with a reptilian sort of grace. They were reptiles but something more, humanoid but something less… an unholy mongrelization of the two with a third strain that could not, even in the wildest nightmare delirium, be associated with anything of this earth. Jack caught flashes of fangs in the wide, lipless mouths beneath their blunt, sharklike snouts, the glint of talons at the end of their three-digit hands, and the yellow glow of their eyes as they stared at Kusum’s ranting, gesticulating figure.

Beneath the shock and revulsion that numbed his mind and froze his body, Jack felt a fierce, instinctive hatred of these things. It was a sub-rational reaction, like the loathing a mongoose must feel toward a snake. Instantaneous enmity. Something in the most remote and primitive corner of his humanity recognized these creatures and knew there could be no truce, no co-existence with them.

Yet this inexplicable reaction was overwhelmed by the horrid fascination of what he saw. And then Kusum raised his arms and shouted something. Perhaps it was the light, but he looked older to Jack. The creatures responded by starting the same chant he had faintly heard moments ago. Only now he could make out the sounds. Gruff, grumbling voices, chaotic at first, then with growing unity, began repeating the same word over and over:

“Kaka-jiiiiii! Kaka-jiiiiii! Kaka-jiiiiii! Kaka-jiiiiii!”

Then they were raising their taloned hands in the air, and clutched in each was a bloody piece of flesh that glistened redly in the wavering light.

Jack didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain he was looking at all that remained of Nellie Paton.

It was all he could take. His mind refused to accept any more. Terror was a foreign sensation to Jack, unfamiliar, almost unrecognizable. All he knew was that he had to get away before his sanity completely deserted him. He turned and ran back down the corridor, careless of the noise he made; not that much could be heard over the din in the hold. He closed the hatch behind him, spun the wheel to lock it, then ran up the steps to the deck, dashed along its moonlit length to the prow, where he straddled the gunwale, grabbed the mooring rope, and slid down to the dock, burning the skin from his palms.

He grabbed his binoculars and camera and fled toward the street. He knew where he was going: To the only other person besides Kusum who could explain what he had just seen.

4

Kolabati reached the intercom on the second buzz. Her first thought was that it might be Kusum; then she realized he would have no need of the intercom, which operated only from the lobby. She had neither seen nor heard from her brother since losing him in Rockefeller Plaza yesterday, and had not moved from the apartment all day in the hope of catching him as he stopped by to change his clothes. But he had never appeared. “Mrs. Bahkti?” It was the doorman’s voice. “Yes?” She didn’t bother to correct him about the “Mrs.”

“Sorry to bother you, but there’s a guy down here says he has to see you.” His voice sank to a confidential tone. “He doesn’t look right, but he’s really been bugging me.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jack. That’s all he’ll tell me.”

A rush of warmth spread over her skin at the mention of his name. But would it be wise to allow him to come up? If Kusum returned and found the two of them together in his apartment…

Yet she sensed that Jack would not show up without calling first unless it was something important.

“Send him up.”

She waited impatiently until she heard the elevator open, then she went to the door. When she saw Jack’s black knee socks, sandals, and shorts, she broke into a laugh. No wonder the doorman wouldn’t let him up!

Then she saw his face.

“Jack! What’s wrong?”

He stepped through the door and closed it behind him. His face was pale beneath a red patina of sunburn, his lips drawn into a tight line, his eyes wild.

“I followed Kusum today…”

He paused, as if waiting for her to react. She knew from his expression that he must have found what she had suspected all along, but she had to hear it from his lips. Hiding the dread of what she knew Jack would say, she set her face into an impassive mask and held it that way.

“And?”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what, Jack?” She watched him run a hand through his hair and noticed that his palms were dirty and bloody. “What happened to your hands?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he walked past her and stepped down into the living room. He sat on the couch. Without looking at her, he began to speak in a dull monotone.

“I followed Kusum from the U.N. to this boat on the West Side—a big boat, a freighter. I saw him in one of the cargo holds leading some sort of ceremony with these”—his face twisted with the memory—”these things. They were holding up pieces of raw flesh. I think it was human flesh. And I think I know whose.”

Strength flowed out of Kolabati like water down a drain. She leaned against the foyer wall to steady herself. It was true! Rakoshi in America! And Kusum behind them—resurrecting the old dead rites that should have been left dead. But how? The egg was in the other room!

“I thought you might know something about it,” Jack was saying. “After all, Kusum is your brother and I figured—”

She barely heard him.

The egg…

She pushed herself away from the wall and started toward Kusum’s bedroom.

“What’s the matter?” Jack said, finally looking up at her. “Where are you going?”

Kolabati didn’t answer him. She had to see the egg again. How could there be rakoshi without using the egg? It was the last surviving egg. And that alone was not enough to produce a nest—a male rakosh was needed.

It simply couldn’t be!

She opened the closet in Kusum’s room and pulled the square crate out into the room. It was so light. Was the egg gone? She pulled the top up. No… the egg was still there, still intact. But the box had been so light. She remembered that egg weighing at least ten pounds…

She reached into the box, placed a hand on each side of the egg, and lifted it. It almost leaped into the air. It weighed next to nothing! And on its underside her fingers felt a jagged edge.

Kolabati turned the egg over. A ragged opening gaped at her. Bright smears showed where cracks on the underside had been repaired with glue.

The room reeled and spun about her.

The rakosh egg was empty! It had hatched long ago!

5

Jack heard Kolabati cry out in the other room. Not a cry of fear or pain—more like a wail of despair. He found her kneeling on the floor of the bedroom, rocking back and forth, cradling a mottled, football-sized object in her arms. Tears were streaming down her face.

“What happened?”

“It’s empty!” she said through a sob.

“What was in it?” Jack had seen an ostrich egg once. That had been white; this was about the same size but its shell was swirled with gray.

“A female rakosh.”

Rakosh. This was the second time Jack had heard her say that word. The first had been Friday night when the rotten odor had seeped into his apartment. He didn’t need any further explanation to know what had hatched from that egg: It had dark skin, a lean body with long arms and legs, a fanged mouth, taloned hands, and bright yellow eyes.

Moved by her anguish, he knelt opposite Kolabati. Gently he pulled the empty egg from her grasp and he took her two hands in his.

“Tell me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.”

“You wouldn’t believe…”

“I’ve already seen them. I believe. Now I’ve got to understand. What are they?”

“They are rakoshi.”

“I gathered that. But the name means nothing.”

“They are demons. They people the folk tales of Bengal. They’re used to spice up stories told at night to frighten children or to make them behave—’The rakoshi will get you!’ Only a select few through the ages have known that they are more than mere superstition.”

“And you and Kusum are two of those select few, I take it.”

“We are the only ones left. We come from a long line of high priests and priestesses. We are the last of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. Through the ages the members of our family have been charged with the care of the rakoshi—to breed them, control them, and use them according to the laws set down in the old days. And until the middle of the last century we discharged that duty faithfully.”

She paused, seemingly lost in thought. Jack impatiently urged her on.

“What happened then?”

“British soldiers sacked the temple of Kali where our ancestors worshipped. They killed everyone they could find, looted what they could, poured burning oil into the rakoshi cave, and set the temple afire. Only one child of the priest and priestess survived.” She glanced at the empty shell. “And only one intact rakosh egg was found in the fire-blasted caves. A female egg. Without a male egg, it meant the end of the rakoshi. They were instinct.”

Jack touched the shell gingerly. So this was where those horrors came from. Hard to believe. He lifted the shell and held it so the light from the lamp shown through the hole into the interior. Whatever had been in here was long gone.

“I can tell you for sure, Kolabati: They aren’t extinct. There were a good fifty of them in that ship tonight.” Fifty of them… he tried to blank out the memory. Poor Nellie!

“Kusum must have found a male egg. He hatched them both and started a nest.”

Kolabati baffled him. Could it be true that she hadn’t known until now? He hoped so. He hated to think she could fool him so completely.

“That’s all well and fine, but I still don’t know what they are. What do they do?”

“They’re demons—”

“Demons, shmemons! Demons are supernatural! There was nothing supernatural about those things. They were flesh and blood!”

“No flesh like you have ever seen before, Jack. And their blood is almost black.”

“Black, red—blood is blood.”

“No, Jack!” She rose up on her knees and gripped his shoulders with painful intensity. “You must never underestimate them! Never! They appear slow-witted but they are cunning. And they are almost impossible to kill.”

“The British did a good job, it seems.”

Her face twisted. “Only by sheer luck! They chanced upon the only thing that will kill rakoshi—fire! Iron weakens them, fire destroys them.”

“Fire and iron…” Jack suddenly understood the two jets of flame Kusum had stood between, and the reason for housing the monsters in a steel-hulled ship. Fire and iron: the two age-old protections against night and the dangers it held. “But where did they come from?”

“They have always been.”

Jack stood up and pulled her to her feet. Gently. She seemed so fragile right now.

“I can’t believe that. They’re built like humans but I can’t see that we ever had a common ancestor. They’re too—” He remembered the instinctive animosity that had surged to life within him as he had watched them “… different.”

“Tradition has it that before the Vedic gods, and even before the pre-Vedic gods, there were other gods, the Old Ones, who hated mankind and wanted to usurp our place on earth. To do this they created blasphemous parodies of humans embodying the opposite of everything good in humans, and called them rakoshi. They are us, stripped of love and decency and everything good we are capable of. They are hate, lust, greed, and violence incarnate. The Old Ones made them far stronger than humans, and planted in them an insatiable hunger for human flesh. The plan was to have rakoshi take humankind’s place on earth.”

“Do you believe that?” It amazed him to hear Kolabati talking like a child who believed in fairy tales.

She shrugged. “I think so. At least it will do for me until a better explanation comes along. But as the story goes, it turned out that humans were smarter than the rakoshi and learned how to control them. Eventually, all rakoshi were banished to the Realm of Death.”

“Not all.”

“No, not all. My ancestors penned the last nest in a series of caves in northern Bengal and built their temple above. They learned ways to bend the rakoshi to their will and they passed those ways on, generation after generation. When our parents died, our grandmother passed the egg and the necklaces on to Kusum and me.”

“I knew the necklaces came in somewhere.”

Kolabati’s voice was sharp as her hand flew to her throat. “What do you know of the necklace?”

“I know those two stones up front there look an awful lot like rakoshi eyes. I figured it was some sort of membership badge.”

“It’s more than that,” she said in a calmer voice. “For want of a better term, I’ll say it’s magic.”

As Jack walked back to the living room, he laughed softly.

“You find this amusing?” Kolabati said from behind him.

“No.” He dropped into a chair and laughed again, briefly. The laughter disturbed him—he seemed to have no control over it. “It’s just that I’ve been listening to what you’ve been telling me and accepting every word without question. That’s what’s funny—I believe you! It’s the most ridiculous, fantastic, far-fetched, implausible, impossible story I’ve ever heard, and I believe every word of it!”

“You should. It’s true.”

“Even the part about the magic necklace?” Jack held up his hand as she opened her mouth to elaborate. “Never mind. I’ve swallowed too much already. I might choke on a magic necklace.”

“It’s true!”

“I’m far more interested in your part in all this. Certainly you must have known.”

She sat down opposite him. “Friday night in your room I knew there was a rakosh outside the window. Saturday night, too.”

Jack had figured that out by now. But he had other questions: “Why me?”

“It came to your apartment because you tasted the durba grass elixir that draws a hunting rakosh to a particular victim.”

Grace’s so-called laxative! A rakosh must have carried her off between Monday night and Tuesday morning. And Nellie last night. But Nellie—those pieces of flesh held on high in the flickering light… he swallowed the bile that surged into his throat—Nellie was dead. Jack was alive.

“Then how come I’m still around?”

“My necklace protected you.”

“Back to that again? All right—tell me.”

She lifted the front of the necklace as she spoke, holding it on either side of the pair of eye-like gems. “This has been handed down through my family for ages. The secret of making it is long gone. It has… powers. It is made of iron, which traditionally has power over rakoshi, and renders its wearer invisible to a rakosh.”

“Come on, Kolabati—” This was too much to believe.

“It’s true! The only reason you are able to sit here and doubt is because I covered you with my body on both occasions when the rakosh came in to find you! I made you disappear! As far as a rakosh was concerned, your apartment was empty. If I hadn’t, you would be dead like the others!”

The others… Grace and Nellie. Two harmless old ladies.

“But why the others? Why—?”

“To feed the nest! Rakoshi must have human flesh on a regular basis. In a city like this it must have been easy to feed a nest of fifty. You have your own caste of untouchables here— winos, derelicts, runaways, people no one would miss or bother to look for even if their absence was noticed.”

That explained all those missing winos the newspapers had been blabbering about. Jack jumped to his feet. “I’m not talking about them! I’m talking about two well-to-do old ladies who have been made victims of these things!”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I’m not.”

“Then it must have been an accident. A missing-persons search is the last thing Kusum would want. He would pick faceless people. Perhaps those women came into possession of some of the elixir by mistake.”

“Possible.” Jack was far from satisfied, but it was possible. He wandered around the room.

“Who were they?”

“Two sisters: Nellie Paton last night and Grace Westphalen last week.”

Jack thought he heard a sharp intake of breath, but when he turned to Kolabati her face was composed. “I see,” was all she said.

“He’s got to be stopped.”

“I know,” Kolabati said, clasping her hands in front of her. “But you can’t call the police.”

The thought hadn’t entered Jack’s mind. Police weren’t on his list of possible solutions for anything. But he didn’t tell Kolabati that. He wanted to know her reasons for avoiding them. Was she protecting her brother?

“Why not? Why not get the cops and the harbor patrol and have them raid that freighter, arrest Kusum, and wipe out the rakoshi?”

“Because that won’t accomplish a thing! They can’t arrest Kusum because of diplomatic immunity. And they’ll go in after the rakoshi not knowing what they’re up against. The result will be a lot of dead men; instead of being killed, the rakoshi will be scattered around the city to prey on whomever they can find, and Kusum will go free.”

She was right. She had obviously given the matter a lot of thought. Perhaps she had even considered blowing the whistle on Kusum herself. Poor girl. It was a hideous burden of responsibility to carry alone. Maybe he could lighten the load.

“Leave him to me.”

Kolabati rose from her chair and came to stand before Jack. She put her arms around his waist and laid the side of her head against his shoulder.

“No. Let me speak to him. He’ll listen to me. I can stop him.”

I doubt that very much, Jack thought. He’s crazy, and nothing short of killing’s going to stop him.

But he said: “You think so?”

“We understand each other. We’ve been through so much together. Now that I know for sure he has a nest of rakoshi, he’ll have to listen to me. He’ll have to destroy them.”

“I’ll wait with you.”

She jerked back and stared at him, terror in her eyes. “No! He mustn’t find you here! He’ll be so angry he’ll never listen to me!”

“I don’t—”

“I’m serious, Jack! I don’t know what he might do if he found you here with me and knew you had seen the rakoshi. He must never know that. Please. Leave now and let me face him alone.”

Jack didn’t like it. His instincts were against it. Yet the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded. If Kolabati could convince her brother to eradicate his nest of rakoshi, the touchiest part of the problem would be solved. If she couldn’t—and he doubted very much that she could—at least she might be able to keep Kusum off balance long enough for Jack to find an opening and make his move. Nellie Paton had been a spirited little lady. The man who killed her was not going to walk away.

“All right,” he said. “But you be careful. You never know —he might turn on you.”

She smiled and touched his face. “You’re worried about me. I need to know that. But don’t worry. Kusum won’t turn on me. We’re too close.”

As he left the apartment, Jack wondered if was doing the right thing. Could Kolabati handle her brother? Could anyone? He took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out to the street.

The park stood dark and silent across Fifth Avenue. Jack knew that after tonight he would never feel the same about the dark again. Yet horse-drawn hansom cabs still carried lovers through the trees; taxis, cars, and trucks still rushed past on the street; late workers, party-goers, prowling singles walked by, all unaware that a group of monsters was devouring human flesh in a ship tied to a West Side dock.

Already the horrors he had witnessed tonight were taking on an air of unreality. Was what he had seen real?

Of course it was. It just didn’t seem so standing here amid the staid normalcy of Fifth Avenue in the upper Sixties. Maybe that was good. Maybe that seeming unreality would let him sleep at night until he took care of Kusum and his monsters.

He caught a cab and told the driver to go around the Park instead of through it.

6

Kolabati watched through the peephole until Jack stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him. Then she slumped against the door.

Had she told him too much? What had she said? She couldn’t remember what she might have blurted out in the aftermath of the shock of finding that hole in the rakosh egg. Probably nothing too damaging—she’d had such long experience at keeping secrets from people that it was now an integral part of her nature. Still, she wished she could be sure.

Kolabati straightened up and pushed those concerns aside. What was done was done. Kusum would be coming back tonight. After what Jack had told her, she was sure of that.

It was all so clear now. That name: Westphalen. It explained everything. Everything except where Kusum had found the male egg. And what he intended to do next.

Westphalen… she thought Kusum would have forgotten that name by now. But then, why should she have thought that? Kusum forgot nothing, not a favor, certainly not a slight. He would never forget the name Westphalen. Nor the time-worn vow attached to it.

Kolabati ran her hands up and down her arms. Captain Sir Albert Westphalen had committed a hideous crime and deserved an equally hideous death. But not his descendants. Innocent people should not be given into the hands of the rakoshi for a crime committed before they were born.

But she could not worry about them now. She had to decide how to handle Kusum. To protect Jack she would have to pretend to know more than she did. She tried to remember the name of the woman Jack said had disappeared last night… Paton, wasn’t it? Nellie Paton. And she needed a way to put Kusum on the defensive.

She went into the bedroom and brought the empty egg back to the tiny foyer. There she dropped the shell just inside the door. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

Tense and anxious, she found herself a chair and tried to get comfortable.

7

Kusum stood outside his apartment door a moment to compose himself. Kolabati was certainly waiting within with questions as to his whereabouts last night. He had his answers ready. What he had to do now was mask the elation that must be beaming from his face. He had disposed of the next to the last Westphalen—one more and he would be released from the vow. Tomorrow he would set the wheels in motion to secure the last of Albert Westphalen’s line. Then he would set sail for India.

He keyed the lock and opened the door. Kolabati sat facing him from a living room chair, her arms and legs crossed, her face impassive. As he smiled and stepped forward, something crunched under his foot. He looked down and saw the shattered rakoshi egg. A thousand thoughts hurtled through his shocked mind, but the one that leaped to the forefront was: How much does she know?

“So,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “You know.”

“Yes, brother. I know.”

“How—?”

“That’s what I want to know!” she said sharply.

She was being so oblique! She knew the egg had hatched. What else did she know? He didn’t want to give anything away. He decided to proceed on the assumption that she knew only of the empty egg and nothing more.

“I didn’t want to tell you about the egg,” he said finally. “I was too ashamed. After all, it was in my care when it broke, and—”

“Kusum!” Kolabati leaped to her feet, her face livid. “Don’t lie to me! I know about the ship and I know about the Westphalen women!”

Kusum felt as if he had been struck by lightning. She knew everything!

“How… ?” was all he could manage to say.

“I followed you yesterday.”

“You followed me?” He was sure he had eluded her. She had to be bluffing. “Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?”

“Forget the last time. I followed you to your ship last night.”

“Impossible!”

“So you thought. But I watched and waited all last night. I saw the rakoshi leave. I saw them return with their captive. And I learned from Jack today that Nellie Paton, a Westphalen, disappeared last night. That was all I needed to know.” She glared at him. “No more lies, Kusum. It’s my turn to ask, ’how?’ “

Stunned, Kusum stepped down into the living room and sank into a chair. He would have to bring her into it now… tell her everything. Almost everything. There was one part he could never tell her—he could barely think about that himself. But he could tell her the rest. Maybe she could see his side.

He began his tale.

8

Kolabati scrutinized her brother closely as he spoke, watching for lies. His voice was clear and cool, his expression calm with just a hint of guilt, like a husband confessing a minor dalliance with another woman.

“I felt lost after you left India. It was as if I had lost my other arm. Despite all my followers clustered around me, I spent much time alone—too much time, you might say. I began to review my life and all I had done and not done with it. Despite my growing influence, I felt unworthy of the trust so many were placing in me. What had I truly accomplished except to filthy my karma to the level of the lowest caste? I confess that for a time I wallowed in self-pity. Finally I decided to journey back to Bharangpur, to the hills there. To the Temple ruins that was nowof our parents and our heritage.”

He paused and looked directly at her. “The foundation is still there, you know. The ashes of the rest are gone, washed into the sand or blown away, but the stone foundation remains, and the rakoshi caves beneath are intact. The hills are still uninhabited. Despite all the crowding at home, people still avoid those hills. I stayed there for days in an effort to renew myself. I prayed, I fasted, I wandered the caves… yet nothing happened. I felt as empty and as worthless as before.

“And then I found it!”

Kolabati saw a light begin to glow in her brother’s eyes, growing steadily, as if someone were stoking a fire within his brain.

“A male egg, intact, just beneath the surface of the sand in a tiny alcove in the caves! At first I did not know what to make of it, or what to do with it. Then it struck me: I was being given a second chance. There before me lay the means to accomplish all that I should have with my life, the means to cleanse my karma and make it worthy of one of my caste. I saw it then as my destiny. I was to start a nest of rakoshi and use them to fulfill the vow.”

A male egg. Kusum continued to talk about how he manipulated the foreign service and managed to have himself assigned to the London embassy. Kolabati barely heard him. A male egg… she remembered hunting through the ruins of the Temple and the caves beneath as a child, searching everywhere for a male egg. In their youth they both had felt it their duty to start a new nest and they had desperately wanted a male egg.

“After I established myself at the embassy,” Kusum was saying, “I searched for Captain Westphalen’s descendants. I learned that there were only four of his bloodline left. They were not a prolific family and a number of them were killed off in the World Wars. To my dismay, I learned that only one, Richard Westphalen, was still in Britain. The other three were in America. But that did not deter me. I hatched the eggs, mated them, and started the nest. I have since disposed of three of the four Westphalens. There is only one left.”

Kolabati was relieved to hear that only one remained— perhaps she could prevail upon Kusum to give it up.

“Aren’t three lives enough? Innocent lives, Kusum?”

“The vow, Bati,” he said as if intoning the name of a deity. “The vrata. They carry the blood of that murderer, defiler, and thief in their veins. And that blood must be wiped from the face of the earth.”

“I can’t let you, Kusum. It’s wrong!”

“It’s right!” He leapt to his feet. “There’s never been anything so right!”

“No!”

“Yes!” He came toward her, his eyes bright. “You should see them, Bati! So beautiful! So willing! Please come with me and look at them! You’ll know then that it was the will of Kali!”

A refusal rose immediately to Kolabati’s lips, yet did not pass them. The thought of seeing a nest of rakoshi here in America repulsed and fascinated her at the same time. Kusum must have sensed her uncertainty, for he pressed on:

“They are our birthright! Our heritage! You can’t turn your back on them—or on your past!”

Kolabati wavered. After all, she did wear the necklace. And she was one of the last two remaining Keepers. In a way she owed it to herself and her family to at least go and see them.

“All right,” she said slowly. “I’ll come see them with you. But only once.”

“Wonderful!” Kusum seemed elated. “It will be like going back in time. You’ll see!”

“But that won’t change my mind about killing innocent people. You must promise me that will stop.”

“We’ll discuss it,” Kusum said, leading her toward the door. “And I want to tell you about my other plans for the rakoshi—plans that do not involve what you call ’innocent’ lives.”

“What?” She didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’ll tell you after you’ve seen them.”

Kusum was silent during the cab ride to the docks while Kolabati tried her best to appear as if she knew exactly where they were going. After the cab dropped them off, they walked through the dark until they were standing before a small freighter. Kusum led her around to the starboard side.

“If it were daylight you could see the name across the stern: Ajit-Rupobati—in Vedic!”

She heard a click from where his hand rested in his jacket pocket. With a whir and a hum, the gangplank began to lower toward them. Dread and anticipation grew as she climbed to the deck. The moon was high and bright, illuminating the surface of the deck with a pale light made all the more stark by the depths of the shadows it cast.

He stopped at the aft end of the second hatch and knelt by a belowdecks entry port.

“They’re in the hold below,” he said as he pulled up the hatch.

Rakoshi-stench poured out of the opening. Kolabati turned her head away. How could Kusum stand it? He didn’t even seem to notice the odor as he slid his feet into the port.

“Come,” he said.

She followed. There was a short ladder down to a square platform nestled into a corner high over the empty hold. Kusum hit a switch and the platform began to descend with a jerk. Startled, Kolabati grabbed Kusum’s arm.

“Where are we going?”

“Down just a little way.” He pointed below with his bearded chin. “Look.”

Kolabati squinted into the shadows, futilely at first. Then she saw their eyes. A garbled murmur arose from below. Kolabati realized that until this instant, despite all the evidence, all that Jack had told her, she had not truly believed there could be rakoshi in New York. Yet here they were.

She shouldn’t have been afraid—she was a Keeper—yet she was terrified. The closer the platform sank to the floor of the hold, the greater her fear. Her mouth grew dry as her heart pounded against the wall of her chest.

“Stop it, Kusum!”

“Don’t worry. They can’t see us.”

Kolabati knew that, but it gave her no comfort.

“Stop it now! Take me back up!”

Kusum hit another button. The descent stopped. He looked at her strangely, then started the platform back up. Kolabati sagged against him, relieved to be moving away from the rakoshi but knowing she had deeply disappointed her brother.

It couldn’t be helped. She had changed. She was no longer the recently orphaned little girl who had looked up to her older brother as the nearest thing to a god on earth, who had planned with him to find a way to bring the rakoshi back, and through them restore the ruined temple to its former glory. That little girl was gone forever. She had ventured into the world and found that life could be good outside India. She wanted to stay there.

Not so Kusum. His heart and his mind had never left those blackened ruins in the hills outside Bharangpur. There was no life for him outside India. And even in his homeland, his rigid Hindu fundamentalism made him something of a stranger. He worshipped India’s past. That was the India in which he wished to live, not the land India was striving to become.

With the belowdecks port shut and sealed behind them, Kolabati relaxed, reveling in the outside air. Whoever would have thought muggy New York City air could smell so sweet? Kusum led her to a steel door in the forward wall of the superstructure. He opened the padlock that secured it. Inside was a short hallway and a single furnished cabin.

Kolabati sat on the cot while Kusum stood and looked at her. She kept her head down, unable to meet his eyes. Neither had said a word since leaving the hold. Kusum’s air of disapproval rankled her, made her feel like an errant child, yet she could not fight it. He had a right to feel the way he did.

“I brought you here hoping to share the rest of my plans with you,” he said at last. “I see now that was a mistake. You have lost all touch with your heritage. You would become like the millions of soulless others in this place.”

“Tell me your plans, Kusum,” she said, feeling his hurt. “I want to hear them.”

“You’ll hear. But will you listen?” He answered his own question without waiting for her. “I don’t think so. I was going to tell you how the rakoshi could be used to aid me back home. They could help eliminate those who are determined to change India into something she was never intended to be, who are bent on leading our people away from the true concerns of life in a mad drive to make India another America.”

“Your political ambitions.”

“Not ambitions! A mission!”

Kolabati had seen that feverish light shining in her brother’s eyes before. It frightened her almost as much as the rakoshi. But she kept her voice calm.

“You want to use the rakoshi for political ends.”

“I do not! But the only way to bring India back onto the True Path is through political power. It came to me that I have not been allowed to start this nest of rakoshi for the mere purpose of fulfilling a vow. There is a grander scheme here, and I am part of it.”

With a sinking feeling, Kolabati realized where all this was leading. A single word said it all:

“Hindutvu.”

“Yes—Hindutvu! A reunified India under Hindu rule. We will undo what the British did in 1947 when they made the Punjab into Pakistan and vivisected Bengal. If only I had had the rakoshi then—Lord Mountbatten would never have left India alive! But he was out of my reach, so I had to settle for the life of his collaborator, the revered Hindu traitor who legitimized the partition of our India by persuading the people to accept it without violence.”

Kolabati was aghast. “Gandhi? It couldn’t have been you!”

“Poor Bati.” He smiled maliciously at the shock that must have shown on her face. “I’m truly disappointed that you never guessed. Did you actually think I would sit idly by after the part he played in the partition?”

“But Savarkar was behind—!”

“Yes. Savarkar was behind Godse and Apte, the actual assassins. He was tried and executed for his part. But who do you think was behind Savarkar?”

No! It couldn’t be true! Not her brother—the man behind what some called “the Crime of the Century”!

But he was still talking. She forced herself to listen:

“… the return of East Bengal—it belongs with West Bengal. Bengal shall be whole again!”

“But East Bengal is Bangladesh now. You can’t possibly think—”

“I’ll find a way. I have the time. I have the rakoshi. I’ll find away, believe me.”

The room spun about Kolabati. Kusum, her brother, her surrogate parent for all these years, the steady, rational cornerstone of her life, was slipping further and further from the real world, indulging himself in the revenge and power fantasies of a maladjusted adolescent.

Kusum was mad. The realization sickened her. Kolabati had fought against the admission all night but the truth could no longer be denied. She had to get away from him.

“If anyone can find a way, I’m sure you will,” she told him, rising and turning towards the door. “And I’ll be glad to help in any way I can. But I’m tired now and I’d like to go back to the—”

Kusum stepped in front of the door, blocking her way.

“No, my sister. You will stay here until we sail away together.”

“Sail?” Panic clutched at her throat. She had to get off this ship! “I don’t want to sail anywhere!”

“I realize that. And that’s why I had this room, the pilot’s cabin, sealed off.” There was no malice in his voice or his expression. He was more like an understanding parent talking to a child. “I’m bringing you back to India with me.”

“No!”

“It’s for your own good. During the voyage back home, I’m sure you’ll see the error of the life you’ve chosen to lead. We have a chance to do something for India, an unprecedented chance to cleanse our karmas. I do this for you as much as for myself.” He looked at her knowingly. “For your karma is as polluted as mine.”

“You have no right!”

“I’ve more than a right. I’ve a duty.”

He darted out of the room and shut the door behind him. Kolabati lunged forward but heard the lock click before she reached the handle. She pounded on its sturdy oak panels.

“Kusum, let me out! Please let me out!”

“When we’re at sea,” he said from the far side of the door.

She heard him walk down the hall to the steel hatch that led to the deck and felt a sense of doom settle over her. Her life was no longer her own. Trapped on this ship… weeks at sea with a madman, even if it was her brother. She had to get out of here! She became desperate.

“Jack will be looking for me!” she said on impulse, regretting it immediately. She hadn’t wanted to involve Jack in this.

“Why would he be looking for you?” Kusum said slowly, his voice faint.

“Because…” She couldn’t let him know that Jack had found the ship and knew about the rakoshi. “Because we’ve been together every day. Tomorrow he’ll want to know where lam.”

“I see.” There was a lengthy pause. “I believe I will have to talk to Jack.”

“Don’t you harm him, Kusum!” The thought of Jack falling victim to Kusum’s wrath was more than she could bear. Jack was certainly capable of taking care of himself, but she was sure he had never run up against someone like Kusum… or a rakosh.

She heard the steel door clang shut.

“Kusum?”

There was no reply. Kusum had left her alone on the ship.

No… not alone.

There were rakoshi below.

9

“SAHNKchewedday! SAHNKchewedday!”

Jack had run out of James Whale films—he had been searching unsuccessfully for a tape of Whale’s The Old Dark House for years—so he had put on the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Charles Laughton, playing the part of the ignorant, deformed Parisian, had just saved Maureen O’Hara and was shouting in an upper class British accent from the walls of the church. Ridiculous. But Jack loved the film and had watched it nearly a hundred times. It was like an old friend, and he needed an old friend here with him now. The apartment seemed especially empty tonight.

So with the six-foot projection tv providing a sort of visual musak, he sat and pondered his next move. Gia and Vicky were all right for the time being, so he didn’t have to worry about them. He had called the Sutton Square house as soon as he had arrived home. It had been late and Gia had obviously been awakened by the phone. She had grouchily told him that no word had been received from either Grace or Nellie and assured him that everyone was fine and had been sleeping peacefully until his call.

On that note, he had let her go back to sleep. He wished he could do the same. But tired as he was, sleep was impossible. Those things! He could not drive the images out of his mind! Nor the possibility that if Kusum learned that he had been on the ship and had seen what it held, he might send them after him.

With that thought, he got up and went to the old oak secretary. From behind the false panel in its lower section he removed a Ruger Security Six .357 magnum revolver with a four-inch barrel. He loaded it with jacketed 110-grain hollow points, bullets that would shatter upon entry, causing incredible internal devastation: little hole going in, huge hole coming out. Kolabati had said the rakoshi were unstoppable except for fire. He’d like to see anything stand up to a couple of these in the chest. But the features that made them so lethal on impact with a body made them relatively safe to use indoors—a miss lost all its killing power once it hit a wall or even a window. He loaded five chambers and left the hammer down on the empty sixth.

As an extra precaution, Jack added a silencer—Kusum and the rakoshi were his problem. He didn’t want to draw any of his neighbors into it if he could avoid it. Some of them would surely be hurt or killed.

He was just settling down in front of the tv again when there was a knock on the door. Startled and puzzled, Jack flipped the Betamax off and padded to the door, gun in hand. There was another knock as he reached it. He could not imagine a rakoshi knocking, but he was very uneasy about this night caller.

“Who is it?”

“Kusum Bahkti,” said a voice on the other side.

Kusum! Muscles tightened across Jack’s chest. Nellie’s killer had come calling. Holding himself in check, he cocked the Ruger and unlocked the door. Kusum stood there alone. He appeared perfectly relaxed and unapologetic despite the fact that dawn was only a few hours away. Jack felt his finger tighten on the trigger of the pistol he held behind his right leg. A bullet in Kusum’s brain right now would solve a number of problems, but might be difficult to explain. Jack kept his pistol hidden. Be civil!

“What can I do for you?”

“I wish to discuss the matter of my sister with you.”

10

Kusum watched Jack’s face. His eyes had widened slightly at the mention of “my sister.” Yes, there was something between these two. The thought filled Kusum with pain. Kolabati was not for Jack, or any casteless westerner. She deserved a prince.

Jack stepped back and let the door swing open wider, keeping his right shoulder pressed against the edge of the door. Kusum wondered if he was hiding a weapon.

As he stepped into the room he was struck by the incredible clutter. Clashing colors, clashing styles, bric-a-brac and memorabilia filled every wall and niche and corner. He found it at once offensive and entertaining. He felt that if he could sift through everything in this room he might come to know the man who lived here.

“Have a seat.”

Kusum hadn’t seen Jack move, yet now the door was closed and Jack was sitting in an overstuffed armchair, his hands clasped behind his head. He could kick him in the throat now and end it all. One kick and Kolabati would no longer be tempted. Quick, easier than using a rakosh. But Jack appeared to be on guard, ready to move. Kusum warned himself that he should not underestimate this man. He sat down on a short sofa across from him.

“You live frugally,” he said, continuing to inspect the room around him. “With the level of income I assume you to have, I would have thought your quarters would be more richly appointed.”

“I’m content the way I live,” Jack said. “Besides, conspicuous consumption is contrary to my best interests.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But at least you have resisted the temptation to join the big car, yacht, and country club set. A lifestyle too many of your fellow countrymen would find irresistible.” He sighed. “A lifestyle too many of my own countrymen find irresistible as well, much to India’s detriment.”

Jack shrugged. “What’s this got to do with Kolabati?”

“Nothing, Jack,” Kusum said. He studied the American: a self-contained man; a rarity in this land. He does not need the adulation of his fellows to give him self-worth. He finds it within. I admire that. Kusum realized he was giving himself reasons why he should not make Jack a meal for the rakoshi.

“How’d you get my address?”

“Kolabati gave it to me.” In a sense this was true. He had found Jack’s address on a slip of paper on her bureau the other day.

“Then let’s get to the subject of Kolabati, shall we?”

There was an undercurrent of hostility running through Jack. Perhaps he resented being disturbed at this hour. No… Kusum sensed it was more than that. Had Kolabati told him something she shouldn’t have? That idea disturbed him. He would have to be wary of what he said.

“Certainly. I had a long talk with my sister tonight and have convinced her that you are not right for her.”

“Interesting,” Jack said. A little smile played about his lips. What did he know? “What arguments did you use?”

“Traditional ones. As you may or may not know, Kolabati and I are of the Brahmin caste. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It is the highest caste. It is not fitting for her to consort with someone of a lower caste. “

“That’s a little old fashioned, isn’t it?”

“Nothing that is of such vital concern to one’s karma can be considered ’old fashioned.’ “

“I don’t worry about karma,” Jack said. “I don’t believe in it.”

Kusum allowed himself to smile. What ignorant children these Americans were.

“Your believing or not believing in karma has no effect on its existence, nor on its consequences to you. Just as a refusal to believe in the ocean would not prevent you from drowning.”

“And you say that because of your arguments about caste and karma, Kolabati was convinced that I am not good enough for her?”

“I did not wish to state it so bluntly. May I just say that I prevailed upon her not to see or even speak to you ever again.” He felt a warm glow begin within him. “She belongs to India. India belongs to her. She is eternal, like India. In many ways, she is India.”

“Yeah,” Jack said as he reached out with his left hand and placed the phone in his lap. “She’s a good kid.” Cradling the receiver between his jaw and his left shoulder, he dialed with his left hand. His right hand rested quietly on his thigh. Why wasn’t he using it?

“Let’s call her and see what she says.”

“Oh, she’s not there,” Kusum said quickly. “She has packed her things and started back to Washington.”

Jack held the phone against his ear for a long time. Long enough for at least twenty rings. Finally, he replaced the receiver in its cradle with his left hand—

—and suddenly there was a pistol in his right hand, the large bore of its barrel pointing directly between Kusum’s eyes.

“Where is she?” Jack’s voice was a whisper. And in the eyes sighting down the barrel of that pistol Kusum saw his own death—the man holding the gun was quite willing and even anxious to pull the trigger.

Kusum’s heart hammered in his throat. Not now! I can’t die now! I’ve too much still to do!

11

Jack saw the fear spring onto Kusum’s face. Good! Let the bastard squirm. Give him a tiny taste of what Grace and Nellie must have felt before they died.

It was all Jack could do to keep from pulling the trigger. Practical considerations held him back. Not that anyone would hear the silenced shot; and the possibility that anyone knew Kusum had come here was remote. But disposing of the body would be a problem.

And there was still Kolabati to worry about. What had happened to her? Kusum seemed to care too much for his sister to harm her, but any man who could lead a ceremony like the one Jack had seen on that hellship was capable of anything.

“Where is she?” he repeated.

“Out of harm’s way, I assure you,” Kusum said in measured tones. “And out of yours.” A muscle throbbed in his cheek, as if someone were tapping insistently against the inside of his face.

“Where?”

“Safe… as long as I am well and able to return to her.”

Jack didn’t know how much of that to believe, and yet he dared not take it too lightly.

Kusum stood up.

Jack kept the pistol trained on his face. “Stay where you are!”

“I have to go now.”

Kusum turned his back and walked to the door. Jack had to admit the bastard had nerve. He paused there and faced Jack. “But I want to tell you one more thing: I spared your life tonight.”

Incredulous, Jack rose to his feet. “What?” He was tempted to mention the rakoshi but remembered Kolabati’s plea to say nothing of them. Apparently she hadn’t told Kusum that Jack had been on the boat tonight.

“I believe I spoke clearly. You are alive now only because of the service you performed for my family. I now consider that debt paid.”

“There was no debt. It was fee-for-service. You paid the price, I rendered the service. We’ve always been even.”

“That is not the way I choose to see it. However, I am informing you now that all debts are cancelled. And do not follow me. Someone might suffer for that.”

“Where is she?” Jack said, leveling the pistol. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to shoot you in the right knee. If you still won’t talk, I’ll shoot you in the left knee.”

Jack was quite ready to do what he said, but Kusum made no move to escape. He continued facing him calmly.

“You may begin,” he told Jack. “I have suffered pain before.”

Jack glanced at Kusum’s empty left sleeve, then looked into his eyes and saw the unbreakable will of a fanatic. Kusum would die before uttering a word.

After an interminable silence, Kusum smiled thinly, stepped into the hall, and closed the door behind him. Containing the urge to hurl the .357 against the door, Jack lined up the empty chamber and gently let the hammer down on it. Then he went over and locked the door—but not before giving it a good kick.

Was Kolabati really in some kind of danger, or had Kusum been bluffing? He had a feeling he had been outplayed, but still did not feel he could have risked calling the bluff.

The question was: Where was Kolabati? He would try to trace her tomorrow. Maybe she really was on her way back to Washington. He wished he could be sure.

Jack kicked the door again. Harder.

chapter nine

manhattan
tuesday, august 7

1

For I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

The Bhagavad Gita

With a mixture of anger, annoyance, and concern, Jack slammed the phone back into its cradle. For the tenth time this morning he had called Kusum’s apartment and listened to an endless series of rings. He had alternated those calls with others to Washington, D.C. Information had found no listing for Kolabati in the District or in northern Virginia, but a call to Maryland information had turned up a number for a K. Bahkti in Chevy Chase, the fashionable Washington suburb.

There had been no answer there all morning, either. It was only a four-hour drive from here to the Capitol. She had had plenty of time to make it—if she really had left New York. Jack didn’t accept that. Kolabati had struck him as far too independent to knuckle under to her brother.

Visions of Kolabati bound and gagged in a closet somewhere plagued him. She was probably more comfortable than that, but he was sure she was Kusum’s prisoner. It was because of her relationship with Jack that her brother had taken action against her. He felt responsible.

Kolabati… his feelings for her were confused at this point. He cared for her, but he couldn’t say he loved her. She seemed, rather, to be a kindred spirit, one who understood him and accepted—even admired—him for what he was. Augment that with an intense physical attraction and the result was a unique bond that was exhilarating at times. But it wasn’t love.

He had to help her. So why had he spent most of the morning on the phone? Why hadn’t he gone over to the apartment and tried to find her?

Because he had to get over to Sutton Square. Something within had been nudging him in that direction all morning. He wouldn’t fight it. He had learned through experience to obey those nudgings. It wasn’t prescience. Jack didn’t buy ESP or telepathy. The nudgings meant his subconscious mind had made correlations as yet inapparent to his conscious mind and was trying to let him know.

Somewhere in his subconscious, two and two and two had added up to Sutton Place. He should go there today. This morning. Now.

He pulled on some clothes and slipped the Semmerling into its ankle holster. Knowing he probably would need it later in the day, he stuffed his house-breaking kit—a set of lock picks and a thin plastic ruler—into a back pocket and headed for the door.

It felt good to be doing something at last.

2

“Kusum?”

Kolabati heard a rattling down the hall. She pressed an ear against the upper panel of her cabin door. The noise definitely came from the door that led to the deck. Someone was unlocking it. It could only be Kusum.

She prayed he had come to release her.

It had been an endless night, quiet except for faint rustlings from within the depths of the ship. Kolabati knew she was safe, that she was sealed off from the rakoshi; and even if one or more did break free of the cargo areas, the necklace about her throat would protect her from detection. Yet her sleep had been fitful at best. She thought about the awful madness that had completely overtaken her brother; she worried about Jack’ and what Kusum might do to him. Even if her mind had been at peace, sleep would have been difficult. The air had grown thick through the night. The ventilation in the cabin was poor and with the rising of the sun the temperature had risen steadily. It was now like a sauna. She was thirsty. There was a sink in the tiny head attached to her cabin but the water that dribbled from the tap was brackish and musty-smelling.

She twisted the handle on the cabin door as she had done a thousand times since Kusum had locked her in here. It turned but would not open no matter how hard she pulled on it. A close inspection had revealed that Kusum had merely reversed the handle and locking apparatus—the door that was supposed to have locked from the inside now locked from the outside.

The steel door at the end of the hall clanged. Kolabati stepped back as her cabin door swung open. Kusum stood there with a flat box and a large brown paper sack cradled in his arm. His eyes held genuine compassion as he looked at her.

“What have you done to Jack?” she blurted as she saw the look on his face.

“Is that your first concern?” Kusum asked, his face darkening. “Does it matter that he was ready to kill me?”

“I want you both alive!” she said, meaning it.

Kusum seemed somewhat mollified. “We are that—both of us. And Jack will stay that way as long as he does not interfere with me.”

Kolabati felt weak with relief. And in light of the knowledge that Jack had not been harmed, she felt free to concentrate on her own plight. She took a step toward her brother.

“Please let me out of here, Kusum,” she said. She hated to beg but dreaded the thought of spending another night locked in this cabin.

“I know you had an uncomfortable night,” he said, “and I’m sorry for that. But it won’t be long now. Tonight your door shall be unlocked.”

“Tonight? Why not now?”

He smiled. “Because we have not yet sailed.”

Her heart sank. “We’re sailing tonight?”

“The tide turns after midnight. I’ve made arrangements for apprehending the last Westphalen. As soon as she is in my hands, we will sail.”

“Another old woman?”

Kolabati saw a queasy look flicker across her brother’s face.

“Age has no bearing. She is the last of the Westphalen line. That is all that matters.”

Kusum set the bag on the fold-out table and began unpacking it. He pulled out two small jars of fruit juice, a square Tupperware container filled with some sort of salad, eating utensils, and paper cups. At the bottom of the bag was a small selection of newspapers and magazines, all in Hindi. He opened the container and released the scent of curried vegetables and rice into the room.

“I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Despite the cloud of depression and futility that enveloped her, Kolabati felt her mouth filling with saliva. But she willed her hunger and thirst to be still and glanced toward the open cabin door. If she got a few steps lead on Kusum she could perhaps lock him in here and escape.

“I’m famished,” she said, approaching the table on an angle that would put her between Kusum and the door. “It smells delicious. Who made it?”

“I bought it for you at a little Indian restaurant on Fifth Avenue in the Twenties. A Bengali couple run it. Good people.”

“I’m sure they are.”

Her heart began to pound as she edged closer to the door. What if she failed to get away? Would he hurt her? She glanced to her left. The door was only two steps away. She could make it but she was afraid to try.

It had to be now!

She leaped for the doorway, a tiny cry of terror escaping her as she grabbed the handle and pulled the door closed behind her. Kusum was at the door the instant it slammed shut. Kolabati fumbled with the catch and shouted with joy when it clicked into the locked position.

“Bati, I command you to open this door immediately!” Kusum shouted from the other side, his voice heavy with anger.

She ran for the outer door. She knew she wouldn’t feel truly free until there was a layer of steel between herself and her brother.

A crash behind her made Kolabati glance over her shoulder. The wooden door was exploding outward. She saw Kusum’s foot flash through as the door dissolved into a shower of splintered wood. Kusum stepped into the hall and started after her.

Terror spurred her on. Sunlight, fresh air, and freedom beckoned to her from beyond the steel hatch. Kolabati darted through and pushed it shut, but before she could lock it, Kusum threw all his weight against the other side, sending her flying onto her back.

Without a word, he stepped out onto the deck and pulled her to her feet. With a vise-like grip that bruised her wrist, he dragged her back to her cabin. Once there, he spun her around and gripped the front of her blouse.

“Don’t ever try that again!” he said, his eyes nearly bulging with rage. “It was idiotic! Even if you had managed to lock me up, you would have had no way to reach the dock—unless you know how to slide down a rope.”

She felt herself jerked forward, heard the fabric of her blouse rip as buttons flew in all directions.

“Kusum!”

He was like a mad beast, his breathing harsh, his eyes wild.

“And take—”

He reached into the open front of her blouse, grabbed her bra between the cups, and tore the center piece, exposing her breasts…

“—off—”

… then pushed her down on the bed and yanked brutally at the waistband of her skirt, bursting the seams and pulling it from her…

—these— ”

… then tore her panties off…

“—obscene—”

… then tore away the remnants of her blouse and bra.

“—rags!”

He threw down the ruined clothes and ground them into the floor with his heel.

Kolabati lay frozen in panic until he finally calmed himself. As his breathing and complexion returned to normal, he stared at her as she huddled naked before him, an arm across her breasts, a hand over the pubic area between her tightly clenched thighs.

Kusum had seen her unclothed countless times before; she had often paraded nude before him to see his reaction, but at this moment she felt exposed and degraded, and tried to hide herself.

His sudden smile was sardonic. “Modesty doesn’t become you, dear sister.” He reached for the flat box he had brought with him and tossed it to her. “Cover yourself.”

Afraid to move, yet more afraid of disobeying him, Kolabati drew the box across her lap and awkwardly pulled it open. It contained a light blue sari with gold stitching. Fighting back tears of humiliation and impotent rage, she slipped the tight upper blouse over her head, then wrapped the silk fabric around herself in the traditional manner. She fought the hopelessness that threatened to engulf her. There had to be a way out.

“Let me go!” she said when she felt she could trust her voice. “You have no right to keep me here!”

“There will be no further discussion as to what I have a right to do. I am doing what I must do. Just as I must see my vow through to its fulfillment. Then I can go home and stand before those who believe in me, who are willing to lay down their lives to follow me in bringing Mother India back to the True Path. I will not deserve their trust, nor be worthy of leading them to Hindutvu, until I can stand before them with a purified karma. “

“But that’s your life!” she screamed. “Your karma!”

Kusum shook his head slowly, sadly. “Our karmas are entwined, Bati. Inextricably. And what I must do, you must do.” He stepped through the ruined door and looked back at her. “Meanwhile, I am due at an emergency session of the Security Council. I shall return with your dinner this evening.”

He turned, stepped through the remains of the shattered door, and was gone. Kolabati didn’t bother calling his name or looking after him. The outer door to the deck closed with a loud clang.

More than fear, more than misery at being incarcerated on this ship, she felt a great sadness for her brother and the mad obsession that drove him. She went to the table and tried to eat but could not even bring herself to taste the food.

Finally the tears came. She buried her face in her hands and wept.

3

For the first time since Gia had known him, Jack looked his age. There were dark rings under his eyes and a haunted look hovering within them. His dark brown hair needed combing and he had been careless shaving.

“I didn’t expect you,” she said as he stepped into the foyer.

It annoyed her that he could just show up like this without warning. On the other hand, she was glad to have him around. It had been a very long, fearful night. And a lonely one. She began to wonder if she would ever straighten out her feelings about Jack.

Eunice closed the door and looked questioningly at Gia. “I’m about to fix lunch, mum. Shall I set an extra place?” The maid’s voice was lifeless. Gia knew she missed her mistresses. Eunice had kept busy, talking incessantly of Grace and Nellie’s imminent return. But even she seemed to be running out of hope.

Gia turned to Jack. “Staying for lunch?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

As Eunice bustled off, Gia said, “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Nellie?”

“I wanted to be here,” he said. It was a simple statement.

“You won’t find her here.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever find her. I don’t think anyone will.”

The note of finality in his voice shocked Gia. “W-what do you know?”

“Just a feeling,” he said, averting his eyes as if embarrassed to admit to acting on feelings. “Just as I’ve had this other feeling all morning that I should be here today.”

“That’s all you’re going on—feelings?”

“Humor me, Gia” he said with an edge on his voice she had never heard before. “All right? Humor me.”

Gia was about to press him for a more specific answer when Vicky came running in. Vicky missed Grace and Nellie but Gia had kept her daughter’s spirits up by telling her that Nellie had gone to find Grace. Jack picked her up and swung her to his hip, but his responses to her chatter consisted mainly of noncommittal grunts. Gia could not remember ever seeing him so preoccupied. He seemed worried, almost unsure of himself. That upset her the most. Jack was always a rock of self-assurance. Something was terribly wrong here and he wasn’t telling her about it.

The three of them trailed into the kitchen, where Eunice was preparing lunch. Jack slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and stared morosely into space. Vicky apparently noticed that he wasn’t responding to her in his usual manner so she went out to the backyard to her playhouse. Gia sat across from him, watching him, dying to know what he was thinking but unable to ask with Eunice there.

Vicky came running in from the back with an orange in her hand. Gia idly wondered where she had got it. She thought they had run out of oranges.

“Do the orange mouth! Do the orange mouth!”

Jack straightened up and put on a smile that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man.

“Okay, Vicks. The orange mouth. Just for you.”

He glanced at Gia and made a sawing motion with his hand. Gia got up and found him a knife. When she returned to the table, he was shaking his hand as if it were wet.

“What’s the matter?”

“This thing’s leaking. Must be a real juicy one.” He sliced the orange in half. Before quartering it, he rubbed the back of his hand along his cheek. Suddenly he was on his feet, his chair tipping over backwards behind him. His face was putty white as he held his fingers under his nose and sniffed.

“No!” he cried as Vicky reached for one of the orange halves. He grabbed her hand and roughly pushed it away. “Don’t touch it!”

“Jack! What’s wrong with you?” Gia was furious at him for treating Vicky that way. And poor Vicky stood there staring at him with her lower lip trembling.

But Jack was oblivious to both of them. He was holding the orange halves up to his nose, inspecting them, sniffing at them like a dog. His face grew steadily whiter.

“Oh, God!” he said, looking as if he was about to be sick. “Oh, my God!”

As he stepped around the table, Gia pulled Vicky out of his way and clutched her against her. His eyes were wild. Three long strides took him to the kitchen garbage can. He threw the orange in it, then pulled the Hefty bag out, twirled it, and twisted the attached tie around the neck. He dropped the bag on the floor and came back to kneel before Vicky. He gently laid his hands on her shoulders.

“Where’d you get that orange, Vicky?”

Gia noted the “Vicky” immediately. Jack never called her by that name. She was always “Vicks” to him.

“In… in my playhouse.”

Jack jumped up and began pacing around the kitchen, frantically running the fingers of both hands through his hair. Finally he seemed to come to a decision:

“All right—we’re getting out of here.”

Gia was on her feet. “What are you—?”

“Out! All of us! And no one eat any thing! Not a thing! That goes for you, too, Eunice!”

Eunice puffed herself up. “I beg your pardon?”

Jack got behind her and firmly guided her toward the door. He was not rough with her but there was no hint of playfulness about him. He came over to Gia and pulled Vicky away from her.

“Get your toys together. You and your mommy are going on a little trip.”

Jack’s sense of urgency was contagious. Without a backward glance at her mother, Vicky ran outside.

Gia shouted angrily: “Jack, you can’t do this! You can’t come in here and start acting like a fire marshall. You’ve no right!”

“Listen to me!” he said in a low voice as he grasped her left biceps in a grip that bordered on pain. “Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace?”

Gia tried to speak but no words came out. She felt as if her heart had stopped. Vicky gone? No—!

“I didn’t think so,” Jack said. “If we’re here tonight, that might happen.”

Gia still couldn’t speak. The horror of the thought was a hand clutching at her throat.

“Go!” he said, pushing her toward the front of the house. “Pack up and we’ll get out of here.”

Gia stumbled away from him. It was not so much what Jack said, but what she had seen in his eyes… something she had never seen nor ever expected to see: fear.

Jack afraid—it was almost inconceivable. Yet he was; she was sure of it. And if Jack was afraid, what should she be?

Terrified, she ran upstairs to pack her things.

4

Alone in the kitchen, Jack sniffed his fingers again. At first he had thought he was hallucinating, but then he had found the needle puncture in the orange skin. There could be no doubt—rakoshi elixir. Even now he wanted to retch. Someone—Someone? Kusum!—had left a doctored orange for Vicky.

Kusum wanted Vicky for his monsters!

The worst part was realizing that Grace and Nellie had not been accidental victims. There was purpose here. The two old women had been intended targets. And Vicky was next!

Why? In God’s name, why! Was it this house? Did he want to kill everyone who lived here? He had Grace and Nellie already, but why Vicky next? Why not Eunice or Gia? It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did and his brain was too rattled right now to see the pattern.

Vicky came up the back steps and hurried through the kitchen carrying something that looked like a big plastic grape. She walked by with her chin out and her nose in the air, without even once glancing Jack’s way.

She’s mad at me.

To her mind she had ample reason to be upset with him. After all, he had frightened her and everyone else in the house. But that could not be helped. He could not remember a shock like the one that had blasted through him when he recognized the odor on his hands. Orange juice, yes, but tainted by the unmistakable herbal smell of rakoshi elixir.

Fear trickled down his chest wall and into his abdomen.

Not my Vicky. Never my Vicky!

He walked over to the sink and looked out the window as he washed the smell off his hands. The house around him, the playhouse out there, the yard, the whole neighborhood had become tainted, sinister.

But where to go? He couldn’t let Gia and Vicky go back to their own apartment. If Kusum knew of Vicky’s passion for oranges, surely he knew her address. And Jack’s place was definitely out. On impulse he called Isher Sports.

“Abe? I need help.”

“So what else is new?” came the lighthearted reply.

“This is serious, Abe. It’s Gia and her little girl. I’ve got to find them a safe place to stay. Somewhere not connected with me.”

The banter was suddenly gone from Abe’s voice. “Hotel no good?”

“As a last resort it’ll do, but I’d feel better in a private place.”

“My daughter’s apartment is empty until the end of the month. She’s on sabbatical in Europe for the summer.”

“Where is it?”

“Queens. On the border of Astoria and Long Island City.”

Jack glanced out the kitchen window to the jumble of buildings directly across the East River. For the first time since cutting the orange open, he felt he had a chance of controlling the situation. The sick dread that weighed so relentlessly upon him lifted a little.

“Perfect! Where’s the key?”

“In my pocket.”

“I’ll be right over to get it.”

“I’ll be here.”

Eunice came in as he hung up. “You really have no right to send us all on our way,” she said sternly. “But if I must go, at least let me clean up the kitchen.”

“I’ll clean it up,” Jack said, blocking her way as she reached for the sponge in the sink. She turned and picked up the Hefty bag that contained the tainted orange. Jack gently pulled it from her grasp. “I’ll take care of that, too.”

“Promise?” she said, eyeing him with unconcealed suspicion. “I wouldn’t want the two ladies of the house coming back and finding a mess.”

“They won’t find a mess here,” Jack told her, feeling sorry for this loyal little woman who had no idea that her employers were dead. “I promise you.”

Gia came down the stairs as Jack ushered Eunice out the front door. Gia seemed to have composed herself since he had chased her upstairs.

“I want to know what all this means,” she said after Eunice was gone. “Vicky’s upstairs. You tell me what’s going on here before she comes down.”

Jack searched for something to say. He could not tell her the truth—she’d lose all confidence in his sanity. She might even call the nut patrol to take him down to pillow city in Bellevue. He began to improvise, mixing truth and fiction, hoping he made sense.

“I think Grace and Nellie were abducted.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Gia said, but her voice did not carry much conviction.

“I wish it were.”

“But there was no sign of a break-in or a struggle—”

“I don’t know how it was done but I’m sure the liquid I found in Grace’s bathroom is a link.” He paused for effect. “Some of it was in that orange Vicky brought in to me.”

Gia’s hand clutched his arm. “The one you threw away?”

Jack nodded. “And I bet if we had the time we could find something of Nellie’s that’s laced with the stuff, something she ate.”

“I can’t think of anything… “Her voice trailed off, then rose again. “What about the chocolates?” Gia grabbed his arm and dragged him to the parlor. “They’re in here. They came last week.”

Jack went to the candy bowl on the table beside the recliner where they had spent Sunday night. He took a chocolate off the top and inspected it. No sign of a needle hole or tampering. He broke it open and held it up to his nose… and there it was: the odor. Rakoshi elixir. He held it out to Gia.

“Here. Take a whiff. I don’t know if you remember what Grace’s laxative smelled like, but it’s the same stuff.” He led her to the kitchen where he opened the garbage bag and took out Vicky’s orange. “Compare.”

Gia sniffed them both, then looked up at him. Fear was growing in her eyes. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Jack lied as he took the candy and orange from her and threw them both into the bag. Then he brought the dish from the parlor and dumped the rest of the chocolates.

“But it’s got to do something!” Gia said, persistent as always.

So that Gia couldn’t see his eyes as he spoke, Jack made a show of concentrating on twisting the tie around the neck of the bag as tightly as he could.

“Maybe it has some sedative properties that keeps people quiet while they’re being carried off. “

Gia stared at him, a mystified look on her face. “This is crazy! Who would want to—?”

“That’s my next question: Where’d she get the candy?”

“From England.” Gia’s face blanched. “Oh, no! From Richard!”

“Your ex?”

“He sent them from London.”

With his mind working furiously, Jack took the garbage bag outside and dumped it in a can in the narrow alley alongside the house.

Richard Westphalen? Where the hell did he fit in? But hadn’t Kusum mentioned that he had been in London last year? And now Gia says her ex-husband sent those chocolates from London. It all fit but it made no sense. What possible link could he have to Kusum? Certainly not financial. Kusum hadn’t struck Jack as a man to whom money meant much.

This was making less and less sense every minute.

“Could your ex be behind this?” he asked as he returned to the kitchen. “Could he be thinking he’s going to inherit something if Grace and Nellie disappear?”

“I wouldn’t put much past Richard,” Gia said, “but I can’t see him getting involved in a serious crime. Besides, I happen to know that he’s not going to inherit a thing from Nellie.”

“But does he know that?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced around and appeared to shiver. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“Soon as you’re ready.”

Gia went upstairs to get Vicky. Before long, mother and daughter were standing in the foyer, Vicky with a little suitcase in one hand and her plastic grape carrying case in the other.

“What’s in there?” Jack asked, pointing to the grape.

Vicky held it out of his reach behind her back. “Just my Ms. Jelliroll doll.”

“I should have known.” At least she’s talking to me.

“Can we go now?” Gia said. She had been transformed from a reluctant evictee to someone anxious to be as far away from this house as possible. He was glad for that.

Jack took the large suitcase and led the two of them up to Sutton Place where he hailed a cab and gave the address of Isher Sports.

“I want to get home,” Gia said. She was in the middle, Vicky on her left and Jack on her right. “That’s in your neighborhood.”

“You can’t go home,” he told her. As she opened her mouth to protest he added: “You can’t go to my place, either.”

“Then where?”

“I’ve found a place in Queens.”

“Queens? I don’t want to—”

“No one’ll find you in a million years. Just hang out there for a couple of days until I see if I can put a stop to this.”

“I feel like a criminal.” Gia put an arm around Vicky and hugged her close.

Jack wanted to hug both of them and tell them they’d be all right, that he’d see to it that nothing ever hurt them. But it would be awkward here in the back seat of a cab, and after his outburst this morning with the orange, he wasn’t sure how they’d react.

The cab pulled up in front of Abe’s store. Jack ran in and found him at his usual station reading his usual science fiction novel. There was mustard on his tie; poppy seeds peppered his ample shirt front.

“The key’s on the counter and so’s the address,” he said, glancing over his reading glasses without moving from his seat. “This won’t be messy, I hope. Already my relationship with Sarah is barely civil.”

Jack pocketed the key but kept the address in hand.

“If I know Gia, she’ll leave the place spotless.”

“If I know my daughter, Gia will have her work cut out for her.” He stared at Jack. “I suppose you have some running around to do tonight?”

Jack nodded. “A lot.”

“And I suppose you want I should come over and babysit the two ladies while you’re out of the apartment? Don’t even ask,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’ll do it.”

“I owe you one, Abe,” Jack said.

“I’ll add it to the list,” he replied with a deprecating wave of his hand.

“Do that.”

Back in the cab, Jack gave the driver the address of Abe’s daughter’s apartment. “Take the Midtown Tunnel,” he said.

“The bridge is better for where you’re going,” the cabbie said.

“Take the tunnel,” Jack told him. “And go through the park.”

“It’s quicker around.”

“The park. Enter at Seventy-second and head downtown.”

The cabbie shrugged. “You’re paying for it.”

They drove over to Central Park West, then turned into the park. Jack stayed twisted around in his seat the whole way, tensely watching through the back window for any car or cab that followed them. He had insisted on taking the route through the park because it was narrow and winding, curving through the trees and beneath the overpasses. Anyone tailing would want to stay close for fear of losing them.

There was no one following. Jack was sure of that by the time they reached Columbus Circle, but he kept his eyes fixed out the rear window until they reached the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

As they slid into that tiled fluorescent gullet, Jack faced front and allowed himself to unwind. The East River was above them, Manhattan was rapidly falling behind. Soon he’d have Gia and Vicky lost in the mammoth beehive of apartments called Queens. He was putting the whole island of Manhattan between Kusum and his intended victims. Kusum would never find them. With that worry behind him, Jack would be free to concentrate his efforts on finding a way to deal with the crazy Indian.

Right now, however, he had to mend his relationship with Vicky, who was sitting on the far side of her mother with her big plastic grape sitting in her lap. He began by leaning around Gia and making the kind of faces mothers always tell their children not to make because you never know when your face’ll get stuck that way.

Vicky tried to ignore him but soon was laughing and crossing her eyes and making faces, too.

“Stop that, Vicky!” Gia said. “Your face could get stuck that way!”

5

Vicky was glad Jack was acting like his old self. He had frightened her this morning with his yelling and grabbing her orange and throwing it away. That had been mean. He had never done anything like that before. Not only had it frightened her, but her feelings had been hurt. She had got over being scared right away, but her feelings had remained hurt until now. Silly Jack. He was making her laugh. He just must have been grouchy this morning.

Vicky shifted her Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case on her lap. There was room in it for the doll and extra things like doll clothes.

Vicky had something extra in there now. Something special. She hadn’t told Jack or Mommy that she had found two oranges in the playhouse. Jack had thrown the first away. But the second was in her carry case, safely hidden beneath the doll clothes. She was saving that for later and not telling anybody. That was only right. It was her orange. She had found it, and she wasn’t going to let anybody throw it away.

6

Apartment 1203 was hot and stuffy. The stale smell of cigarette smoke had become one with the upholstery, rugs, and wallpaper. Dust bunnies under the front room coffee table were visible from the door.

So this was the hide-out: Abe’s daughter’s place.

Gia had met Abe briefly once. He hadn’t looked too neat —had little bits of food all over him, in fact. Like father, like daughter, apparently.

Jack went to the big air conditioner in the window. “Could use some of this.”

“Just open the windows,” Gia told him. “Let’s get a change of air in here. “

Vicky was prancing around, swinging her grape carry case, delighted to be in a new place. Non-stop chatter:

“Are we staying here Mommy how long are we staying is this going to be my room can I sleep in this bed? ooh look how high we are you can see the Umpire State Building over there and there’s Chrysler’s building it’s my favorite ’cause it’s pointy and silvery at the top… “

And on and on. Gia smiled at the memory of how hard she had worked coaxing Vicky to say her first words, how she had agonized over the completely unfounded notion that her daughter might never speak. Now she wondered if she would ever stop.

Once the windows on both sides of the apartment were open, the wind began to flow through, removing all the old trapped odors and bringing in new ones.

“Jack, I’ve got to clean this place up if I’m going to stay here. I hope no one minds.”

“No one’ll mind,” he said. “Just let me make a couple of calls and I’ll help you.”

Gia located the vacuum cleaner while he dialed and listened, then dialed again. Either it was busy or he got no answer, because he hung up without saying anything.

They spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning the apartment. Gia took pleasure in the simple tasks of scouring the sink, cleaning the counters, scrubbing the inside of the refrigerator, washing the kitchen floors, vacuuming the rugs. Concentrating on the minutiae kept her mind off the formless threat she felt hanging over Vicky and herself.

Jack wouldn’t let her out of the apartment, so he took the bedclothes down to the laundry area and washed them. He was a hard worker and not afraid to get his hands dirty. They made a good team. She found she enjoyed being with him, something up until a few days ago she thought she’d never enjoy again. The certain knowledge that there was a gun hidden somewhere on his body and that he was the sort of man quite willing and able to use it effectively did not cause the revulsion it would have a few days ago. She couldn’t say she approved of the idea, but she found herself taking reluctant comfort in it.

It wasn’t until the sun was leaning into the west toward the Manhattan skyline that she finally declared the apartment habitable. Jack went out and found a Chinese restaurant and brought back egg rolls, hot and sour soup, spare ribs, shrimp fried rice, and mushu pork. In a separate bag he had an Entenmann’s almond ring coffee cake. That didn’t strike Gia as a fitting dessert for a Chinese meal, but she didn’t say anything.

She watched as he tried to teach Vicky how to use the chopsticks he had picked up at the restaurant. The riff between those two had apparently healed without a scar. They were buddies again, the trauma of the morning forgotten—at least by Vicky.

“I have to go out,” he told her as they cleared the dishes.

“I figured that,” Gia said, hiding her unease. She knew they were lost in this apartment complex among other apartment complexes—the proverbial needle in the haystack—but she didn’t want to be alone tonight, not after what she had learned this morning about the chocolates and the orange. “How long will you be?”

“Don’t know. That’s why I asked Abe to come and stay with you until I get back. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No. I don’t mind at all.” From what she remembered of Abe, he seemed an unlikely protector, but any port in a storm would do. “Anyway, how could I object? He has more of a right to be here than we do.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Jack said.

“Oh?”

“Abe and his daughter are barely on speaking terms.” Jack turned and faced her, leaning his back against the sink. He glanced over her shoulder to where Vicky sat alone at the table munching on a fortune cookie, then spoke in a low voice, his eyes fixed on her. “You see, Abe’s a criminal. Like me.”

“Jack—” She didn’t want to get into this now.

“Not exactly like me. Not a thug.” His emphasis on the word she had used on him was a barb in her heart. “He just sells illegal weapons. He also sells legal weapons, but he sells them illegally.”

Portly, voluble Abe Grossman—a gunrunner? It wasn’t possible! But the look in Jack’s eyes said it was.

“Was it necessary to tell me that?” What was he trying to do?

“I just want you to know the truth. I also want you to know that Abe is the most peace-loving man I’ve ever met.”

“Then why does he sell guns?”

“Maybe he’ll explain it to you some day. I found his reasons pretty convincing—more convincing than his daughter did.”

“She doesn’t approve, I take it.”

“Barely speaks to him.”

“Good for her.”

“Didn’t stop her from letting him pay the tuition for her bachelor and graduate degrees, though.”

There was a knock on the door. A voice in the hall said, “It’s me—Abe.”

Jack let him in. He looked the same as he had the last time Gia had seen him: an overweight man dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, black tie, and black pants. The only difference was the nature of the food stains up and down his front.

“Hello,” he said, shaking Gia’s hand. She liked a man to shake her hand. “Nice to see you again.” He also shook Vicky’s hand, which elicited a big smile from her.

“Just in time for dessert, Abe,” Jack said. He brought out the Entenmann’s cake.

Abe’s eyes widened. “Almond coffee ring! You shouldn’t have!” He made a show of searching the tabletop. “What are the rest of you having?”

Gia laughed politely, not knowing how seriously to take the remark, then watched with wonder as Abe consumed three-quarters of the cake, all the while talking eloquently and persuasively of the imminent collapse of western civilization. Although he had failed to persuade Vicky to call him “Uncle Abe” by the time dessert was over, he had Gia half-convinced she should flee New York and build an underground shelter in the foothills of the Rockies.

Finally, Jack stood up and stretched. “I have to go out for a little bit. Shouldn’t be long. Abe will stay here until I get back. And if you don’t hear from me, don’t worry.”

Gia followed him to the door. She didn’t want to see him go, but couldn’t bring herself to tell him so. A persistent knot of hostility within her always veered her away from the subject of Gia and Jack.

“I don’t know if I can be with him too much longer,” she whispered to Jack. “He’s so depressing!”

Jack smiled. “You ain’t heard nuthin’ yet. Wait till the network news comes on and he gives you his analysis of what every story really means.” He put his hand on her shoulder and drew her close. “Don’t let him bother you. He means well.”

Before she knew what was happening, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

“Bye!” And he was out the door.

Gia turned back to the apartment: There was Abe squatting before the television. There was a Special Report about the Chinese border dispute with India.

“Did you hear that?” Abe was saying. “Did you hear? Do you know what this means?”

Resignedly, Gia joined him before the set. “No. What does it mean?”

7

Finding a cab took some doing, but Jack finally nabbed a gypsy to take him back into Manhattan. He still had a few hours of light left; he wanted to make the most of them. The worst of the rush hour was over and he was heading the opposite way of much of the flow, so he made good time getting back into the city.

The cab dropped him off between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth on Fifth Avenue, one block south of Kusum’s apartment building. He crossed to the park side of Fifth and walked uptown, inspecting the building as he passed. He found what he wanted: a delivery alley along the left side secured by a wrought iron gate with pointed rails curved over and down toward the street. Next step was to see if anybody was home.

He crossed over and stepped up to the doorman, who wore a pseudomilitary cap and sported a handlebar moustache.

“Would you ring the Bahkti apartment, please?”

“Surely,” the doorman said. “Who shall I say is calling?”

“Jack. Just Jack.”

The doorman buzzed on the intercom and waited. And waited. Finally he said, “I do not believe Mr. Bahkti is in. Shall I leave a message? “

No answer did not necessarily mean no was was home.

“Sure. Tell him Jack was here and that he’ll be back.”

Jack sauntered away, not sure of what his little message would accomplish. Perhaps it would rattle Kusum, although he doubted it. It would probably take a hell of a lot to rattle a guy with a nest of rakoshi.

He walked to the end of the building. Now came the touchy part: getting over the gate unseen. He took a deep breath. Without looking back, he leaped up and grabbed two of the curved iron bars near their tops. Bracing himself against the side wall, he levered himself over the spikes and jumped down to the other side. Those daily workouts paid off now and then. He stepped back and waited, but no one seemed to have noticed him. He exhaled. So far, so good. He ran around to the rear of the building.

There he found a double door wide enough for furniture deliveries. He ignored this—they were almost invariably wired with alarms. The narrow little door at the bottom of a short stairwell was more interesting. He pulled the leather-cased lock-picking kit out of his pocket as he descended the steps. The door was solid, faced with sheet metal, no windows. The lock was a Yale, most likely an inter-grip rim model. While his hands worked two of the slim black picks into the keyhole, his eyes kept watch along the rear of the building. He didn’t have to look at what he was doing—locks were picked by feel.

And then it came—the click of the tumblers within the cylinder. There was a certain grim satisfaction in that sound, but Jack didn’t take time to savor it. A quick twist and the bolt snapped back. He pulled the door open and waited for an alarm bell. None came. A quick inspection showed that the door wasn’t wired for a silent alarm either. He slipped inside and locked it after him.

It was dark in the basement. As he waited for his eyes to adjust, he ran over a mental picture of the layout of the lobby one floor above. If his memory was accurate, the elevators should be straight ahead and slightly to the left. He moved forward and found them right where he had figured. The elevator came down in response to the button and he took it straight up to the ninth floor.

There were four doors facing on the small vestibule outside the elevator. Jack went immediately to 9B and withdrew the thin, flexible plastic ruler from his pocket. Tension tightened the muscles at the back of his neck. This was the riskiest part. Anyone seeing him now would call the police immediately. He had to work fast. The door was double locked: a Yale dead-bolt and a Quikset with a keyhole in the knob. He had cut a right-triangular notch half an inch into the edge of the ruler about an inch from the end. Jack slipped the ruler in between the door and the jamb and ran it up and down past the Yale. It moved smoothly—the deadbolt had been left open. He ran the ruler down to the Quikset, caught the notch on the latch bolt, wiggled and pulled on the ruler… and the door swung inward.

The entire operation had taken ten seconds. Jack jumped inside and quietly closed the door behind him. The room was bright within—the setting sun was pouring orange light through the living room windows. All was quiet. The apartment had an empty feel to it.

He looked down and saw the smashed egg. Thrown in anger or dropped during a struggle? He moved quickly, silently, through the living room to the bedrooms, searching the closets, under the beds, behind the chairs, into the kitchen and the utility room.

Kolabati was not here. There was a closet in the second bedroom half-filled with women’s clothes; he recognized a dress as the one Kolabati had worn in Peacock Alley; another was the one she had worn to the Consulate reception. She wouldn’t have gone back to Washington without her clothes.

She was still in New York.

He went to the window and looked out over the park. The orange sun was still bright enough to hurt his eyes. He stood there and stared west for a long time. He had desperately hoped to find Kolabati here. It had been against all logic, but he had had to see for himself so he could cross this apartment off his short list of possibilities.

He turned and picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Indian Embassy. No, Mr. Bahkti was still at the U.N., but was expected back shortly.

That did it. There were no more excuses left to him. He had to go to the only other place Kolabati could be.

Dread rolled back and forth in his stomach like a leaden weight.

That ship. That godawful floating piece of hell. He had to go back there.

8

“I’m thirsty, Mommy.”

“It’s the Chinese food. It always makes you thirsty. Have another drink of water.”

“I don’t want water. I’m tired of water. Can’t I have some juice?”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I didn’t get a chance to do any shopping. The only thing to drink around here is some wine and you can’t have that. I’ll get you some juice in the morning. I promise.”

“Oh, okay.”

Vicky slumped in her chair and folded her arms over her chest. She wanted juice instead of water and she wanted to watch something else besides these dumb news shows. First the six o’clock news, then something called the network news, and Mr. Grossman—he wasn’t her uncle; why did he want her to call him Uncle Abe?—talking, talking, talking. She’d much rather be watching The Brady Bunch. She had seen them all at least twice, some three or four times. She liked the show. Nothing bad ever happened. Not like the news.

Her tongue felt dry. If only she had some juice…

She remembered the orange—the one she had saved from her playhouse this morning. That would taste so delicious now.

Without a word she got up from her chair and slipped into the bedroom she and Mommy would be sharing tonight. Her Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case was on the floor of the closet. Kneeling in the dim light of the room, she opened it and pulled the orange out. It felt so cool in her hand. Just the smell made her mouth water. This was going to taste so good.

She bent over by the screened window and dug her thumb into the thick skin until it broke through, then she began peeling. Juice squirted all over her hands as she tore a section loose and bit into it. Juice, sweet and tangy, gushed onto her tongue. Delicious! She pushed the rest of the section into her mouth and was tearing another free when she noticed something funny about the taste. It wasn’t a bad taste, but it wasn’t a good taste either. She took a bite of the second section. It tasted the same.

Suddenly she was frightened. What if the orange was rotten? Maybe that’s why Jack wouldn’t let her have any this morning. What if it made her sick?

Panicked, Vicky bent and shoved the rest of the orange under the bed—she’d sneak it into the garbage later when she had a chance. Then she strolled as casually as she could out of the room and over to the bathroom, where she washed the juice off her hands and drank a Dixie Cup full of water.

She hoped she didn’t get a stomach ache. Mommy would be awfully mad if she found out about sneaking the orange. But more than anything, Vicky prayed she didn’t throw up. Throwing up was the worst thing in the world.

Vicky returned to the living room, averting her face so no one could see it. She felt guilty. One look at her and Mommy would know something was wrong. The weather lady was saying that tomorrow was going to be hot and dry and sunny again, and Mr. Grossman started talking about drought and people fighting over water. She sat down and hoped they’d let her watch The Partridge Family after this.

9

The dark bow of the freighter loomed over Jack, engulfing him in its shadow as he stood on the dock. The sun was sinking over New Jersey, but there was still plenty of light. Traffic rushed by above and behind him. He was oblivious to everything but the ship before him and the clatter of his heart against his ribs.

He had to go in. There was no way around it. For an instant, he actually considered calling the police, but rejected the idea immediately. As Kolabati had said, Kusum was legally untouchable. And even if Jack managed to convince the police that such things as rakoshi existed, all they were likely to do was get themselves killed and loose the rakoshi upon the city. Probably get Kolabati killed, too.

No, the police didn’t belong here, for practical reasons and for reasons of principle: This was his problem and he would solve it by himself. Repairman Jack always worked alone.

He had put Gia and Vicky out of harm’s way. Now he had to find Kolabati and see her to safety before he made a final move against her brother.

As he followed the wharf around to the starboard side of the ship, he pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves he had bought on his way over from Fifth Avenue. There were also three brand new Cricket butane lighters—three for $1.47 at the department store—scattered through his pockets. He didn’t know what good they would do, but Kolabati had been emphatic about fire and iron being the only weapons against rakoshi. If he needed fire, at least he would have a little of it available.

There was too much light to climb up the same rope he had last time—it was in plain view of the traffic on the West Side Highway. He would have to enter by way of a stern line this time. He looked longingly at the raised gangplank. If he had had the time he could have stopped at his apartment and picked up the variable frequency beeper he used for getting into garages with remote control door openers. He was sure the gangplank operated on a similar principle.

He found a heavy stern line and tested its tautness. He saw the name across the stern but couldn’t read the lettering. The setting sun was warm against his skin. Everything seemed so normal and mundane out here. But in that ship…

He stilled the dread within and forced himself up the rope monkey-style as he had last night. As he pulled himself over the gunwale and onto the deck at the rear of the superstructure, he realized that the darkness of last night had hidden a multitude of sins. The boat was filthy. Rust grew where paint had thinned or peeled away; everything was either nicked or dented or both. And overlaying all was a thick coat of grease, grime, soot, and salt.

The rakoshi are below, Jack told himself as he entered the superstructure and began his search of the cabins. They’re sealed in the cargo areas. I won’t run into one up here. I won’t.

He kept repeating it over and over, like a litany. It allowed him to concentrate on his search instead of constantly looking over his shoulder.

He started at the bridge and worked his way downward. He found no sign of Kolabati in any of the officers’ cabins. He was going through the crew’s quarters on the main deck level when he heard a sound. He stopped. A voice—a woman’s voice—calling a name from somewhere inside the wall. Hope began to grow in him as he followed that wall around to the main deck where he found a padlocked iron door.

The voice was coming from behind the door. Jack allowed himself a self-congratulatory grin. The voice was Kolabati’s. He had found her.

He examined the door. The shackle of a laminated steel padlock had been passed through the swivel eye of a heavy slotted hasp welded firmly to the steel of the door. Simple but very effective.

Jack dug out his pick kit and went to work on the lock.

10

Kolabati had started calling Kusum’s name when she heard the footsteps on the deck above her cabin; she stopped when she heard him rattle the lock on the outer door. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty, she just wanted to see another human face—even Kusum’s. The isolation of the pilot’s cabin was getting to her.

She had spent all day wracking her brain for a way to appeal to her brother. But pleas would be of no avail. How could you plead with a man who thought he was salvaging your karma? How could you convince that man to alter a course of action he was pursuing for what he was certain was your own good?

She had even gone so far as to look for something she might conceivably use for a weapon, but she had discarded the notion. Even with one arm, Kusum was too quick, too strong, too agile for her. He had proved that beyond a doubt this morning. And in his unbalanced state of mind, a physical assault might drive him over the edge.

And still she worried for Jack. Kusum had said he was unharmed, but how could she be sure after all the lies he had already told her?

She heard the outer door open—Kusum seemed to have been fumbling with it—and footsteps approaching her cabin. A man stepped through the splinters of the door. He stood there smiling, staring at her sari.

“Where’d you get the funny dress?”

“Jack!” She leaped into his arms, her joy bursting within her. “You’re alive!”

“You’re surprised?”

“I thought Kusum might have…”

“No. It was almost the other way around.”

“I’m so glad you found me!” She clutched him, reassuring herself that he was really here. “Kusum is going to sail back to India tonight. Get me out of here!”

“My pleasure.” He turned toward the shattered door and paused. “What happened to that?”

“Kusum kicked it out after I locked him in.”

She saw Jack’s eyebrows rise. “How many kicks?”

“One, I think.” She wasn’t sure.

Jack pursed his lips as if to whistle but made no sound. He began to speak but was interrupted by a loud clang from down the hall.

Kolabati went rigid. No! Not Kusum! Not now!

“The door!”

Jack was already out in the hall. She followed in time to see him slam his shoulder full force against the steel door.

Too late. It was locked.

Jack pounded once on the door with his fist, but said nothing.

Kolabati leaned against the door beside him. She wanted to scream with frustration. Almost free—and now locked up again!

“Kusum, let us out!” she cried in Bengali. “Can’t you see this is useless?”

There was no reply. Only taunting silence on the other side. Yet she sensed her brother’s presence.

“I thought you wanted to keep us apart!” she said in English, purposely goading him. “Instead you’ve locked us in here together with a bed and nothing but each other to fill the empty hours.”

There followed a lengthy pause, and then an answer—also in English. The deadly precision in Kusum’s voice chilled Kolabati.

“You will not be together long. There are crucial matters that require my presence at the Consulate now. The rakoshi will separate the two of you when I return.”

He said no more. And although Kolabati had not heard his footsteps retreating across the deck, she was sure he had left them. She glanced at Jack. Her terror for him was a physical pain. It would be so easy for Kusum to bring a few rakoshi onto the deck, open this door, and send them in after Jack.

Jack shook his head. “You’ve got a real way with words.”

He seemed so calm. “Aren’t you frightened?”

“Yeah. Very.” He was feeling the walls, rubbing his fingers over the low ceiling.

“What are we going to do?”

“Get out of here, I hope. “

He strode back to the cabin and began to tear the bed apart. He threw the pillow, mattress, and bedclothes on the floor, then pulled at the iron spring frame. It came free with a screech. He worked at the bolts that held the frame together; amid a constant stream of muttered curses he managed to loosen one of them. After that it took him only a moment to twist one of the L-formed iron sides off the frame.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Find a way out.”

He jabbed the six-foot iron bar against the cabin ceiling. Paint chips flew in accompaniment to the unmistakable sound of metal against metal. It was the same with the ceiling and the walls in the hall.

The floor, however, was made of heavily varnished two-inch oak boards. He began to work the corner of the bar between two of them.

“We’ll go through the floor,” he said, grunting with the effort.

Kolabati recoiled at the thought.

“The rakoshi are down there!”

“If I don’t meet them now, I’ll have to meet them later. I’d rather meet them on my terms than on Kusum’s.” He looked at her. “You going to stand there or are you going to help?”

Kolabati added her weight to the bar. A board splintered and popped up.

11

Jack tore at the floor boards with grim determination. It wasn’t long before his shirt and his hair were soaked with perspiration. He removed the shirt and kept working. Breaking through the floor seemed a futile, almost suicidal gesture—like a man trying to escape from a burning plane by jumping into an active volcano. But he had to do something. Anything was better than sitting and waiting for Kusum to return.

The rotten odor of rakoshi wafted up from below, engulfing him, making him gag. And the larger the hole in the flooring, the stronger the smell. Finally the opening was big enough to admit his shoulders. He stuck his head through for a look. Kolabati knelt beside him, peering over his shoulder.

It was dark down there. By the light of a solitary ceiling emergency lamp off to his right, he could see a number of large insulated pipes to each side of the hole, running along just under the steel beams that supported the flooring. Directly below was a suspended walkway that led to an iron-runged ladder.

He was ready to cheer until he realized he was looking at the upper end of the ladder. It went down from there. Jack did not want to go down. Anywhere but down.

An idea struck him. He lifted his head and turned to Kolabati.

“Does that necklace really work?”

She started and her expression became guarded. “What do you mean, ’work’?”

“What you told me. Does it really make you invisible to the rakoshi?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

Jack couldn’t imagine how such a thing could be, but then he had never imagined that such a thing as a rakosh could be. He held out his hand.

“Give it to me.”

“No!” she said, her hand darting to her throat as she jumped to her feet and stepped back.

“Just for a few minutes. I’ll sneak below, find my way up to the deck, unlock the door, and let you out.”

She shook her head violently. “No, Jack!”

Why was she being so stubborn?

“Come on. You don’t know how to pick a lock. I’m the only one who can get us both out of here.”

He stood up and took a step toward her but she flattened herself against the wall and screamed.

“No! Don’t touch it!”

Jack froze, confused by her response. Kolabati’s eyes were wide with terror.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t take it off,” she said in a calmer voice. “No one in the family is ever allowed to take it off.”

“Oh, come—”

“I can’t, Jack! Please don’t ask me!” The terror was creeping back into her voice.

“Okay-okay!” Jack said quickly, raising his hands, palms out, and stepping back. He didn’t want any more screaming. It might attract a rakosh.

He walked over to the hole in the floor and stood there thinking. Kolabati’s reaction baffled him. And what she had told him about no one in the family being allowed to take the necklace off was untrue—he remembered seeing Kusum without it just last night. But it had been obvious then that Kusum had wanted to be seen by his rakoshi.

Then he remembered something else.

“The necklace will protect two of us, won’t it?”

Kolabati’s brow furrowed. “What do you—oh, I see. Yes, I think so. At least it did in your apartment.”

“Then we’ll both go down,” he said, pointing to the hole.

“Jack, it’s too dangerous! You can’t be sure it will protect you!”

He realized that and tried not to think about it. He had no other options.

“I’ll carry you on my back—piggy-back. We won’t be quite as close as we were in the apartment, but it’s my only chance.” As she hesitated, Jack played what he hoped was his ace: “Either you come down with me or I go alone with no protection at all. I’m not waiting here for your brother.”

Kolabati stepped forward. “You can’t go down there alone.”

Without another word, she kicked off her sandals, hiked up her sari, and sat on the floor. She swung her legs into the hole and began to lower herself through.

“Hey!”

“I’ll go first. I’m the one with the necklace, remember?”

Jack watched in amazement as her head disappeared below the level of the floor. Was this the same woman who had screamed in abject terror a moment ago? Going first through that hole took a lot of courage—with or without a “magic” necklace. It didn’t make sense.

Nothing seemed to make much sense anymore.

“All right,” she said, popping her head back through. “It’s clear.”

He followed her into the darkness below. When he felt his feet touch the suspended walkway, he eased himself into a tense crouch.

They were at the top of a high, narrow, tenebrous corridor. Through the slats of the walkway Jack could see the floor a good twenty feet below. Abruptly, he realized where he was: This was the same corridor he had followed to the aft cargo hold last night.

Kolabati leaned toward him and whispered. Her breath tickled his ear.

“It’s good you’re wearing sneakers. We must be quiet. The necklace clouds their vision but does not block their hearing.” She glanced around. “Which way do we go?”

Jack pointed to the ladder barely visible against the wall at the end of the walkway. Together they crawled toward it. Kolabati led the way down.

Halfway to the floor she paused and he stopped above her. Together they scanned the floor of the corridor for any shape, any shadow, any movement that might indicate the presence of a rakosh. All clear. He found scant relief in that. The rakoshi could not be far away.

As they descended the rest of the way, the rakoshi stench grew ever stronger. Jack felt his palms grow slick with sweat and begin to slip as they clung to the iron rungs of the ladder. He had come through this same corridor in a state of ignorance last night, blithely unaware of what waited in the cargo hold at its end. Now he knew, and with every step closer to the floor his heart increased its pounding rhythm.

Kolabati stepped off the ladder and waited for Jack. During his descent he had been orienting himself as to his position in the ship. He had determined that the ladder lay against the starboard wall of the corridor, which meant that the cargo hold and the rakoshi were forward to his left. As soon as his feet hit the floor he grabbed her arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. Safety lay toward the stern…

Yet a knot of despair began to coil in his chest as he neated the watertight hatch through which he had entered nad exited the corridor. He had secured that hatch behind him last night. He was sure of it. But perhaps Kusum had used it since. Perhaps he had left it unlocked. He ran the last dozen feet to the hatch and fairly leaped upon the handle.

It wouldn’t budge. Locked!

Damn!

Jack wanted to shout, to pound his fists against the hatch. But that would be suicide. So he pressed his forehead against the cold, unyielding steel and began a slow mental count from one. By the time he reached six he had calmed himself. He turned to Kolabati and drew her head close to his.

“We’ve got to go the other way,” he whispered.

Her eyes followed his pointing finger, then turned back to him. She nodded.

“The rakoshi are there,” he said.

Again she nodded.

Kolabati was a pale blur beside him as Jack stood there in the dark and strained for another solution. He could not find one. A dim rectangle of light beckoned from the other end of the corridor where it opened into the main hold. They had to go through the hold. He was willing to try almost any other route but that one. But it was either back up the ladder to the dead end of the pilot’s cabin or straight ahead.

He lifted Kolabati, cradling her in his arms, and began to carry her toward the hold, praying that whatever power her necklace had over the rakoshi would be conducted to him as well. Halfway down the corridor he realized that his hands were entirely useless this way. He put Kolabati back on her feet and took two of the Cricket lighters from his pockets, then motioned to her to hop on his back. She gave him a small, tight, grim smile and did as directed. With an arm hooked behind each of her knees, he carried her piggy-back style, leaving his hands free to clutch a Cricket in each. They seemed ridiculously inadequate, but he derived an odd sort of comfort from the feel of them in his palms.

He came to the end of the corridor and stopped. Ahead and to their right, the hold opened before them. It was brighter than the passageway behind, but not by much; darker than Jack remembered from last night. But Kusum had been on the elevator then with his two gas torches roaring full force.

There were other differences. Details were scarce and nebulous in the murky light, but Jack could see that the rakoshi were no longer clustered around the elevator. Instead, some forty or fifty of them were spread throughout the hold, some crouched in the deepest shadows, others slumped against the walls in somber poses, still others in constant motion, walking, turning, stalking. The air was hazed with humidity and with the stink of them. The glistening black walls rose and disappeared into the darkness above. The high wall lamps gave off meager, dreary light, such as a gibbous moon might provide on a foggy night. Movements were slow and languorous. It was like looking in on a huge, candlelit opium den in a forgotten corner of hell.

A rakosh began to walk toward where they stood at the mouth of the corridor. Though the temperature was much cooler down here than it had been up in the pilot’s cabin, Jack felt his body break out from head to toe in a drenching sweat. Kolabati’s arms tightened around his neck and her body tensed against his back. The rakosh looked directly at Jack but gave no sign that it saw him or Kolabati. It veered off aimlessly in another direction.

It worked! The necklace worked! The rakosh had looked right at them and hadn’t seen either of them!

Directly across from them, in the forward port corner of the hold, Jack saw an opening identical to the one in which they stood. He assumed it led to the forward hold. A steady stream of rakoshi of varying sizes wandered in and out of the passage.

“There’s something wrong with these rakoshi,” Kolabati whispered over his shoulder and into his ear. “They’re so lazy looking. So lethargic.”

You should have seen them last night, Jack wanted to say, remembering how Kusum had whipped them into a frenzy.

“And they’re smaller than they should be,” she said. “Paler, too.”

At seven feet tall and the color of night, the rakoshi were already bigger and darker than Jack wanted them.

An explosion of hissing, scuffling, and scraping drew their attention to the right. Two rakoshi circled each other, baring their fangs, raking the air with their talons. Others gathered around, joining in the hissing. It looked as if a fight had begun.

Suddenly one of Kolabati’s arms tightened on his throat in a stranglehold as she pointed across the hold with the other.

“There,” she whispered. “There’s a true rakosh!”

Even though he knew he was invisible to the rakosh, Jack took an involuntary step backward. This one was huge, fully a foot taller and darker than the rest, moving with greater ease, greater determination.

“It’s a female,” Kolabati said. “That must be the one that hatched from our egg! The Mother rakosh! Control her and you control the nest!”

She seemed almost as awed and excited as she was terrified. Jack guessed it was part of her heritage. Hadn’t she been raised to be what she called a “Keeper of the Rakoshi”?

Jack looked again at the Mother. He found it hard to call her a female—there was nothing feminine about her, not even breasts—which probably meant that rakoshi did not suckle their young. She looked like a huge body-builder whose arms, legs, and torso had been stretched to grotesque lengths. There was not an ounce of fat on her; each cord of her musculature could be seen rippling under her inky skin. Her face was the most alien, however, as if someone had taken a shark’s head, shortened the snout, and moved the eyes slightly forward, leaving the fanged slash of a mouth almost unchanged. But the cold, remote gaze of the shark had been replaced by a soft pale glow of pure malevolence.

She even moved like a shark, gracefully, sinuously. The other rakoshi made way for the Mother, parting before her like mackerel before a great white. She headed directly for the two fighters, and when she reached them, she tore them apart and hurled them aside as if they weighed nothing. Her children accepted the rough treatment meekly.

He watched the Mother make a circuit of the chamber and return to the passage leading to the forward hold.

How do we get out of here?

Jack looked up toward the ceiling of the hold—actually the underside of the hatch cover, invisible in the dark. He had to get up there, to the deck. How?

He poked his head into the hold and scanned the slick walls for a ladder. There was none. But there, at the top of the starboard aft corner of the hold—the elevator! If he could bring that down…

Buf to do that he would have to enter the hold and cross its width.

The thought was paralyzing. To walk among them…

Every minute he delayed in getting off this ship increased his danger, yet a primal revulsion held him back. Something within him preferred to crouch here and wait for death rather than venture into the hold.

He fought against it, not with reason but with anger. He was in charge here, not some mindless loathing. Jack finally mastered himself, although with greater effort than he could ever remember.

“Hold on!” he whispered to Kolabati. Then he stepped out of the corridor and into the hold.

He moved slowly, with the utmost care and caution. Most of the rakoshi were caliginous lumps scattered over the floor. He had to step over some of the sleeping ones and wind his way between the alert ones. Although his sneakered feet made no sound, occasionally a head would lift and look around as they passed. Jack could barely make out the details of their faces and would not know a puzzled rakoshi expression if he saw one, but they had to be confused. They sensed a presence, yet their eyes told them nothing was there.

He could sense their pure, naked aggression, their immaculate evil. There was no pretense about their savagery—it was all on the surface, surrounding them like an aura.

Jack still felt his heart trip and fumble a beat every time one of the creatures looked his way with its yellow eyes. His mind still resisted complete acceptance of the fact that he was invisible to them.

The reek of the things thickened to a nauseating level as he wound his way across the floor. They must have looked a comical pair, tip-toeing piggy-back through the dark. Laughable unless it was remembered how precarious their position was: one wrong move and they would be torn to shreds.

If negotiating a path through the recumbent rakoshi was harrowing, dodging the wandering ones was utterly nerve-wracking. Jack had little or no warning as to when they would appear. They would loom out of the shadows and pass within inches, some pausing, some even stopping to look around, sensing humans but not seeing them.

He was three-quarters of the way across the floor of the hold when a seven-foot shadow suddenly rose from the floor and stepped toward him. Jack had nowhere to go. Dark forms reclined on either side and the space where he stood between them would not allow a rakosh to pass. Instinctively he jerked back—and began to lose his balance. Kolabati must have sensed this for she pressed her weight rigidly against his spine.

In a desperate move to keep from toppling over, Jack lifted his left leg and pivoted on his right foot. He swiveled in a semicircle to wind up facing the way he had come, straddling a sleeping rakosh. As it shuffled past, the creature brushed Jack’s arm.

With a sound somewhere between a growl and a hiss, the rakosh whirled with raised talons, baring its fangs. Jack didn’t think he had ever seen anything move so fast. He clenched his jaw, not daring to move or breathe. The creature asleep between and beneath his legs stirred. He prayed it would not awaken. He could feel a scream building within Kolabati; he tightened his grip around her legs—silent encouragement to hold on.

The rakosh facing him rotated its head back and forth quickly, warily at first, then more slowly. Soon it calmed itself and lowered its talons. Finally it moved off, but not without a long, searching look over its shoulder in their direction.

Jack allowed himself to breathe again. He swung back into the path of clear floor between the rakoshi and continued the endless trek toward the starboard wall of the hold. As he neared the aft corner, he spotted an electrical conduit leading upward from a small box on the wall. He headed for that, and smiled to himself when he saw the three buttons on the box.

The shallow well directly under the elevator was clear of rakoshi. Perhaps they had learned during the time they had been here that this was not a good place to rest—sleep too deeply and too long and you might be crushed.

Jack didn’t hesitate. As soon as he was close enough, he reached out and jabbed the DOWN button.

There came a loud clank—almost deafening as it echoed through the gloomy, enclosed hold—followed by a high-pitched hum. The rakoshi—all of them—were instantly alert and on their feet, their glowing yellow eyes fixed as one on the descending platform.

Movement at the far side of the hold caught Jack’s eye: The Mother rakosh was heading their way. All the rakoshi began to shuffle forward to stand in a rough semi-circle less than a dozen feet from where Jack stood with Kolabati on his back. He had backed up as far as he could without actually stepping into the foot-deep elevator well.

The Mother pushed her way to the front and stood there with the rest, eyes upward. When the descending platform reached the level of ten feet or so from the floor, the rakoshi began a low chant, barely audible above the steadily growing whine of the elevator.

“They’re speaking!” Kolabati whispered in his ear. “Rakoshi can’t speak!”

With all the other noise around them, Jack felt it safe to turn his head and answer her.

“You should have seen it last night—like a political rally. They were all shouting something like, ’Kaka-ji! Kaka-ji!’ It was—”

Kolabati’s fingernails dug into his shoulders like claws, her voice rising in pitch and volume that he feared would alert the rakoshi.

“What? What did you say?”

“’Kaka-ji.’ They were saying, ’Kaka-ji.’ What’s—?”

Kolabati let out a small cry that sounded like a word, but not an English word. And suddenly the chant stopped.

The rakoshi had heard her.

12

Kusum stood at the curb with his arm outstretched. All the taxis on Fifth Avenue seemed to be taken tonight. He tapped his foot impatiently. He wanted to get back to the ship. Night was here and there was work to be done. There was work to be done at the Consulate, too, but he had found it impossible to stay there a minute longer, emergency meeting or no. He had excused himself amid frowns from the senior diplomats, but he could afford their displeasure now. After tonight he would no longer need the shield of diplomatic immunity. The last Westphalen would be dead and he would be at sea, on his way back to India with his rakoshi to take up where he had left off.

There was still the matter of Jack to contend with. He had already decided how to deal with him. He would allow Jack to swim ashore later tonight after he had put to sea. Killing him would serve no purpose at that point.

He still had not figured out how Jack had found the ship. That question had nagged him for hours, distracting him throughout the meeting at the Consulate. No doubt Kolabati had told him about it, but he wanted to know for sure.

An empty taxi finally pulled up before him. Kusum swung into the back seat.

“Where to, Mac?”

“West on Fifty-seventh Street. I will tell you when to stop.”

“Gotcha.”

He was on his way. Soon the Mother and a youngling would be on their way to bring him the last Westphalen, and then he would be rid of this land. His followers awaited. A new era was about to dawn for India.

13

Jack froze as the creatures began milling around, searching for the source of the cry. Behind him he could feel Kolabati’s body bucking gently against him as if she were sobbing soundlessly into the nape of his neck.

What had he said to shock her so? It had to be “Kaka-ji. ” What did it mean?

The top of the elevator’s wooden platform had descended to chest level by now. With his left arm still hooked around one of Kolabati’s knees, Jack freed his right and hauled himself and his burden onto the platform. He struggled to his knees and staggered to the control panel next to one of the propane torches, punching the UP button as soon as he reached it.

With an abrupt lurch and a metallic screech, the elevator reversed direction. The attention of all the rakoshi was once again focused on the elevator. With Kolabati still clinging to him, Jack sagged to his knees at the edge of the platform and stared back at them.

When they were a dozen feet off the floor, he let go of Kolabati’s legs. Without a word she released her grip on his neck and slid away toward the inner corner of the platform. As soon as she broke contact with him, a chorus of enraged growls and hisses broke from the floor. The rakoshi could see him now.

They surged forward like a Stygian wave, slashing the air with their talons. Jack watched them in mute fascination, stunned by the intensity of their fury. Suddenly three of them lunged into the air, long arms stretched to the limit, talons extended. Jack’s first impulse was to laugh at the futility of the attempt—the platform was easily fifteen feet from the floor now. But as the rakoshi hurtled up at him, he realized to his horror that they weren’t going to fall short. He rolled back and sprang to his feet as their talons caught the edge of the platform. Their strength had to be enormous!

The rakosh in the middle fell short of the other two. Its yellow talons had hooked into the very edge of the platform; the ends of the wooden planks cracked and splintered under its weight. As jagged pieces broke loose, the middle rakosh dropped back to the floor.

The other two had a better grip and were pulling themselves up onto the platform. Jack leaped to his left where the rakosh was raising its face above the level of the platform. He saw gnashing fangs, a snouted, earless head. Loathing surged up in him as he aimed a flying kick at its face. The impact of the blow vibrated up his leg. Yet the creature hadn’t even flinched. It was like kicking a brick wall!

Then he remembered the lighters in his hands. He thumbed the flame regulator on each to maximum and flicked the switches. As two thin wavering pencils of flame shot up, he shoved both lighters at the rakosh’s face, aiming for the eyes. It hissed in rage and jerked its head back. The sudden movement caused a backward shift in its center of gravity. Its talons raked inch-deep gouges in the wood but to no avail. It was over-balanced. Like the first rakosh. its weight caused the wood to crack and give way. It toppled back to the shadows below.

Jack swung toward the last rakosh and saw that it had pulled its body waist-high to the platform, just then lifting a knee over the edge. It was almost up! He leaped toward it with his lighters outstretched. Without warning, the rakosh leaned forward and slashed at him with extended talons that brushed Jack’s right hand. He had underestimated both the length of the creature’s arm and its agility. Pain lanced up his arm from his palm as the Cricket went flying and Jack fell back out of reach.

The rakosh had slipped back after its attempt at Jack, almost losing its grip entirely. It had to use both hands to keep itself from falling off, but it held on and began to pull itself up to the platform again.

Jack’s mind raced. The rakosh would be up on the platform in a second or two. The elevator had been rising continuously but would never make it to the top in time. He could rush back to where Kolabati crouched in a daze by the propane tank and take her in his arms. The necklace would hide him from the rakosh, but the elevator platform was too small to keep it from finding them eventually—sooner or later it would bump into them and that would be the end.

He was trapped.

Desperately, his eyes ranged the platform looking for a weapon. They came to rest on the propane torches Kusum used for his foul ceremony with the rakoshi. He remembered how the flames had roared six feet into the air last night. There was a fire to reckon with!

The rakosh had both knees up on the platform now.

“Turn on the gas!” he shouted to Kolabati.

She looked at him blank-eyed. She seemed to be in a state of shock.

“The gas!” He flung his second Cricket lighter at her, striking her in the shoulder. “Turn it on!”

Kolabati shook herself and reached slowly for the handle atop the tank. Come on! He wanted to scream at her. He turned to the torch. It was a hollow metal cylinder, six inches across, supported by four slender metal legs. As he wrapped an arm around it and tilted it toward the oncoming rakosh, he heard the propane rushing through the gasport at the lower end of the cylinder, filling it, smelled the gas seeping into the air around him.

The rakosh had reared up to its full height and was leaping toward him, seven feet of bared fangs, outstretched arms, and fully extended talons. Jack almost quailed at the sight. His third Cricket was slippery with blood from the gash on his palm, but he found the touch hole at the base of the torch, flicked the lighter, and jammed it in.

The gas exploded with a near deafening roar, shooting a devastating column of flame directly into the face of the oncoming rakosh.

The creature reeled back, its arms outflung, its head ablaze. It spun, lurched crazily to the edge of the platform, and fell off.

“Yes!” Jack shouted, raising his fists in the air, exultant and amazed at his victory. “Yes!”

Down below he saw the Mother rakosh, darker, taller than her young, staring upward, her cold yellow eyes never leaving him as he rose farther and farther from the floor. The intensity of the hatred in those eyes made him turn away.

He coughed as smoke began to fill the air around him. He looked down and saw the wood of the platform blackening and catching fire where the flame of the fallen torch seared it. He quickly stepped over to the propane tank and shut off the flow. Kolabati crouched next to the tank, her expression still dazed.

The elevator came to an automatic halt at the top of its run. The hold hatch cover sat six feet above them. Jack guided Kolabati over to the ladder that led up to a small trapdoor in the cover. He went up first, half expecting it to be locked. Why not? Every other escape route was blocked. Why should this one be any different? He pushed, wincing with pain as his bloody right palm slipped on the wood. But the door moved up, letting in a puff of fresh air. Momentarily weak with relief, Jack rested his head on his arm.

Made it!

Then he threw open the trapdoor, and thrust his head through.

It was dark. The sun had set, stars were out, the moon was rising. The humid air and the normal stink of Manhattan’s waterfront was like ambrosia after being in the hold with the rakoshi.

He looked across the deck. Nothing moved. The gangway was up. There was no sign that Kusum had returned.

Jack turned and looked down at Kolabati. “It’s clear. Let’s go.”

He pulled himself up onto the deck and turned to help her out. But she was still standing on the elevator platform.

“Kolabati!” He yelled her name and she jumped, looked at him, and started up the ladder.

When they were both on deck he led her by the hand to the gangway.

“Kusum operates it electronically,” she told him.

He searched the top of the gangway with his hands until he found the motor, then followed the wires back to a small control box. On the undersurface of that he found a button.

“This should do it.”

He pressed: A click, a hum, and the gangway began its slow descent. Too slow. An overwhelming sense of urgency possessed him. He had to be off this ship!

He didn’t wait for the gangway to reach the dock. As soon as it passed the three-quarter mark in its descent he was on the treads, heading down, pulling Kolabati behind him. They jumped the last three feet and began to run. Some of his urgency must have transferred to her—she was running right beside him.

They stayed away from Fifty-seventh Street on the chance that they might run into Kusum coming back to the docks. Instead they ran up Fifty-eighth. Three taxis passed them by despite Jack’s shouts. Perhaps the cabbies didn’t want to get involved with two haggard-looking people—a shirtless man with a bloody right hand and a woman in a rumpled sari—looking as if they were running for their lives. Jack couldn’t say he blamed them. But he wanted to get off the street. He felt vulnerable out here.

A fourth taxi stopped and Jack leaped in, dragging Kolabati after him. He gave the address of his apartment. The driver wrinkled his nose at the stench that clung to them and floored his gas peddle. He seemed to want to be rid of this fare as soon as possible.

During the ride Kolabati sat in a corner of the back seat and stared out the window. Jack had a thousand questions he wanted to ask her but restrained himself. She wouldn’t answer him in the presence of the cab driver and he wasn’t sure he wanted her to. But as soon as they were in the apartment…

14

The gangway was down.

Kusum froze on the dock when he saw it. It was no illusion. Moonlight glinted icy blue from its aluminum steps and railings.

How? He could not imagine—

He broke into a run, taking the steps two at a time and sprinting across the deck to the door to the pilot’s quarters. The lock was still in place. He pulled on it—still intact and locked.

He leaned against the door and waited for his pounding heart to slow. For a moment he had thought someone had come aboard and released Jack and Kolabati.

He tapped on the steel door with the key to the lock.

“Bati? Come to the door. I wish to speak to you.”

Silence.

“Bati?”

Kusum pressed an ear to the door. He sensed more than silence on the other side. There was an indefinable feeling of emptiness there. Alarmed, he jammed the key into the padlock—

—and hesitated.

He was dealing with Repairman Jack here and was wary of underestimating him. Jack was probably armed and unquestionably dangerous. He might well be waiting in there with a drawn pistol ready to blast a hole in whoever opened the door.

But it felt empty. Kusum decided to trust his senses. He twisted the key, removed the padlock, and pulled the door open.

The hallway was empty. He glanced into the pilot’s cabin-empty! But how—?

And then he saw the hole in the floor. For an instant he thought a rakosh had broken through into the compartment; then he saw part of the iron bed frame on the floor and understood.

The audacity of that man! He had escaped into the heart of the rakoshi quarters—and had taken Kolabati with him! He smiled to himself. They were probably still down there somewhere, cowering on a catwalk. Bati’s necklace would protect her. But Jack might well have fallen victim to a rakosh by now.

Then he remembered the lowered gangplank. Cursing in his native tongue, he hurried from the pilot’s quarters to the hatch over the main hold. He lifted the entry port and peered below.

The rakoshi were agitated. Through the murky light he could see their dark forms mixing and moving about chaotically on the floor of the hold. Half a dozen feet below him was the elevator platform. Immediately he noticed the torch on its side, the scorched wood. He leaped through the trapdoor to the elevator and started it down.

Something lay on the floor of the hold. When he had descended halfway to the floor, he saw that it was a dead rakosh. Rage suffused Kusum. Dead! Its head—what was left of it—was a mass of charred flesh!

With a trembling hand, Kusum reversed the elevator.

That man! That thrice-cursed American! How had he done it? If only the rakoshi could speak! Not only had Jack escaped with Kolabati, he had killed a rakosh in the process! Kusum felt as if he had lost a part of himself.

As soon as the elevator reached the top, Kusum scrambled onto the deck and rushed back to the pilot’s quarters. Something he had seen on the floor there…

Yes! Here it was, near the hole in the floor, a shirt—the shirt Jack had been wearing when Kusum had last seen him. Kusum picked it up. It was still damp with sweat.

He had planned to let Jack live, but all that was changed now. Kusum had known Jack was resourceful, but had never dreamed him capable of escaping through the midst of a nest of rakoshi. The man had gone too far tonight. And he was too dangerous to be allowed to roam free with what he now knew.

Jack would have to die.

He could not deny a trace of regret in the decision, yet Kusum was sure Jack had good karma and would shortly be reincarnated into a life of quality.

A slow smile stretched Kusum’s thin lips as he hefted the sweaty shirt in his hand. The Mother rakosh would do it, and Kusum already had a plan for her. The irony of it was delicious.

15

“I have to wash up,” Jack said, indicating his injured hand as they entered his apartment. “Come into the bathroom with me.”

Kolabati looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Follow me.” Wordlessly, she complied.

As he began to wash the dirt and clotted blood from the gash, he watched her in the mirror over the sink. Her face was pale and haggard in the merciless light of the bathroom. His own looked ghoulish.

“Why would Kusum want to send his rakoshi after a little girl?”

She seemed to come out of her fugue. Her eyes cleared. “A little girl?”

“Seven years old.”

Her hand covered her mouth. “Is she a Westphalen?” she said between her fingers.

Jack stood numb and cold in the epiphany that burst upon him.

That’s it! My God, that’s the link! Nellie, Grace, and Vicky—all Westphalens!

“Yes.” He turned to face her. “The last Westphalen in America, I believe. But why the Westphalens?”

Kolabati leaned against the wall beside the sink and spoke to the opposite wall. She spoke slowly, carefully, as if measuring every word.

“About a century and a quarter ago, Captain Sir Albert Westphalen pillaged a temple in the hills of northern Bengal —the temple I told you about last night. He murdered the high priest and priestess along with all their acolytes, and burned the temple to the ground. The jewels he stole became the basis of the Westphalen fortune.

“Before she died the priestess laid a curse upon Captain Westphalen, saying that his line would end in blood and pain at the hands of the rakoshi. The Captain thought he had killed everyone in the temple but he was wrong. A child escaped the fire. The eldest son was mortally wounded, but before he died he made his younger brother vow to see that their mother’s curse was carried out. A single female rakosh egg—you saw the shell in Kusum’s apartment—was found in the caves beneath the ruins of temple. That egg and the vow of vengeance have been handed down from generation to generation. It became a family ceremony. No one took it seriously—until Kusum.”

Jack stared at Kolabati in disbelief. She was telling him that Grace and Nellie’s deaths and Vicky’s danger were all the result of a family curse begun in India over a century ago. She was not looking at him. Was she telling the truth? Why not? It was far less fantastic than much of what had happened to him today.

“You’ve got to save that little girl,” Kolabati said, finally looking up and meeting his eyes.

“I already have.” He dried his hand and began rubbing some Neosporin ointment from the medicine cabinet into the wound. “Neither your brother nor his monsters will find her tonight. And by tomorrow he’ll be gone.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You told me so an hour ago.”

She shook her head, very slowly, very definitely. “Oh, no. He may leave without me, but he will never leave without that little Westphalen girl. And…” She paused. “… you’ve earned his undying enmity by freeing me from his ship.”

“’Undying enmity’ is a bit much, isn’t it?”

“Not where Kusum is concerned.”

“What is it with your brother?” Jack placed a couple of four-by-four gauze pads in his palm and began to wrap it with cling. “I mean, didn’t any of the previous generations try to kill off the Westphalens?”

Kolabati shook her head.

“What made Kusum decide to take it all so seriously?”

“Kusum has problems— “

“You’re telling me!” He secured the cling with an inch of adhesive tape.

“You don’t understand. He took a vow of Brahmacharya—a vow of lifelong chastity—when he was twenty. He held to that vow and remained a steadfast Brahmachari for many years.” Her gaze wavered and wandered back to the wall. “But then he broke that vow. To this day he’s never forgiven himself. I told you the other night about his growing following of Hindu purists in India. Kusum doesn’t feel he has a right to be their leader until he has purified his karma. Everything he has done here in New York has been to atone for desecrating his vow of Brahmacharya.”

Jack hurled the roll of adhesive tape against the wall. He was suddenly furious.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “Kusum has killed Nellie and Grace and who knows how many winos, all because he got laid? Give me a break!”

“It’s true!”

“There’s got to be more to it than that!”

Kolabati still wasn’t looking at him. “You’ve got to understand Kusum— “

“No, I don’t! All I have to understand is that he’s trying to kill a little girl I happen to love very much. Kusum’s got a problem all right: me!”

“He’s trying to cleanse his karma.”

“Don’t tell me about karma. I heard enough about karma from your brother last night. He’s a mad dog!”

Kolabati turned on him, her eyes flashing. “Don’t say that!”

“Can you honestly deny it?”

“No! But don’t say that about him! Only I can say it!”

Jack could understand that. He nodded. “Okay. I’ll just think it.”

She started to turn around to leave the bathroom but Jack gently pulled her back. He wanted very badly to get to the phone to call Gia and check on Vicky, but he needed the answer to one more question.

“What happened to you in the hold? What did I say back there to shock you so?”

Kolabati’s shoulders slumped, her head tilted to the side. Silent sobs caused small quakes at first but soon grew strong enough to wrack her whole body. She closed her eyes and began to cry.

Jack was startled at first. He had never imagined the possibility of seeing Kolabati reduced to tears. She had always seemed so self-possessed, so worldly. Yet here she was standing before him and crying like a child. Her anguish touched him. He took her in his arms.

“Tell me about it. Talk it out.”

She cried for a while longer, then she began to talk, keeping her face buried against his shoulder as she spoke.

“Remember how I said these rakoshi were smaller and paler than they should be? And how shocked I was that they could speak?”

Jack nodded against her hair. “Yes.”

“Now I understand why. Kusum lied to me again! And again I believed him. But this is so much worse than a lie. I never thought even Kusum would go that far!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kusum lied about finding a male egg!” An hysterical edge was creeping onto her voice.

Jack pushed her to arms’ length. Her face was tortured. He wanted to shake her but didn’t.

“Talk sense!”

“Kaka-ji is Bengali for ’father’!”

“So?”

Kolabati only stared at him.

“Oh, jeez!” Jack leaned back against the sink, his mind reeling with the idea of Kusum impregnating the Mother rakosh. Visions of the act half-formed in his brain and then quickly faded to merciful black.

“How could your brother have fathered those rakoshi? Kaka-ji has to be a title of respect or something like that.”

Kolabati shook her head slowly, sadly. She appeared emotionally and physically drained.

“No. It’s true. The changes in the younglings are evidence enough.”

“But how?”

“Probably when she was very young and docile. He needed only one brood from her. From there on the rakoshi would mate with each other and bring the nest to full size.”

“I can’t believe it. Why would he even try?”

“Kusum…” Her voice faltered. “Kusum sometimes thinks Kali speaks to him in dreams. He may believe she told him to mate with the female. There are many dark tales of rakoshi mating with humans.”

“Tales! I’m not talking about tales! This is real life! I don’t know much about biology but I know cross-species fertilization is impossible!”

“But the rakoshi aren’t a different species, Jack. As I told you last night, legend has it that the ancient evil gods—the Old Ones—created the rakoshi as obscene parodies of humanity. They took a man and a woman and reshaped them in their image—into rakoshi. That means that somewhere far, far up the line there’s a common genetic ancestor between human and rakosh.” She gripped Jack’s arms. “You’ve got to stop him, Jack!”

“I could have stopped him last night,” he said, remembering how he had sighted down the barrel of the .357 at the space between Kusum’s eyes. “Could have killed him.”

“It’s not necessary to kill him to stop him.”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“There is: his necklace. Take it from him and he will lose his hold on the rakoshi.”

Jack smiled ruefully. “Sort of like the mice deciding to bell the cat, isn’t it?”

“No. You can do it. You are his equal… in more ways than you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why didn’t you shoot Kusum when you had the chance?”

“Worried about you, I guess, and… I don’t know… couldn’t pull the trigger.” Jack had wondered about the answer to that question, too.

Kolabati came close and leaned against his chest. “That’s because Kusum’s like you and you’re like him.”

Resentment flared like a torch. He pushed her away. “That’s crazy!”

“Not really,” she said, her smile seductive. “You’re carved from the same stone. Kusum is you—gone mad.”

Jack didn’t want to hear that. The idea repulsed him… frightened him. He changed the subject.

“If he comes tonight, will it be alone or will he bring some rakoshi?”

“It depends,” she said, moving closer again. “If he wants to take me with him, he’ll come in person since a rakosh will never find me. If he only wants to even the score with you for making a fool of him by stealing me away from under his nose, he’ll send the Mother rakosh.”

Jack swallowed, his throat going dry at the memory of the size of her.

“Swell.”

She kissed him. “But that won’t be for a while. I’m going to shower. Why don’t you come in with me? We both need one.”

“You go ahead,” he said, gently releasing himself from her. He did not meet her gaze. “Someone has to stay on guard. I’ll shower after you.”

She studied him a moment with her dark eyes, then turned and walked toward the bathroom. Jack watched her until the door closed behind her, then let out a long sigh. He felt no desire for her tonight. Was it because of Sunday night with Gia? It had been different when Gia was rejecting him. But now…

He was going to have to cool it with Kolabati. No more rolls in her Kama Sutra hay. But he had to tread softly here. He did not wish to weather the wrath of a scorned Indian woman.

He went to the secretary and removed the silenced Ruger with the hollow point bullets; he also took out a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special and loaded it. Then he sat down to wait for Kolabati to come out of the shower.

16

Kolabati blotted herself dry, wrapped the towel around her, and came out into the hall. She found Jack sitting on the bed—just where she wanted him. Desire surged up at the sight of him.

She needed a man right now, someone to lie beside her, to help her lose herself in sensation and wash away all thought. And of all the men she knew, she needed Jack the most. He had pulled her from Kusum’s clutches, something no man she had ever known could have done. She wanted Jack very much right now.

She dropped the towel and fell onto the bed beside him.

“Come,” she said, caressing his inner thigh. “Lie down with me. We’ll find a way to forget what we’ve been through tonight.”

“We can’t forget,” he said, pulling away. “Not if he’s coming after us.”

“We have time, I’m sure.” She wanted him so. “Come.”

Jack held his hand out to her. She thought it was an invitation to pull him down and she reached up. But his hand was not empty.

“Take it,” he said, placing something cold and heavy in her palm.

“A gun?” The sight of it jolted her. She had never held one before… so heavy. The dark blue of its finish glinted in the subdued light of the bedroom. “What for? This won’t stop a rakosh.”

“Maybe not. I’ve yet to be convinced of that. But I’m not giving it to you for protection again rakoshi.”

Kolabati pulled her eyes away from the weapon in her hand to look at him. “Then what… ?” His grim expression provided a chilling answer to her question. “Oh, Jack. I don’t know if I could.”

“You don’t have to worry about it now. It may never come to that. On the other hand it may come down to a choice between being dragged off to that ship again and shooting your brother. It’s a decision you’ll have to make at the time.”

She looked back at the gun, hating it and yet fascinated by it—much the same as she had felt when Kusum had given her that first look into the ship’s hold last night.

“But I’ve never… “

“It’s double-action: You’ve got to cock it before you can fire.” He showed her how. “You’ve got five shots.”

He began to undress and Kolabati put the gun aside as she watched him, thinking he was about to join her on the bed. Instead he went to the bureau. When he turned to face her again he had fresh underwear in one hand and in the other a long-barreled pistol that dwarfed hers.

“I’m taking a shower,” he said. “Stay alert, and use that” —he gestured to her pistol on the nightstand— “if you have to. Don’t start thinking of ways to get your brother’s necklace. Shoot first, then worry about the necklace.”

He stepped out into the hall and soon she heard the shower running.

Kolabati laid back and pulled the sheet over her. She moved her legs around, spreading and closing them, enjoying the touch of the sheets on her skin. She needed Jack very much tonight. But he seemed so distant, immune to her nakedness.

There was another woman. Kolabati had sensed her presence in Jack the very first night they met. Was it the attractive blond she had seen him talking to at the U.K. reception? It had not concerned her then because the influence had been so weak. Now it was strong.

No matter. She knew how to have her way with a man, knew ways to make him forget the other women in his life. She would make Jack want her and only her. She had to, for Jack was important to her. She wanted him beside her always.

Always…

She fingered her necklace.

She thought of Kusum and looked at the pistol on the nightstand. Could she shoot her brother if he came in now?

Yes. Most definitely, yes. Twenty-four hours ago her answer would have been different. Now… the loathing crawled up from her stomach to her throat… “Kaka-ji!”… the rakoshi called her brother “Kaka-ji!” Yes, she could pull the trigger. Knowing the level of depravity to which he had sunk, knowing that his sanity was irredeemable, killing Kusum could almost be looked on as an act of compassion, done to save him from any further acts of depravity and self-degradation.

More than anything she wanted his necklace. Possessing it would end his threat to her forever—and allow her to clasp it about the throat of the only man worthy to spend the rest of his days with her—Jack.

She closed her eyes and nestled her head deeper into the pillow. After only a few minutes of fitful slumber on that wafer-thin mattress in the pilot’s cabin last night, she was tired. She’d just close her eyes for a few minutes until Jack came out of the shower, then she would make him hers again. He’d soon forget the other woman on his mind.

17

Jack lathered himself vigorously in the shower, scrubbing his skin to cleanse it of the stink of the hold. His .357 was wrapped in a towel on a shelf within easy reach of the shower. His eyes repeatedly wandered to the outline of the door, hazily visible through the light blue translucency of the shower curtain. His mind’s eye kept replaying a variation on the shower scene from Psycho. Only here it wasn’t Norman Bates in drag coming in and slashing away with a knife—it was the Mother rakosh using the built-in knives of her taloned hands.

He rinsed quickly and stepped out to towel off.

Everything was okay in Queens. A call to Gia while Kolabati was in the shower had confirmed that Vicky was safe and sound asleep. Now he could get on with business here.

Back in the bedroom he found Kolabati sound asleep. He grabbed some fresh clothes and studied her sleeping face as he got dressed. She looked different in repose. The sensuousness was gone, replaced by a touching innocence.

Jack pulled the sheet up over her shoulder. He liked her. She was lively, she was fun, she was exotic. Her sexual skills and appetite were unparalleled in his experience. And she seemed to find things in him she truly admired. They had the basis for a long relationship. But…

The eternal but!

… despite the intimacies they had shared, he knew he was not for her. She would want more of him than he was willing to give. And he knew in his heart he would never feel for her what he felt for Gia.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, Jack went into the front room and prepared to wait for Kusum. He pulled on a T-shirt and slacks, white socks, and tennis shoes—he wanted to be ready to move at an instant’s notice. He put an extra handful of hollow point bullets in his right front pocket and, on impulse, stuck the remaining Cricket lighter in the left. He set his wing-backed chair by the front window and faced the door. He pulled the matching hassock up and seated himself with the loaded Ruger .357 in his lap.

He hated waiting for an opponent to make the next move. It left him on the defensive, and the defensive side had no initiative.

But why play defensively? That was just what Kusum expected him to do. Why let Crazy Kusum call the shots? Vicky was safe. Why not take the war to Kusum?

He snatched up the phone and dialed. Abe answered with a croak on the first ring.

“It’s me—Jack. Did I wake you?”

“No, of course not. I sit up next to the phone every night waiting for you to call. Should tonight be any different?”

Jack didn’t know whether he was joking or not. At times it was hard to tell with Abe.

“Everything okay on your end?”

“Would I be sitting here so calmly talking to you if it wasn’t?”

“Vicky’s all right?”

“Of course. Can I go back to sleep on this wonderfully comfortable couch now?”

“You’re on the couch? There’s another bedroom.”

“I know all about the other bedroom. I just thought maybe I’d sleep here between the door and our two lady friends.”

Jack felt a burst of warmth for his old friend. “I really do owe you for this, Abe.”

“I know. So start paying me back by hanging up.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not finished asking favors yet. I got a big one coming up.”

“Nu?”

“I need some equipment: incendiary bombs with timers and incendiary bullets along with an AR to shoot them.”

The Yiddishisms disappeared; Abe was abruptly a businessman. “I don’t have them in stock but I can get them. When do you need them?”

“Tonight.”

“Seriously—when? “

“Tonight. An hour ago.”

Abe whistled. “That’s going to be tough. Important?”

“Very.”

“I’ll have to call in some markers on this. Especially at this hour.”

“Make it worth their while,” Jack told him. “The sky’s the limit.”

“Okay. But I’ll have to leave and make the pick-ups myself. These boys won’t deal with anybody they don’t know.”

Jack didn’t like the idea of leaving Gia and Vicky without a guard. But since there was no way for Kusum to find them, a guard was really superfluous.

“Okay. You’ve got your truck, right?”

“Right.”

“Then make your calls, make the pick-ups, and I’ll meet you at the store. Call me when you get there.”

Jack hung up and settled back in his chair. It was comfortably dark here in the front room with only a little indirect light spilling from the kitchen area. He felt his muscles loosen up and relax into the familiar depressions of the chair. He was tired. The last few days had been wearing. When was the last time he had had a good night’s sleep? Saturday? Here it was Wednesday morning.

He jumped at the sudden jangle of the phone and picked it up before it finished the first ring.

“Hello?”

A few heartbeats of silence on the other end of the line, and then a click.

Puzzled and uneasy, Jack hung up. A wrong number? Or Kusum checking up on his whereabouts?

He listened for stirrings from the bedroom where he had left Kolabati, but none came. The ring had been too brief to wake her.

He made his body relax again. He found himself anticipating with a certain relish what was to come. Mr. Kusum Bahkti was in for a little surprise tonight, yes sir. Repairman Jack was going to make things hot for him and his rakoshi. Crazy Kusum would regret the day he tried to hurt Vicky Westphalen. Because Vicky had a friend. And that friend was mad. Madder’n hell.

Jack’s eyelids slipped closed. He fought to open them but then gave up. Abe would call when everything was ready. Abe would come through. Abe could get anything, even at this hour. Jack had time for a few winks.

The last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him was the hate-filled eyes of the Mother rakoshi as she watched him from the floor of the hold after he had seared the face of one of her children. Jack shuddered and slipped into sleep.

18

Kusum swung the rented yellow van into Sutton Square and pulled all the way to the end. Bullwhip in hand, he got out immediately and stood by the door, scanning the street. All was quiet, but who could say for how long? There wouldn’t be much time here. This was an insular neighborhood. His van would draw immediate attention should some insomniac glance out a window and spot it.

This should have been the Mother’s job, but she could not be in two places at once. He had given her the sweaty shirt Jack had left on the ship so that she could identify her target by scent, and had dropped her off outside Jack’s apartment building only a few moments ago.

He smiled. Oh, if only he could be there to see Jack’s expression when the Mother confronted him! He would not recognize her at first—Kusum had seen to that—but he was certain Jack’s heart would stop when he saw the surprise Kusum had prepared for him. And if shock didn’t stop his heart, the Mother would. A fitting and honorable end to a man who had become too much of a liability to be allowed to live.

Kusum drew his thoughts back to Sutton Square. The last Westphalen was asleep within meters of where he stood. He removed his necklace and placed it on the front seat of the van, then walked back to the rear doors. A young rakosh, nearly full grown, leaped out. Kusum brandished the whip but did not crack it—the noise would be too loud.

This rakosh was the Mother’s first born, the toughest and most experienced of all the younglings, its lower lip deformed by scars from one of many battles with its siblings. It had hunted with her in London and here in New York. Kusum probably could have let it loose from the ship and trusted it to find the Scent and bring back the child on its own, but he didn’t want to take any chances tonight. There must be no mishaps tonight.

The rakosh looked at Kusum, then looked past him, across the river. Kusum gestured with his whip toward the house where the Westphalen child was staying.

“There!” he said in Bengali. “There!”

With seeming reluctance the creature moved in the direction of the house. Kusum saw it enter the alley on the west side, no doubt to climb the wall in shadow and pluck the child from its bed. He was about to step back to the front of the van and retrieve his necklace when he heard a clatter from the side of the house. Alarmed, he ran to the alley, cursing under his breath all the way. These younglings were so damned clumsy! The only one he could really depend upon was the Mother.

He found the rakosh pawing through a garbage can. It had a dark vinyl bag torn open and was pulling something out. Fury surged through Kusum. He should have known he couldn’t trust a youngling! Here it was rummaging in garbage when it should be following the scent up the wall. He unfurled his whip, ready to strike…

The young rakosh held something out to him: half of an orange. Kusum snatched it up and held it under his nose. It was one of those he had injected with the elixir and hidden in the playhouse last night after locking Kolabati in the pilot’s quarters. The rakosh came up with another half.

Kusum pressed both together. They fit perfectly. The orange had been sliced open but had not been eaten. He looked at the rakosh and it was now holding a handful of chocolates.

Enraged, Kusum hurled the orange halves against the wall. Jack! It could be no one else! Curse that man!

He strode around to the rear of the townhouse and up to the back door. The rakosh followed him part way and then stood and stared across the East River.

“Here!” Kusum said impatiently, indicating the door.

He stepped back as the rakosh came up the steps and slammed one of its massive three-fingered hands against the door. With a loud crack of splintering wood, the door flew open. Kusum stepped in with the rakosh close behind. He wasn’t worried about awakening anyone in the house. If Jack had discovered the treated orange it was certain he had spirited everyone away.

Kusum stood in the dark kitchen, the young rakosh a looming shadow beside him. Yes… the house was empty. No need to search it.

A thought struck him with the force of a blow.

No!

Uncontrollable tremors shook his body. It was not anger that Jack had been one step ahead of him all day, but fear. Fear so deep and penetrating that it almost overwhelmed him. He rushed to the front door and ran out to the street.

Jack had hidden the last Westphalen from him—and at this very moment Jack’s life was being torn from him by the Mother rakosh! The only man who could tell him where to find the child had been silenced forever! How would Kusum find her in a city of eight million? He would never fulfill the vow! All because of Jack!

May you be reincarnated as a jackal!

He opened the rear door of the van for the rakosh, but it wouldn’t enter. It persisted in staring across the East River. It would take a few steps toward the river and then come back, repeating the process over and over.

“In!” Kusum said. He was in a black mood and had no patience for any quirks in this rakosh. But despite his urgings, the creature would not obey. The youngling was normally so eager to please, yet now it acted as if it had the Scent and wanted to be off on the hunt.

And then it occurred to him—he had doctored two oranges, and they had found only one. Had the Westphalen child consumed the first before the second was found out?

Possible. His spirits lifted perceptibly. Quite possible.

And what could be more natural than to remove the child entirely from the island of Manhattan? What was that borough across the river—Queens? It didn’t matter how many people lived there; if the child had consumed even a tiny amount of the elixir, the rakosh would find her.

Perhaps all was not lost!

Kusum gestured toward the river with his coiled bullwhip. The young rakosh leaped to the top of the waist-high retaining wall at the end of the street and down to the sunken brick plaza a dozen feet below it. From there it was two steps and a flying leap over the wrought iron railing to the East River running silently below.

Kusum stood and watched it sail into the darkness, his despair dissipating with each passing second. This rakosh was an experienced hunter and seemed to know where it was going. Perhaps there was still hope of sailing tonight.

After the sound of a splash far below, he turned and climbed into the cab of the van. Yes—his mind was set. He would operate under the assumption that the youngling would bring back the Westphalen girl. He would prepare the ship for sea. Perhaps he would even cast off and sail downriver to New York Bay. He had no fear of losing the Mother and the youngling that had just leaped into the river. Rakoshi had an uncanny homing instinct that led them to their nest no matter where it was.

How fortunate that he had dosed two oranges instead of one. As he refastened the necklace at his throat, he realized that the hand of Kali was evident here.

All doubt and despair melted away in a sudden blast of triumph. The Goddess was at his side, guiding him! He could not fail!

Repairman Jack was not to have the last laugh after all.

19

Jack awakened with a start. There was an instant of disorientation before he realized he was not in his bed but in a chair in the front room. His hand automatically went to the .357 in his lap. There was a ratchety click as he cocked the hammer.

He listened. Something had awakened him. What? The faint light seeping in from the kitchen area was enough to confirm that the front room was empty.

He got up and checked the tv room, then looked in on Kolabati. She was still asleep. All quiet on the western front.

A noise made him whirl. It had come from the other side of the door—the creak of a board. Jack went to the door and pressed his ear against it. Silence. A hint of an odor was present at the edges of the door. Not the necrotic stink of a rakosh, but a sickly sweet smell like an old lady’s gardenia perfume.

His heart thumping, Jack unlocked the door and pulled it open in a single motion as he jumped back and took his firing stance: legs spread, the revolver in both hands, left supporting right, both arms fully extended.

The light in the hall was meager at best but brighter than where Jack stood. Anyone attempting to enter the apartment would be silhouetted in the doorway. Nothing moved. All he saw was the banister and balusters that ran along the stairwell outside his apartment door. He held his position as the gardenia odor wafted into the room like a cloud from an overgrown hothouse—syrupy and flowery, with a hint of rottenness beneath.

Keeping his arms locked straight out in a triangle with the .357 at the apex, he moved to the door, weaving back and forth to give himself angled views of the hallway to the left and right. What he could see was clear.

He leaped out into the hall and spun in the air, landing with his back against the banister, his arms down, the pistol held before his crotch, ready to be raised right or left as his head snapped back and forth.

Hall to the right and left: clear.

An instant later he was moving again, spinning to his right, slamming his back against the wall next to his door, his eyes darting to the right to the staircase up to the fourth floor: clear.

The landing to his left going down: cl—

No! Someone there, sitting on the shadowed landing. His pistol snapped up, steady in his hands as he took a better look—a woman, barely visible, in a long dress, long sloppy hair, floppy hat, slumped posture, looking depressed. The hat and the hair obscured her face.

Jack’s pulse started to slow but he kept the .357 trained on her. What the hell was she doing here? And what had she done—spilled a bottle of perfume all over herself?

“Something wrong, lady?” he said.

She moved, shifting her body and turning to look at him. The movement made Jack realize that this was one hell of a big lady. And then it was all clear to him. It was Kusum’s touch: Jack had disguised himself as an old woman when he had worked for Kusum, and now… he didn’t even have to see the malevolent yellow eyes glowering at him from under the hat and wig to know that he had spoken to the Mother rakosh.

“Ho-ly shit!”

In a single, swift, fluid motion accompanied by her hiss of rage and the tearing of the fabric of her dress, the Mother rakosh reared up to her full height and flowed toward him, her fangs glinting, her talons extended, triumph gleaming in her eyes.

Jack’s tongue stuck to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth, but he stood his ground. With a methodical coolness that amazed even him, he aimed the first round at the upper left corner of the Mother’s chest. The silenced Ruger jumped in his hands, rubbing against his wounded palm, making a muted phut when he pulled the trigger. The bullet jolted her—Jack could imagine the lead projectile breaking up into countless tiny pieces of shrapnel and tearing in all directions through her tissues—but her momentum carried her forward. He wasn’t sure where her heart would be so he placed three more rounds at the corners of an imaginary square in relation to the first, now oozing a stream of very dark blood.

The Mother stiffened and lurched as each slug cut into her, finally coming to a staggering halt a few feet in front of him. Jack watched her in amazement. The very fact that she was still standing was testimony to an incredible vitality—she should have gone down with the first shot. But Jack was confident: She was dead on her feet. He knew all about the unparalleled stopping power of those hollowpoints. The hydrostatic shock and vascular collapse caused by just one properly placed round was enough to stop a charging bull. The Mother rakosh had taken four.

Jack cocked the Ruger and hesitated. He wanted to put an end to this, yet he always liked to save one bullet if he could— emptying a weapon made it useless. In this case he would make an exception. He took careful aim and pumped the last round dead center into the mother’s chest.

She spread her arms and lurched back against the newel post at the head of the stairs, cracking it with her weight. The hat and wig slipped from her head but she didn’t topple over. Instead, she made a half turn and slumped over the banister. Jack waited for her final collapse.

And waited.

The Mother did not collapse. She took a few deep gasps, then straightened up and faced him, her eyes as bright as ever. Jack stood rooted to the floor, watching her. It was impossible! She was dead! Dead five times over! He had seen the holes in her chest, the black blood! There should be nothing but jelly inside her now!

With a loud, drawn-out hiss, she lunged toward him. By pure reflex rather than conscious effort, Jack dodged away. Where to go? He didn’t want to get trapped in his apartment, and the way down to the street was blocked. The roof was his only option.

He was already on the stairs taking them two at once by the time he made the decision. His pistol was no good—not even worth reloading. Kolabati’s words came back to him: fire and iron… fire and iron… Without slowing or breaking stride, he bent and laid the .357 on one of the steps as he passed, glancing behind him as he did. The Mother rakosh was a flight behind, gliding up the stairs after him, the remains of her dress hanging in tatters from her neck and arms. The contrast of her smooth, utterly silent ascent to his pounding climb was almost as unnerving as the murderous look in her eyes.

The roof was three flights above his apartment. Two more to go. Jack increased his effort to the limit and managed to widen the gap between himself and the Mother. But only briefly. Instead of weakening, the Mother seemed to gain strength and speed with the exertion. By the time Jack reached the final steps up to the roof she had closed to within half a flight.

Jack didn’t bother with the latch on the roof door. It had never worked well anyway and fumbling with it would only lose him precious seconds. He rammed it with his shoulder, burst through, and hit the roof on the run.

The Manhattan skyline soared around him. From its star-filled height the setting moon etched the details of the roof like a high-contrast black-and-white photo—pale white light on upper surfaces, inky shadows below. Vents, chimneys, aerials, storage sheds, the garden, the flagpole, the emergency generator—a familiar obstacle course. Perhaps that familiarity could be worked to his advantage. He knew he could not outrun the Mother.

Perhaps—just perhaps—he could outmaneuver her.

Jack had decided on his course of action during his first few running strides across the roof. He dodged around two of the chimneys, ran diagonally across an open area to the edge of the roof, and then turned to wait, making sure he was easily visible from the door. He didn’t want the Mother to lose too much of her momentum looking for him.

It was only a second before she appeared. She spotted him immediately and charged in his direction, a moon-limned shadow readying for the kill. Neil the Anarchist’s flagpole blocked her path—she took a passing sidearm swipe at it and shattered the shaft so that it swung crazily in the air and toppled to the roof. She came to the generator next—and leaped over it!

And then there was nothing between Jack and the Mother rakosh. She lowered into a crouch and hurtled toward him. Sweating, trembling, Jack kept his eyes on the taloned hands aiming for his throat, ready to tear him to pieces. He was sure there were worse ways to die, but at this moment he could not think of one. His thoughts were fixed on what he had to do to survive this encounter—and the knowledge that what he planned might prove just as fatal as standing here and waiting for those talons to reach him.

He had pressed the backs of his knees against the upper edge of the low, foot-wide parapet that ran all along the rim of the roof. As soon as the Mother had appeared he had assumed a kneeling position atop the parapet. And now as she charged him, he straightened up with his knees balanced on the outermost edge of the parapet, his feet poised over the empty alley five stories below, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. The rough concrete dug into his kneecaps, but he ignored the pain. He had to concentrate completely on what he was about to do.

The Mother became a black juggernaut, gaining momentum at an astonishing rate as she crossed the final thirty feet separating them. Jack did not move. It strained his will to the limits to kneel there and wait as certain death rushed toward him. Tension gathered in his throat until he thought he would choke. All his instincts screamed for flight. But he had to hold his place until the right instant. Making his move too soon would be as deadly as not moving at all.

And so he waited until the outstretched talons were within five feet of him—then leaned back and allowed his knees to slip off the edge of the parapet. As he fell toward the floor of the alley, he grabbed the edge of the parapet, hoping he had not dropped too soon, praying his grip would hold.

As the front of his body slammed against the brick sidewall of the alley, Jack sensed furious motion above him. The Mother rakosh’s claws had sunk into empty air instead of his flesh, and the momentum she had built up was carrying her over the edge and into the beginning of a long fall to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a huge shadow sail over the behind him, saw frantically windmilling arms and legs. Then came a blow to the rear of his left shoulder and a searing, tearing sensation across his back that made him cry out.

The blow jerked Jack’s left hand free of the roof edge and he was left hanging by his right. Gasping with pain and clawing desperately for a new grip on the parapet, he could not resist a quick look down to see the plummeting form of the Mother rakosh impact with the floor of the alley. He found exquisite satisfaction in the faint, dull thud that rose from below. He didn’t care how tough she was, that fall had broken her neck and most of the rest of the bones in her body.

Fighting the agony that stabbed through his left shoulder blade every time he raised his arm, Jack inched his left hand back up to the top of the parapet, secured the purchase of both his hands, then slowly, painfully, pulled himself back up to the roof.

He lay stretched out atop the parapet, breathing hard, waiting for the fire on his back to go out. In her wild flailings to save herself from falling, one of the Mother’s talons— whether on a hand or a foot, Jack couldn’t say—must have caught his back and torn through his shirt and his skin. His shirt felt warm and sticky against his back. He gently reached around and touched his rib cage. It was wet. He held his hand up before his face—it glistened darkly in the moonlight.

Wearily, he raised himself up to a sitting position with his legs straddling the parapet. He took one last look down into the alley, wondering if he could see the Mother. All was dark. He went to swing his outer leg over onto the roof and stopped—

Something was moving down there. A darker blot moved within the shadows of the alley.

He held his breath. Had someone heard the thump of the Mother’s fall and come to investigate? He hoped so. He hoped that was all it was.

More movement… along the wall… moving upward… and a scraping sound, like claws on brick…

Something was climbing the wall toward him. He didn’t need a flashlight to know what it was.

The Mother was returning!

It wasn’t possible—but it was happening!

Groaning with disbelief and dismay, he swung his legs onto the roof and staggered away from the edge. What was he going to do? There was no use running—despite the lead he had, the Mother would surely catch up with him.

Fire and iron… fire and iron… The words burned across his brain as he raced around the roof in a futile search for something to defend himself with. There was no iron up here! Everything was aluminum, tin, plastic, wood! If only he could find a crowbar or even a piece of rusted iron railing—something, anything to swing at her head as she poked it up over the edge!

There was nothing. The only thing that even remotely resembled a weapon was the broken remnant of the flagpole. It wasn’t iron and it wasn’t fire… but with its sharp, splintered lower end it might serve as a twelve-foot spear. He picked it up by its top end—there was a ball at the tip—and hefted it. It wobbled like a vaulting pole and the oscillations caused waves of pain in his back. It was heavy, it was crude, it was unwieldy, but it was all he had.

Jack put it down and loped over to the edge of the roof. The Mother was no more than a dozen feet below him and climbing fast.

It’s not fair! he thought as he ran back to where the pole lay. He had as good as killed her twice in ten minutes, yet here he was hurt and bleeding and she was climbing a brick wall as if nothing had happened to her.

He picked up the pole by the balled end and levered it to a horizontal position by using his left arm as a fulcrum. Groaning with the pain, he pointed the splintered end toward the spot where he expected the Mother to appear and began to run. His left arm began to lose strength as he ran. The point sank toward the roof surface but he clenched his teeth and forced it upward.

Have to keep it up… go for the throat…

Again, he knew timing would be critical: If the Mother gained the roof too soon, she would dodge him; too late and he would miss her completely.

He saw one three-fingered hand slip over the edge of the parapet, then another. He adjusted his direction to the area above and between those hands.

“Come on!” he screamed at her as he increased his speed. “Keep coming!”

His voice sounded hysterical but he couldn’t let that bother him now. He had to keep that goddamned point up and ram it right through her—

Her head appeared and then she was pulling herself up onto the parapet. Too fast! She was too fast! He couldn’t control the wavering point, couldn’t lift it high enough! He was going to miss his target!

With a cry of rage and desperation, Jack put every pound of his body and every remaining ounce of strength left to him behind a final thrust against the balled end of the pole. Despite all his effort, the point never reached the level of the Mother’s throat. Instead, it rammed into her chest with a force that nearly dislocated Jack’s right shoulder. But Jack didn’t let up—with his eyes squeezed shut he followed through with barely a break in his stride, keeping all his weight behind the makeshift spear. There was a moment of resistance to the spear’s path, followed by a sensation of breaking free, then it was yanked out of his hands and he fell to his knees.

When he looked up, his eyes were level with the top of the parapet. His heart nearly stopped when he saw that the Mother was still there—No… wait… she was on the other side of the parapet. But that couldn’t be! She’d have to be standing in mid air! Jack forced himself to his feet and all was made clear.

The miniature flagpole had pierced the Mother rakosh through the center of her chest. The sharpened end of the pole had exited through her back and come to rest on the parapet of the neighboring building across the alley; the balled end lay directly in front of Jack.

He had her! Finally, he had her!

But the Mother wasn’t dead. She twisted on her skewer and hissed and slashed her talons at Jack in futile rage as he stood and panted a mere six feet from her. She could not reach him. After his relief and awe faded, Jack’s first impulse was to push his end of the pole off the edge and let her fall to the ground again, but he checked himself. He had the Mother rakosh where he wanted her—neutralized. He could leave her there until he found a way to deal with her. Meanwhile, she was no danger to him or anyone else.

And then she began to move toward him.

Jack took a quick, faltering step back and almost fell. She was still coming for him! His jaw dropped as he watched her reach forward with both hands and grip the pole that skewered her, then pull herself forward, pushing the pole through her chest to bring herself closer and closer to Jack.

Jack nearly went mad then. How could he fight a creature that didn’t feel pain? That wouldn’t die? He began swearing, cursing incoherently. He ran around the roof picking up pebbles, bits of litter, an aluminum can, hurling them at her. Why not? They were as effective as anything else he had done to her. When he came to the emergency generator, he picked up one of the two-gallon metal cans of diesel oil and went to hurl that at her—

—and stopped.

Oil. Fire! He finally had a weapon—if it was not too late! The Mother had pulled herself almost to within reach of the roof edge. He twisted at the metal cap but it wouldn’t budge—it was rusted shut. In desperation he slammed the edge of the cap twice against the generator and tried again. Pain shot through the earlier wound in his palm but he kept up the pressure. Finally it came loose and he was up and scrambling across the roof, unscrewing the cap as he moved, thanking Con Ed for the blackout in the summer of ’77—for if there hadn’t been a blackout, the tenants wouldn’t have chipped in for an emergency generator, and Jack would have been completely defenseless now.

Oil sloshed over his bandaged hand as the cap came off. Jack didn’t hesitate. He stood up on the parapet and splashed the oil over the slowly advancing rakosh. She hissed furiously and slashed at him, but Jack remained just out of reach. By the time the can was empty, the air around them reeked of diesel fuel. The Mother pulled herself closer and Jack had to jump back to the roof to avoid her talons.

He wiped his hands on his shirt and reached into his pocket for the Cricket. He experienced an instant of panic when he thought his pocket was empty, and then his fingers closed on the lighter. He held it up and thumbed the little lever, praying the oil on his hand hadn’t got to the flint. It sparked, the flame shot up—and Jack smiled. For the first time since the Mother had shaken off the damage of five hollowpoint rounds in the chest, Jack thought he might survive the night.

He thrust the lighter forward but the Mother saw the flame and ripped the air with her talons. He felt the breeze as they passed within inches of his face. She would not let him near her! What good was the oil if he couldn’t light it? It wasn’t nearly as volatile as gasoline—he couldn’t toss the lighter at her and expect an explosion of flame. Diesel fuel needed more than that to start it.

Then he noticed that the pole was slick with the oil. He crouched next to the parapet and reached up to the ball at the end of the pole. The Mother’s talons raked by, millimeters away from his hair, but he steeled himself to hold his position as he played the flame of the Cricket against the oil on the ball. For the longest time, nothing happened.

And then it caught. He watched raptly as a smokey yellow flame—one of the loveliest sights he had ever seen—grew and spread across the ball. From there it crept along the upper surface of the pole, straight toward the Mother. She tried to back away but was caught. The flames leaped onto her chest and fanned out over her torso. Within seconds she was completely engulfed.

Weak with relief, Jack watched with horrid fascination as the Mother’s movements became spasmodic, wild, frenzied. He lost sight of her amid the flames and black smoke that poured skyward from her burning body. He heard sobbing—was it her? No… it was his own voice. Reaction to the pain and the terror and the exertion was setting in. Was it over? Was it finally over?

He steadied himself and watched her burn. He could find no pity for her. She was the most murderous engine of destruction ever imagined. A killing machine that would go on—

A low moan rose from within the conflagration. He thought he heard something that sounded like “Spa fon!” Then came the word, “Kaka-ji!”

Your Kaka-ji is next, Jack thought.

And then she was still. As her flaming body slumped forward, the pole cracked and broke. The Mother rakosh spun to the floor of the alley trailing smoke and flame behind her like the loser in an aerial dogfight. And this time when she hit the ground she stayed there. Jack watched for a long time. The flames lit the beach scene painted on the alley’s opposite wall, giving it a sunset look.

The Mother rakosh continued to burn. And she didn’t move. He watched and watched until he was sure she would never move again.

20

Jack locked his apartment door and sank to the floor behind it, reveling in the air-conditioned coolness. He had stumbled down from the roof in a daze, but had remembered to pick up his empty Ruger on the way. He was weak. Every cell in his body cried out in pain and fatigue. He needed rest, and he probably needed a doctor for his lacerated back. But there was no time for any of that. He had to finish Kusum off tonight.

He pulled himself to his feet and went to the bedroom. Kolabati was still asleep. Next stop was the phone. He didn’t know if Abe had called while he was up on the roof. He doubted it; the prolonged ringing would have awakened Kolabati. He dialed the number of the shop.

After three rings there came a cautious, “Yes?”

“It’s me, Abe.”

“Who else could it be at this hour?”

“Did you get everything?”

“Just got in the door. No, I didn’t get everything. Got the timed incendiary bombs—a crate of twelve—but couldn’t get hold of any incendiary bullets before tomorrow noon. Is that soon enough?”

“No,” Jack said, bitterly disappointed. He had to move now.

“I got something you might use as a substitute, though.”

“What?”

“Come down and see.”

“Be there in a few minutes.”

Jack hung up and gingerly peeled the torn, blood-soaked shirt from his back. The pain there had subsided to a dull, aching throb. He blinked when he saw the liverish clots clinging to the fabric. He had lost more blood than he had thought.

He got a towel from the bathroom and gently held it against the wound. It stung, but the pain was bearable. When he checked the towel half a minute later, there was blood on it, but very little of it fresh.

Jack knew he should shower and clean out the wound, but was afraid he’d start it bleeding again. He resisted the temptation to examine his back in the bathroom mirror—it might hurt worse if he knew how bad it looked. Instead, he wrapped all his remaining gauze around his upper chest and over his left shoulder.

He went back to the bedroom for a fresh shirt and for something else: He knelt next to the bed, gently unclasped Kolabati’s necklace and removed it. She stirred, moaned softly, then was quiet. Jack tip-toed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

In the living room he clasped the iron necklace around his throat. It gave off an unpleasant, tingling sensation that spread along his skin from head to toe. He didn’t relish wearing it, nor borrowing it from Kolabati without her knowledge, but she had refused to remove it in the ship, and if he was going back there he wanted every edge he could get.

He slipped into the fresh shirt as he dialed the number of Abe’s daughter’s apartment. He was going to have to be out of touch with Gia for a while and knew his mind would rest easier after confirming that everything was cool in Queens.

After half a dozen rings, Gia picked up. Her voice was tentative.

“Hello?”

Jack paused for an instant at the sound of her voice. After what he had been through in the past few hours, he wanted nothing more than to call it quits for the night, hop over to Queens and spend the rest of the time until morning with his arms around Gia. Nothing more would be needed tonight—just holding her.

“Sorry to wake you,” he said. “I’m going out for a few hours and wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said hoarsely.

“Vicky?”

“I just left her side to answer the phone. She’s fine. And I’m just reading this note from Abe explaining that he had to go out and not to worry. What’s going on?”

“Crazy stuff.”

“That’s not an answer. I need answers, Jack. This whole thing scares me.”

“I know. All I can say right now is it has to do with the Westphalens.” He didn’t want to say any more.

“But why is Vicky…oh.”

“Right. She’s a Westphalen. Someday when we have lots of time, I’ll explain it to you.”

“When will it all end?”

“Tonight, if things go right.”

“Dangerous?”

“Naw. Routine stuff.” He didn’t want to add to her worries.

“Jack…” She paused and he thought he detected a quaver in her voice. “Be careful, Jack.”

She would never know how much those words meant to him.

“Always careful. I like my body in one piece. See you later.”

He didn’t hang up. Instead he depressed the plunger for a few seconds, then released it. After checking for the dial tone, he stuffed the receiver under the seat cushion of his chair. It would start howling in a few minutes, but no one would hear that… and no one could call here and awaken Kolabati. With luck, he could take care of Kusum, get back here and replace the necklace without her ever knowing he had taken it. And with considerably more luck, she might not ever know for sure that he had anything to do with the fiery explosion that took her brother and his rakoshi to a watery grave.

He picked up his variable frequency beeper and hurried down to the street, intending to head immediately for the Isher Sports Shop. But as he passed the alley, he paused. He had no time to spare, yet he could not resist entering it to see the remains of the Mother rakosh. A jolt of panic shot through him when he saw no corpse in the alley. Then he came upon the smoldering pile of ashes. The fire had completely consumed the Mother, leaving only her fangs and talons. He picked up a few of each—they were still hot—and shoved them into his pocket. There might come a day when he would want to prove to himself that he had really faced something called a rakosh.

21

Gia cradled the phone and thought about what Jack had said about all this being over tonight.

She fervently hoped so. If only Jack weren’t so evasive about everything. What was he hiding? Was there something he was afraid to tell her? God, she hated this! She wanted to be home in her own little apartment in her own bed with Vicky down the hall in hers.

Gia started back for the bedroom and then stopped. She was wide awake. No use trying to go back to sleep just yet. She pulled the bedroom door closed, then searched through the kitchen for something to drink. The liberal amounts of MSG routinely used in Chinese cooking never failed to make her thirsty. When she came across the box of tea bags she grabbed them. With the kettle on to boil, she spun the television dial looking for something to watch. Nothing but old movies…

The water started to boil. Gia made a cup of tea and sugared it, filled a tall glass with ice, and poured the tea over the ice. There: iced tea. Needed some lemon, but it would do.

As she approached the couch with her drink she caught an odor—something rotten. Just a whiff and it was gone. There was an odd familiarity about it. If she could catch it again she was sure she could identify it. She waited but it didn’t return.

Gia turned her attention to the television. Citizen Kane was on. She hadn’t seen that one in ages. It made her think of Jack… how he’d go on and on about Wells’ use of light and shadow throughout the film. He could be a real pain when you just wanted to sit and watch the movie.

She sat down and sipped her tea.

22

Vicky shot up to a sitting position in bed. “Mommy?” she called softly. She trembled with fear. She was alone. And there was an awful, pukey smell. She glanced at the window. Something was there… outside the window. The screen had been pulled out. That’s what had awakened her.

A hand—or something that looked like a hand but really wasn’t—slipped over the windowsill. Then another. The dark shadow of a head rose into view and two glowing yellow eyes trapped her and pinned her where she sat in mute horror. The thing crawled over the ledge and flowed into the room like a snake.

Vicky opened her mouth to scream out her horror but something moist and hard and stinking jammed against her face, cutting off her voice. It was a hand, but like no hand she had ever imagined. There only seemed to be three fingers—three huge fingers—and the taste of the palm against her lips brought what was left of her Chinese dinner boiling to the back of her throat.

As she fought to get free, she caught a fleeting close-up glimpse of what held her—the smooth, blunt-snouted face, the fangs showing above the scarred lower lip, the glowing yellow eyes. It was every fear of what’s in the closet or what’s in that shadowed corner, every bad dream, every night horror rolled into one.

Vicky became delirious with panic. Tears of fear and revulsion streamed down her face. She had to get away! She kicked and twisted convulsively, clawed with her fingernails—nothing she did seemed to matter in the slightest. She was lifted like a toy and carried to the window—

—and out! They were twelve floors up! Mommy! They were going to fall!

But they didn’t fall. Using its free hand and its clawed feet, the monster crawled down the wall like a spider. Then it was running along the ground, through parks, down alleys, across streets. The grip across her mouth loosened but Vicky was clutched so tightly against the monster’s flank that she couldn’t scream—she could barely breathe.

“Please don’t hurt me!” she whispered into the night. “Please don’t hurt me!”

Vicky didn’t know where they were or in what direction they were traveling. Her mind could barely function through the haze of terror that enveloped it. But soon she heard the lapping sound of water, smelled the river. The monster leaped, they seemed to fly for an instant, and then water closed over them. She couldn’t swim!

Vicky screamed as they plunged beneath the waves. She gulped a mouthful of foul, brackish water, then broke the surface choking and retching. Her throat was locked—there was air all around her but she couldn’t breathe! Finally, when she thought she was going to die, her windpipe opened and air rushed into her lungs.

She opened her eyes. The monster had slung her onto its back and was now cutting through the water. She clung to the slick, slimy skin of its shoulders. Her pink nighty was plastered to her goosefleshed skin; her hair hung in her eyes. She was cold, wet, and miserable with terror. She wanted to jump off and get away from the monster, but she knew she’d go down under that water and never come back up.

Why was this happening to her? She’d been good. Why did this monster want her?

Maybe it was a good monster, like in that book she had, Where the Wild Things Are. It hadn’t hurt her. Maybe it was taking her someplace to show her something.

She looked around and recognized the Manhattan skyline off to her right, but there was something between them and Manhattan. Dimly she remembered the island—Roosevelt Island—that sat in the river at the end of Aunt Nellie and Grace’s street.

Were they going to swim around it and go back to Manhattan? Was the monster going to take her back to Aunt Nellie’s?

No. They passed the end of the island but the monster didn’t turn toward Manhattan. It kept swimming in the same direction downriver. Vicky shivered and began to cry.

23

Gia’s chin dropped forward onto her chest and she awoke with a start. She was only half an hour into the movie and already she was nodding off. She wasn’t nearly as wide awake as she had thought. She flicked it off and went back to the bedroom.

Fear hit her like a knife between the ribs as soon as she opened the door. The room was filled with a rotten odor. Now she recognized it—the same odor that had been in Nellie’s room the night she had disappeared. Her gaze shot to the bed and her heart stopped when she saw it was flat—no familiar little lump of curled-up child under the covers.

“Vicky?” Her voice cracked as she said the name and turned on the light. She has to be here!

Without waiting for an answer, Gia rushed to the bed and pulled the covers down.

“Vicky?” Her voice was almost a whimper. She’s here—she has to be!

She ran to the closet and fell to her knees, checking the floor with her hands. Only Vicky’s Ms. Jelliroll Carry Case was there. Next she crawled over to the bed and looked under it. Vicky wasn’t there either.

But something else was—a small dark lump. Gia reached in and grabbed it. She thought she would be sick when she recognized the feel of a recently peeled and partially eaten orange.

An orange! Jack’s words flooded back on her: “Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace?” He had said there was something in the orange— but he had thrown it away! So how had Vicky got hold of this one… ?

Unless there had been more than one orange in the playhouse!

This is a nightmare! This isn’t really happening!

Gia ran through the rest of the apartment, opening every door, every closet, every cabinet. Vicky was gone! She hurried back to the bedroom and went to the window. The screen was missing. She hadn’t noticed that before. Fighting back a scream as visions of a child’s body smashed against the pavement flashed before her eyes, she held her breath and looked down. The parking lot was directly below, well lit by mercury vapor lamps. There was no sign of Vicky.

Gia didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. All she knew right now was that her child was missing and she needed help. She ran for the phone, ready to dial the 911 emergency police number, then stopped. The police would certainly be more concerned about a missing child than about two old ladies who had disappeared, but would they accomplish anything more? Gia doubted it. There was only one number to call that would do her any good: Jack’s.

Jack will know what to do. Jack will help.

She forced her shaking index finger to punch in the numbers and got a busy signal. She hung up and dialed again. Still busy. She didn’t have time to wait! She dialed the operator and told her it was an emergency and she had to break in on the line. She was put on hold for half a minute that seemed like an hour, then the operator was back on, telling her that the line wasn’t busy—the phone had been left off the hook.

Gia slammed the receiver down. What was she going to do? She was frantic. What was wrong at Jack’s? Had he left the phone off the hook or had it been knocked off?

She ran back to the bedroom and jammed her legs into a pair of jeans and pulled on a blouse without removing her pajamas. She had to find Jack. If he wasn’t at his apartment, maybe he was at Abe’s store—she was pretty sure she remembered where that was. She hoped she could remember. Her thoughts were so jumbled. All she could think of was Vicky.

Vicky, Vicky, where are you?

But how to get to Jack’s… that was the problem. Finding a cab would be virtually impossible at this hour, and the subway, even if she could find a stop nearby, could be deadly to a woman alone.

The Honda keys she had seen earlier! Where had they been? She had been cleaning in the kitchen…

She ran over to the flatware drawer and pulled it open. There they were. She snatched them up and ran out into the hall. She checked the apartment number on the door: 1203. Now if only the car was here. The elevator took her straight down to the first floor and she hurried out into the parking lot. On the way in this afternoon she had seen numbers on the asphalt by each parking space.

Please let it be here! she said to God, to fate, to whatever was in charge of human events. Is anybody in charge? asked a small voice in the back of her mind.

She followed the numbers from the 800’s up to the 1100’s, and there up ahead, crouched like a laboratory mouse waiting timidly for the next injection, sat a white Honda Civic.

Please be 1203! Please!

It had to be.

It was.

Almost giddy with relief, she unlocked the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The standard shift on the floor gave her a moment’s pause, but she had driven her father’s old Ford pickup enough miles in Iowa as a teenager. She hoped it was something you never forgot, like riding a bike.

The engine refused to start until she found the manual choke, then it sputtered to life. She stalled twice backing out of the parking space, but once she got it rolling forward, she had little trouble.

She didn’t know Queens but knew the general direction she wanted to go. She worked her way toward the East River until she saw a “To Manhattan” sign and followed the arrow. When the Queensboro Bridge loomed into view, she slammed the gas pedal to the floor. She had been driving tentatively until now, reining her emotions, clutching the wheel with white-knuckled intensity, wary of missing a crucial turn. But with her destination in sight, she began to cry.

24

Abe’s dark blue panel truck was parked outside the Isher Sports Shop. The iron gate had been rolled back. At Jack’s knock, the door opened immediately. Abe’s white shirt was wrinkled and his jowls were stubbly. For the first time in Jack’s memory, he wasn’t wearing his black tie.

“What?” he said, scrutinizing Jack. “You run into trouble since you left me at the apartment?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Bandage on your hand and you’re walking funny.”

“Had a lengthy and strenuous argument with a very disagreeable lady.” He rotated his left shoulder gingerly; it was nowhere near as stiff and painful as it had been back at the apartment.

“Lady?”

“It’s stretching the definition, but yeah—lady.”

Abe led Jack toward the rear of the darkened store. The lights were on in the basement, as was the neon sign. Abe hefted a wooden crate two feet long and a foot wide and deep. The top had already been pried open and he lifted it off.

“Here are the bombs. Twelve of them, magnesium compound, all with twenty-four-hour timers.”

Jack nodded. “Fine. But I really needed the incendiary bullets. Otherwise I may never get a chance to set these.”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t know what you think you’re going up against, but here’s the best I could do.”

He pulled a cloth off a card table to reveal a circular, donut-shaped metal tank with a second tank, canteen-sized, set in its middle; both were attached by a short hose to what looked like a two-handed raygun.

Jack was baffled. “What the hell—?”

“It’s a Number Five Mk-1 flamethrower, affectionately known as the Lifebuoy. I don’t know if it’ll suit your purposes. I mean, it hasn’t got much range and—”

“It’s great!” Jack said. He grabbed Abe’s hand and pumped it. “Abe. You’re beautiful! It’s perfect!”

Elated, Jack ran his hands over the tanks. It was perfect. Why hadn’t he thought of it? How many times had he seen Them?

“How does it work?”

“This is a World War Two model—the best I could do on such short notice. It’s got CO at two thousand pounds per square inch in the little spherical tank, and eighteen liters of napalm in the big lifebuoy-shaped one—hence the name; a discharge tube with igniters at the end and an adjustable nozzle. Range is up to ninety feet. You open the tanks, point the tube, pull the trigger in the rear grip, and foom!”

“Any helpful hints?”

“Yeah. Always check your nozzle adjustment before your first discharge. It’s like a firehose and will tend to rise during a prolonged tight stream. Otherwise, think of it as spitting: Don’t do it into the wind or where you live.”

“Sounds easy enough. Help me get into the harness.”

The tanks were heavier than Jack would have wished, but did not cause the anticipated burst of pain from the left side of his back; only a dull ache. As Jack adjusted the straps to a comfortable fit, Abe looked at his neck questioningly.

“Since when the jewelry, Jack?”

“Since tonight… for good luck.”

“Strange looking thing. Iron, isn’t it? And those stones… almost look like—”

“Two eyes? I know.”

“And the inscription looks like Sanskrit. Is it?”

Jack shrugged, uncomfortable. He didn’t like the necklace and knew nothing about its origins.

“Could be. I don’t know. A friend… lent it to me for the night. Do you know what the inscriptions say?”

Abe shook his head. “I’ve seen Sanskrit before, but if my life depended on it I couldn’t translate a single word.” He looked closer. “Come to think of it, that’s not really Sanskrit. Where was it made? “

“India.”

“Really? Then it’s probably Vedic, one of the Proto-Aryan languages that was a precursor of Sanskrit.” Abe tossed off the information in a casual tone, then turned away and busied himself with gently tapping the nails halfway back into the corners of the crate of incendiary bombs.

Jack didn’t know if he was being put on or not, but he didn’t want to rob Abe of his moment. “How the hell do you know all that?”

“You think I majored in guns in college? I have a B.A. from Columbia in Languages.”

“And this is inscribed in Vedic, huh? Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It means it’s old, Jack… O-L-D.”

Jack fingered the iron links around his neck. “I figured that.”

Abe finished tapping down the crate top, then turned to Jack.

“You know I never ask, Jack, but this time I’ve got to: What are you up to? You could raze a couple of city blocks with what you’ve got here.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. How could he tell anyone, even his best friend, about the rakoshi and how the necklace he was wearing made him invisible to those rakoshi?

“Why don’t you drive me down to the docks and maybe you’ll see.”

“It’s a deal.”

Abe groaned under the weight of the case of incendiary bombs while Jack, still in harness with the flamethrower, maneuvered his way up the steps to the ground floor. After Abe had deposited the crate in the rear of the panel truck, he motioned Jack out to the street. Jack darted out from the store doorway and through the rear doors of the truck. Abe pulled the iron gate closed in front of his shop and hopped into the driver’s seat.

“Whereto?”

“Take West End down to Fifty-seventh and turn right. Find a dark spot under the highway and we’ll go on foot from there.”

As Abe put the truck into gear, Jack considered his options. Since climbing a rope with a flamethrower on his back and a crate of bombs under his arm was out of the question, he would have to go up the gangplank—his variable frequency beeper would bring it down. Events could go two ways after that: If he was able to get aboard undiscovered, he could set his bombs and run; if discovered, he would have to bring the flamethrower into service and play it by ear. If there was any chance to do it safely, he would let Abe get a look at a rakosh. Seeing would be believing—any other means of explaining what dwelled in Kusum’s ship would be futile.

Either way, he would see to it that no rakoshi were left alive in New York by sunrise. And if Kusum cared to interfere, Jack was quite willing to help his atman on its way to its next incarnation.

The truck stopped.

“We’re here,” Abe said. “What now?”

Jack gingerly lowered himself to the street through the rear door and walked up beside Abe’s window. He pointed to the darkness north of Pier 97.

“Wait here while I go aboard. I shouldn’t be long.”

Abe glanced through the window, then back at him, a puzzled expression on his round face. “Aboard what?”

“There’s a ship there. You just can’t see it from here.”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything there but water.”

Jack squinted into the dark. It was there, wasn’t it? With a mixture of amazement, bafflement, and relief growing within him, he sprinted down to the edge of the dock—the empty dock!

“It’s gone!” he shouted as he ran back to the truck. “It’s gone!”

He realized he must have looked like a crazy man, jumping up and down and laughing with a flamethrower strapped to his back, but Jack didn’t care.

He had won! He had defeated the Mother rakosh and Kusum had sailed back to India without Vicky and without Kolabati! Triumph soared through him.

I’ve won!

25

Gia ran up the steps of the five-story brownstone and stepped into the vestibule inside the front door. She pulled on the handle of the inner door just in case the latch hadn’t caught. The door wouldn’t move. Out of habit she reached into her purse for the key and then remembered she had sent it back to Jack months ago.

She went to the callboard and pressed the button next to “3”, the one with the hand-printed slip of paper that said “Pinocchio Productions.” When the door did not buzz open in response, she rang again, and kept on ringing, holding the button in until her thumb ached. Still no responding buzzer.

Gia went back out to the sidewalk and looked up to the front windows of Jack’s apartment. They were dark, although there seemed to be a light on in the kitchen. Suddenly she saw movement at the window, a shadow looking down at her. Jack!

She ran back up to ring the “3” button again but the buzzer started to sound as soon as she stepped into the vestibule. She pushed through the inner door and ran up the stairs.

As she approached the third floor, she found a long brown wig and a flowery, broad-brimmed hat on the stairs. A sickeningly sweet perfume hung in the air. The newel post on the landing was cracked almost in two. There were torn pieces of dress fabric strewn all about the hall and splotches of thick black fluid on the floor outside Jack’s apartment.

What happened here?

Something about the splotches made her skin crawl. She stepped around them carefully, not wanting to touch one, even with her shoe. Controlling her unease, she knocked on Jack’s door.

The door opened immediately, startling her. Whoever was there must have been waiting for her knock. But the door had swung inward only three inches and stopped. She could see the vague shape of a head looking out at her, but the dim light from the hall was at the wrong angle to reveal the face.

“Jack?” Gia said. She was plainly frightened now. Everything was wrong here.

“He’s not here,” said a hoarse, cracked, whispery voice.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Will you look for him?”

“Yes… yes.” The question was unexpected. “I need him right away.”

“Find Jack! Find him and bring him back! Bring him back!”

The door slammed closed as Gia stumbled away, propelled by the sense of desperate urgency that had filled that voice.

What was happening here? Why was there some strange shadowy person in Jack’s apartment instead of Jack? There was no time for mysteries—Vicky was missing and Jack could find her! Gia held on to that thought. It was all that kept her from going insane. Even so, the sense of nightmare unreality that had come over her after finding Vicky gone gripped her again. The walls wavered around her as she played along with the bad dream…

… down the stairs, through the doors, down to the street to where the Honda sits double parked, start it up, drive to where you think—hope!—Abe’s shop is… tears on your face…

Oh, Vicky, how am I ever going to find you? I’ll die without you!

… drive past darkened brownstones and storefronts until a dark blue panel truck pulls into the curb to the left just ahead and Jack gets out of the passenger side…

Jack!

Gia was suddenly back in the real world. She slammed on the brakes. Even as the Honda was skidding to a stalled stop, she was out of the door and running to him, crying his name.

“Jack!”

He turned and Gia saw his face go white at the sight of her. He ran forward.

“Oh, no! Where’s Vicky?”

He knew! Her expression, her very presence here must have told him. Gia could hold back the fear and grief no longer. She began sobbing as she collapsed into his arms.

“She’s gone!”

“God! When? How long?” She thought he was going to cry. His arms tightened around her until her ribs threatened to break.

“An hour… no more than an hour and a half.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know! All I found was an orange under her bed, like the one—”

“NO!” Jack’s anguished shout was a physical pain in her ear, then he spun away from her, walking a step or two in one direction, then in another, his arms swinging at the air like a wind-up toy out of control. “He’s got Vicky! He’s got Vicky!”

“It’s all my fault, Jack. If I’d stayed with her instead of watching that stupid movie, Vicky would be all right now.”

Jack suddenly stopped moving. His arms lay quiet against his sides.

“No,” he said in a voice that chilled her with its flat, iron tone. “You couldn’t have changed the outcome. You’d only be dead.” He turned to Abe. “I’ll need to borrow your truck, Abe, and I’ll also need an inflatable raft with oars. And the highest power field glasses you can find. Got them?”

“Right in the shop.” He too was looking at Jack strangely.

“Would you put them in the back of the truck as quick as you can?”

“Sure.”

Gia stared at Jack as Abe bustled away toward the front of his store. His abrupt change from near hysteria to this cold, dispassionate creature before her was almost as terrifying as Vicky’s disappearance.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get her back. And then I’m going to see to it that she is never bothered again.”

Gia stepped back. For as Jack spoke, he had turned toward her and looked past her, looked downtown as if seeing through all the buildings between him and whoever was in his thoughts. She let out a small cry when she saw his expression.

She was looking at murder. It was as if Death itself had taken human form. That look on Jack’s face—she turned away. She couldn’t bear it. More rage and fury than any man was meant to hold were concentrated in his eyes. She could almost imagine someone’s heart stopping just from looking into those eyes.

Abe slammed the rear doors of his truck and handed Jack a black leather case. “Here are the binocs. The raft’s loaded.”

The look in Jack’s eyes receded. Thank God! She never wanted to see that look again. He slung the binoculars around his neck. “You two wait here while—”

“I’m going with you!” Gia said. She wasn’t staying behind while he went to find Vicky.

“And what?” Abe said. “I should stay behind while you two run off with my truck?”

Jack didn’t even bother to argue. “Get in, then. But I’m driving.”

And drive he did—like a madman: east to Central Park West, down to Broadway, and then along Broadway for a steeplechase ride downtown. Gia was squeezed between Jack and Abe, one hand braced against the dashboard in case they had to stop short, the other against the roof of the truck’s cab to keep from bumping her head as they pitched and rolled over the hillocks and potholes in the pavement—New York City streets were no smoother than the rutted dirt roads she used to drive in Iowa.

“Where are we going? “she cried.

“To meet a ship.”

“Jack, I’m so frightened. Don’t play games with me. What’s this have to do with Vicky?”

Jack looked at her hesitantly, then past her to Abe. “You’ll both think I’m crazy. I don’t need that now.”

“Try me,” she said. She had to know. What could be crazier than what had already happened tonight?

“All right. But just listen without interrupting me, okay?” He glanced at her and she nodded. His hesitancy was unnerving. He took a deep breath. “Here goes…”

26

Vicky is dead!

As Jack drove and told Abe and Gia his story, that inescapable fact stabbed at his mind. But he kept his eyes fixed on the road and held himself away from the agony of grief that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment.

Grief and rage. They mixed and swirled within him. He wanted to pull over to the curb and bury his face in his arms and weep like a baby. He wanted to ram his fist through the windshield again and again.

Vicky! He was never going to see her again, never do the orange mouth gag, never paint up his hand like Moony for her, never—

Stop it!

He had to stay in control, had to look strong. For Gia’s sake. If anyone else had told him that Vicky was missing, he might have gone berserk. But he had remained calm for Gia. He couldn’t let her guess what he knew. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. Who would? He’d have to break it to her slowly… in stages… tell her about what he had seen, what he had learned in the past week.

Jack drove relentlessly through the near empty streets, slowing but never stopping for red lights. It was two a.m. on a Wednesday morning and there was still traffic about, but not enough to matter. He was headed downtown… all the way downtown.

His instincts insisted that Kusum would not leave without the Mother rakosh. He would not want to wait too far from Manhattan. To sail on, even at bottom speed, would mean outdistancing the Mother and leaving her behind. According to Kolabati, the Mother was the key to controlling the nest. So Kusum would wait. But Kusum didn’t know that the Mother wasn’t coming. Jack was coming instead.

He spoke as calmly as he could as he raced through Times Square, past Union Square, past City Hall, past Trinity Church, ever southward, all the while telling them about an Indian man named Kusum—the one Gia had met at the U.K. reception—whose ancestors were murdered by a Westphalen well over a century ago. This Kusum had come to New York with a ship full of seven- and eight-foot creatures called rakoshi whom he sent out to capture the last members of the Westphalen family.

There was silence in the cab of the panel truck when he finished his story. He glanced over to Gia and Abe. Both were staring at him, their expressions alarmed, their eyes wary.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “That’s just the way I’d look at somebody who told me what I just told you But I’ve been in that ship. I’ve seen. I’m stuck with it.”

Still they said nothing.

And I didn’t even tell them about the necklace.

“It’s true, damn it!” he shouted. He pulled the Mother’s scorched fangs and talons from his pocket and pressed them into Gia’s hand. “Here’s all that’s left of one.”

Gia passed them over to Abe without even looking at them. “Why shouldn’t I believe you? Vicky was taken through a window twelve stories up!” She clutched at Jack’s arm. “But what does he want with them?”

Jack swallowed spasmodically, unable to speak for a moment. Vicky’s dead! How could he possibly tell her that?

“I—I don’t know,” he said finally, his vast experience as a liar standing him in good stead. “But I’m going to find out.”

And then there was no more island left—they were at Battery Park, the southern tip of Manhattan. Jack sped along the east side of the park and screeched to the right around a curve at its end. Without slowing, he plowed through a cyclone gate and hurtled across the sand toward the water.

“My truck!” Abe yelled.

“Sorry! I’ll get it fixed for you.”

Gia let out a yelp as Jack swerved to a stop in the sand. He leaped out and ran to the bulkhead.

Upper New York Bay spread out before him. A gentle breeze fanned his face. Due south, directly ahead, lay the trees and buildings of Governor’s Island. To the left, across the mouth of the East River, sat Brooklyn. And far off to the right, toward New Jersey, on her own island, stood Lady Liberty with her blazing torch held high. The bay was deserted —no pleasure boats, no Staten Island Ferries, no Circle Line cruisers. Nothing but a dark wasteland of water. Jack fumbled the binoculars out of the case slung around his neck and scanned the bay.

He’s out there—he’s got to be!

Yet the surface of the bay was lifeless—no movement, no sound but the lapping of the water against the bulkhead. His hands began to tremble as he raked the glasses back and forth over the water.

He’s here! He can’t get away!

And then he found a ship—directly between him and Governor’s Island. On previous passes he had confused its running lights with the lights on the buildings behind it. But this time he caught the glint of the setting moon off its aft superstructure. An adjustment of the glasses brought the long deck into focus. When he saw the single kingpost and its four cranes amidships, he was sure he had her.

“That’s it!” he shouted and handed the glasses to Gia. She took them from him with a bewildered look on her face.

He ran to the back of the truck and dragged out the raft. Abe helped him unbox it and activate the CO 2 cartridges. As the flat oval of yellow rubber began to inflate and take shape, Jack slipped into the harness of the flamethrower. His back bothered him hardly at all. He carried the box of incendiary bombs to the bulkhead and checked to make sure he had his variable frequency beeper. He noticed Gia watching him intently.

“Are you okay, Jack?”

In her eyes he thought he detected a hint of the warm feelings she once had for him, but there was doubt there, too.

Here it comes. She means, ’Are you all right in the head?’

“No, I’m not okay. I won’t be okay until I’m through with what I’ve got to do out there on that ship.”

“Are you sure about this? Is Vicky really out there?”

Yes. She’s out there. But she’s dead. Eaten by— Jack fought the urge to burst our crying.

“Positive.”

“Then let’s call the Coast Guard or—”

“No!” He couldn’t allow that! This was his fight and he was going to do it his way! Like lightning looking for a ground, the rage, the grief, the hatred balled up inside him had to find a target. If he didn’t settle this personally with Kusum, it would destroy him. “Don’t call anyone. Kusum has diplomatic immunity. Nobody who plays by the rules can get to him. Just leave this to me!”

Gia shrank from him and he realized he was shouting. Abe was standing by the truck with the oars in his hands, staring at him. He must sound crazy. He was close to the edge… so close to the edge… had to hold on just a little longer…

He pulled the now inflated boat to the edge and pushed it over the side into the water. He sat on the bulkhead and held the boat in position with his feet while he lowered the crate of incendiary bombs into it. Abe brought the oars over and handed them to him. Jack settled himself into the boat and looked up at his best friend and the woman he loved.

“I want to come with you!” Gia said.

Jack shook his head. That was impossible.

“She’s my daughter—I have the right!”

He pushed away from the bulkhead. Leaving the land was like cutting a bond with Gia and Abe. He felt very alone at that moment.

“See you soon,” was all he could say.

He began to row out into the bay, keeping his eyes fixed on Gia, only occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure he stayed on course toward the black hull of Kusum’s ship. The thought that he might be going to his death occurred to him but he let it pass. He would not admit the possibility of defeat until he had done what he had to do. He would set the bombs first, leaving enough time to find Kusum and settle up personally, he did not want Kusum to die in the blink, indiscriminate, anonymous fury of an incendiary explosion. Kusum must know the agent of his death… and why.

And then what would Jack do? How could he go back to Gia and say those words: Vicky is dead. How? Almost better to be demolished with the boat.

The pace of his oars increased as he let the rage mushroom out, smothering his grief, his concern for Gia, consuming him, taking him over. The universe constricted, focused down to this small patch of water, where the only inhabitants were Kusum, his rakoshi, and Jack.

27

“I’m so scared!” Gia said as she watched Jack and his rubber boat melt into the darkness. She was cold despite the warmth of the night.

“So am I,” Abe said, throwing a heavy arm over her trembling shoulders.

“Can this be true? I mean, Vicky is missing and I’m standing here watching Jack row out to a boat to take her back from an Indian madman and a bunch of monsters from Indian folk tales.” Her words began to break around sobs that she could not control. “My God, Abe! This can’t really be happening!”

Abe tightened his arm around her, but she took scant comfort from the gesture. “It is, kid. It is. But as to what’s in that ship, who can say? And that’s what got me shook. Either Jack has gone stark raving mad—and comforting it’s not to think of a man that lethal being insane—or he’s mentally sound and there actually are such things as the monsters he described. I don’t know which frightens me more.”

Gia said nothing. She was too occupied with the fear that clawed ferociously at the walls of her brain: fear that she would never see Vicky again. She fought that fear, knowing if she let it through and truly faced the possibility that Vicky might be gone forever, she would die.

“But I’ll tell you this,” Abe went on. “If your daughter is out there, and if it’s humanly possible to bring her back, Jack will do it. Perhaps he’s the only man alive who can.” If that was supposed to comfort Gia, it failed.

28

Vicky sat alone in the dark, shivering in her torn, wet nighty. It was cold in here. The floor was slimy against her bare feet and the air stank so bad it made her want to throw up. She was utterly miserable. She had never liked to be alone in the dark, but this time alone was better than with one of those monsters.

She had just about cried herself out since her arrival on the ship. There weren’t any more tears left. Hope had grown within her when the monster had climbed up the ship’s anchor chain, carrying her with it. It hadn’t hurt her yet—maybe it just wanted to show her the boat.

Once on the deck, the monster did something strange: It took her to the back of the boat and held her up in the air in front of a bunch of windows high above her there. She had a feeling somebody was looking down at her from behind the windows but she couldn’t see anyone. The monster held her up for a long time, then tucked her under its arm and carried her through a door and down flights of metal steps.

As they moved deeper and deeper into the ship, the hope that had sprouted began to wither and die, replaced by despair that slowly turned to horror as the rotten smell of the monster filled the air. But it wasn’t coming from this monster. It was coming from beyond the open metal door they were heading for. Vicky began to kick and scream and fight to get free as they moved closer to it, for there were rustling and scraping and grunting sounds coming from the darkness beyond that door. The monster didn’t seem to notice her struggles. It stepped through the opening and the stench enveloped her.

The door clanged behind them and locked. There must have been someone or something standing in the shadows behind it as they had passed. And then the monsters were all around her, huge dark forms pressing toward her, reaching for her, baring their teeth, hissing. Vicky’s screams faded away, dying in her throat as an explosion of terror stole her voice. They were going to eat her—she could tell!

But the one who carried her wouldn’t let the others touch her. It snapped and clawed at them until they finally backed away, but not before her nighty had been torn and her skin scratched in a couple of places. She was carried a ways down a short corridor and then dropped in a small room without any furniture. The door was closed and she had been left alone in the dark, huddling and shivering in the farthest corner.

“I want to go home!” she moaned to no one.

There was movement outside the door, and the things out there seemed to go away. At least she couldn’t hear them fighting and hissing and scraping against the door anymore. After a while she heard another sound, like a chant, but she couldn’t make out the words. And then there was more movement out in the corridor.

The door opened. Whimpering with helpless terror, Vicky tried to press herself farther into the unyielding angles of the corner. There was a click and light suddenly filled the room, blazing from the ceiling, blinding her. She hadn’t even looked for a light switch. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, she made out a form standing in the doorway. Not a monster—smaller and lighter than a monster. Then her vision cleared.

It was a man! He had a beard and was dressed funny—and she noticed that he only had one arm—but he was a man, not a monster! And he was smiling!

Crying with joy, Vicky jumped up and ran to him.

She was saved!

29

The child rushed up to him and grabbed his wrist with both of her little hands. She looked up into his eyes.

“You’re gonna save me, aren’t you, mister? We gotta get out of here! It’s full of monsters!”

Kusum was filled with self-loathing as he looked down at her.

This child, this tiny skinny innocent with her salty wet stringy hair and torn night dress, her wide blue eyes, her eager hopeful face looking to him for rescue—how could he feed her to the rakoshi?

It was too much too ask.

Must she die, too, Goddess?

No answer was forthcoming, for none was necessary. Kusum knew the answer—it was engraved on his soul. The vow would remain unfulfilled as long as a single Westphalen lived. Once the child was gone, he would be one step closer to purifying his karma.

But she’s just a child!

Perhaps he should wait. The Mother was not back yet and it was important that she be a part of the ceremony. It disturbed him that she hadn’t returned. The only explanation was that she’d had difficulty locating Jack. Kusum could wait for her…

No—he had already delayed well over an hour. The rakoshi were assembled and waiting. The ceremony must begin.

Just a child!

Stilling the voice that cried out inside him, Kusum straightened up and smiled once again at the little girl.

“Come with me,” he said, lifting her in his arm and carrying her out into the corridor.

He would see that she died quickly and painlessly. He could do that much.

30

Jack let his raft butt softly against the hull of the ship as he ran through the various frequencies on his beeper. Finally there came a click and a hum from above. The gangway began to lower itself toward him. Jack maneuvered the raft under it, and as soon as it finished its descent, reached up and placed the crate of bombs on the bottom step. With a thin nylon cord between his teeth, he climbed up after it, then tied the raft to the gangway.

He stood and watched the gunwale directly above him, his flamethrower held at ready. If Kusum had seen the gangway go down, he’d be on his way over to investigate. But no one appeared.

Good. So far, surprise was on his side. He carried the crate to the top of the gangway and crouched there to survey the deck: deserted. To his left the entire aft superstructure was dark except for the running lights. Kusum could be standing unseen in the shadows behind the blank windows of the bridge at this very moment. Jack would be exposing himself to discovery by crossing the deck, but it was a risk he had to take. The aft compartments were the most critical areas of the ship. The engines were there, as were the fuel tanks. He wanted to be sure those areas were set for destruction before he moved into the more dangerous cargo holds—where the rakoshi lived.

He hesitated. This was idiocy. This was comic book stuff. What if the rakoshi caught him before he set the bombs? That would let Kusum off free with his boat and his monsters. The sane thing to do was what Gia had said back on shore: Call in the Coast Guard. Or the Harbor Patrol.

But Jack simply could not bring himself to do that. This was between Kusum and him. He could not allow outsiders into the fray. It might seem like madness to everyone else, but there was no other way for him. Gia wouldn’t understand it; neither would Abe. He could think of only one other person who would comprehend why it had to be this way. And that, for Jack, was the most frightening part of this whole thing.

Only Kusum Bahkti, the man he had come to destroy, would understand.

Now or never, he told himself as he clipped four bombs to his belt. He stepped onto the deck and sprinted along the starboard gunwale until he reached the superstructure. He had been this route on his first trip aboard the ship. He knew the way and headed directly below.

The engine room was hot and noisy, the big twin diesels idling. Their basso hum vibrated the fillings in his teeth. Jack set the timers on the bombs for three forty-five a.m. —that would give him a little over an hour to do his job and get away. He was familiar with the timers and had confidence in them, yet as he armed each one, he found himself holding his breath and turning his face away. A ridiculous gesture—if the bomb went off in his hands, the heat and force of the blast would incinerate him before he knew it—yet he continued to turn his head.

He placed the first two at the base of each engine. Two more were attached to the fuel tanks. When those four went, the entire stern of the freighter would be a memory. He stopped by the hatch that had taken him into the corridor that led to the rakoshi. That was where Vicky had died. A heaviness settled in his chest. It was still hard to believe she was gone. He pressed his ear against the metal and thought he heard the Kaka-ji chant. Visions of what he had seen Monday night —those monsters holding up pieces of torn flesh—swept through his mind, leaving barely controllable fury in their wake. It was all he could do to restrain himself from starting up his flamethrower and running into the hold, dowsing anything that moved with napalm.

But no… he might not last a minute doing that. There was no room for emotion here. He had to lock away his feelings and be cool… cold. He had to follow his plan. Had to do this right. Had to make sure not a single rakosh—or its master—escaped alive.

He headed back up toward fresh air and returned to the gangplank. Sure now that Kusum was in the main hold, doing whatever he did with the rakoshi, Jack hefted the somewhat lighter bomb crate onto his shoulder and made no attempt to hide as he strode toward the bow. When he reached the hatch over the forward hold, he lifted the entry port and peered below.

The odor rose and rammed into his nostrils, but he controlled his gag reflex and looked below.

This hold was identical to the other in size and design except that the elevator platform waiting a half-dozen feet below him was in the forward rather than the aft corner. He could hear noises like a litany drifting from the aft hold. In the dim light he saw that the floor of this hold was littered with an incredible amount of debris, but there were no rakoshi down there, neither walking about nor lying on the floor.

He had the forward hold entirely to himself.

Jack lowered himself through the opening. It was a tight squeeze with the flamethrower on his back, and for one awful moment he thought he was trapped in the opening, unable to move up or down, helplessly wedged in place until Kusum found him or the bombs went off. But he pulled free, slipped through, and hauled his bomb crate after him.

Once again he checked the floor of the hold. Finding no sign of rakoshi lurking about, he started the elevator down. It was like a descent into hell. The noise from the other hold grew steadily louder. He could sense an excitement, a hunger in the guttural noises the rakoshi were making. Whatever ceremony was going on must be reaching its climax. And after it was over they’d probably start returning to this hold. Jack wanted to have his bombs set and be on his way before then. But just in case they came in while he was still here… he reached back and opened the valves on his tanks. There was a brief, faint hiss as the carbon dioxide propelled the napalm into the line, then all was silent. He attached three bombs to his belt and waited.

When the platform stopped, Jack stepped off and looked around. The floor here was a mess. Like a garbage dump. There would be no problem finding hiding places for the rest of his bombs among the debris. He wanted to create enough of an inferno in here to spread to the aft hold, trapping all the rakoshi there between the forward and stern explosions.

He stifled a cough. The odor here was worse than anything he had encountered before, even in the other hold. He tried mouth-breathing but the stench lay on his tongue. What made it so bad here? He looked down before taking his first step and saw that the floor was cluttered with the broken remains of countless rakoshi eggs. And among the shell fragments were bones and hair and shreds of clothing. His foot was against what he thought was an unhatched egg; he rolled it over with the tip of his sneaker and found himself staring into the empty eye sockets of a human skull.

Repulsed, he stared around him. He was not alone here.

There were immature rakoshi of varying sizes all about, most of them reclining on the floor, asleep. One near him was awake and active—leisurely teething on a human rib. He hadn’t noticed them on the way down because they were so small.

… Kusum’s grandchildren…

They seemed to be as unaware of him now as their parents in the other hold had been last night.

Stepping carefully, he made his way toward the opposite corner. There he set and armed a bomb and shoved it beneath a pile of bones and shell fragments. Moving as swiftly and as carefully as possible, he picked his way toward the middle of the stern wall of the hold. He was halfway there when he heard a squeal and felt a sudden, knifing, tearing pain in his left calf. He spun and looked down, reflexively reaching toward the pain. Something was biting him—it had attached itself to his leg like a leech. He pulled at it but succeeded only in making the pain worse. Gritting his teeth, he tore it loose amid a blaze of incredible pain: a walnut-size piece of his leg had come away with it.

He was holding a squirming, writhing fifteen-inch rakosh around the waist. He must have kicked it or accidentally stepped on it as he was passing and it had lashed out with its teeth. His pants leg was torn and soaked with blood from where the thing had taken a bite out of him. He held it at arm’s length while it kicked and clawed with its tiny talons, its little yellow eyes blazing fury at him. It held a piece of bloody flesh—Jack’s flesh—in its mouth. Before his eyes, the miniature horror stuffed the piece of his leg down its throat, then shrieked and snapped at his fingers.

Gagging with revulsion, he hurled the squealing creature across the room. It landed in the debris on the floor among the other sleeping members of its kind.

But they weren’t sleeping now. The baby rakosh’s screeching had awakened others in the vicinity. Like a wave spreading from a stone dropped in a still pool, the creatures began to rustle about him, the stirrings of one disturbing those around it, and so on.

Within minutes Jack found himself facing a sea of immature rakoshi. They couldn’t see him, but the little one’s alarm had alerted them to the presence of an intruder among them… an edible intruder. The rakoshi began milling about, searching. They moved toward where they had heard the sound—toward Jack. There must have been a hundred of them converging in his direction. Sooner or later they would stumble upon him. The second bomb was in his hand. He quickly armed it and slid it across the floor toward the wall of the hold, hoping the noise would distract them and give him time to get the flamethrower’s discharge tube into position.

It didn’t work. One of the smaller rakoshi blundered against his leg and squealed its discovery before biting into him. The rest took up the cry and surged toward him like a foul wave. They leaped at him, their razor-sharp teeth sinking into his thighs, his back, his flanks and arms, ripping, tearing at his flesh. He stumbled backwards, losing his balance, and as he began to go down beneath the furious onslaught he saw a full-grown rakosh, probably alerted by the cries of the young, enter the hold through the starboard passage and race toward him.

He was falling!

Once he was down on the floor he knew he’d be ripped to pieces in seconds. Fighting panic, he twisted around and pulled the discharge tube from under his arm. As he landed on his knees he pointed it away from him, found the rear grip, and pulled the trigger.

The world seemed to explode as a sheet of yellow flame fanned out from him. He twisted left, then right, spraying flaming napalm in a circle. Suddenly he was alone in that circle. He released the trigger.

He had forgotten to check the nozzle adjustment. Instead of a stream of flame, he had released a wide spray. No matter—it had been disturbingly effective. The rakoshi attacking him had either fled screaming or been immolated; those out of range howled and scattered in all directions. The adult had caught the spray over the entire front of its body. A living mass of flame, it lunged away and fled back into the connecting passage, the little ones running before it.

Groaning with the pain from countless lacerations, ignoring the blood that seeped from them, Jack struggled to his feet. He had no choice but to follow. The alarm had been raised. Ready or not, it was time to face Kusum.

31

Kusum quelled his frustration. The Ceremony of Offering was not going well. It was taking twice as long as usual. He needed the Mother here to lead her younglings.

Where was she?

The Westphalen child was quiet, her upper arm trapped in the grip of his right hand, her big frightened questioning eyes staring up at him. He could not meet the gaze of those eyes for long—they looked to him for succor and he had nothing to offer but death. She didn’t know what was going on between him and the rakoshi, did not comprehend the meaning of the ceremony in which the one about to die was offered up in the name of Kali on behalf of the beloved Ajit and Rupobati, dead since the last century.

Tonight was an especially important ceremony, for it was to be the last of its kind—forever. There would be no more Westphalens after tonight. Ajit and Rupobati would finally be avenged.

As the ceremony finally approached its climax, Kusum sensed a disturbance in the forward hold—the nursery, as it were—off to his right. He was glad to see one of the female rakoshi turn and go down the passage. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt the nearly stagnant flow of the ceremony at this point to send one of them to investigate.

He tightened his grip on the child’s arm as he raised his voice for the final invocation. It was almost over… almost over at last…

Suddenly the eyes of the rakoshi were no longer on him. They began to hiss and roar as their attention was drawn to his right. Kusum glanced over and watched in shock as a screaming horde of immature rakoshi poured into the hold from the nursery, followed by a fully grown rakosh, its body completely aflame. It tumbled in and collapsed on the floor near the elevator platform.

And behind it, striding down the dark passage like the avatar of a vengeful god, came Jack.

Kusum felt his world constrict around him, closing in on his throat, choking off his air.

Jack… here… alive! Impossible!

That could only mean that the Mother was dead! But how? How could a single puny human defeat the Mother? And how had Jack found him here? What sort of a man was this?

Or was he a man at all? He was more like an irresistible preternatural force. It was as if the gods had sent him to test Kusum.

The child began struggling in his grasp, screaming, “Jack! Jack!”

32

Jack froze in disbelief at the sound of that familiar little voice crying his name. And then he saw her.

“Vicky!”

She was alive! Still alive! Jack felt tears pushing at his eyes. For a second he could see only Vicky, then he saw that Kusum held her by the arm. As Jack moved forward, Kusum pulled the squirming child in front of him as a shield.

“Stay calm, Vicks!” he called to her. “I’ll get you home soon.”

And he would. He swore to the god he had long ago ceased to believe in that he would see Vicky to safety. If she had stayed alive this long, he would take her the rest of the way. If he couldn’t fix this, then all his years as Repairman Jack had been for nothing. There was no client here—this was for himself.

Jack glanced into the hold. The crowded rakoshi were oblivious to him; their only concern was the burning rakosh on the floor and their master on the platform. Jack returned his attention to Vicky. As he stepped out of the passage he failed to notice a rakosh pressed against the wall to his right until he brushed by him. The creature hissed and flailed out wildly with its talons. Jack ducked and fired the flamethrower in a wide arc, catching the outflung arm of the attacking rakosh and moving the stream out into the crowd.

Chaos was the result. The rakoshi panicked, clawing at each other to escape the fire and avoid those who were burning from it.

Jack heard Kusum’s voice shouting, “Stop it! Stop it or I’ll wring her neck!”

He looked up and saw Kusum with his hand around Vicky’s throat. Vicky’s face reddened and her eyes widened as he lifted her half a foot off the ground to demonstrate.

Jack released the trigger of the flamethrower. He now had a wide area of floor clear to him. Only one rakosh—one with a scarred and distorted lower lip—stayed near the platform. Black smoke rose from the prone forms of a dozen or so burning rakoshi. The air was getting thick.

“Treat her well,” Jack said in a tight voice as he backed against the wall. “She’s all that’s keeping you alive right now.”

“What is she to you?”

“I want her safe.”

“She is not of your flesh. She is just another member of a society that would exterminate you if it knew you existed, that rejects what you value most. And even this little one here will want you locked away once she is grown. We should not be at war, you and I. We are brothers, voluntary outcasts from the worlds in which we live. We are—”

“Cut the bullshit!” Jack said. “She’s mine. I want her!”

Kusum glowered at him. “How did you escape the Mother?”

“I didn’t escape her. She’s dead. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of her teeth in my pocket. Want them?”

Kusum’s face darkened. “Impossible! She—” His voice broke off as he stared at Jack. “That necklace!”

“Your sister’s.”

“You’ve killed her, then,” he said in a suddenly hushed voice.

“No. She’s fine.”

“She would never surrender it willingly!”

“She’s asleep—doesn’t know that I borrowed it for a while.”

Kusum barked out a laugh. “So! My whore of a sister will finally reap the rewards of her karma! And how fitting that you should be the instrument of her reckoning!”

Thinking Kusum was distracted, Jack took a step forward. The Indian immediately tightened his grip on Vicky’s throat. Through the tangle of her wet stringy hair, Jack saw her eyes wince shut in pain.

“No closer!”

The rakoshi stirred and edged nearer the platform at the sound of Kusum’s raised voice.

Jack stepped back. “Sooner or later you’re going to lose, Kusum. Give her up now.”

“Why should I lose? I have but to point out your location to the rakoshi and tell them that there stands the slayer of the Mother. The necklace would not protect you then. And though your flamethrower might kill dozens of them, in their frenzy for revenge they would tear you to pieces.”

Jack pointed to the bomb slung from his belt. “But what would you do about these?”

Kusum’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Incendiary devices. I’ve planted them all over the ship. AH timed to go off at three forty-five.” He looked at his watch. “It’s three o’clock now. Only forty-five minutes to go. How will you ever find them in time?”

“The child will die, too.”

Jack saw Vicky’s already terrified face blanch as she listened to them. She had to hear—there was no way of shielding her from the truth.

“Better that way than by what you’ve got planned for her.”

Kusum shrugged. “My rakoshi and I will merely swim ashore. Perhaps the child’s mother waits there. They ought to find her tasty.”

Jack masked his horror at the thought of Gia facing a horde of rakoshi emerging from the bay.

“That won’t save your ship. And it will leave your rakoshi without a home and out of your control.”

“So,” Kusum said after a pause. “A stalemate.”

“Right. But if you let the kid go, I’ll show you where the bombs are. Then I’ll take her home while you take off for India.” He didn’t want to let Kusum go—he had a score to settle with the Indian—but it was a price he was willing to pay to get Vicky back.

Kusum shook his head. “She’s a Westphalen… the last surviving Westphalen… and I cannot—”

“You’re wrong!” Jack cried, grasping at a thread of hope. “She’s not the last. Her father is in England! He’s…”

Kusum shook his head again. “I took care of him last year during my stay at the Consulate in London.”

Jack saw Vicky stiffen as her eyes widened.

“My daddy!”

“Hush, child,” Kusum said in an incongruously gentle tone. “He was not worthy of a single tear.” Then he raised his voice. “So it’s still a stalemate, Repairman Jack. But perhaps there is a way we can settle this honorably.”

“Honorably?” Jack felt his rage swell. “How much honor can I expect from a fallen… “—What was the word Kolabati had used?— “… a fallen Brahmachari?

“She told you of that?” Kusum said, his face darkening. “Did she also tell you who it was who seduced me into breaking my vow of chastity? Did she say who it was I bedded during those years when I polluted my karma to an almost irredeemable level? No—of course she wouldn’t. It was Kolabati herself—my own sister!”

Jack was stunned. “You’re lying!”

“Would that I were,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “It seemed so right at the time. After nearly a century of living, my sister seemed to be the only person on earth worth knowing… certainly the only one left with whom I had anything in common.”

“You’re crazier than I thought you were!” Jack said.

Kusum smiled sadly. “Ah! Something else my dear sister neglected to mention. She probably told you our parents were killed in 1948 in a train wreck during the chaos following the end of British colonial rule. It’s a good story—we cooked it up together. But it’s a lie. I was born in 1846. Yes, I said 7546. Bati was born in 1850. Our parents, whose names adorn the stern of this ship, were killed by Sir Albert Westphalen and his men when they raided the temple of Kali in the hills of northwestern Bengal in 1857. I nearly killed Westphalen then myself, but he was bigger and stronger than the puny eleven-year-old boy I was, and nearly severed my left arm from my body. Only the necklace saved me.”

Jack’s mouth had gone dry while Kusum spoke. The man spoke his madness so casually, so matter-of-factly, with the utter conviction of truth. No doubt because he believed it was truth. What an intricate web of madness he had woven for himself.

“The necklace?” Jack said.

He had to keep him talking. Perhaps he would find an opening, a chance to get Vicky free of his grasp. But he had to keep the rakoshi in mind, too—they kept drawing closer by imperceptible degrees.

“It does more than hide one from rakoshi. It heals… and preserves. It slows aging. It does not make one invulnerable —Westphalen’s men put bullets through my parents’ hearts while they were wearing their necklaces and left them just as dead as they would have been without them. But the necklace I wear, the one I removed from my father’s corpse after I vowed to avenge him, helped mend my wound. I lost my arm, true, but without the aid of the necklace I would have died. Look at your own wounds. You’ve been injured before, I am sure. Do they hurt as much as you would expect? Do they bleed as much as they should?”

Warily, Jack glanced down at his arms and legs. They were bloody and they hurt—but nowhere near as much as they should have. And then he remembered how his back and left shoulder had started feeling better soon after he had put on the necklace. He hadn’t made the connection until now.

“You now wear one of the two existing necklaces of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. While you wear it, it heals you and slows your aging to a crawl. But take it off, and all those years come tumbling back upon you.”

Jack leaped upon an inconsistency. “You said ’two existing necklaces.’ What about your grandmother’s? The one I returned?”

Kusum laughed. “Haven’t you guessed yet? There is no grandmother! That was Kolabati herself! She was the assault victim! She had been following me to learn where I went at night and got—How do you Americans so eloquently put it?—’Rolled.’ She ’got rolled’ in the process. That old woman you saw in the hospital was Kolabati, dying of old age without her necklace. Once it was replaced about her neck, she quickly returned to the same state of youth she was in when the necklace was stolen from her.” He laughed again. “Even as we speak, she grows older and uglier and more feeble by the minute!”

Jack’s mind whirled. He tried to ignore what he had been told. It couldn’t be true. Kusum was simply trying to distract him, confuse him, and he couldn’t allow that. He had to concentrate on Vicky and on getting her to safety. She was looking at him with those big blue eyes of hers, begging him to get her out of here.

“You’re only wasting time, Kusum. Those bombs go off in twenty-five minutes.”

“True,” the Indian said. “And I too grow older with every minute.”

Jack noticed then that Kusum’s throat was bare. He did look considerably older than Jack remembered him. “Your necklace…?”

“I take it off when I address them,” he said, gesturing to the rakoshi. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see their master.”

“You mean ’father,’ don’t you? Kolabati told me what kaka-ji means.”

Kusum’s gaze faltered, and for an instant Jack thought this might be his chance. But then it leveled at him again. “What one had once thought unspeakable becomes a duty when the Goddess commands.”

“Give me the child!” Jack shouted. This was getting him nowhere. And time was passing on those bomb timers. He could almost hear them ticking away.

“You’ll have to earn her, Repairman Jack. A trial by combat… hand-to-hand combat. I shall prove to you that a rapidly aging, one-armed Bengali is more than a match for a two-armed American.”

Jack stared at him in mute disbelief.

“I’m quite serious,” Kusum continued. “You’ve defiled my sister, invaded my ship, killed my rakoshi. I demand a contest. No weapons—man to man. With the child as prize.”

Trial by combat! It was insane! This man was living in the dark ages. How could Jack face Kusum and risk losing the contest—he remembered what one of the Indian’s kicks had done to the door in the pilot’s quarters—when Vicky’s life rode on the outcome? And yet how could he refuse? At least Vicky had a chance if he accepted Kusum’s challenge. Jack saw no hope at all for her if he refused.

“You’re no match for me,” he told Kusum. “It wouldn’t be fair. And besides, we don’t have time.”

“The fairness is my concern. And do not worry about the time—it will be a brief contest. Do you accept?”

Jack studied him. Kusum was very confident—sure, no doubt, that Jack was ignorant of the fact that he fought savate-style. He probably figured a kick to the solar plexus, a kick to the face, and it would be all over. Jack could take advantage of that over-confidence.

“Let me get this straight: If I win, Vicky and I can leave unmolested. And if I lose… ?”

“If you lose, you agree to disarm all the bombs you have set and leave the child with me.”

Insane… yet as much as he loathed to admit it, the idea of hand-to-hand combat with Kusum held a certain perverse appeal. Jack could not still the thrill of anticipation that leaped through him. He wanted to get his hands on this man, wanted to hurt him, damage him. A bullet, a flamethrower, even a knife—all were much too impersonal to repay Kusum for the horrors he had put Vicky through.

“All right,” he said in as close to a normal voice as he could manage. “But how do I know you won’t sic your pets on me if I win—or as soon as I take this off?” he said, pointing to the flamethrower tanks on his back.

“That would be dishonorable,” Kusum said with a frown. “You insult me by even suggesting it. But to ease your suspicions, we will fight on this platform after it has been raised beyond the reach of the rakoshi.”

Jack could think of no more objections. He lowered the discharge tube and stepped toward the platform.

Kusum smiled the smile of a cat who has just seen a mouse walk into its dinner dish.

“Vicky stays on the platform with us, right?” Jack said, loosening the straps on his harness.

“Of course. And to show my good will, I’ll even let her hold onto my necklace during the contest.” He shifted his grip from Vicky’s throat to her arm. “It’s there on the floor, child. Pick it up.”

Hesitantly, Vicky stretched out and picked up the necklace. She held it as if it were a snake.

“I don’t want this!” she wailed.

“Just hold onto it, Vicks,” Jack told her. “It’ll protect you.”

Kusum started to pull her back toward him. As he went to return his grip from her arm to her throat, Vicky moved— without warning she cried out and lunged away from him. Kusum snatched for her but she had fear and desperation as allies. Five frantic steps, a flying leap, and she crashed against Jack’s chest, clutching at him, screaming:

“Don’t let him get me, Jack! Don’t let him! Don’t let him!”

Got her!

Jack’s vision blurred and his voice became lost in the surge of emotion that filled him as he held Vicky’s trembling little body against him. He couldn’t think—so he reacted. In a single move he raised the discharge tube with his right hand and swung his left arm around behind Vicky to grasp the forward grip, holding her to him while he steadied the tube. He pointed it directly at Kusum.

“Give her back!” Kusum shouted, rushing to the edge of the platform. His sudden movement and raised voice caused the rakoshi to shift, murmur, and edge forward. “She’s mine!”

“No way,” Jack said softly, finding his voice again as he squeezed Vicky closer. “You’re safe, Vicks.”

He had her now and no one was going to take her away. No one. He began to back toward the forward hold.

“Stay where you are!” Kusum roared. Spittle flecked his lips—he was so enraged he was actually beginning to foam at the mouth. “One more step and I’ll tell them where you are. As I said before, they’ll tear you to pieces. Now—come up here and face me as we agreed.”

Jack shook his head. “I had nothing to lose then. Now I’ve got Vicky.” Agreement or not, he was not going to let her go.

“Have you no honor? You agreed!”

“I lied,” Jack said, and pulled the trigger.

The stream of napalm hit Kusum squarely in the chest, spreading over him, engulfing him in flame. He released a long, high, hoarse scream and reached his arm out toward Jack and Vicky as his fiery body went rigid. Twisting, writhing convulsively, his features masked in flame, he stumbled forward off the platform, still reaching for them, his obsession with ending the Westphalen line driving him on even in the midst of his death agony. Jack held Vicky’s face into his shoulder so she would not see, and was about to give Kusum another blast when he veered off to the side, spinning and whirling in a flaming dance, finally falling dead in front of his rakoshi horde, burning… burning…

The rakoshi went mad.

If Jack had looked upon the hold as a suburb of hell before, it became one of the inner circles upon the death of the Kaka-ji. The rakoshi exploded into frenzied movement, leaping into the air, clawing, tearing at each other. They could not find Jack and Vicky, so they turned on each other. It was as if all of hell’s demons had decided to riot. All except one—

The rakosh with the scarred lip remained aloof from the carnage. It stared in their direction as if sensing their presence there, even though it could not see them.

As the struggles of the creatures brought groups of them near, Jack began retreating down the passageway through which he had come, back to the forward hold. A trio of rakoshi, locked in combat, black blood gushing from their wounds, blundered into the passage. Jack sprayed them with the flamethrower, sending them reeling away, then turned and ran.

Before entering the forward hold, he directed a tight stream of flaming napalm ahead of him—first high to drive away any rakoshi that might be lurking outside the end of the passage, then low along the floor to clear the small ones from his path. Putting his head down he charged through the hold along the flaming strip, feeling like a jet cruising along an illuminated runway. At its end he leaped up on the platform and stabbed the UP button.

As the elevator began to rise, Jack tried to put Vicky down on the planking but she wouldn’t let go. Her hands were locked onto the fabric of his shirt in a death grip. He was weak and exhausted, but he would carry her the rest of the way if that was what she needed. With his free hand he reached into the crate and armed and set the rest of the bombs for three forty-five—less than twenty minutes away.

Rakoshi began to pour into the forward hold through both the port and starboard entries. When they saw the platform rising, they charged it.

“They’re coming for me, Jack!” Vicky screamed. “Don’t let them get me!”

“Everything’s okay, Vicks,” he said as soothingly as he could.

He sent out a fiery stream that caught a dozen of the creatures in the front rank, and kept the rest of them at bay with well-placed bursts of flame.

When the elevator platform was finally out of range of a rakosh leap, Jack allowed himself to relax. He dropped to his knees and waited for the platform to reach the top.

Suddenly a rakosh broke free from the crowd and hurtled forward. Startled, Jack rose up and pointed the discharge tube in its direction.

“That’s the one that brought me here!” Vicky cried.

Jack recognized the rakosh: It was Scar-lip, making a last-ditch effort to get at Vicky. Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger, then he saw that it was going to fall short. Its talons narrowly missed the platform but must have caught onto the undercarriage, for the elevator lurched and screeched on its tracks, then continued to rise. Jack didn’t know if the rakosh was clinging to the undercarriage or whether it had fallen off into the elevator well below. He wasn’t about to peer over the edge to find out—he might lose his face if the rakosh was hanging there.

He carried Vicky to the rear corner of the platform and waited there with the discharge tube trained on the edge of the platform. If the rakosh showed its face he’d burn its head off.

But it didn’t appear. And when the elevator stopped at the top of its track, Jack pulled Vicky’s hands free to allow her to go up the ladder ahead of him. As they separated, something fell out of the folds of her damp nightgown—Kusum’s necklace.

“Here, Vicks,” he said, reaching to clasp it around her neck. “Wear this. It’ll—”

“No!” she cried in a shrill voice, pushing his hands away. “I don’t like it.”

“Please, Vicks. Look—I’m wearing one.”

“No!”

She started up the ladder. Jack stuffed the necklace into his pocket and watched her go, continually glancing toward the edge of the platform. The poor kid was frightened of everything now—almost as frightened of the necklace as she was of the rakoshi. He wondered if she’d ever get over this.

Jack waited until Vicky had climbed through the little entry hatch, then he followed, keeping his eyes on the edge of the platform until he reached the top of the ladder. Quickly, almost frantically, he squeezed through into the salty night air.

Vicky grabbed his hand. “Where do we go now, Jack? I can’t swim!”

“You don’t have to, Vicks,” he whispered. Why am I whispering? “I brought us a boat!”

He led her by the hand along the starboard gunwale to the gangway. When she saw the rubber raft below, she needed no further guidance—she let go of his hand and hurried down the steps. Jack glanced back over the deck and froze. He had caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye—a shadow had moved near the kingpost standing between the two holds. Or had it? His nerves were frayed to the breaking point. He was ready to see a rakosh in every shadow.

He followed Vicky down the steps. When he reached bottom, he turned and sprayed the gangway with flame from the halfway point to the top, then arced the stream over the gunwale onto the deck. He kept the flame flowing, swinging it back and forth until the discharge tube coughed and jerked in his hands. The flamed sputtered and died. The napalm tank was empty. Only carbon dioxide hissed through the tube. He finished loosening the harness, a job he had begun in the aft hold, and shrugged off the tanks and their appendages, dropping them on the last step of the burning gangway. Better to let it go up with the ship than be found floating in the bay. Then he untied the nylon hawser and pushed off.

Made it!

A wonderful feeling—he and Vicky were alive and off the freighter. And only moments ago he had been ready to give up hope. But they weren’t safe yet. They had to be far from the ship, preferably on shore, when those bombs went off.

The oars were still in their locks. Jack grabbed them and began to row, watching the freighter recede into the dark. Manhattan was behind him, drawing nearer with every stroke. Gia and Abe would not be visible for a while yet. Vicky crouched in the stern of the raft, her head swiveling between the freighter and land. It was going to be so good to reunite her with Gia.

Jack rowed harder. The effort caused him pain, but surprisingly little. He should have been in agony from the deep wound behind his left shoulder, from the innumerable lacerations all over his body, and from the avulsions where the skin had simply been torn away by the teeth of the savage little rakoshi. He felt weak from fatigue and blood loss, but he should have lost more—he should have been in near shock from the blood he had lost. The necklace truly seemed to have healing powers.

But could it really keep you young? And let you grow old if it was removed? That could be why Kolabati had refused to lend it to him when they were trapped in the pilot’s cabin earlier tonight. Was it possible that Kolabati was slowly turning into an old hag back in his apartment right now? He remembered how Ron Daniels, the mugger, had sworn he hadn’t rolled an old lady the night before. Perhaps that explained much of Kolabati’s passion for him: It wasn’t her grandmother’s necklace he had returned—it was Kolabati’s! It seemed too incredible to believe… but he’d said that before.

They were halfway to shore. He took a hand off an oar to reach up and touch the necklace. It might not be a bad thing to keep around. You never knew when you might—There was a splash over by the freighter.

“What was that?” Jack asked Vicky. “Did you see anything?”

He could see her shake her head in the darkness. “Maybe it was a fish.”

“Maybe.” Jack didn’t know of any fish in Upper New York Bay big enough to make a splash like that. Maybe the flamethrower had fallen off the gangway. That would explain the splash nicely. But try as he might, Jack could not entirely buy that.

A cold clump of dread sprang up between his shoulders and began to spread. He rowed even harder.

33

Gia couldn’t keep her hands still. They seemed to move of their own accord, clasping together and unclasping, clenching and unclenching, running over her face, hugging her, climbing in and out of her pockets. She was certain she would go stark raving mad if something didn’t happen soon. Jack had been gone forever. How long did they expect her to stand around and do nothing while Vicky was missing?

She had worn a path in the sand along the bulkhead from pacing up and down; now she just stood and stared out at the freighter. It had been a shadow all along, but a few moments ago it had begun to burn—or at least part of it had. A line of flame had zig-zagged along the hull from the deck level almost down to the water. Abe had said it looked like Jack’s flamethrower at work but he didn’t know what he was up to. Through the binoculars it looked like a burning gangway and the best he could guess was that Jack was in effect burning a bridge behind him.

And so she waited, more anxious than ever, waiting to see if Jack was bringing back her Vicky. Suddenly she saw it—a spot of yellow on the surface, the rhythmic glint of oars moving in and out of the water.

“Jack!” she called, knowing her voice probably wouldn’t carry the distance but unable to contain herself any longer. “Did you find her?”

And then it came, that dear squeaky little voice she loved so:

“Mommy! Mommy!”

Joy and relief exploded within her. She burst into tears and stepped to the edge of the bulkhead, ready to leap in. But Abe grabbed her.

“You’ll only slow them up,” he said, pulling her back. “He’s got her and he’ll get her here faster if you stay where you are.”

Gia could barely control herself. Hearing Vicky’s voice was not enough. She had to hold her little girl and touch her and hug her before she could truly believe she had her back. But Abe was right—she had to wait where she was.

Movement of Abe’s arm across his face drew her attention away from the water for an instant. He was wiping tears away. Gia threw an arm around his waist and hugged him.

“Just the wind,” he said, sniffing. “My eyes have always been sensitive to it.”

Gia nodded and returned her attention to the water. It was as smooth as glass. Not the slightest breeze. The raft was making good speed.

Hurry, Jack… I want my Vicky back!

In moments the raft was close enough for her to see Vicky crouched on the far side of Jack, smiling, waving over his shoulder as he rowed, and then the raft was nosing against the bulkhead and Jack was handing Vicky up to her.

Gia clasped Vicky against her. She was real! Yes, it was Vicky, truly Vicky! Euphoric with relief, she spun her around and around, kissing her, squeezing, promising never to let her go ever again.

“I can’t breathe, Mommy!”

Gia loosened her grip a fraction, but could not let go. Not yet.

Vicky started blabbering in her ear. “A monster stole me from the bedroom, Mom! It jumped in the river with me and… “

Vicky’s words faded away. A monster… then Jack wasn’t crazy. She looked over to where he stood on the bulkhead next to Abe, smiling at her and Vicky when he wasn’t glancing over his shoulder at the water. He looked awful—torn clothes, blood all over him. But he looked proud, too.

“I’ll never forget this, Jack,” she said, her heart ready to burst with gratitude.

“I didn’t do it just for you,” he replied, and glanced back at the water again. What was he looking for? “You’re not the only one who loves her, you know.”

“I know.”

He seemed ill at ease. He glanced at his watch.

“Let’s get out of here, okay? I don’t want to be caught standing around when that ship goes up. I want to be in the truck and ready to roll.”

“Goes up?” Gia didn’t understand.

“Kabloom! I placed a dozen incendiary bombs throughout the ship—set to go in about five minutes. Take Vicks up to the truck and we’ll be right there.” He and Abe started pulling the raft out of the water.

Gia was opening the door to the panel truck when she heard a loud splash and shouting behind her. She glanced up over the hood and froze in horror at the sight of a dark, dripping, glistening form rising out of the bay. It leaped up on the bulkhead, knocking into Jack and sending him sprawling head first into the sand—it was as if it hadn’t even known Jack was there. She heard Abe shout “Good lord!” as he lifted the raft and shoved it at the creature, but a single swipe of its talons ripped it open. The raft deflated with a whoosh, leaving Abe holding forty pounds of yellow vinyl.

It was one of those rakoshi Jack had told them about. It had to be—there could be no other explanation.

Vicky screamed and buried her face in Gia’s neck. “That’s the monster that took me, Mommy! Don’t let it get me!”

The thing was moving toward Abe, towering over him. Abe hurled what was left of the raft at it and backed away. Seemingly from nowhere, a pistol appeared in his hand and he began firing, the noise from the pistol sounding more like pops than shots. Abe fired six times at point blank range, backpedaling all the time. He might as well have been firing blanks for all the notice the thing took of the bullets. Gia gasped as she saw Abe’s foot catch on the edge of the bulkhead. He flung out his arms, waving them for balance, looking like an overfed goose trying to fly, and then he fell into the water, disappearing from sight.

The rakosh lost interest in him immediately and turned toward Gia and Vicky. With uncanny accuracy, its eyes focused on them. It rushed forward.

“It’s coming for me again, Mommy!”

Behind the rakosh, Gia had an instant’s view of Jack rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. He was shaking his head and looking around as if unsure of where he was. Then she pushed Vicky into the cab of the truck and climbed in after her. She crawled over to the driver’s seat and started the engine, but before she could put it into gear, the rakosh reached the truck.

Gia’s screams joined Vicky’s as it drove its talons through the metal of the hood and pulled itself up in front of the windshield. In pure desperation she threw the truck into reverse and floored the accelerator. Amid plumes of flying sand, the truck lurched backward, nearly dislodging the rakosh…

… but not quite. It regained its balance and smashed one of its hands through the windshield, reaching for Vicky through the cascade of bright fragments. Gia lunged to her right to cover Vicky’s body with her own. The truck stalled and lurched to a stop. She waited for the talons to tear into her back, but the pain never came. Instead she heard a sound, a cry that was human and yet unlike any sound she had ever heard or wanted to hear from a human throat.

She looked up. The rakosh was still on the hood of the truck, but it was no longer reaching for Vicky. It had withdrawn its hand from the cab and was now trying to dislodge the apparition that clung to its back.

It was Jack. And it was from his wide open mouth that that sound originated. She caught a glimpse of his face above and behind the rakosh’s head—so distorted by fury as to verge on the maniacal. She could see the cords standing out in his neck as he reached around the rakosh and clawed at its eyes. The creature twisted back and forth but could not dislodge Jack. Finally it reached back and tore him free, blindly slashing at his chest as it hurled him out of her field of vision.

“Jack!” Gia cried, feeling his pain, realizing that in a few heartbeats she would know it herself, first hand. There was no hope, no way of stopping this thing.

But maybe she could outrun it. She twisted the door handle and crawled out, pulling Vicky after her. The rakosh saw her and climbed up on the roof of the truck. With Vicky clinging to her, Gia began to run, her shoes slipping, dragging, filling with sand. She glanced over her shoulder as she kicked them off and saw the rakosh crouch to leap at her.

And then night turned to day.

The flash preceded the thunder of the explosion. The poised rakosh was silhouetted in the white light that blotted out the stars. Then came the blast. The rakosh turned around and Gia knew she had been given a chance. She ran on.

34

The pain was three glowing, red hot irons laid across his chest.

Jack had rolled onto his side and was just pushing himself up to a sitting position on the sand when the first explosion came. He saw the rakosh turn toward the flash from the ship, saw Gia start to run.

The stern of the freighter had dissolved into a ball of orange flame as the fuel tanks exploded, quickly followed by a white-hot flash from the forward section—the remaining incendiary bombs going off all at once. Smoke, fire, and debris hurtled skyward from the cracked and listing hull of what had once been the Ajit-Rupobati. Jack knew nothing could survive that inferno. Nothing!

The rakoshi were gone, extinct but for one. And that one threatened two of the beings Jack valued most in this world. He had gone berserk when he had seen it reaching through the windshield of the truck for Vicky. It must have been following a command given to it earlier tonight to bring in the one who had drunk the elixir. Vicky was that one—the rakoshi elixir that had been in the orange was still in her system and this rakosh was taking its mission very seriously. Despite the death of its Kaka-ji, despite the absence of the Mother, it intended to return Vicky to the freighter.

Splashing noises to his left… down by the bulkhead Jack saw Abe pulling himself out of the water and onto the sand. Abe’s face was white as he stared up at the rakosh atop the truck. He was seeing something that had no right to exist and he looked dazed. He would be no help.

Gia could not outrun the rakosh, especially not with Vicky in her arms. Jack had to do something—but what? Never before had he felt so helpless, so impotent! He had always been able to make a difference, but not now. He was spent. He knew of no way to stop that thing standing atop Abe’s truck. In a moment it would turn and run after Gia… and there was nothing he could do about it.

He rose to his knees and groaned with the pain of his latest wounds. Three deep lacerations ran diagonally across his chest and upper abdomen from where the rakosh had slashed him with its talons. The torn front of his shirt was soaked with blood. With a desperate surge of effort, he gained his feet, ready to place himself between Gia and the rakosh. He knew he couldn’t stop it, but maybe he could slow it down.

The rakosh leaped off the truck… but not after Gia and Vicky, and not toward Abe. It ran to the bulkhead and stood there staring out at the flaming wreckage of its nest. Shards of metal and flaming wood began to pepper the surface of the bay as they returned from the sky, hissing and steaming as they splashed into the water.

As Jack watched, it threw back its head and let loose an unearthly howl, so lost and mournful that Jack almost felt sorry for it. Its family, its world had gone up with the freighter. All points of reference, all that was meaningful in its life—gone. It howled once more, then dove into the water. Powerful strokes propelled it out into the bay, directly toward the pool of flaming oil. Like a loyal Indian wife throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, it headed toward Kusum’s sunken iron tomb.

Gia had turned and was hurrying toward him with Vicky in her arms. Abe, too, wet and dripping, was walking his way.

“My grandmother used to try to scare me with stories of dybbuks,” Abe said breathlessly. “Now I’ve seen one.”

“Are the monsters gone?” Vicky kept saying, her head continually rotating back and forth as she stared into the long shadows thrown by the fire on the bay. “Are the monsters really gone?”

“Is it over?” Gia asked.

“I think so. I hope so.” He had been facing away from her. He turned as he answered and she gasped when she saw his front.

“Jack! Your chest!”

He pulled the shreds of his shirt closed over his ripped flesh. The bleeding had stopped and the pain was receding… due to the necklace, he guessed.

“It’s all right. Scratches. Look a lot worse than they are.” He heard sirens begin to wail. “If we don’t pack this stuff up and get out of here soon, we’re going to have to answer a lot of questions.”

Together, he and Abe dragged the slashed and deflated raft to the truck and threw it into the back, then they framed Gia and Vicky in the front seat, but this time Abe took the wheel. He knocked out the remains of the shattered windshield with the flat of his palm and started the engine. The sand was packed around the rear wheels but Abe skillfully rocked it out and drove through the gate Jack had rammed open earlier.

“A miracle if we make it uptown without getting pulled over for this windshield.”

“Blame it on vandals,” Jack told him. He turned to Vicky, who lay curled up agianst her mother, and ran his forefinger along her arm.

“You’re safe now, Vicks.”

“Yes, she is,” Gia said with a small smile as she laid her cheek against the top of Vicky’s head. “Thank you, Jack.”

Jack saw that the child was sleeping. “It’s what I do.”

Gia said nothing. Instead, she slipped her free hand into his. Jack looked into her eyes and saw there was no longer any fear there. It was a look he had longed to see. The sight of Vicky sleeping peacefully made all the pain and horror worthwhile; the look in Gia’s eyes was a bonus.

She leaned her head back and closed those eyes. “Is it really over?”

“For you, it is. For me… there’s one loose end left.”

“The woman,” Gia said. It wasn’t a question.

Jack nodded, thinking about Kolabati sitting in his apartment, and about what might be happening to her. He reached across Gia to get Abe’s attention.

“Drop me off at my place first, will you, Abe? Then take Gia home.”

“You can’t take care of those wounds by yourself!” she said. “You need a doctor.”

“Doctors ask too many questions.”

“Then come home with me. Let me clean you up.”

“It’s a deal. I’ll be over as soon as I finish at my place.”

Gia’s eyes narrowed. “What’s so important that you have to see her so soon?”

“I’ve got some personal property of hers”—he tapped the necklace around his throat—”that has to be returned.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“Afraid not. I borrowed it without telling her, and I’ve been told she really needs it.”

Gia said nothing.

“I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

By way of reply, Gia turned her face into the wind coming through the glassless front of the truck and stared stonily ahead.

Jack sighed. How could he explain to her that “the woman” might be aging years by the hour, might be a drooling senile wreck by now? How could he convince Gia when he couldn’t quite convince himself?

The rest of the trip passed in silence. Abe wended his way over to Hudson Street and turned uptown to Eighth Avenue, which took him to Central Park West. They saw a few police cars, but none was close enough to notice the missing windshield.

“Thanks for everything, Abe,” Jack said as the truck pulled up in front of the brownstone.

“Want me to wait?”

“This may take a while. Thanks again. I’ll settle up with you in the morning.”

“I’ll have the bill ready.”

Jack kissed the sleeping Vicky on the head and slid out of the seat. He was stiff and sore.

“Are you coming over?” Gia asked, finally looking at him.

“As soon as I can,” he said, glad the invitation was still open. “If you still want me to.”

“I want you to.”

“Then I’ll be there. Within an hour. I promise.”

“You’ll be okay?”

He was grateful for her worried expression.

“Sure.”

He slammed the door and watched them drive off. Then he began the long climb up to the third floor. When he reached his door, key in hand, he hesitated. A chill crept over him. What was on the other side? What he wanted to find was an empty front room and a young Kolabati asleep in his bed. He would deposit both necklaces on the nightstand, where she would find them in the morning, then he would leave for Gia’s place. That would be the easy way. Kolabati would know her brother was dead without his actually having to tell her. Hopefully, she would be gone when he got back.

Let’s make this easy, he thought. Let something be easy tonight!

He opened the door and stepped into the front room. It was dark. Even the kitchen light was out. The only illumination was the weak glow leaking down the hall from his bedroom. All he could hear was breathing—rapid, ragged, rattly. It came from the couch. He stepped toward it.

“Kolabati?”

There came a gasp, a cough, and a groan. Someone rose from the couch. Framed in the light from the hall was a wizened, spindly figure with high thin shoulders and a kyphotic spine. It stepped toward him. Jack sensed rather than saw an outstretched hand.

“Give it to me!” The voice was little more than a faint rasp, a snake sliding through dry straw. “Give it back to me!”

But the cadence and pronunciation were unmistakable—it was Kolabati.

Jack tried to speak and found his throat locked. With shaking hands he reached around to the back of his neck and removed the necklace. He then pulled Kusum’s from his pocket.

“Returning it with interest,” he managed to say as he dropped both necklaces into the extended palm, avoiding contact with the skin.

Kolabati either did not realize or did not care that she now possessed both necklaces. She made a slow, tottering turn and hobbled off toward the bedroom. For an instant she was caught in the light from the hall. Jack turned away at the sight of her shrunken body, her stooped shoulders and arthritic joints. Kolabati was an ancient hag. She turned the corner and Jack was alone in the room.

A great lethargy seeped over him. He went over to the chair by the front window that looked out onto the street and sat down.

It’s over. Finally over.

Kusum was gone. The rakoshi were gone. Vicky was home safe. Kolabati was turning young again in the bedroom. He found himself possessed by an insistent urge to sneak down the hall and find out what was happening to Kolabati… to watch her actually grow young. Maybe then he could believe in magic.

Magic… after all he had seen, all he had been through, he still found it difficult to believe in magic’ Magic didn’t make sense. Magic didn’t follow the rules. Magic…

What was the use? He couldn’t explain the necklaces or the rakoshi. Call them unknowns. Leave it at that.

But still—to actually watch it happening…

He went to stand up and found he couldn’t. He was too weak. He slumped back and closed his eyes. Sleepy…

A sound behind him startled him to alertness. He opened his eyes and realized that he must have dozed off. The hazy skim-milk light of predawn filled the sky. He must have been out for at least an hour. Someone was approaching from the rear. Jack tried to turn to see who it was but found he could only move his head. His shoulders were fixed to the wing back of the chair… so weak…

“Jack?” It was Kolabati’s voice—the Kolabati he knew. The young Kolabati. “Jack, are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said. Even his voice was weak.

She came around the chair and looked down at him. Her necklace was back on around her neck. She hadn’t got all the way back to the thirty-year-old he had known, but she was close. He put her age at somewhere around forty-five now.

“No, you’re not! There’s blood all over the chair and the floor!”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Here.” She produced the second necklace—Kusum’s. “Let me put this on you. “

“No!” He didn’t want anything to do with Kusum’s necklace. Or hers.

“Don’t be an idiot! It will strengthen you until you can get to a hospital. All your wounds started bleeding again as soon as you took it off.”

She reached to place it around his neck but he twisted his head to block her.

“Don’t want it!”

“You’re going to die without it, Jack!”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll heal up—with out magic. So please go. Just go.”

Her eyes looked sad. “You mean that?”

He nodded.

“We could each have our own necklace. We could have long lives, the two of us. We wouldn’t be immortal, but we could live on and on. No sickness, little pain—”

You’re a cold one, Kolabati.

Not a thought for her brother—Is he dead? How did he die? Jack could not help but remember how she had told him to get hold of Kusum’s necklace and bring it back, saying that without it he would lose control of the rakoshi. That had been the truth in a way—Kusum would no longer have control of the rakoshi because he would die without the necklace. When he contrasted that against Kusum’s frantic efforts to find her necklace after she had been mugged, Kolabati came up short. She did not know a debt when she incurred one. She spoke of honor but she had none. Mad as he had been, Kusum was ten times the human being she was.

But he couldn’t explain all this to her now. He didn’t have the strength. And she probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Please go.”

She snatched the necklace away and held it up. “Very well! I thought you were a man worthy of this, a man willing to stretch his life to the limit and live it to the fullest, but I see I was wrong! So sit there in your pool of blood and fade away if that’s what you wish! I have no use for your kind! I never have! I wash my hands of you!”

She tucked the extra necklace into a fold in her sari and strode by him. He heard the apartment door slam and knew he was alone.

Hell hath no fury…

Jack tried to straighten himself in the chair. The attempt flashed pain through every inch of his body; the minor effort left his heart pounding and his breath rasping.

Am I dying?

That thought would have brought on a panic response at any other time, but at the moment his brain seemed as unresponsive as his body. Why hadn’t he accepted Kolabati’s help, even for a short while? Why had he refused? Some sort of grand gesture? What was he trying to prove, sitting here and oozing blood, ruining the carpet as well as the chair? He wasn’t thinking clearly.

It was cold in here—a clammy cold that sank to the bones. He ignored it and thought about the night. He had done good work tonight… probably saved the entire subcontinent of India from a nightmare. Not that he cared much about India. Gia and Vicky were the ones that mattered. He had—

The phone rang.

There was no possibility of his answering it.

Who was it—Gia? Maybe. Maybe she was wondering where he was. He hoped so. Maybe she’d come looking for him. Maybe she’d even get here in time. Again, he hoped so. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to spend a lot of time with Gia and Vicky. And he wanted to remember tonight. He had made a difference tonight. He had been the deciding factor. He could be proud of that. Even Dad would be proud… if only he could tell him.

He closed his eyes—it was getting to be too much of an effort to keep them open—and waited.

PRAISE FOR THE ADVERSARY CYCLE

“[Not] a horror novel in the usual sense, and variations on this idea have been used before, but rarely with the skill and entertainment value of this fine novel.”

—San Francisco Chronicle on The Touch

“This accomplished thriller, the first in a projected trilogy, is a page-turner—fast-paced, violent, provocative.”

—Publishers Weekly on Reborn

“Very unsettling…scary…one of Wilson’s best.”

—San Francisco Chronicle on Reprisal

“First-class horror novel…Wilson’s most gripping yet, with his strongest characterizations.”

—Kirkus Reviews on Reprisal

“[A] strong sequel to Reborn and Reprisal…Wilson has written a terrifying horror that is also a solid old-fashioned morality tale.”

—Publishers Weekly on Nightworld

“Part horror, part adventure, Nightworld is a thrilling and worthy successor to Wilson’s earlier works…. Horror and fantasy fans will enjoy this one.”

—Library Journal on Nightworld

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

Repairman Jack Novels

The Tomb

Legacies

Conspiracies

All the Rage

Hosts

The Haunted Air

Gateways

Crisscross

Infernal

Harbingers

Bloodline

By the Sword

Jack: Secret Histories

The Adversary Cycle

The Keep

The Tomb

The Touch

Reborn

Reprisal

Nightworld

Other Novels

Healer

Wheels Within Wheels

An Enemy of the State

Black Wind

Dydeetown World

The Tery

Sibs

The Select

Implant

Deep as the Marrow

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Christmas Thingy

Sims

The Fifth Harmonic

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft & Others

The Barrens & Others

Aftershock & Others

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis: Terminal

THE TOUCH

F. Paul Wilson

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

New York

For Peter and Lu

Acknowledgments

The following individuals, all with doctorates in various fields, helped with the writing of this book in ways great and small in matters related and unrelated to their fields of expertise.

John DePalma, D.O.

Anthony Lombardino, M.D.

Martin Seidenstein, M.D.

Nancy Spruill, Ph.D.

Steven Spruill, Ph.D.

Albert Zuckerman, D.F.A.

Contents

APRIL

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

MAY

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

JUNE

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

JULY

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

AUGUST

Chapter 52

Afterword

Foreword

DAT-TAY-VAO

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

APRIL

Dr. Alan Bulmer

“Can you feel this?”

Alan gently pricked the skin of her right leg with a needle. Fear glittered in the woman’s moist eyes as she shook her head.

“Ohmygod, she can’t feel it!”

Alan turned to the daughter. Her face was the same shade of off-white as the curtains surrounding and isolating them from the rest of the emergency room.

“Would you wait outside for just a minute, please.” He made sure his tone would indicate that he was not making a request.

The daughter found the slit in the curtains and disappeared.

Alan turned back to the mother and studied her as she lay on the gurney in the fluorescent-lit limbo, letting his mind page through what he remembered of Helen Jonas. Not much. Borderline diabetes and mild essential hypertension. She hadn’t been to the office for two years, and on that occasion had been dragged in by her daughter. Then, half an hour ago, Alan had been sitting at home reading a journal when a call came from the emergency room that one of his patients had arrived, unable to walk or talk.

He’d made his diagnosis within minutes of seeing her, but followed through with the rest of the examination. He moved the needle to the back of Helen’s right hand.

“How about this?”

Again she shook her head.

He leaned over and touched the point to her left hand and she jerked it away. He then ran his thumbnail up from her bare right heel along the sole of her foot. The toes flared upward. He raised her right hand and told her to squeeze. The fingers didn’t move. He let go and the arm dropped back to the mattress like dead meat.

“Smile,” he said, showing her a toothy grin.

The lady tried to imitate him, but only the left half of her face responded. Her right cheek and the right side of her mouth remained immobile.

“How about the eyebrows?” He oscillated his own, Groucho Marx style.

Both of the woman’s eyebrows moved accordingly.

He listened to her heart and to her carotid arteries—normal rhythm, no murmur, no bruits.

Alan straightened up.

“It’s a stroke, Helen. An artery—”

He heard the daughter say, “Oh, no!” behind the curtain, but he continued speaking. He would deal with her later. The main thing now was to reassure Helen.

“An artery on the left side of your brain has blocked off and you’ve lost the power on the right side of your body.”

The voice came through the curtain again: “Ohmygod, I knew it! She’s paralyzed!”

Why didn’t she shut up? He knew the daughter was frightened, and he could appreciate that, but the daughter was not his primary concern at the moment, and she was only making a bad situation worse for her mother.

“How long it will last, Helen, I don’t know. You’ll probably get some strength back; maybe all of it, and maybe none. Exactly how much and exactly how soon are impossible to say right now.”

He put her good hand in his. She squeezed. “We’re going to get you upstairs right now and start running some tests in the morning. We’ll start some physical therapy, too. We’ll take good care of you and check out the rest of you while you’re here. The stroke is over and done with. So don’t waste time worrying about it. It’s history. From now on you work on getting back use of that arm and leg.”

She smiled lopsidedly and nodded. Finally he pulled his hand away and said, “Excuse me.”

He turned and stepped through the curtains to where the daughter was talking to the air.

“Whatamygonnadoo? I gotta call Charlie! I gotta call Rae! Whatamygonnadoo?”

Alan put his hand on her shoulder and gave her trapezius a gentle squeeze. She flinched and stopped her yammering.

“You’re gonna clam up, okay?” he said in a low voice. “All you’re doing is upsetting her.”

“But whatamygonnadoo? I’ve got so much to do! I gotta—”

He squeezed again, a little harder. “The most important thing for you to do right now is go stand by her and tell her how she’s going to come stay with you for a while after she gets out of the hospital and how you’re going to have everybody over for Easter.”

She stared at him. “But I’m not…”

“Sure you are.”

“You mean she’s going to be coming home?”

Alan smiled and nodded. “Yeah. After a little stay in rehab. She thinks she’s going to die here. She’s not. But she needs someone holding her hand now and talking about the near future, how life’s going to go on and how she’s going to be part of it.” He steered her toward the curtains. “Get in there.”

McClain, head nurse for the ER, pushing sixty and built like the Berlin Wall, saw him from the desk and held a tPA package with a questioning look. The CT scan had shown no bleed, but from what he’d gathered from the daughter, the stroke had occurred more than three hours ago. That eliminated tPA as an option.

Alan signed the orders, wrote the admitting note, then dictated the history and physical.

After giving final reassurances and saying good night to Helen Jonas and her daughter, Alan finally got out of the hospital, into his Subaru Outback, and on his way back home. He drove slowly, taking the short route through downtown Monroe where all the buildings clustered around the tiny harbor like anxious bathers waiting for a signal from the lifeguard. He liked the solitude of a late night drive through the shopping district. During the day the streets would be stop and go all the way. But at this hour, especially now that all the construction was done and he didn’t have to dodge excavations or follow detour signs, he could cruise, adjusting his speed so he could hit the lights just right. A smooth ride, now that the trolley tracks had been covered with asphalt. He pushed a CD into the player and The Crows came on, singing “Oh, Gee.”

He watched the clapboarded shop fronts slip by. He hadn’t been in favor of the downtown restoration at first when the Village Council—why did Long Island towns insist on calling themselves villages?—decided to redo the harbor front in a nineteenth-century whaling motif. Never mind that any whaling in this vicinity of the North Shore had been centered to the east in places like Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor, the village wanted a make over. Passing the newly faced seafood restaurants, clothing stores, and antique shops, Alan had to admit they looked good. The former lackluster hodgepodge of storefronts had taken on a new, invigorated personality, fitting perfectly with the white-steepled First Presbyterian Church and the brick-fronted town hall. Monroe was now something more than just another of the larger towns along Long Island’s “Preferred North Shore.”

The illusion almost worked. He tried to picture Ishmael, harpoon on shoulder, walking down to the harbor toward the Pequod…passing the new Blockbuster.

Well, nothing was perfect.

A red light finally caught him and he pulled to a stop. As he waited he watched Clubfoot Annie—the closest thing Monroe had to a shopping bag lady—hobble across the street in front of him. Alan had no idea of her real name and, so far as he knew, neither did anybody else. She was known to everyone simply as Clubfoot Annie.

He was struck now, as he was whenever he saw her, by how a misshapen foot that no one had bothered to correct on a child could shape the life of the adult. People like Annie always managed to get to Alan, making him want to go back in time and see to it that someone did the right thing. So simple…some serial casting on her infant equinovarus deformity would have straightened it out to normal. Who would Annie be today if she’d grown up with a normal foot? Maybe she—

Something slammed against the right front door, jolting Alan, making him jump in his seat. A ravaged caricature of a human face pressed against the passenger door window.

“You!” the face said as it rolled back and forth against the glass. “You’re the one! Lemme in! Gotta talk t’ya!”

His hair and beard were long and knotted and as filthy as his clothes. The eyes shone but gave no evidence of intelligence. What ever mind he had must have been pickled a long time ago. The man straightened up and pulled on the door handle, but it was locked. He moved along the side of the car toward the hood. He looked like a Bowery derelict. Alan could not remember ever seeing the likes of him in Monroe.

He crossed in front of the car, pointing at Alan over the hood, all the while babbling unintelligibly. Tense but secure, Alan waited until the man was clear of the front of the car, then he gently accelerated. The man pounded his fist once on the trunk as the car left him behind.

In the rearview mirror, Alan saw him start running behind the car, then stop and stand in the middle of the street, staring after him, a picture of dejection and frustration as he waved his arms in the air and then let them flop down to his sides.

The episode left Alan shaken. He glanced at the passenger window and was startled to see a large oily smudge in the shape of the derelict’s face. As it picked up the light of a passing street lamp, it seemed to look at him, reminding him uncomfortably of the face from the Shroud of Turin.

He was pulling up to another red light when his beeper chittered, startling him into jamming on his brakes. He checked the illuminated readout:

Call Mrs. Nash re: son. Abd pain and vomiting. The phone number followed.

Alan straightened in his seat. Sylvia Nash—he knew her well; a concerned parent but not an alarmist. If she was calling, it meant something was definitely wrong with Jeffy. That concerned him. Jeffy Nash had come to occupy a special place in his heart and his practice.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. What to do? His usual procedure in a case like this was to meet the patient at either his office or the emergency room. His office was on the far side of town, and he didn’t want to go back to the emergency room tonight unless absolutely necessary. Then it struck him: The Nash house was a short way off the road between the hospital and his own place. He could stop in on the way home.

He smiled as he accelerated through the green light. He found the thought of seeing Sylvia invigorating. And a house call—that ought to flap the unflappable Widow Nash.

He followed Main Street around to where it passed the entrance to the Monroe Yacht and Racquet Club on the west side of the harbor, then turned inland and passed through the various economic strata that made up “The Incorporated Village of Monroe.” The low-rent district with its garden apartments and rooming houses clung to the downtown area, eventually giving way to the postwar tract homes surrounding the high school. From there it was up into the wooded hills where the newer custom-built homes of the better off had sprung up in the past decade. Alan lived there, and would have continued on Hill Drive if he’d been going home. But he bore right at the fork and followed Shore Drive down to Monroe’s most exclusive section.

Alan shook his head at the memory of his first day in town, when he’d promised Ginny that someday they would own one of the homes along the Monroe waterfront. How naive he’d been then. These weren’t homes—these were estates, rivaling the finest mansions in Glen Cove and Lattingtown. He couldn’t afford the utilities, taxes, and upkeep on one of these old monstrosities, let alone the mortgage payments.

Stone walls and tall stands of trees shielded the waterfront estates from passersby. Alan wound along the road until his headlights swept the two tall brick gateposts that flanked the entrance, illuminating the brass plaque on the left.

TOAD HALL

He turned in, followed a short, laurel-lined drive, and came upon the Nash house—formerly the Borg mansion—standing dark among its surrounding willows under the clear, starlit spring sky.

Only a single window was lit, the one in the upper left corner of the many-gabled structure, glowing a subdued yellow, making the place look like it belonged on the cover of a gothic novel. The front-porch light was on, almost as if he were expected.

He’d driven by in the past, but had never been inside. Although, after seeing the spread The New York Times Magazine had run on it a week ago—one in a continuing series on old North Shore mansions—he felt as if he knew the place.

Alan could smell the brine and hear the gentle lap of the Long Island Sound as, black bag in hand, he stepped up to the front door and reached for the bell.

He hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, what with Sylvia’s reputation as the Merry Widow and all, and especially with the way she was always coming on to him. He knew it was mostly in fun because she liked to rattle him, yet he sensed there might be something real under the surface. That scared him most of all because he knew he responded to her. He couldn’t help it. Something beyond her good looks appealed to him, attracted him. Like now. Was he out here to see Jeffy or her?

This was a mistake. But too late to turn back now. He reached again for the bell…

“The Missus is expecting you?”

At the sound of the voice directly behind him, Alan jumped and spun with a sharp bark of fright, clutching at his heart, which he was sure had just gone into a brief burst of ventricular tachycardia.

“Ba!” he said, recognizing Sylvia’s Vietnamese driver and handyman. “You damn near scared me to death!”

“Very sorry, Doctor. I did not recognize you from behind.”

Ba stood well over six feet. His lank black hair was tinged with gray, but his features gave little hint to his age. He could have been forty or sixty. In the glare of the porch light, his Asian skin looked sallower than usual, his eyes and cheeks more sunken.

The front door opened then and Alan turned to see the startled expression on Sylvia Nash’s pretty, finely chiseled face. She was dressed in a very comfortable looking plaid flannel robe with a high cowled neck that covered her from jaw to toes. But her breasts still managed to raise an attractive swell under the soft fabric.

“Alan! I only wanted to talk to you. I didn’t expect you to—”

“The house call is not entirely dead,” he said. “I make them all the time. It happened that I was nearby in the car when I got the beep so I thought I’d save time and stop by and see Jeffy. But don’t worry. I’ll be sure to call ahead next time. Maybe then Ba won’t…”

His voice trailed off as he turned. Ba was gone. Didn’t that man make any sound when he moved? Then Sylvia was waving him inside.

“Come in, come in!”

He stepped into a broad, marble-floored foyer decorated in pastels, brightly lit by a huge crystal chandelier suspended from the high ceiling. Directly across from where he stood, a wide staircase wound up and away to the right.

“What was that about Ba?”

“He almost scared the life out of me. What’s he doing skulking around in the bushes like that?”

Sylvia smiled. “Oh, I imagine he’s worried about that Times article attracting every cat burglar in the five boroughs.”

“Maybe he’s got a point.” Alan remembered the published photos of the elegant living room, the ornate silver sets in the dining room, the bonsai green house. Everything in the article had spelled M-O-N-E-Y. “If the place is half as beautiful in real life as on paper, I imagine it would be pretty tempting.”

“Thanks,” she said with a rueful smile. “I needed to hear that.”

“Sorry. But you have an alarm system, don’t you?”

She shook her head. “Only a one-eyed dog who barks but doesn’t bite. And Ba, of course.”

“Is he enough?”

“So far, yes.”

Maybe Ba was enough. Alan shuddered at the thought of running into him in the dark. He looked like a walking cadaver.

“They certainly made enough of a fuss over you in the article—famous sculptress and all that. How come no mention of Jeffy? I’m surprised they didn’t play up the human interest angle there.”

“They didn’t mention Jeffy because they don’t know about him. Jeffy is not for display.”

At that moment, Sylvia Nash rose another notch in Alan’s estimation. He watched her, waiting for her to start with the provocative comments. None came. She was too concerned about Jeffy.

“Come take a look at him,” she continued. “He’s upstairs. He quieted down after I called. I hated to disturb you, but he was in so much pain, and then he vomited. And, you know…I get worried.”

Alan knew, and understood. He followed her across the foyer and up the curved staircase, watching her hips swaying gracefully before his eyes. Down a hall, a left turn, and then they were stepping over a knee-high safety gate into a child’s room, gently illuminated by a Donald Duck night-light in a wall outlet.

Alan knew Jeffy well, and felt a special kinship that he shared with none of his other pediatric patients. A beautiful child with a cherubic face, blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a terrible problem. He’d examined Jeffy so many times that his little eight-year-old body was nearly as familiar as his own. But Jeffy’s mind…his mind remained locked away from everybody.

He looked at the bed and saw Jeffy sleeping peacefully.

“Doesn’t look very sick to me.”

Sylvia stepped quickly to the bedside and stared down at the boy.

“He was in agony before—doubled over, grabbing his stomach. You know I’d never call you on a lark. Is something wrong with him? Is he okay?”

Alan glanced at her concerned face and felt her love for this child like a warm wave through the air.

“Let’s take a look at him and find out.”

“Off, Mess,” Sylvia said.

The black and orange cat that had been coiled in the crook of Jeffy’s knees threw Alan an annoyed look as she hopped off the bed. Alan sat beside Jeffy’s sprawled form and rolled him over onto his back. He lifted his pajama shirt and pushed down his diaper to expose his lower abdomen. Placing his left hand on the belly, he pressed the fingertips of his right down onto those of his left. The abdomen was soft. He tapped around the quadrants, eliciting a hollow sound—gas. He paid particular attention to the lower right quadrant over the appendix. He detected slight guarding of the abdominal wall there and maybe some tenderness—he thought he saw Jeffy wince in his sleep when he pressed there. He drew his stethoscope from his black bag and listened to the abdomen. The bowel sounds were slightly hyper-active, indicating intestinal irritability. He checked the lungs, heart, the glands in the neck as a matter of routine.

“How’d he eat tonight?”

“As usual—like a little horse.”

Sylvia was standing close beside him. Alan put away his stethoscope and looked up at her.

“And what?”

“His favorites: a hamburger, macaroni and cheese, celery stalks, milk, ice cream.”

Relieved that he now had eliminated anything serious, Alan began rearranging Jeffy’s pajamas. “Nothing to worry about that I can see. Either he’s in the early stages of a virus or it’s something he ate. Or how he ate. If he’s swallowing air with his food, he’ll develop some wicked bellyaches.”

“It’s not his appendix?”

“Not so far as I can tell. It’s always a possibility, but I seriously doubt it. Usually, the first thing to go in appendicitis is the appetite.”

“Well, his appetite’s alive and kickin’, I assure you.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, Alan.”

Alan felt a warmth begin to spread from her long fingers through the fabric layers of his windbreaker and shirt. God, that felt good…

But sitting here in the almost dark with her touching him could lead nowhere he felt he should go, so he stood up and her hand fell away. “If there’s any change during the night, yell, otherwise bring him by the office in the morning. I want another look at him.”

“On Wednesday?”

“Right. I’ll be out of town on Thursday so I’m having hours tomorrow. But bring him in early. I’m scheduled to be on a southbound plane by late afternoon.”

“Vacation?”

“Heading for DC. I’m supposed to testify before Senator McCready’s subcommittee on the Medical Guidelines bill.”

“Sounds exciting. But a long way to go to talk to some politicians. Is it that important?”

“I’m tempted to say something about the last in public confidence wanting to regulate the first in public confidence, but I don’t see a soapbox nearby so I’ll refrain.”

“Go ahead. Orate away.”

“No…it’s just that my professional life—my whole style of medicine—is on the line down there.”

“I haven’t heard about the bill.”

“Most people haven’t, but it’s an idiotic piece of legislation that will affect every single person in the country by forcing doctors to practice cookbook medicine. And if that happens, I’ll quit. I’d rather paint boat bottoms than practice that way.”

“Going to take your ball and go home?”

Alan stared at her, stung. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Not usually. But that’s not an answer.”

“It’s not so much running off and sulking. It’s…” He hesitated, unsure of what to say, but anxious to clarify himself to her. “It’s more like shrugging and walking away from an impossible situation. My style of practice can’t coexist with the paper shufflers. It won’t codify, and if they can’t stick me into their computers, they’ll want to either change me or get me out of the picture.”

“Because you tend to fly by the seat of your pants?”

Alan couldn’t help but smile. “I like to think of it as using intuition based on experience, but I guess you could call it that. I’m flying by that pants seat tonight with Jeffy.”

Concern lit in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, according to the rules laid out in the Medical Guidelines bill, I’d be required to send you and Jeffy along to the ER tonight for a stat blood count and abdominal X-rays to rule out appendicitis because the history and the physical exam suggest that as a possible differential diagnosis.”

“Then why aren’t you?”

“Because my gut tells me he doesn’t have appendicitis.”

“And you trust your gut?”

“My malpractice carriers would have a heart attack if they knew, but, yeah—I’ve learned to trust it.”

“Okay. Then I’ll trust it, too.”

She was staring at him appraisingly, a half smile playing about her lips. Her stare had a way of stripping away all artificiality and pretense.

Alan stared back. He’d never seen her like this. She was always dressed to kill, even when she brought Jeffy to the office. It was part of her image as the rich and wild Widow Nash. Yet here she was with no makeup, her dark, almost black hair simply tied back, her slim figure swathed in a shapeless robe, and he found her as attractive as ever. What did she have that drew him so? She was a woman he could not help being aware of—as if she were emanating something like a pheromone. He wanted to reach out and—

This was what he’d been afraid of.

Her voice suddenly changed to an exaggerated seductive simper that broke the spell. “Besides, I kind of like the seat of your pants.”

Here we go, he thought: her Mae West routine. Now that he’d told her Jeffy was safe, she was back to the old, taunting Sylvia.

“As a matter of fact, if I’d known it was this easy to get you out to the house, I’d have made a night call years ago.”

“Time to go,” Alan said.

He led the way downstairs to the foyer. Something classical was playing softly through the speakers.

“What’s that music?”

“The Four Seasons. Vivaldi.”

“Not Vivaldi,” Alan said, repressing a smile. “Valli. Frankie Valli sang with the Four Seasons. And that ain’t them.”

She laughed, and he liked the sound.

Then she spoke in a little voice. “Gee, Doc, I can’t pay you tonight. I’m a little short. Will you take something else in place of money?”

Alan had been expecting this. “Sure. Gold will do. Jewelry.”

She snapped her fingers in disappointment. “How about a drink then?”

“No, thanks.”

“Coffee? Tea?”

“No, really I—”

“Me?”

“Coffee! Coffee’ll do fine.”

Her blue eyes flashed as she laughed. “Five points for you!”

“You asked for it, lady.”

He wondered if she’d always been like this, or if it was a trait she’d developed after the death of her husband. And he wondered too what she would do if he ever took her up on one of her offers. How much of her was for real and how much for show? He wasn’t sure. Most of the time he was convinced she was putting him on, but then there was her wild reputation, and a sense that she really did want him.

“Oh, by the way,” she said as he put his hand on the doorknob. “I’m having a get-together here Saturday night. Why don’t you and your wife—Virginia, isn’t it?”

“Ginny.”

“Why don’t the two of you come over? It’s nothing fancy. Just some friends—some of them are mutual, I’m sure—and a few politicos. Nobody really important.”

“Politicos?”

She smiled that mischievous smile. “I’ve been known to make a contribution or two to the right candidate. So what do you say?”

Alan racked his brain for a quick excuse but came up empty. So he hedged. “I don’t know, Sylvia. It’s short notice and I don’t know what Ginny’s got planned for the weekend. But I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

He pulled the door open.

“You really have to go?” she said, suddenly serious.

“Yeah. I do.” And fast.

She shrugged. “Okay. See you in the morning, I guess.”

“Right.”

And then he was out the door and into the cool air and on his way to the car. He didn’t look back, didn’t even breathe until he was rolling down the driveway and passing through the gate. Not a moment too soon, he thought, exhaling as he made his body relax into the seat. What that woman did to him…

As the drum opening from Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin’” blasted from the speakers, he gunned his car and headed for home.

“You’ll never guess where I’ve been tonight,” Alan said as he came into the bedroom.

On the way home he’d figured out a solution to the Party Problem: He’d simply tell Ginny they were invited, Ginny would say no, and that would be it. She wouldn’t go to a party at Sylvia’s. After all, Sylvia had an unsavory reputation, and none of Ginny’s crowd would be there so she’d have no one to talk to. Alan could then leave it up to Ginny to get them out of it. Easy.

His wife was propped up in bed, eyes closed, a book on her lap. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. She’d been wearing her aquatinted contacts for six weeks now and Alan still wasn’t used to them. She was a pretty, blue-eyed blonde without the contacts; a tall, attractive woman with curly hair close to her head. Definitely worth a second look. But with those contacts in place she was absolutely striking. Her eyes became a startling green that grabbed attention and held it.

She turned those eyes on him now. Would he ever get used to that color? Her long legs, lean and muscular from tennis year round and golf whenever the weather permitted, slipped free of her robe as she stretched and yawned. She looked vaguely interested.

“The ER, you said.”

“Yeah, there. But I made a house call on the way home.”

“You should have been a dermatologist…no ER or house calls.”

Alan made no comment. They’d been over this ground too many times before.

“Okay,” she said after a while. “On whom did you make this house call?” Ginny had become very precise in her grammar over the years.

“Sylvia Nash.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “What’s she got? Herpes?”

“Pull in the claws, dear. I was there to see her little boy who—”

Ginny bolted upright. “Wait a second! You were in that house? The one in the article? What was it like? Was it like the pictures? Did she give you a tour?”

“No. I was about to tell you that her little boy had abdominal pain and—”

“But didn’t you get to see the house?”

“Just the foyer and the boy’s bedroom. After all—”

Ginny grimaced with annoyance. “Ohhh, I’d give anything to see that place!”

“Really?” Alan felt a sinking sensation. This wasn’t going the way he’d expected. In fact, it was going the worst possible way. He decided to cover all exits. “That’s too bad. If I’d known you felt that way I’d have accepted her invitation to the party at her place on Saturday night. But I told her we couldn’t make it.”

She rose to her knees on the bed, hands on hips. “You what?”

“I told her we were busy.”

“How could you without asking me?”

“I just figured that since you called her—what was it? A tramp?—the last time her name came up, that you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her.”

“I don’t! I just want to see that house! You call her back first thing tomorrow and tell her we’re coming. With bells on!”

“I don’t know if I can, Ginny.” But she had that gleam in her eye and he knew there would be no turning her around.

“Of course you can! And if you won’t, I will!”

“That’s okay!” he said quickly. “I’ll handle it.” God knew what Sylvia might say to Ginny on the phone. “Just didn’t think you’d want to go to a party thrown by someone you consider a tramp.”

“But don’t you want to go?” she said with arched eyebrows. “As I remember, you came to her defense pretty quick when I made the remark.”

“That’s because I don’t believe everything I hear.”

“Everybody knows about her. And look at the way she dresses, the way she vamps around—”

“Vamps?”

“—and those wild parties where there’s always a fight or something. And she’s got to be into cocaine.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Alan couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think Sylvia was into anything stronger than champagne. He hoped not.

“You like her, don’t you?” It sounded like a question but it wasn’t. “Sure you don’t have something going with her?”

“I can’t hide it any longer, Ginny!” Alan shouted. “We’ve been lovers since the day Lou introduced us!”

Ginny yawned. “Figured as much.”

Alan looked away. It was nice to know Ginny had that kind of faith in him. Did he deserve it?

Yes, he decided. Definitely. In all their years of marriage he’d never cheated on her. Never even come close despite a good number of opportunities. But Sylvia…God, he was attracted to her. She was beautiful, but it was more than that. Beneath all her glittery posing there was a person he feared he could love if he let his feelings have their way.

Yet although he’d shared no more than a handshake with the woman, he couldn’t help but look on his feelings toward her as a kind of betrayal of Ginny. It was unfounded, but it plagued him. You can’t help the way you feel, he always told himself; you’re only responsible for what you do with those feelings.

“I still don’t see why you always insist on defending her, though,” Ginny was saying.

“Jeffy makes up for a multitude of sins, what ever they are.”

“That strange little boy she took in?”

“Yeah. Only she didn’t just take him in—she adopted him. That’s a lifelong commitment. She gets a big drawing account of goodwill with me for that.”

“Well, what ever,” Ginny said, skittering away from the subject of adoption and suddenly becoming bubbly. “At least it will be an experience to see that house.”

He tried to think of some way out of the party, but saw it was useless. Ginny was off and running.

“Wait’ll I tell Josie and Terri! They’ll die! They’ll be green! Positively green!” She threw her arms around his neck. “This is perfect! Absolutely perfect!”

She kissed him. He kissed her back. And soon he was pulling her robe open and she was unbuttoning his shirt, and then they were together on the bed and into the positions and rhythms they’d found comfortable and pleasurable over the years of their marriage.

When it was over, Alan lay beside Ginny, content and sated but a little disturbed by the knowledge that a couple of times during their lovemaking he’d found his mind wandering to Sylvia Nash. That had never happened before and he didn’t like it. It was like cheating. He knew all about fantasies during sex, but that was for other people, not him.

“Nice.”

“That it was,” Ginny said as she rolled away from him. “Mind if I turn on the TV? I want to see who’s on Leno tonight.”

“Go ahead.”

He went downstairs and got a Foster’s from the refrigerator. The cold beer felt good going down. He finished it off as he wandered through the first floor, shutting off lights and locking windows. A lot of wasted space. The two-story brick colonial was too big for just the two of them, but Ginny had refused to settle for anything smaller.

Finally he got back to the bed where a stack of journals waited on his night table. He found it harder and harder to stay current with the new developments in all the fields his practice touched on. But he kept plugging, reading a little every night, no matter how tired he was. Still, he sensed the cutting edge of medicine slipping a little further away each year. He felt like an overboard sailor, swimming for his life, and yet seeing the lights of his ship steadily fading farther and farther away into the night.

Ginny had fallen asleep with the TV on. Alan turned it off with the remote button and retrieved the latest issue of Chest from the night table. But he let it lie unopened on his lap.

His mind was not on medicine but on how it used to be between Ginny and him. He could still see her as she’d looked back in his residency days when they’d met, her tan skin made darker by the white of her nurse’s uniform, and how his throat had almost closed when she first spoke to him. That memory segued into others of the early years of their marriage and how they would snuggle together and whisper after making love. Those days were gone, it seemed. Was this the way marriage went after ten years?

He pushed it from his mind and picked up the journal. Maybe it was just as well tonight. He had a lot of reading to catch up on.

He twisted left and right, trying to find a comfortable position.

Ba Thuy Nguyen

Ba was used to Phemus’s barking. The old dog had been skittish of late, baying at the slightest thing, waking the Missus and the Boy at all hours of the night. So Ba had taken him to his own quarters over the garage where the howls would not disturb the house hold.

And where Ba could judge their import.

He had ignored the intermittent baying for the past hour as he concentrated on the pile of Immigration and Naturalization forms before him. He had met the residency requirement, and had decided he wanted to become an American citizen. Eventually he would have to take a test on the history and government of his new country, but first there were forms to fill out. Many forms. Tonight he was concentrating on form N400, the most important. The Missus had written out some of the entries for him on a separate sheet of paper and he was laboriously copying the English characters into the blanks. Later he would practice signing his name in English, another requirement for naturalization.

Phemus’s barking suddenly changed—louder, and carrying a different note. A note much like when Dr. Bulmer had stopped by earlier.

Ba slipped from his chair and padded to where the dog stood with both front paws on the windowsill and howled again at the night.

He had learned over the years that Phemus was not to be underestimated. True, he was a pest at times, raising alarms at each passing rabbit or vagrant cat, but Ba had come to appreciate the old dog’s keen ears and nose, and his remaining eye seemed to have compensated for its brother’s loss by becoming twice as sharp. Ba had attuned himself to Phemus’s alarms, and this particular pitch and tone, especially with the dog’s fur on end at his nape and his low back, usually meant a human trespasser.

Ba crouched at the window with the dog and scanned the yard. He saw nothing. Phemus licked his face and barked again.

As Ba stood and pulled on his overalls, he wondered if it might be the same fellow he had chased away three nights ago. That had been easy: He had merely spoken from behind a bush and then stepped into view. The would-be thief had been so startled that he had tripped over his own feet in his haste to get away. Ba imagined that most of these sneak thieves were anxious to avoid any confrontation. They wanted to break in silently, take anything of value they could carry in their sack, then slink off unseen into the night.

But Ba also knew that he could not count on that. Among the jackals might hide a few wolves with ready fangs. Even these were not hard to handle as long as one was prepared for them.

He knelt before his dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. Beneath the neatly folded pairs of work pants lay a fully loaded U.S. Army .45 automatic pistol and a standard issue bayonet. Touching them loosed a flood of memories of home, and of how both had stood him well in the long sail from his village across the South China Sea. Fighting the winds and currents had been hard enough, but there had been the added danger of the pirates who preyed on the boats, boarding them repeatedly, robbing the refugees, raping the women, killing any who resisted. Ba remembered his gut-wrenching fear the first time they swarmed aboard his tiny boat: fear that there were too many of them, that they would overpower him and he would fail Nhung Thi and his friends. But he had met their attack with his own, fighting with a ferocity he had never dreamed he possessed, using every combat skill he knew and inventing new ones. The Americans had taught him well how to fight, and more than one unsuspecting pirate became food for the sharks that took to following Ba’s boat.

And just as he had protected his wife, friends, and fellow villagers then, Ba would protect the Missus and the Boy now. They were all he had in the world. Nhung Thi was dead, his village was long gone, his friends either dead or scattered all over America. He owed the Missus a huge debt. She had aided him and his ailing Nhung Thi when life had looked the blackest. Ba would never forget that. She still thought she was taking care of Ba, but he knew it was the other way around. For years now he had watched over her. Nothing would harm her or the Boy as long as he drew breath.

Ba picked up the bayonet and withdrew it from its scabbard. The blade was dark and dull except for the gentle curve of bright steel where he kept it honed to a fine edge. This old and silent friend would do, just in case. Not the gun. After all, the purpose of going out into the yard was to keep the Missus and the Boy from being disturbed.

He pulled on a dark sweater, slipped the naked blade through a loop in his overalls, and reached for the doorknob. Phemus was there in a flash, his nose to the door crack, growling.

Ba knelt down beside the animal.

“You’d die for her too, wouldn’t you, dog?” he said in his village dialect.

He remembered the day the Missus had found Phemus. Remembered as if it were yesterday. He had been driving her back from the city and had taken a local route to avoid a tie-up on the Long Island Expressway. Suddenly the Missus had called to him to stop. As he pulled into the curb he saw why: A group of four boys in their early teens was chasing a limping, emaciated dog down the sidewalk, pelting it with rocks as it fled before them. Suddenly it stumbled and they were upon it, shouting as they surrounded it and kicked it repeatedly.

Before Ba knew it, the Missus was out of the car and running toward the group. She reached them just as one of the boys raised a heavy stone high over his head, ready to smash it down on the weak, exhausted creature. The Missus charged in and hurled him aside with a violent shove. The boy lost his balance and fell, but immediately leaped up at her, his fists raised, rage in his face. But Ba was approaching then. He looked at the boy and wished him death for even so much as considering the idea of striking the Missus. The boy must have read something of that wish in Ba’s face, for he spun and ran. His friends quickly followed on his heels.

The Missus hovered over the panting dog and gently stroked the ridges of his heaving ribs. She picked him up and turned toward the car. Ba offered to take the dog for her but she told him to drive directly to the vet’s.

In his mind’s eye he could still see her in the rearview mirror, sitting in the back seat with the dog on her lap, unmindful of the blood that oozed onto her expensive dress and the velvet upholstery. The dog had the strength to lick her hand once and she had smiled. On the way to the veterinary clinic, she had told him of people who moved away and simply abandoned their pets, leaving a faithful animal sitting at the back door of an empty house, waiting for days to be let in. Finally, when hunger and thirst got to be too much, the creature would take to the streets, ill equipped to fend for itself after a lifetime as a house pet.

At the vet’s they learned that the dog had a broken rear leg, three broken ribs, and a left eye that had been punctured by a stick.

Better to kill a dog and eat it rather than treat it so, Ba had thought.

The dog’s bones healed, but the eye was permanently damaged. The Missus named him Polyphemus—a name Ba did not understand—and he had been a member of the house hold now for five years.

“Not tonight,” Ba told the dog as it tried to follow him out the door. “You’ve too gentle a heart. It might betray you.”

He closed the door on Phemus’s whines and barks and made his way down to the garage and out the side door to the grounds. A half moon was rising over the water. Ba kept to the shadows of the ground-brushing willows along the rim of the property until he could duck across a small area of lawn to the foundation plantings around the house. Quickly and quietly, he made his way through the shrubbery.

He found them on the west side. They already had a casement window pried open and one of the pair was supporting the other as he climbed in.

Ba spoke from behind a rhododendron.

“The Missus does not want you here. Leave!”

The one up at the window dropped down and faced the spot where Ba was hiding. Ba recognized him then as the one he had frightened away the other night.

“It’s the gook again!” the shorter one said. Two knives suddenly gleamed in the moonlight.

“Get him!”

Sylvia Nash

“Ba?”

Where is he? Sylvia wondered as she scanned the backyard from her work area off the hot house that served as her arboretum. Ba almost invariably started off each day watering the trees in the hot house. But the trays under the pots were dry and he was nowhere in sight.

Strains from Vivaldi, left on the stereo since last night, filled the air. Sylvia put down the chopsticks she had been using to loosen the soil around the ezo spruce bonsai before her and brushed her hands. The ishi-zuki was ready for transplanting and she needed someone to help her. The tree’s new Fukuroshiki pot was layered with stone and soil and waiting for the tree. All that was missing was Ba.

Normally she would de-pot and transplant a tree by herself, laying it on its side, pruning the longer, heavier roots, then replacing it in its pot after freshening the soil. But the ishi-zuki was special. She had spent too many years working, watching, and waiting while she trained the roots of this little tree to grow over and around the rock upon which it sat. She might jeopardize all that by trying to transplant it without assistance. If the stone fell free of the roots, she’d never forgive herself.

“Gladys?” she called. “Have you seen Ba?”

“Not this morning, ma’am,” the maid answered from the kitchen.

“Come on, Mess,” she said to the cat curled up in the sun by the door. “Let’s go find Ba.”

The cat raised its head and looked at her for a moment through slit eyes, then went back to dozing. Mess didn’t like to move much. She had grown fat and lazy since the day Sylvia found her as a kitten and brought her home. Someone had bundled her and her four siblings into a trash can bag and dumped them in the middle of the road in front of Toad Hall. Mess, the only survivor after the bag had been run over by a number of cars, had truly been a mess when Sylvia had freed her—shaking, terrified, splattered with the blood of her brothers and sisters. To this day she would not go near the road.

Sylvia picked up her cup of coffee and walked out to the back. The forsythia were in full bloom, splashing buttercup yellow here and there around the awakening yard. Beyond the greening lawn was a narrow strip of sand; and beyond that the Long Island Sound lapped high at the dock. Far on the other side lay Connecticut’s south shore. A breeze blew the briny smell of the water across the yard and sighed through the willows that ringed the property. That sound—the wind in the willows—and the sight of this old, three-storied house looking as if it had been transplanted whole from a Georgia riverbank had left her no choice but to buy the place and name it Toad Hall.

As she neared Jeffy’s fenced-in play area, she saw two mallards standing before him, quacking softly. He used to feed the ducks, laughing like a little madman as they chased the bits of stale bread he threw to them. This pair probably thought he was the same old Jeffy. But he wasn’t. He ignored them.

The ducks flew off at her approach. She thought she saw Jeffy’s lips moving and she rushed over to him. But she heard nothing. He was still squatting in the grass, still rocking back and forth, totally absorbed in the bright yellow of the dandelion he had found in the grass.

“How’s it going, Jeffy?”

The child continued to stare into the flower as if he had found the secrets of the universe there.

Sylvia pulled a box of Nerds from her smock pocket and squatted beside him. She had found Nerds the most suitable for her purposes because they released their flavor instantaneously and were not filling. She pinched one of the tiny candies at the tip of her thumb and forefinger and held it ready.

“Jeffy!” she said, pronouncing his name in a crisp, sharp tone. “Jeffy!”

His head turned a degree or two in her direction. At the first increment of motion, her hand darted out with an accuracy born of years of experience and pressed the Nerd between his lips. As he bit into it, she called his name again in an attempt to induce him to turn a few more degrees her way.

“Jeffy! Jeffy!”

But he turned away again, back to the dandelion. Another half-dozen repetitions of his name elicited no response.

“Maybe you don’t like Nerds anymore, huh?”

But she knew it wasn’t the candy. Jeffy was slipping away. After doing so well for years with the operant techniques, he had become resistant to the therapy since sometime around the first of the year. Worse than that, he was regressing, slipping deeper and deeper into his autism. She didn’t know what was wrong. She provided a structured environment and continued working with him every day…

Sylvia swallowed hard past the constriction in her throat. She felt so helpless! If only…

She resisted the urge to hurl the candy into the Sound and scream out her frustration. Instead, she tucked the Nerds back into her pocket. She would try a full-length operant session with him this afternoon. She straightened up and gently ruffled the golden hair of the child she loved so much.

She had a flash of an old dream—Jeffy running across this same lawn toward her, a big smile on that round little face, his arms open wide for her as she lifted him up, laughing, swung him around, and heard him say, “Do it again, Mommy!”

It faded as suddenly as it had come. It was an old dream, anyway, browned and crumbling at the edges. Better to leave it undisturbed.

She studied Jeffy for a moment. Physically, he seemed fine this morning. No fever, no sign of a problem in the world since he had awakened. In fact he’d gone immediately to the refrigerator upon arising. But Sylvia had guided him out here to make him wait a bit before breakfast, just to see how he was acting. She’d called the school and told them he wasn’t going to be in today.

She turned and glanced toward the garage. The big double door stood open but she saw no sign of life. Then she heard Phemus’s familiar bark from the west side of the house and went to investigate.

As Sylvia rounded the near corner, Ba came around the far corner, carrying the new tree. The sight startled her. When the twenty-foot peach tree had been delivered from the nursery two days ago, it had taken three men to off-load it from the truck. Ba now had his arms wrapped around the burlap-wrapped rootball and was carrying it by himself.

“Ba! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“No, Missus,” he said as he put it down. “Many fishing nets were heavier when I was a boy.”

“Maybe so.” She guessed hauling in fish-filled nets every day since you could walk probably left you pretty strong. “But be careful.”

She noted that Ba had dug up a rather large section of the lawn.

“What time were you up this morning to get so far already?”

“Very early.”

She looked again. No doubt about it. The plot was large—considerably larger than necessary for the planting of a single tree.

“Flowers around the tree, don’t you think, Missus?” Ba seemed to be reading her mind.

“A flower bed. Yes, I think that would be nice.”

She glanced at the older peach tree thirty feet away to the south. That too would need a flower bed to even things out. Maybe this year, with two trees to cross-pollinate, they would get some peaches.

She watched him dig. For a man who’d grown up on the sea, Ba had a wonderful way with growing things, and an innate aesthetic sense. He’d known nothing about yard work when he’d first come here, but learned quickly and well. He’d also become a proficient assistant in her bonsai arboretum, wiring branches and pruning roots with the best of them. And since taking over as her driver, he’d become a crack auto mechanic. There didn’t seem to be anything he couldn’t master.

She helped him slide the burlap-wrapped rootball into the hole in the center of the plot. As he began to back-fill, she saw the crude bandage on his arm.

“How did you cut yourself?”

He glanced at his forearm. “It is nothing. I was careless.”

“But how—?”

“Please do not worry, Missus. It will not happen again.”

“Good.” She watched him tamp down the soil around the newly planted tree with the flat of his shovel. “You seem to have an awful lot of dirt left over.”

“That is because I have added peat moss and a special root food.”

“You shouldn’t fertilize a newly planted tree, Ba.”

“This is a special food that will not burn the roots. I learned of it back home.”

“What is it?”

“That is a secret, Missus.”

“Fine. Meet me in the arboretum as soon as you’re finished.”

Smiling and shaking her head, Sylvia turned and headed for the backyard. Secret root food…but she let him have his way with the yard. He did an excellent job and she didn’t believe in tampering with success.

She pulled Jeffy away from his dandelion and set him up with breakfast. Gladys had made him a bowl of Maypo and he attacked it. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his stomach this morning.

As usual, Alan had been right.

Wandering back into her work area, Sylvia stood and considered the ishi-zuki from a distance. The gallery was really anxious for this one. Someone called at least twice a week asking when they could expect delivery.

Who’d have ever thought her hobby would make her the latest Big Thing with the New York art crowd and celebrity set? You weren’t anybody, dear, unless you had a tree sculpture by Sylvia Nash somewhere in the house.

She smiled at how innocently it had all started.

The art of bonsai had fascinated Sylvia since her teenage years. She’d come across a book on the miniature trees and had been touched by their delicacy, the sense of age about them. She decided to try her hand and found she had a knack for the art. After many years of working at it, she’d become quite adept.

But after Greg’s death she’d neglected them and one of her prized trees died. She’d pruned and wired that particular little five-needle pine for years, transforming it from an ordinary collection of needles and branches into a graceful living work of art. Its loss seemed all the more tragic after losing Greg. It sat in its pot with its needles turning brown, its roots rotting, beyond salvage. When the needles dropped off, only a naked trunk would remain.

Then Sylvia remembered seeing a demonstration of a laser technique used to sculpt heads and busts. She investigated, found a place that did it, and had her dead tree, pot and all, laser-sculpted from a laminated block of oak. She was delighted with the result: The outer needles were sharp, the intricacies of the bark and even the moss at the tree’s base were all preserved forever. She painted it, and set it back in its former spot among her other bonsai. It needed no watering, no pruning, no wiring. It was perfect. Forever.

And that would have been that had not Christmas a few years later found her without the slightest idea of what to give half the people on her list. Her gaze had come to rest on the laser-sculpted bonsai and the idea struck her: Why not take one of her favorite bonsai to the laser studio and have a dozen or so replicas run off? Why not indeed? A unique and personal gift.

And so it became an annual tradition to favor certain special people in her life with a laser-sculpted bonsai. Probably it would have gone no further had she not decided to use one of her experimental trees as a model.

That particular tree had been a lark, really—a mixture of bonsai and topiary techniques. She had allowed a rather tall boxwood to grow wild while letting it acclimate to its pot. For some reason its cylindrical form had reminded her of a skyscraper, so on a whim she began pruning and shaping it into the form of the Empire State Building. She had ten laser sculptures made from it and gave them away for Christmas.

By the end of January a Manhattan art gallery owner was knocking on her door, begging to speak to her. He went on and on about the Empire bonsai, literally cooing about its “subtle melding of the man-made and the natural,” her “stunning brilliance in using the latest in modern technology to preserve an ancient art form,” and so on. He oohed and ahhhed as she toured him through her collection and actually eeked when he saw her sokan tree with the double trunk on bottom growing into the New York skyline on top.

Since then, once a year, she issued a strictly limited edition of one hundred sculptures of one of her bonsai. She signed and numbered them and made the gallery charge an astronomical amount for each. She didn’t need the money, but the high price tag and the limited supply made them all the more sought after. She’d had numerous offers—extremely generous offers—for the original living trees that had served as models. She turned them down and refused to hear any counteroffers. No one other than Sylvia herself would ever own or care for her trees. Bonsai culture was a delicate, time-consuming task that took skill, practice, and devotion—not for amateurs.

Take the ishi-zuki, for instance. How could she allow some clown with a fat wallet, who thought all they needed was a little watering like a house plant, entrust them to his maid for care? Especially this one. The leafy area had been pruned into the shape of a neat little Cape Cod house, which was supported by a gently curved trunk whose roots were clasped tightly around a supporting rock. This tree spoke to her. Selling it would be unthinkable.

But she would gladly sell replicas to the people waiting in line to buy them.

Which made her Someone to Know.

Sylvia knew she didn’t fit in with the celebrities who bought her sculptures and wanted to meet her and invite her to their parties. Sometimes it seemed to her that she didn’t fit anywhere. But she accepted the invitations and maintained tenuous contact with the rich and famous, staying on the fringes, riding along, waiting for something interesting to happen. She used them to fill some of her nights. Nights could be a hellish burden at times. Jeffy and her trees and her investments filled the days, but the nights went on forever.

Last night had been an exception, however, and had proved far too short. Alan’s presence had injected a special kind of life into the old house, warming it, brightening it. She could so easily get used to having him come home to her every night, kissing him hello, touching him—

She shook off the thought with a touch of irritation. No sense getting lost in that little fantasy. She’d had that kind of life once in a tiny garden apartment downtown.

She caught herself. She hadn’t thought of the old apartment in years. Those memories were supposed to be locked safely away for good. That kind of life was gone for good, as were the Sylvia Nash and the man who had lived it together. The man was dead, and the Sylvia Nash of today no longer wanted or needed that life. She’d built a new one from scratch. The old Sylvia was gone. And no one was going to bring her back.

Besides, Alan Bulmer was taken.

Still, it was a nice, respectable little fantasy, as long as that was all it remained.

After all, she thought with a wry smile, she had her reputation to consider.

She went back into the kitchen. Jeffy was still at the table, scraping the bottom of his bowl. She pulled it away and gave him his glass of milk.

“Okay, guy,” she said, lightly running her fingers through his curly hair as he drank his milk in huge gulps. “We’re going to clean you up and get you over to Dr. Bulmer’s before his office gets too crowded.”

Jeffy didn’t look at her. He had finished his milk and was busy staring into the bottom of the glass.

“Someday you’re going to talk to me, Jeffy. You may not know it yet, but someday you’re going to call me ‘Mommy.’”

She kissed him on the forehead. How could she feel so intensely about someone who did not acknowledge her existence?

“You are, damn it. You are.”

The modern, brightly lit waiting room was crowded with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes. The receptionist said that Dr. Bulmer had penciled in Jeffy’s name and they would get to him in a minute. Two of the waiting children had started screaming at the sight of Ba, so he left to wait in the car. Sylvia seated herself next to a polyester princess who eyed her Albert Nipon suit with barely concealed hostility.

Wouldn’t fit you anyway, honey, she thought as she snuggled Jeffy in against her and waited.

A little girl, no more than four or five years old, with blue eyes and straight blond hair came up and stood before Jeffy. After looking at him for a while she said, “I’m here with my mommy.” She pointed to a woman across the room engrossed in a magazine. “That’s my mommy over there.”

Jeffy stared over her left shoulder and said nothing.

“My mommy’s sick,” she said in a louder voice. “Is your mommy sick?”

She might have been a piece of furniture for all the notice Jeffy took of her, but her voice was attracting the attention of the other waiting patients. The room grew perceptively quieter as they waited for the reply that would never come from Jeffy.

Tense and watchful, Sylvia bit her lip, trying to think of a way to defuse the situation. The little girl, however, did it for her.

“My mommy’s got diarrhea, that’s why she’s here to see the doctor. All the time she keeps going to the bathroom.”

As the waiting room rippled with restrained laughter, the woman with the magazine, her face now red with embarrassment, came over and led the little girl back to her seat.

Jeffy neither laughed nor smiled.

Before long they were called back to an examining room. She sat Jeffy on the paper-covered table and undressed him down to his training pants. He was still dry. Jeffy would use the bathroom if it was convenient, but if he was absorbed in something or away from home, he simply went in his pants. The nurse took an ear temperature, said it was normal, then left them to wait. Alan entered about ten minutes later. He smiled at her, then turned to Jeffy.

“So you made it through the night, Jeff? No more bellyaches? How about lying back and letting me check the old tummy.”

As he went through the examination, he kept up the chatter, as if Jeffy were just like any other eight-year-old. That was what had immediately attracted Sylvia to Alan as a physician—the way he treated Jeffy. Most doctors in her experience would examine him thoroughly and gently, but never speak to him. They would talk to her but never to Jeffy. True, he wasn’t listening and wouldn’t respond, so why talk to him? She had never noticed it until that day she brought him to see Alan. Jeffy had fallen and his elbow had swollen to half-again normal size. Sylvia had been sure it was broken and had been about to rush him over to her Uncle Lou’s office when she remembered that he was out of town that day. But his former associate, Dr. Bulmer, had been available. They’d been introduced briefly in the hallway of her uncle’s office when the two had been partners and she didn’t know anything about him except that her uncle had said at the time that he was “pretty sharp.”

Anyplace but an emergency room, she had thought, and had consented to letting the new guy examine Jeffy.

That one brief visit had been a revelation. Jeffy’s autism hadn’t fazed Alan the least. He’d treated Jeffy like a real human being, not like some sort of deaf, dumb, blind block of wood. His attitude had radiated respect, almost reverence—this was another human being he was treating. It wasn’t an act, either. She’d sensed that it came naturally to the man. And for just a second, as Alan had lifted him off the table, Jeffy had hugged him.

That had been it. From then on there had been no other doctor for Jeffy. Only Alan Bulmer would do.

Her Uncle Lou had been a little miffed when he learned about Alan examining Jeffy, but that had been nothing compared to the explosion that had occurred when she transferred Jeffy’s records to Alan’s new office.

And now she watched Alan as he pushed and tapped on Jeffy’s abdomen again. He kept getting better looking as he got older. The little touches of gray flecking the dark brown hair of his temples didn’t make him look older, just more distinguished. He was built the way she liked a man, tall and lean, with long legs and piercing dark brown eyes….

“You’re fine, Jeff,” Alan said as he sat him up. “But you’re getting pudgy.” He sat on the table, put his arm around Jeffy’s shoulder in a casual gesture of affection, and turned to Sylvia. “He’s got a lot of air in his intestines. He eats fast?”

“Like a vacuum.”

“See if you can slow him down.”

“Easier said than done.”

“And either cut back on the amount he’s eating or increase his activity.”

“Maybe I should enroll him in Little League,” she said with the slightest edge to her voice.

Alan winced at her sarcasm and sighed. “Yeah, I know. ‘Easier said than done.’”

That was another thing she liked about Alan—they could communicate. After years of caring for Jeffy together, they had become attuned to each other regarding the rare ups and many downs of life with an autistic child.

“I’ll try,” she said. “Maybe I can take him for walks.”

“Will he come?”

“Sure. As long as I take him by the hand and Ba’s not there.”

“Ba?”

“Ba spoils him terribly. Carries him all the time. Jeffy’s legs don’t work when Ba is around.”

Alan laughed. “Well, what ever you can get him to do will help.”

Sylvia pulled Jeffy’s clothes back on while Alan scribbled in the chart.

“I want to thank you for coming over last night,” she said, remembering the thrill she had felt upon opening the door and seeing him there. “I’m sorry it was for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing. We both slept better.”

“Speaking of house calls: Do you make them on lonely widows?”

She loved to watch him blush. He didn’t disappoint her.

“As a matter of fact, yes. There’s a little old lady not far from here who’s bedfast after a couple of strokes. I see her once a month.”

“What about younger ladies?”

“Depends on the problem. The home is a lousy place to practice medicine.”

She stifled a smile. Poor guy. Trying so hard to remain cool and professional.

“What if she’s got an itch only you can scratch?”

He smiled with the slightest trace of malice. “I’d tell her to take a bath. Or maybe a cold shower.”

She laughed. She was so glad that for all his old-fashioned propriety and almost stuffy integrity he still had a sense of humor.

“By the way,” he said into her laugh, “is that invitation to your party this weekend still open?”

“You can make it?” A buoyant sensation came over her.

“Yes, we can. I thought we were busy but we’re not.”

“Wonderful! Nine o’clock. Casual chic.”

“We’ll be there.”

“Great. Then I can sneak you upstairs and show you some of my erotic Japanese etchings.”

He looked squarely at her, his expression tinged with annoyance. “You know, one of these days I just might call your bluff.”

Don’t you dare! The phrase leaped to her lips but she bit it back.

“Who’s bluffing?” She opened the examining room door and ushered Jeffy out. “Good luck in Washington. See you Saturday night.”

As she walked up the hall, she wondered at the stab of panic she’d felt when Alan had mentioned calling her bluff. She didn’t want that. She was aware that much of the attraction was based on his inaccessibility. It made him unique among so many of the men she knew—such as some of Greg’s friends and the husbands of her female friends who had come around to “comfort” her after Greg’s death. Their idea of comforting, however, seemed to require a bed. That had been an eye-opening time in her life. She’d had her share of flings since then, but not with any of them.

Alan always turned a deaf ear to her frequent offers. And she knew he was attracted to her, which made the little game all the more charming—and Alan all the more honorable.

But why did she do it?

She never could answer that question. Alan was the only man she teased so, yet she respected him more than any man she knew. So why make him squirm? Why tempt him? Was it because she knew he was safe? Or did she want to bring him down somehow, prove that the shining knight had feet of clay?

No. She did not want to prove that.

Then why did she so enjoy teasing him?

The questions went ’round and ’round, with never an answer. She wondered if there might be something wrong with her—a wire crossed somewhere in her psyche—but brushed that uncomfortable thought away.

It was all in fun, she thought determinedly. All in fun.

Alan

“Sure you don’t want to come?”

Ginny looked at him through her green contacts and smiled. “You know I’d love to, Alan, but I can’t let Josie down. We’re—”

He knew: the Tennis Tournament at the club. Ginny and Josie were in the quarter finals for women’s doubles.

“How many times am I going to testify before a senate subcommittee? I could use you there for some moral support.”

“I know, honey,” Ginny said as she put her arms around him. “And I never would have entered the tournament if I’d thought we had the slightest chance of getting this far. But Josie’s depending on me, Alan. I can’t let her down.”

A caustic remark rose to Alan’s lips but he held it back. He didn’t want to leave on a tense note.

“But I’ll drive you down to JFK,” she said.

“Better if you didn’t. I don’t know when I’ll be back tomorrow, so I’d rather have the car sitting in the lot there.”

He gave her a kiss and a hug, and then he was on his way out the door with his overnight bag in his hand.

“Good luck!” she said with a wave as he got into the car.

He smiled and hoped it looked genuine. He hurt more than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

Mike Switzer had told him that all doctors who gave pro-guidelines testimony had all their expenses paid for by the committee, including limousines to meet them at the airport. Those testifying against the guidelines had to shift for themselves.

So Alan shifted himself from National Airport and checked into Crystal City in Arlington where he got a room with a view of the Potomac. The night was cool and clear, and from his window he could see the lighted monuments on the far side of the river reflecting in the rippling water.

He hated to travel. He felt strangely disconnected when he was away from his practice and his home, as if someone had pulled the plug on him and he’d ceased to exist. He shook himself. He didn’t like the feeling.

He opened his suitcase and pulled out a bottle of Bushmills. He poured a couple of fingers’ worth, then settled back onto the double bed and watched the TV without seeing it.

No sense in kidding himself: He was nervous about tomorrow. He had never testified before a committee of any sort, let alone one being run by the ferocious Senator James McCready. Why on earth had he agreed to do it? Why would anyone set himself up for a grilling by a bunch of politicians? Crazy!

It was all Mike—pardon: Congressman—Switzer’s fault. If he hadn’t sweet-talked Alan into this, he’d be home safe and sound in his own bed before his own TV.

No, that wasn’t true. Alan knew he really had no one to blame but himself for being here. He had wanted a chance to say something against the Medical Guidelines bill, and Mike had given it to him.

But would it matter?

He had begun to wonder if maybe he wasn’t a vanishing breed…a dinosaur…a solo physician practicing a personal brand of medicine, developing one-to-one relationships with his patients, gaining their trust, dealing with them person to person, becoming someone they came to with their problems, someone they called when their children were sick, someone they placed high on their Christmas card list.

The coming thing seemed to be the patient-as-number, served by the doctor-as-employee who worked for a government or corporate clinic, seeing X number of patients per hour for Y hours per day, then signing off and going home like every other wage slave.

Alan was not totally immune to the allure of the 9-to-5 setup: normal hours, guaranteed income and benefits, no calls in the middle of the night or on Sunday afternoons in the middle of the Jets game. Enticing…

Great for robots, maybe, but not for dinosaurs.

Switzer was styling himself as the champion of the American doctor, but how much was real and how much was a role, Alan couldn’t say. He and Mike went back to their undergraduate days at NYU where they’d been fairly good friends until their postgraduate paths parted: Mike to law school and Alan on to medicine. Mike had always struck Alan as a decent sort, but the fact remained that he now held—and intended to continue to hold—an elected office; and that meant he had to keep an eye on which way the wind was blowing.

Switzer certainly seemed to know how to keep his name in the paper, what with his feud with the City MTA on the home front and his butting heads with Senator McCready on the national level. But how much of his opposition to McCready’s Medical Guidelines bill was real commitment and how much was because McCready and the MTA’s Cunningham were members of the other party?

Not knowing for sure made Alan slightly queasy. For the moment, however, he would have to trust Switzer. He had no choice.

And tomorrow I put my head on the block.

The hearings started at the unheard-of hour of 7:00 a.m., so he turned off the TV, undressed, poured himself another drink, and lay in the dark. He tried to find an oldies channel on the radio but the reception was poor, so he resigned himself to waiting for sleep in silence. He knew he’d have to be patient, because he could tell already it was going to be one of those nights.

Here we go, he thought as he lay there.

It never failed. Whenever he left town he spent the first night running through his own peculiar variation on A Christmas Carol.

He wrestled with the covers on the unfamiliar mattress, plagued by the ghosts of Patients Present: the sick ones he had left behind. They were in good hands, but he was out of town and they were out of reach. He wondered if he’d made any diagnostic blunders or therapeutic errors that wouldn’t be found in time. The same worries nagged him every night, but never with the intensity as when he was out of town.

He wondered if other doctors lay awake nights worrying about patients. He never mentioned it to anyone because it sounded phony, like cheap PR, like dime-store Marcus Welbyism.

The worries about current patients flowed naturally into the ghosts of Patients Yet to Be, products of Alan’s chronic anxiety over keeping current in all the fields his practice touched on. A virtually impossible task, he knew, but he fretted about not knowing of a new diagnostic tool or a new therapy that could change the course of a patient’s disease.

And last—his subconscious always saved the worst for last—the ghosts of Patients Past. He feared them the most. Like a silent crowd around an accident, all the failures of his medical career ringed the bed, crouched on the covers, and hovered overhead as he slipped toward sleep. The failures…the ones who had slipped through his fingers, the lacerated lives that got away.

Caroline Wendell was first tonight, appearing at the foot of the bed, baring her shoulders and legs to show him all those utterly gross bruises that kept popping out and threatening to, like, simply ruin her prom because her gown was, like, you know, off the shoulders. She hadn’t known then that her bone marrow had gone wild, destroying her along with itself. Alan hadn’t known immediately, either; but now he relived the weak, sick feeling that came over him when he’d spun down a hematocrit and saw the much-too-thick buffy coat of white cells in the capillary tube. Eventually she faded away, just as she had in real life from the acute lymphocytic leukemia that had kept her from seeing the end of her senior year.

Little Bobby Greavy crawled up on the bed to demonstrate that what a wild bone marrow did to a young girl’s body was nothing compared to what people did to each other. Bobby was a visitor from Alan’s training years, and now he gracefully turned to show off the red, blistered second-degree burn in the skin of his back—a perfect triangular imprint of his mother’s steam iron.

Bobby almost always brought along Tabatha, the little seven-month-old who had been clouted on the head so many times she was blind. Despite Alan’s pleas and demands and strident protests, both had been returned to their respective parents by the court and he never saw them again.

Bobby and Tabatha dissolved into Maria Cardoza. She was a frequent visitor. Slim, beautiful, nineteen-year-old Maria. As usual, she floated in on her ICU bed, naked, bleeding from her nose, her mouth, her abdominal incisions, her rectum and her vagina. That was how he had last seen her, and the image was branded on his subconscious. Four years ago he had been passing through the ER when the EMTs brought her in from a two-car head-on accident on 107. He had seen her only once before in his office for a minor respiratory infection. Since no one else was available, he had assisted the surgeon on call in removing her ruptured spleen and sewing up her lacerated liver. The procedure had been effective, but all the clotting factors in her blood had been chewed up and she simply would not stop bleeding. Alan had dragged a hematologist out of bed but nothing he did would make Maria’s blood clot. Once again, fresh as that very night, he felt the grim, almost hysterical frustration of his impotence, of the futility of every effort to save her as he stayed by her bed until dawn, watching liter after liter of the various solutions and plasma fractions that poured into her veins run out the drains in her abdominal cavity. She went into renal shutdown, then congestive heart failure, then she went away.

But not for good.

Maria and her touring company lived on, visiting Alan on a regular basis.

Almost time.

Mike Switzer, all eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses, wavy brown hair falling over his angular face, had hovered at Alan’s side all morning.

“Just stay cool, Alan,” he kept saying. “Don’t let them rattle you.”

Alan kept nodding. “Sure. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

But he wasn’t fine. He felt as if he were about to be fed to the lions. His stomach kept twitching and his bladder urged him to the men’s room again despite three visits already.

He’d heard about McCready and how he could cut you up and eat you alive before you even knew he was talking to you.

The hearing room was just like the ones he’d see now and then on cable TV: oak paneled, with the politicos and their aides sitting up behind their desks on the raised platform like Caesars in the Coliseum, and the testifiers below like Christians waiting for their turn in the ring. Bored-looking reporters strolled in and out of the room or slouched about in chairs at the rear until The Man Himself limped in and sat behind the nameplate that said:

SEN. JAMES A. MCCREADY (D-NY).

Then they were all attention.

Alan studied McCready from his vantage point among the plebeians. With his stooped frame and sagging jowls, he looked older than his reputed fifty-six years. The impenetrable dark glasses that had become his trademark over the past few years were in place, shutting him off from everyone around him, masking what ever hints his eyes might let slip about what was going on in his mind. No matter what was said, Senator McCready remained expressionless and insectoid behind his shades.

Some confusing chatter went back and forth among those on the podium, followed by someone finishing testimony that had begun yesterday, then it was Alan’s turn to sit before the microphones.

The Senator

James McCready let his mind wander as the latest doctor—what was his name? Bulmer?—began to speak. He had heard all he wanted to hear on this subject long ago.

Besides, he didn’t want to be here. He felt tired and weak. He felt old.

Fifty-six and he felt like a hundred. Thank God he could sit now and regain the strength he had spent just walking here from his office…and sitting down. If they only knew what it cost him to seat himself slowly when every muscle in his body screamed to allow him to flop into his chair.

And mornings were his best times. That was why he scheduled these hearings for the crack of dawn. By the afternoon he could barely fake it. Good thing he’d been wounded in Vietnam. That old, nearly forgotten injury had finally served some useful purpose. Keeping his head still and moving only his eyes behind his dark glasses, McCready scanned the committee room. He’d started wearing the heavily tinted lenses when his upper lids had begun to droop. He’d feared at first that people would think he was trying to look like a movie star. Instead, they said it made him look like General Douglas MacArthur. Well, if he had to look like somebody, he could certainly do worse than MacArthur.

His gaze came to rest on Congressman Switzer.

Now there’s a man to watch out for. He smells the weakness in me and he’s readying himself for the kill. The first time I stumble, he’ll be on me. Look at him there, the little weasel bastard! Hanging on his pet doctor’s shoulder, egging him on. Probably coached him for weeks. These doctors can’t think on their own unless it’s about medicine, and even then they screw up plenty!

McCready, above all else, knew about medical screw-ups. But he chided himself for begrudging Switzer a pet doctor. After all, he had plenty of his own.

He focused in on the doctor. What was his name again? He looked at the list. Oh, yes—Bulmer. He couldn’t resist a smile. Poor Dr. Bulmer…probably thinks he has a real ally in Switzer. Wonder if he realizes that his buddy will drop him the instant he’s no longer needed?

He heard Dr. Bulmer say the magic words, “In closing…” and decided he’d better tune in. It had been a brief address and he was ending it while he still had everyone’s attention. Maybe this doc wasn’t so dumb.

“…that these so-called guidelines are cookbook medicine of the lowest sort. It allows a doctor no leeway in tailoring therapy to a particular patient under particular conditions. It reduces doctors to robot mechanics and reduces their patients to assembly-line cars. It is the most dehumanizing piece of legislation I have ever had the misfortune to read. It will drive out the kind of doctor who shapes his therapeutic approach to the individual patient, and will encourage the rise of the physician-bureaucrat who does everything unswervingly by The Book. Medicine will become as personal as welfare, as efficient as the Post Office, and as successful as the Middle East peace process.

“Only one party will suffer in the long run: the patient.” From somewhere in the room there came the sound of one pair of hands clapping, then two, and then many.

Obviously ringers, McCready told himself. But then more and more hands joined in until the whole room—some committee members included!—was clapping. What had this Bulmer character said? He’d brought no graphs or charts, and he couldn’t have gone over too many facts and figures because McCready would have noticed lots of glazed eyes. Which meant that he’d probably done a “Dr. Sincerity” number on the room. He clenched a fist. He should have listened.

Well, no matter. He’d have a little fun with him, then cut him down to size. He cleared his throat and the room silenced.

“So tell me, Dr. Bulmer,” he said, noting the per sis tent rasp in his voice. “If American medicine doesn’t need guidelines, how do you explain the healthcare crisis in this country?”

Bulmer nodded toward him. He seemed ready for the question.

“Besides you, Senator, who says there’s a crisis? A recent nationwide study showed that only ten percent of the people polled were dissatisfied with their personal healthcare, yet fully eighty percent were under the impression that there was a healthcare crisis in America. So I have to ask myself: If ninety percent of the people are satisfied with their own health care, and have not personally experienced a ‘healthcare crisis’ of any sort, where do they get the idea that there’s a crisis? The answer is obvious: They have been told so often about a healthcare crisis in America that, despite their personal satisfaction, they believe it exists. As inheritor of a chain of newspapers, Senator, I figure you’re in a better position than I to explain how this perceived crisis in healthcare might have been manufactured.”

The bastard! McCready thought as a smattering of applause died out before it really got started. The doctor was trying to put him on the defensive. He debated mentioning that the McCready newspaper chain was being held in trust and run by a board of directors while he was in office, but decided against it. Better to ignore the remark—not even dignify it with an answer. He waited until the silence bordered on the uncomfortable. When he finally spoke he treated Bulmer’s last remark as if it had never been uttered.

“So everything’s just hunky-dory with American medicine, eh?”

The doctor shook his head. “No, Senator. Everything’s far from ‘hunky-dory’ in American medicine. Doctors in general aren’t doing their job as well as they should or could. I’m not talking about competence—anyone graduated from a U.S. school can be assumed to be competent. I’m talking about the void growing between doctors and their patients. The structure and strictures of managed care have already been addressed here. But new technologies that allow us to diagnose and treat illness as never before are building a wall between patient and physician.”

McCready wasn’t too sure he liked the way this was going. He had expected some bromides about how doctors were only human and were doing the best they could. He didn’t know what Bulmer was leading up to.

The doctor paused, then continued. “I really hate to bring it up before a committee such as this, but here goes: As doctors, we must—we need to—keep touching people, and by that I mean an actual laying on of hands, even when it’s not necessary. It’s letting that person know that there’s another human being among all this hardware.

“A simple example: A doctor can listen to a heart by standing to the patient’s right, grasping the head of the stethoscope with the fingers of his right hand, reaching over, and pressing it against the patient’s chest wall—only the diaphragm of the stethoscope touches the patient. Or he can lean close and steady the patient by placing his left hand on the patient’s bare back. He’s not hearing any better, but he’s in contact. It’s a very simple but very personal thing. And there are diagnostic bonuses that come with touching. You can often pick up little cues from the feel of the skin and tissues beneath. It’s not something you can get from a textbook, it’s something you can learn only by doing. It’s hands-on medicine, but too few doctors are doing it today. And those who are will be driven out by the Medical Guidelines bill.”

The committee room was silent. Even the reporters had stopped their chatter.

They like him. The senator decided he’d do better being gentle with Bulmer than trying to cut him up.

“Very well put, Dr. Bulmer. But why did you say you hesitated to bring it up before this committee?”

“Well…” Bulmer said slowly, obviously measuring his words. “The operating premise of this committee seems to be that you can actually lay out guidelines for good medical care. So I wouldn’t be surprised if my comments inspired a new federal guideline requiring every doctor to touch each patient for a predetermined number of minutes during each examination.”

A few titters, then a couple of guffaws, then the room erupted into laughter. Even some committee members broke into sheepish grins.

McCready was furious. He didn’t know if he had been set up or if Bulmer’s remark had been genuinely off the cuff. Either way, this pipsqueak doctor was ridiculing him and the committee. His words had been carefully padded with humor, but the sting was still there. McCready glanced at the other committee members. The looks on their faces sounded an alarm in him.

Until this moment he had harbored not the slightest doubt about his bill’s inclusion in the latest Medicare appropriations. These hearings had been mere formality. Now he experienced his first twinge of uncertainty. Bulmer had struck a nerve and the committee members were twitching.

Damn him!

This bill had to pass. The country needed it! He needed it! He had to put an end to the kind of medical oversights that had left him undiagnosed for so long. And if the medical establishment couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, then he’d goddamn well do it for them! But right now he had to act. Top priority was to get this doctor away from the microphone and off the floor immediately.

He leaned close to his own mike. “Thank you for your time and valuable input, Dr. Bulmer.”

And then the room was applauding and Congressman Switzer was clapping his pet doctor on the shoulder. McCready watched the pair from behind his dark lenses. He would have to do something about Switzer. And soon. And Dr. Bulmer…Dr. Alan Bulmer…

He would remember that name.

Alan

He made quick afternoon rounds at the hospital, then met Ginny back at the club for dinner. He was all set to spend a nice, quiet evening at home when the answering service patched through a call from Joe Barton, a longtime patient. He was coughing up blood. Alan told him to get right over to the emergency room and he’d meet him there.

Joe turned out to have a heavily consolidated lobar pneumonia. But because he was a smoker and there was the chance that something sinister might be lurking in the infiltrated area of lung, he scheduled him for a CT scan tomorrow.

As he approached the ER nursing desk, a voice called out from the corner gurney.

“You! Hey, you! You’re the one!”

The overhead light in the corner was out. Alan squinted into the dimness. A disheveled old man in shapeless clothes lay there, gesturing to him. Alan didn’t recognize him, but threw him a friendly wave in passing.

“Who’s in the corner cot?” he said to McClain when he reached the desk. “Anybody I know?”

“For your sake, I hope not,” she said. “He’s drunk as a skunk and doesn’t smell much better. Doesn’t even know his name.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Says he came here to die.”

“That’s encouraging.”

McClain snorted. “Not on my shift, it ain’t. Anyway, we’ve got lab and a chest X-ray cooking, and EKG is on the way.”

“Who’s on service?”

“Your old buddy, Alberts.”

McClain was one of the few nurses still around who would remember that Alan and Lou Alberts had been partners—how many years ago? Could it be seven years already since they’d split?

“I’m sure they’ll get along fine together,” he said with an evil grin.

McClain barked a laugh. “I’m sure!”

On his way back to say good night to Joe, the man in the corner cot called to him again.

“Hey, you! C’mere! S’time!”

Alan waved but kept walking. The man was in no distress, just drunk.

“Hey! S’time! C’mere. Please!”

The note of desperation in that last word made Alan stop and turn toward the corner. The man was motioning him over.

“C’mere.”

Alan walked to the side of the gurney, then backed up a step. It was the same bum who had banged on his car Tuesday night. And McClain hadn’t been kidding. He was filthy and absolutely foul smelling. Yet even the stench from his pavement-colored clothes and shoeless feet couldn’t quite cover the reek of cheap wine on the breath wheezing from his toothless mouth.

“What can I do for you?” Alan said.

“Take my hand.” He held out a filthy paw with cracked skin and blackened, ragged fingernails.

“Gee, I don’t know,” Alan said, trying to keep the mood light. “We haven’t even been introduced.”

“Please take it.”

Alan took a breath. Why hadn’t he just walked on by like everybody else?

He shrugged and reached out his right hand. The poor guy did look like he was dying, and this seemed important to him. Besides, he’d had his hands in worse places.

As soon as his fingers neared the derelict’s, the filthy hand leaped up and grabbed him in an iron grip. Pain blossomed in his fingers and palm, but from more than pressure. Light blazed around him as a jolt like high-voltage electricity coursed up his arm, convulsing his muscles, causing him to thrash uncontrollably like a fish on a hook. Dark spots flared in his vision, coalescing, blotting out the derelict, the emergency room, everything.

And then the grip was broken and he was reeling backward, off balance, his hands reaching for something, anything to keep him from falling. He felt fabric against his left hand, grabbed it, realizing it was a privacy curtain as he heard its fasteners snap free of the ceiling track under his weight. But at least it slowed his fall, lessening the blow to the back of his head as it struck the nearby utility table. His vision blurred, then cleared to reveal McClain’s shocked expression as she leaned over him.

“What happened? You okay?”

Alan rubbed his right hand with his left. The electric shock sensation was gone, but the flesh still tingled all the way down to the bone.

“I think so. What the hell did he do to me?”

McClain glanced at the corner gurney. “Him?” She straightened up and gave the derelict a closer look. “Oh, shit!” She darted out toward the desk and came back pushing the crash cart.

From the overhead speaker the operator’s voice blared, “Code Blue—ER! Code Blue—ER!”

Nurses and orderlies appeared from every direction. Dr. Lo, the ER physician for the night, ran in from the doctors’ lounge and took charge of the resuscitation, giving Alan a puzzled look as he darted by.

Alan tried to stand, intending to help with the CPR, but found his knees wobbly and his right arm numb. By the time he felt steady enough to help, Lo had called the resuscitation to a halt. Despite all their efforts, the heart had refused to start up again. The monitor showed only a wavering line when McClain finally turned it off.

“Great!” she said. “Just great! Don’t even know his name! A coroner’s case for sure! I’ll be filling out forms for days!”

Lo came over to Alan, a half smile on his Asian face.

“For a second there, when I saw you on the floor, I thought we’d be working on you. What happened? He hit you?”

Alan didn’t know how to explain what had happened, so he just nodded. “Yeah. Must have been some sort of Stokes-Adams attack or something as he arrested.”

Alan went over to the corner cot, stepped inside the drawn curtains, and pulled down the covering sheet. The old man’s head was half turned toward Alan, his mouth slack, his eyes half open and glazed. Alan gently pushed the lids closed.

He cradled his right arm in his left. It still felt strange.

What the hell did you do to me?

He could think of no explanation for the shock that had run up his arm. It had come from the derelict, of that he was sure. But where had he got it? Alan had no answer, and the dead man wasn’t going to tell him, so he pulled the sheet back over the face and walked away.

Sylvia

“No hurry, Ba,” Sylvia said from her seat in the rear of the Graham. “Take your time.”

She was not particularly anxious to hear what Sara Chase had to say today. She had resigned herself to the fact that it was not going to be good.

Fighting the melancholia that clung like a shroud, she ran her hand over the polished mahogany that framed the tinted side windows, sliding it down to the plush upholstery. Usually she took such pleasure in the interior refurbishing job she’d commissioned on this old 1938 sedan, transforming it from a rusting derelict into a warm, safe place, a bright red home away from home. A passenger had once remarked that it reminded him of a luxury stateroom on the QE2. Today it left her cold.

She hadn’t gone into this with her eyes closed. She’d known from the beginning that raising a child like Jeffy wasn’t going to be easy. She had expected and had been prepared for trouble, aggravation, and frustration. She hadn’t counted on heartbreak.

But the heartbreak was there. For months now, Jeffy receded from her a little bit each day, and each tiny increment of withdrawal was a stab of pain.

She wondered if she had known from the start that things would turn out this way—slow progress over more than four years, teasing her into a false hope, only to see those hopes dashed in the space of a few months—would she have adopted Jeffy?

A difficult question, but she knew only one answer: yes.

She clearly remembered how she had lost her heart to that little boy from the moment she opened the Monroe Express five years ago and saw his picture. The three-year-old had been left on the steps of the Stanton School for Special Education, secured to the front door by a leash fastened to the dog collar around his neck, with a note saying “Please take care of Jeffy I cant do it no more” pinned to his shirt. The picture had been published in an attempt to identify him and locate his parents.

It had accomplished neither. But it did capture Sylvia. Jeffy reached through that grainy black-and-white photo and touched a spot in Sylvia’s heart that refused to let her rest until she brought him home.

They’d warned her. Right from the start, the people at the Stanton School—Dr. Chase the most vocal among them—had told her that he was profoundly autistic and would be a tremendous financial, psychological, and emotional burden. The entire range of Jeffy’s behavior consisted of rocking back and forth, humming tunelessly, eating, sleeping, urinating, and defecating. He never even looked at another person, directing his gaze always just to the right or left of anyone facing him, as if they were an inanimate object obstructing his view. The most rudimentary rewards of motherhood, such as the simple return of love and affection showered on a child, would be denied her.

But Sylvia hadn’t listened. She’d known she could reach Jeffy.

And she had.

While waiting for all the legal machinery to process Jeffy and clear him for adoption, Sylvia had taken him into her home as a foster child. She immersed herself in his care, spending her nights reading every available reference on autism, her days structuring his environment and using the theories she was studying. Operant behavior-modification techniques worked best with Jeffy.

The operant sessions had been grueling at first. Endless repetitions, positively reinforcing each tiny fragment of a desired response, building a repertoire of behavior, increment by increment, from nothing—a seemingly impossible task. But Sylvia’s efforts had paid off. She smiled now, reliving a hint of the joy she’d felt as, bit by bit, Jeffy began to come around, began to respond. Dr. Chase and the staff at the Stanton School had been amazed. Sylvia and Jeffy became celebrities of sorts there.

The dream of the little boy with open arms running toward her across the lawn had looked like it would come true. Until last winter.

She felt her lips tighten as her smile withered.

Jeffy had never come near to being a “normal child”—whatever that was—but he had begun responding to people to the extent that he would look up when someone came into the room, something he had not been doing when found. He responded to animals and inanimate objects much more readily, going so far as to play with Mess and Phemus, and even say a few words to the air. He never spoke a word to another human being, but at least he proved he had the capacity for speech. Sylvia had felt they were on the verge of a breakthrough when Jeffy inexplicably began to regress.

It had been so subtle at first that Sylvia had refused to even acknowledge it was happening. Finally, reluctantly, she was forced to admit that Jeffy was losing ground. She’d fervently hoped that she was wrong, but Dr. Chase had begun to notice it, too. The results of her behavioral evaluation of Jeffy were due today.

“I’m afraid the results aren’t good,” Sara Chase said without preamble as Sylvia seated herself in the chair beside the desk.

A pleasant-looking woman of about fifty, Sara had ruddy cheeks and wispy brown hair. She never wore makeup and was perhaps twenty pounds overweight. She’d long ago told Sylvia to stop calling her “Doctor.”

Sylvia sank deeper into the chair. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She wanted to cry. “I’ve done everything. Everything.”

“I know you have. The progress he made with you is incredible. But…”

“But I didn’t do enough, right?”

“Wrong!” Sara said sternly as she leaned forward on her desk. “I won’t have you blaming yourself. Autism is a developmental disorder that follows a bell curve of severity and can confound you at every turn. I don’t have to tell you this. You know almost as much about it as I do.”

Sylvia sighed. She knew she had done all that could be done for Jeffy, but it hadn’t been enough.

“And Jeffy’s on the wrong end of the curve, is that it?”

She nodded.

Sylvia pounded her fist against the arm of the chair. “There’s a beautiful little boy in there and he can’t get out! It’s not fair!”

“Oh,” Sara said in a placating tone, “I don’t know if any of us knows what Jeffy’s really like.”

“I do! I can feel him in there, trapped. He’s been locked away so long he doesn’t even know he’s a prisoner. But he’s in there. I know it! Last summer I saw him pick a monarch butterfly out of a puddle, dry off its wings with his shirt, and let it fly away. He’s kind, he’s gentle, he’s—”

There was sympathy in Sara’s eyes as she sat and watched Sylvia in silence.

Sylvia knew what the psychologist was thinking—that she was romanticizing Jeffy’s condition.

“No new medication?” she asked.

Sara shook her head. “We’ve tried them all and he’s refractory.

“We could arrange another trial—”

“No.” She sighed as depression settled on her like a mantle. “They only made him jittery or put him to sleep.”

“Keep working with him, then. Keep using the operant techniques. Maybe you can slow his slide. Maybe it will turn around by itself. Who can say?”

A few moments later Sylvia walked out into the crystalline daylight.

The sun shouldn’t be shining, she thought. Dark and rainy were more in tune with her mood.

Alan

It began late Friday morning.

The only incident of note before that was the call from Fred Larkin.

Connie buzzed back with the word that Dr. Larkin was calling.

“Dr. Larkin himself, or his secretary?”

Alan already knew the answer. Fred Larkin was the local glamorboy orthopedist who took in something like $750,000 a year, owned three homes, a forty-two-foot cabin cruiser, and traveled the 35 mile-an-hour roads from his home to the hospital in a 200-mile-an-hour, $90,000 Maserati with license plates that read FRED MD. Alan never referred patients to him, but one of his regulars had somehow landed under Larkin’s care in January. He had been expecting this call.

“His secretary, of course.”

“Of course.” Fred Larkin was not the type to deign to dial a phone number himself. “Put her on hold and hurry back here for a second.”

As Connie bustled her short, plump frame into his office, Alan hit the button on his phone and said, “Hello?”

When a female voice on the other end said, “Just a minute, Dr. Bulmer,” and put him on hold, Alan handed the phone to Connie. She smiled and held it to her ear.

After a short pause, she said, “Hold on, Dr. Larkin,” and hit the hold button. Giggling, she handed the phone to Alan and hurried out of the office.

Alan waited for a slow count of five and then opened the line.

“Fred! How are you?”

“Fine, Alan,” he said in his officious voice. “Listen, I don’t want to take up much of your time, but I thought you should know what one of your patients is saying about you.”

“Really? Who?” Alan knew who, what, and why, but decided to play dumb.

“Mrs. Marshall.”

“Elizabeth? I didn’t even know she was mad at me!”

“I don’t know about that. But as you know, I scoped her right knee in January and she’s refusing to pay the last two-thirds of her bill.”

“Probably because she doesn’t have the money.”

“Well, be that as it may, she says”—he gave a forced laugh here—“that you told her not to pay it. Can you believe that?”

“Sure. In a sense, it’s true.”

After a long silence on the other end of the line, Larkin said, “You admit it?”

“Uh-huh.” Alan waited for the explosion.

“You son of a bitch!” Larkin shouted into the phone. “I half figured you put her up to it. Where the hell do you get off telling one of my patients not to pay my bill?”

“To say you charge too much is an understatement, Fred. You gouge. You never gave that old lady a clue how much you’d charge her for a look into her joint plus a little trimming of her cartilage. You did it in twenty minutes in the outpatient surgery department—which means your overhead was zero, Fred—and you charged her two thousand bucks! Then—and this is the kicker—then she had to come to me for an explanation of exactly what it was you did for her. You charge at a rate of six thousand bucks an hour and I have to do the explaining! Which I couldn’t do because as usual you never bothered to send me a copy of the procedure summary.”

“I explained everything to her.”

“Not so she could understand it, and you probably had four more procedures lined up. Answering a few questions would take too much time. And when she told your office that Medicare and her other insurance only covered six hundred of the bill, she was informed that that was her problem. And you know what she said to me?”

Alan had now arrived at the point that infuriated him the most. He could feel himself coming to a boil. He tried to control it, knowing he could slip into a shouting rage at any minute.

“She said, ‘You doctors!’ She lumped me with you! And that pissed me off. Ill will from guys like you who treat patients like slabs of meat spills over onto me, and I don’t take kindly to that.”

“Don’t give me any of your holier-than-thou crap, Bulmer. Nothing gives you the right to tell a patient not to pay!”

“I didn’t tell her that, exactly.” Alan’s temper was stretched to the breaking point, but he managed to keep his voice low. “I told her to send your bill back to you in the shape of a rectal suppository. Because you’re an asshole, Fred.”

After a second or two of shocked silence, Larkin said, “I can buy and sell you, Bulmer.”

“A rich asshole is still an asshole.”

“I’m taking this to the hospital board and to the medical society. You haven’t heard the last of this!”

“Yes, I have,” Alan said, and hung up.

He was annoyed with himself for sinking to name calling, but could not deny that he’d enjoyed it.

He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty already. He would be playing catch-up the rest of the morning.

Alan’s mood lightened immediately when he saw Sonja Andersen waiting for him in the examining room. He smiled at the pretty little ten-year-old he’d been following for the past three years and mentally flipped through her medical history. Sonja had been a normal child until age four when she contracted chicken pox from her older sister. It was not the usual uncomplicated case, however. A varicella meningitis developed, leaving her with a seizure disorder and total hearing loss in her right ear. She was a brave little soul and had been doing well lately. No seizures for the past year, and no visible ill effects from the Dilantin she took twice a day to control them.

She held up an iPod with super-lightweight headphones.

“Look what I got, Dr. Bulmer!” Her face was bright and open, her smile unstudied sincerity. She seemed genuinely glad to see him.

Alan was just as happy to see her. He loved pediatrics more than any other facet of his practice. He found something in caring for a child, whether sick or well, that gave him a special satisfaction. Perhaps this communicated itself to the children and their parents, explaining why an unusually large segment of his practice, nearly 40 percent, was devoted to children under twelve.

“Who gave you that?”

“My uncle. For my birthday.”

“That’s right—you’re ten now, aren’t you? What kind of music do you like?”

She smiled. “Loud.”

He watched as she put on the headphones and began bouncing to what ever she was hearing. He lifted the left earpiece away from her head and said,

“What’s playing?”

“The new song by Polio.”

He forced a smile, acutely aware of the generation gap. He’d heard Polio’s music—a mindless blend of punk and heavy metal. They made Eminem sound refined and were one of the reasons he kept the stack of homemade oldies CDs in his car. “What say we turn it off for the moment and let me give you the once over.”

He checked her heart, lungs, blood pressure, checked her gums for the telltale signs of long-term Dilantin therapy. All negative. Good. He turned on the otoscope, fitted it with a speculum, and moved to her ears.

The left looked fine—the canal was clear, the drum normal in color and configuration with no sign of fluid in the middle ear. He came around to the other side. As usual, her right ear looked as normal as the left. Her deafness there was not caused by a structural defect; the auditory nerve simply didn’t carry the messages from the middle ear to the brain. He realized with a pang that she would never hear her favorite songs in stereo—

And then it happened.

First a sensation in his left hand where he gripped the auricle of her ear, a tingling, needling pleasure surging from there through his whole body, making him tremble and break out in a sweat. Sonja whimpered and clutched at her ear with both hands as she lurched away, toppling off the examining table and into her mother’s arms.

“What?” was all the startled woman could say as she hugged her child against her.

“My ear! He hurt my ear!”

Weak and more than a little frightened, Alan sagged against the examining table.

The mother came to his defense. “He barely touched you, Sonja!”

“He gave me a shock!”

“It must have been from the rug. Isn’t that right, Dr. Bulmer?”

For a second Alan wasn’t exactly sure where he was.

“Right,” he said. He straightened and hoped he didn’t look as pale and shaky as he felt. “That’s the only explanation.”

What he’d felt just now reminded him of the shock he’d received from the derelict in the emergency room last night. But this afternoon he’d felt more pleasure than pain. An instant of searing ecstasy and then…what? Afterglow?

He managed to coax Sonja back up onto the table and complete the examination. He checked the right ear again. No problem this time. No sign of injury, either. Sonja left a few minutes later, still complaining of pain in her ear.

Alan went into his consultation room to sit at his desk for a moment. What the hell had happened in there? He couldn’t explain it. He had used the same technique with the same otoscope and speculum for years without incident. What had gone wrong today? And that feeling…!

Alan didn’t like things he couldn’t explain. But he forced his mind to file it away for later and rose to his feet. He had a full schedule and had to keep moving.

The next half hour went smoothly. Then Henrietta Westin showed up.

“I just want a checkup.”

Alan was immediately alert. He knew Henrietta Westin was not the checkup type. She was a born-again Christian who herded her three kids and husband in at the first sign of a cold or fever, but trusted in the Lord for herself. Which meant she usually waited until she was well into bronchitis and on the way to pneumonia or 10 percent dehydrated from an intestinal virus before she dragged herself into the office.

“Anything wrong?” Alan asked.

She shrugged and smiled. “Of course not. A little tired maybe, but what do you expect when you’re pushing forty-five in a month? I suppose I should praise the Lord I’ve had my health this long, at least.”

That had an ominous ring to it.

Alan checked her over. He found nothing remarkable other than a slight elevation in her blood pressure and pulse rate, the former no doubt secondary to the latter. She had a gynecologist she saw regularly for any “female problems” she might have; her last gyn exam had been four months ago and everything had been normal.

Alan leaned back against the counter and looked at her. He had touched her palms and found them slick with perspiration. Those hands were now clutched tightly in her lap, the knuckles white. This woman was about to explode with tension. He decided to arrange some thyroid studies but, since her weight hadn’t changed in the last two years, he doubted that was the problem.

He closed her chart and pointed to his consultation room door. “Get dressed and meet me in there and we’ll talk.”

She nodded. “All right.” As he stepped toward the door she said, “Oh, by the way…”

Here it comes, he thought. The real reason for the visit.

“…I found a lump in my breast.”

He flipped her chart back onto the counter and moved to her side.

“Didn’t Dr. Anson examine you?” Alan knew her gynecologist to be a painstakingly thorough physician.

“Yes, but it wasn’t there then.”

“When did you first notice it?”

“Last month.”

“You check your breasts monthly?”

She averted her eyes. “No.”

So it could have been there three months. Damn!

“Why didn’t you come in sooner?”

“I…I thought it might go away. But it didn’t.” A single sob broke through. “It got bigger!”

Alan laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hang on now. It might be a cyst—which is nothing but a fluid-filled sack—or something equally benign. Let’s check.”

She unsnapped her bra and pulled it off under the paper cape. Alan lifted the cape and looked at her breasts. He immediately noticed a little dimpling of the skin two inches from the left nipple at two o’clock.

“Which breast?”

“The left.”

This was looking worse all the time. “Lie back.”

In an effort to stave off the inevitable, Alan examined the right breast first, starting at the outer margin and working toward, around, and finally under the nipple. Normal. He did the same on the other side but started under her arm. There, beneath the slippery mixture of perspiration, deodorant, and shaven stubble, he felt three distinctly enlarged lymph nodes. Oh, hell! He moved over to the breast itself, where he found a firm, fixed, irregular mass under the dimpled area. His stomach tightened. Malignant as all hell.

—and then it happened again.

The tingling, the ecstasy, the small cry from his patient, the instant of disorientation.

“What was that?” she said, cupping her hands over her left breast.

“I don’t…I’m not sure,” Alan said, alarmed now. This was the second time in less than an hour. What was—?

“It’s gone!” Mrs. Westin cried, frantically running her fingers over her breast. “The lump—praise God!—it’s not there anymore!”

“Of course it is,” Alan said. “Tu—” He almost said tumors. “Lumps don’t just disappear like that.” Alan knew the power of denial as a psychological mechanism; the worst thing that could happen now was for her to fool herself into believing that she had no mass in her breast. “Here. I’ll show you.”

But he couldn’t show her.

It was gone.

The mass, the dimpling, the enlarged nodes—gone.

“How did you do it, Doctor?”

“Do it? I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. You touched it and it disappeared.” Her eyes glowed as she looked at him. “You healed it.”

“No-no.” He hunted for an explanation. “It must have been a cyst that broke. That’s it.” He didn’t believe that—breast cysts did not rupture and disappear during examination—and from the look on her face, Henrietta Westin didn’t believe it either.

“Praise the Lord, He has healed me through you.”

“Now just hold on there!” This was getting out of hand. Almost frantic now, Alan rechecked the breast again.

This can’t be! It’s got to be here!

But it wasn’t. He couldn’t find a trace of the mass.

“Bless you!”

“Now wait a minute, Henrietta. I want you to have a mammogram.”

As she straightened and refastened her bra, her eyes still held that glow. “If you wish, Doctor.”

Don’t look at me like that!

“Today. I’ll call the hospital now.”

“Anything you say.”

Alan fled the examining room for his desk. He picked up the phone to call the radiology department at Monroe Community Hospital…and stopped. For a few seconds he couldn’t think of the hospital’s main number, one he called at least a dozen times a day. Then it came back to him. This thing must have shaken him up more than he’d realized.

Jack Fisher, the chief radiologist, was not crazy about the idea of squeezing another mammogram into his schedule, but Alan convinced him of the urgency of this particular request and Jack reluctantly agreed to find a slot for Mrs. Westin.

Alan managed to do a competent job on the rest of the morning’s patients, even though he knew he gave a couple of them the bum’s rush. He couldn’t help it. It was an effort to concentrate on their problems when his mind throbbed with the question of what had happened to the tumor in Henrietta Westin’s breast. It had been there. He’d felt it. And there was no way it could have been anything less than a malignancy with those nodes in the axilla.

And then it had been gone.

This was crazy.

His state of distraction had one unexpected benefit: He hardly heard Mr. Bradford as he went through his usual catalog of the color, caliber, and frequency of each of his stools since his last visit.

Finally, lunchtime came. He sent Connie and Denise out to eat while he made his call-backs. He wished Ginny were still working here. She’d started off as his receptionist when he first moved into the building but soon decided it wasn’t for her. Maybe she was right. After all, none of the other doctors’ wives she hung around with worked for their husbands.

He heard the phone ring up front at Connie’s desk, saw a light start blinking on the phone beside him. It was the private line he reserved for the hospital, pharmacists, and other doctors. He stabbed at it.

“Hello.”

“Nothing there, Alan.” It was Jack Fisher, the radiologist. “A little fibrocystic disease, but no mass, no calcifications, no vascular changes.”

“And you checked the axilla like I asked you?”

“Clean. Both sides. Clean.”

Alan didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.

“Okay, Alan?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, Jack. And thanks a lot for squeezing her in. I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime. Sometimes the only way to handle these kooks is to humor them.”

“Kook?”

“Yeah. The Westin lady. She was going on and on to anyone who’d listen about how you had ‘the healing touch.’ How she’d had a tumor there for the past month and with a single touch you made it disappear.” He laughed. “Every time I think I’ve heard it all, somebody comes up with a new one.”

Alan managed to get off the phone with a modicum of grace, then slumped into his chair and sat staring at the grain in the oak paneling on the opposite wall.

Henrietta Westin now had a left breast that felt normal and showed clean on mammography. But that hadn’t been the case two hours ago.

He sighed and stood up. No use worrying about it. She wasn’t going to lose her breast or her life, that was the important thing. When he had more time he’d try to figure it out. Right now it was time for a bite to eat and then into the afternoon session.

The phone rang again. It was a patient line this time. He hadn’t signed out to the answering service yet so he picked it up.

It was Mrs. Andersen and she was sobbing. Something about Sonja. About her ear.

Oh, Christ! Just what he needed now.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is she still in pain?”

“No!” the woman wailed. “She can hear out of her right ear again! She can hear!”

“How do I look?”

Alan snapped back to the here and now. He’d made it through the afternoon hours without committing any medical negligence, but now that he was home his thoughts kept veering toward Sonja Andersen and Henrietta Westin.

He looked up. Ginny was standing at the far side of the kitchen table, modeling slacks and a blouse of different shades of green.

“You look great.” It was the truth. Clothes fit her perfectly right off the rack. The greens of the fabric caught the green of her contacts. “Really great.”

“Then how come I always have to ask?”

“Because you always look great. You should know that.”

“A girl likes to be told sometimes.”

For perhaps the hundredth time this year—the first time had been New Year’s Eve—Alan promised to be more attentive to Ginny and less absorbed in his practice. They didn’t have much of a life together anymore. To an outsider they probably looked like the perfect couple—all they needed was two and a half children and they’d be the ideal American family. They’d talked about getting their lives on the same track again countless times, but all their good intentions seemed to remain intentions. The practice kept demanding more and more of Alan’s time, while Ginny became increasingly involved with the club, along with her civic and hospital-related groups. Their paths crossed at breakfast, dinner, and occasionally at bedtime.

He would be more attentive and he would be less self-absorbed. Soon. But tonight was certainly a special case, especially after what had happened today.

Ginny set a plate of shrimp salad on a bed of lettuce, plus a loaf of sourdough bread before him.

“You’re not eating?” he asked as she continued to buzz around the kitchen.

She shook her head. “No time. Why do you think I’m dressed up? Tonight’s the Guild meeting and I’ve got to give a progress report on the fashion show.”

“I thought the Guild met on Thursday nights.”

“Tonight’s a special meeting because of the fashion show on Sunday. I told you about it.”

“Right. You did. Sorry. Just wanted to talk.”

Ginny smiled. “Great. Talk.”

“Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair opposite him.

“Oh, I can’t, honey. Josie and Terri are going to be here any minute to pick me up. Can’t you tell me quick?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Give it a try.” She sat down across from him.

“Okay. Something weird happened in the office today.”

“Mrs. Ellsworth paid her bill?”

Alan almost laughed. “No. Weirder.”

Ginny’s eyebrows rose. “This ought to be good.”

“I don’t know if it is or not.” He took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Somehow, some way, I…I cured two people of incurable illnesses today.”

After a short pause Ginny shook her head slowly, a puzzled expression constricting her features. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I. You see—”

A car honked outside in the driveway. Ginny leaped up.

“That’s Josie. I’ve got to go.” She came around the table and gave Alan a quick kiss. “We’ll talk about it later tonight, okay?”

Alan managed to smile. “Sure.”

And then her coat was on and she was out the door.

He jabbed his fork into the shrimp salad and began to eat. Maybe it was just as well. Both he and Ginny knew doctors who had developed God complexes. All he had to do was start talking about healing with a touch and she’d have him ready for the funny farm.

And maybe she’d be right.

He swallowed a mouthful of shrimp, put the fork down, and leaned back. He wasn’t hungry; he was just eating so he wouldn’t get hungry later.

What right did he have to think he had anything to do with Sonja regaining her hearing or with the disappearance of the lump in Henrietta Westin’s breast? Thinking yourself some sort of magical healer was the road to big trouble.

Yet certain facts persisted and he couldn’t wish them away: Sonja Andersen’s deafness had been verified time and again by audiometry, and now she could hear; Mrs. Westin had found the breast mass herself and he had confirmed its presence, yet it was gone now.

Something was up.

And in each case the turning point seemed to be his touch. There was no sane explanation here.

With a growl of frustration, disgust, and bafflement, Alan threw down his napkin and headed out to make late rounds at the hospital.

Alan turned toward his office on the way back from the hospital. Tony DeMarco had left a message with the answering service that he wanted to see him—a fortunate coincidence, because Alan wanted to talk to Tony. He had a job for him.

Along the way he found he was hungry and looked for a place to eat. He almost pulled into a downtown sandwich shop but turned away when he remembered that he’d treated the owner a number of times for various venereal diseases…and the owner made the sandwiches. He decided instead on Memison’s, where he ordered a fish dinner.

Later, his hunger sated, he pulled into the parking lot of the free-standing building he half-owned and saw that the lights were still on in the law office.

Tony answered Alan’s knock. “Ay! Alan! C’mon in.”

Alan smiled at the man who was perhaps his closest friend, his partner in the office building they shared, and who he hardly ever saw. Shorter than Alan, with close-cropped dark hair and a mustache, Tony was still whipcord lean as only an unmarried chain-smoker could be at his age.

“Just finished up some dictation and was about to call it a day. Drink?”

“Yeah. I could use one.”

Tony handed Alan two fingers of Dewar’s, neat. He lifted his glass.

“Brooklyn.”

“And a new Ebbets Field,” Alan said, lifting his.

“And the return of da Bums.”

They both drank and Alan let it burn down the back of his throat. Oh, that was good. He looked around the lavishly appointed office. He and Tony had both come a long way from their roots in Brooklyn—only a few miles on the map, but income and prestige wise they’d traveled light years.

They small-talked, and then Alan said, “You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah.” Tony indicated a chair and lighted a cigarette as he seated himself behind his desk. “Two things. First—know what today is?”

Alan didn’t have the foggiest.

“It’s our eighth anniversary, you dumb shit!”

Alan smiled at the ease with which Tony reverted to his Brooklyn accent and the street patois of their youth. Alan had quickly learned in medical school in New England that with his Brooklyn accent he could discuss baseball or hot dogs or street life with authority, but shouldn’t say anything about medicine, because nobody who talked like that could know anything about medicine. So he’d developed a neutral, regionless brand of English that was now as much a part of him as the way he walked.

Tony used his “lawyer English,” as he called it, only when he was being a lawyer. When he was relaxing with friends, he was the old Tony DeMarco, street fighter and toughest kid on the block.

“Really? That long?”

Alan found it hard to believe eight years had gone by since he’d picked out Tony’s name under the Lawyers listing in the phone book—his office had been the most convenient for a lunchtime appointment then—and had learned to his delight that they’d grown up only a few blocks apart.

He’d asked Tony about getting out of his practice agreement with Lou Alberts. Personally he’d got along fine with Lou, but their styles of practice didn’t mesh. Alan had found it utterly impossible to keep Lou’s pace, which was eight patients an hour on an average day, and ten or more per hour when things got busy. Lou’s technique was to hit the patient’s most immediate problem with an injection or a prescription, then shoo him out to make room for the next. He was a doctor with his hand forever on the doorknob. Trying to emulate him had made Alan feel like a pieceworker on an assembly line. Not at all the brand of medicine he wanted to practice.

But Alan hadn’t wanted to break his contract unless Lou wasn’t holding up his end of it. Unfortunately, Tony’s analysis revealed that Lou had been living up to the letter of the contract. But that was no problem—Tony could get him out of it and slide him past any of the restrictive covenants described therein.

“Yeah. Eight years ago you changed my life when you said you were going to finish your second contract year with Lou Alberts.”

“Get out!”

“I’m serious, man! I offered you half a dozen finagles out and you sat there with your white-bread mouth and said, ‘No. I signed my name and so that’s it.’ Do you know how you made me feel? Like a scumbag! Never had a client say that to me. Never! You didn’t care if you had a legal escape hatch, you’d given your word and you were gonna stick by it. I felt like slipping down under the table and crawling out the door.”

“You hid it well,” Alan said, amazed at the revelation. He’d never imagined—

“So from that day on I changed my style. No more weasel shit like that. I’ve lost clients because of it, but I can sit in the same room with you now.”

Something suddenly made itself clear to Alan in that moment. He had never known why Tony had called him only a month or so after that first meeting and asked if he wanted to go into partnership on a small office building on the other end of town, exactly one tenth of a mile outside that radius of the restrictive covenant in Alan’s contract with Lou. They could both share the first floor and maybe even find a tenant for the second.

He and Tony had been close friends and partners ever since. He wished they could spend more time together. He felt more kinship with this feisty lawyer than with any of his fellow physicians.

“Tony…I never realized—”

“Fuhgeddaboudit!” he said with a wave of his hand. “But on to the second thing: I overheard some real weird shit today.”

“Like what?”

“I was having a drink with this lawyer friend while he was waiting for a client. When the client came in they took the booth right behind where we’d been sitting, so while I’m finishing my drink I hear this dapper dude, who happens to be a doctor, tell my friend that he wants to sue another doctor—a guy by the name of Alan Bulmer. I later call my friend and in my casual roundabout way find out that this doctor’s name is Larkin.” He stared at Alan a moment. “So how come you don’t look too damn surprised?”

Alan told him about his conversation with Fred Larkin that morning.

Tony shook his head. “You can be a real jerk at times, Alan. I did a quick check on this Larkin guy. He’s a bigshot, lots of influence with the hospital Board of Trustees. Never know when you’re gonna need a friend or two in high places.”

“What for?” Alan said. “I’ve no intention of ever running for chief of staff, even if I had the time for it. Hospital politics bores me to tears.”

“Still, never hurts to have a friendly contact.”

“That’s the politician in you talking.”

“Ay! Don’t call me no fucking politician!”

Alan laughed. “Scratch any lawyer and you’ll find a nascent politician.”

“Don’t act so high and mighty about friends in high places. How do you think you got into that high-class club?”

Alan shrugged. Lou had been his partner then and Lou had been serving on the club membership committee. “Wasn’t my idea. Ginny wanted it…I just went along.”

“Yeah, but it was connections that got you in.”

Alan shrugged again. His practice left him little time for tennis or yachting, so he was almost a stranger at the club.

“Anyway, you’re a friend, aren’t you, Tony?”

“Yeah. But I ain’t in what you might call a High Place.”

Alan had an urge to tell Tony what had happened today: He tried to think of a way to phrase it so he wouldn’t sound delusional, but couldn’t find one.

Damn, this was frustrating! He needed to talk about this, yet he couldn’t bring himself to spill it for fear of what people would think. He knew what he would think.

So he turned the conversation away from himself.

“How’s business?”

“Great! Too great. Had to pass up a big party this weekend to fly up to Syracuse for a meeting with a client. Hate like hell to miss a Nash bash.”

Alan was startled. “You know Sylvia Nash?”

“Sure. Did a few closings for her around here. That lady either really knows what she’s doing with real estate or she’s just plain lucky. Everything she touches turns to gold.”

“Them that has, gets.”

“Well, from what I can gather, she didn’t always have. Greg Nash came back from the Gulf War, joined his father’s insurance agency, married Sylvia, insured himself to the eyeballs with term, then got blown away in that Seven-Eleven. With double indemnity and all, Sylvia became a millionairess overnight. She’s tripled and quadrupled that since then. Good businesswoman. Unfortunately, she doesn’t quite live up to her reputation as a loose woman.”

“Oh?” Alan said, trying to sound casual.

Tony’s eyebrows rose. “Got your interest now, ay?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah? You should’ve seen your eyes bug when I mentioned her name.”

“Just wondering how you got to know her.”

“Riiiight. You got something goin’ with her?”

“You know me better than that. I just treat her little boy, that’s all.”

“Yeah. I do remember her talking about you—like you could walk on water.”

“She’s very perceptive. But how do you know she doesn’t live up to her reputation?”

“We dated a few times.”

The thought of Sylvia in Tony’s arms pained him. “And?”

“Never got to first base.”

He felt guilty relief. “Maybe it’s your technique.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think so. There’s a lot of anger in that woman, Alan. A lot of anger.”

They both lapsed into silence, Alan thinking about Sylvia and how he had never perceived her as angry. He had seen her only with Jeffy, however, and saw only love for the child. But Tony was a perceptive guy. Alan couldn’t easily brush off his impressions.

Finally, he broached the reason he’d come to see Tony.

“Tony…could you look into something for me?”

“Sure. What?”

“It’s about a patient who died in the ER last night.”

“Malpractice potential?”

“I doubt it.”

Tonight at the hospital, Alan had taken a look at the pathology report on the derelict. He’d been suffering from early lung cancer and end-stage alcoholic cirrhosis. A walking dead man.

“What then?”

“His name was Walter Erskine—no identification on him, but his prints were traced through the V.A. He was born in 1946, grew up in Chillicothe, Missouri, and served in Nam in the late sixties. He was treated once for a mental condition at Northport V.A. Hospital in 1970. That’s all that’s known about him.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“No. I want more. I want to know what he was like growing up, what happened to him in Nam, and what happened to him since 1970.”

“Why?”

Alan shrugged, wishing he could tell Tony. But not yet. He couldn’t tell anybody yet.

“It’s a personal thing, Tony. Can you help?”

“I think so. I’ll have to hire an eye, which is no problem—I use them on occasion.”

“Great. I’ll pay all expenses.”

“You bet your ass you will.”

They had a little laugh over that and Alan felt himself relaxing for the first time all night. At least now he felt he was doing something about what ever it was that had happened. In his gut he sensed that this Walter Erskine was the key. He’d done something to Alan last night. And Alan had to learn just what.

At The Party

Sylvia was standing at her bedroom window on the second floor when Charles Axford strolled into the room. He had his tuxedo jacket open and his hands thrust into his pants pockets. She liked the way clothes fitted on his solid, just-under-six-foot frame; he looked his forty-four years, with his rugged face, his salt-and-pepper hair thinning a bit on top, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but she liked the look.

“Where’ve you been?” Sylvia asked him.

“Down the hall discussing the national debt with Jeffy,” he said blandly.

Sylvia smiled and shook her head. Charles was testing the limits of bad taste again. She framed a nasty remark about his daughter, Julie, but didn’t have the heart to say it. Besides, it would only spur Charles to elaborate on his opening comment. And where Jeffy was concerned, he was on very thin ice.

“What did he say?” she asked with equal blandness.

“Not much. He’s getting a bit of kip, actually.” He sat on her bed and leaned back on his elbows. “Anybody special coming tonight?”

“The usual crowd, plus a special treat: Congressman Switzer and Andrew Cunningham of the MTA.”

Charles’ eyebrows lifted. “Together? In the same bloody house?”

She nodded, her smile mirroring his. “Only they don’t know it yet.”

She was definitely looking forward to seeing what happened when those two enemies ran into each other tonight.

“Oh, this is going to be jolly!” Charles said with a laugh as he got up from the bed and kissed her on the lips. “That’s why I love you, Sylvia.”

Sylvia said nothing. She knew he didn’t really love her. He was simply responding to her sense of mischief.

She’d met Charles Axford, M.D., at the McCready Foundation when she’d taken Jeffy there for a comprehensive evaluation. Charles had been and still was chief of neurological research at the Foundation. Although he had taken no particular interest in Jeffy, he’d taken a very definite interest in her. They’d had an on-again, off-again relationship for three years now.

Sylvia wasn’t sure what attracted her to Charles—or “Chuckie” as she liked to call him when she wanted to get under his skin. It certainly wasn’t love. And it certainly wasn’t because he was irresistibly handsome.

Simply put: He fascinated her.

She’d never met anyone like him. Charles Axford could find something to dislike or distrust in anyone. Anyone! That plus the fact that he did not give a damn about what anyone thought of him resulted in one of the most sarcastic, cynical, verbally offensive human beings on earth. His acid wit coupled with his British accent made him a devastating gadfly. No treasured belief, no sacred cow, no religious, moral, or political dogma was safe from him. Charles believed in nothing, cared for nothing except his work, and was not above putting even that down if the mood struck him. In a rare, self-revelatory moment after too much to drink one night, he’d told Sylvia that a man with no illusions can never become disillusioned.

Perhaps that was the key, she thought as she disengaged herself from his embrace. Perhaps that was why at the slightest provocation he gored anyone who came within range. No one was safe. Not Jeffy, not even her. He was like a rare jungle frog she’d seen on a television special—harmless-looking enough until it spit venom in your eyes. Sylvia found that the sense of imminent danger when he was around added a little zest to life.

“I hope it won’t crush you to learn that you won’t be the only doctor here tonight.”

“Hardly. Doctors are the bloodiest boring people on earth. Except for me, of course.”

“Of course. The other two are both family practitioners, by the way. And they used to be partners.”

“Really?”

A gleam sparkled in his eyes and his thin lips curved into an impish grin. “I’m glad I came tonight.”

“I told you it would be interesting.”

She glanced out the window at the sound of a car on the drive. The first guests had arrived. She checked herself in the full-length mirror set on the closet door. The black dress looked just right—a bit too low in the front, a bit too low in the back, a bit too tight across the hips. In perfect keeping with her image.

She linked her arm through Charles’.

“Shall we go?”

“Isn’t that a Rolls, Alan?” Ginny said as they pulled into Sylvia Nash’s driveway.

Alan squinted through the windshield at the silver-gray car parked near the front door. “Sure looks like one. And there’s a Bentley right next to it.”

Ginny made a small, feminine grunt. “And here we are in a Buick.”

“A Riviera isn’t exactly a pickup, Ginny.” Alan cringed at the knowledge of where this conversation was headed. The two of them had been down this road before, many times, and he knew every turn. “It gets you to Gristede’s and the tennis courts in style and comfort.”

“Oh, I don’t mean for me. I mean for you. Instead of that awful Outlaw—”

“It’s an Outback, Ginny. An Outback.”

“What ever. It’s a dull car, Alan. No pizzaz.”

“Back in January you thought it was great when its all-wheel drive cruised us through the blizzard and we wound up being the only people to show up for Josie’s fortieth birthday party.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t have its uses. And I know it allows you to feel you can get to the office or hospital no matter what the weather—God forbid someone else should have to take care of one of your patients!—but so would a tractor. That doesn’t mean you have to drive around town in one. You should get one of those cute little sports cars like Fred Larkin just got.”

“Let’s not talk about Fred Larkin. And I wouldn’t own a ninety-thousand-dollar car even if I could afford one.”

“You can write it off.”

“No, I can’t write it off. You know we don’t have that kind of money lying around!”

“You’re shouting, Alan!”

So he was. He clamped his lips shut.

“You usually don’t get so hyper about money. What’s the matter with you?”

Good question.

“Sorry. Just don’t feel like going to a party tonight, I guess. I told you I didn’t want to come.”

“Just loosen up and try to enjoy yourself. Vic is covering for you, so why don’t you have a few drinks and relax.”

Alan smiled and sighed. “Okay.”

He would have a few drinks but he doubted he would relax or enjoy himself. There was too much on his mind tonight. Especially after the phone call he’d received this afternoon.

Murray Raskin, the hospital neurologist, had been catching up on reading the hospital EEGs today and had come across little Sonja Andersen’s. He had immediately called Alan at home, stuttering with excitement. Sonja’s routine EEG last year had been grossly abnormal with a typical epileptic pattern in the left parietal lobe—the same as it had been for the past half-dozen years. The one Alan had ordered yesterday was completely normal.

All traces of her epilepsy were gone.

Alan had been stewing ever since. He knew now there would be no peace for him until he had unraveled the Andersen and Westin incidents and made sense out of them.

But that wasn’t all that was eating at him tonight. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be in a social situation with Sylvia Nash where he couldn’t play “Dr. Bulmer.” He’d have to drop the professional mask and be “Alan.” And he was afraid then that Sylvia and anyone else within half a dozen blocks would know exactly how he felt about her.

“Isn’t that the Nash lady’s car?” Ginny said, pointing to the bright red sedan under the lights of the front door.

“Sure is.”

He parked the Riviera and they walked past Sylvia’s car on their way to the front door.

“With all her money, you’d think she’d get something nice and new instead of this ugly old thing.”

“Are you kidding?” Alan ran his fingers over the glossy red finish of the long hood to where it ended at the chromed, forward-leaning grille. He loved that huge grille with its vertical chromed rods gleaming like teeth. “This is a 1938 sharknosed Graham, fully restored.” He peered through the tinted windows. “More than restored. It was considered an economy car in its day. Look inside—she’s even put in a bar.”

“But why this awful red color? It would look better on a fire engine.”

“Red was Mr. Toad’s favorite color.”

“I don’t get it, Alan.”

“The Wind in the Willows—this is Toad Hall, and you remember Mr. Toad, always stealing motorcars, don’t you? Well, red was his favorite color. And the author’s name was Kenneth Grahame…get it?”

Ginny stared at him, a frown forming. “Since when have you had such an interest in children’s books?”

He reined in his enthusiasm. “Always been one of my favorite stories, Ginny. Let’s go in.”

He didn’t mention that he’d bought a copy of The Wind in the Willows only after learning that Sylvia’s place was called Toad Hall.

No, Alan thought as they approached the front door, he could not see how it could be a pleasant evening.

“Ah! Here comes a special guest!” Sylvia said.

Charles Axford glanced at her, then into the foyer, then back at Sylvia’s face. She’d suddenly become animated. That annoyed him.

A chap with average good looks and a slim, athletic-looking blonde—Charles guessed them both to be slightly younger than he—were approaching. The woman was beaming, the man looked ill.

“Which one’s so bloody special?”

“Him. He’s one of the doctors I told you about.”

“I’m a doctor, too, you know.”

“He’s Jeffy’s doctor.”

“I was Jeffy’s doctor for a while.”

The corner of Sylvia’s mouth pulled to the right. “You only did some tests on him. Alan’s a real doctor.”

“Two points for that one, Love.”

Sylvia smiled. “That was worth five and you know it.”

“Three, tops—because I’m precisely the kind of doctor I want to be. But let’s go meet this ‘special guest.’ It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to a real doctor.”

“Come along, then, but try to limit the ‘bloodys’ to ten per minute.”

Sylvie introduced them. Alan Bulmer was the fellow’s name.

Decent-looking chap. The woman was a pert, beaming blonde with the most captivating green eyes; she gushed over Sylvie and burbled on about the house and grounds.

Charles studied the doctor while he and the wife made nice-nice with their hostess. He looked acutely uncomfortable, like he was going to crawl out of his skin. His eyes kept moving to Sylvie and then richocheting off in all directions like misspent bullets.

What’s the bloody matter with him?

Just then some overdressed bird toddled over and tapped Bulmer’s wife on the shoulder. They squealed and hugged and did everything but call each other “Dahling!”

Charles turned away. Bloody doctor’s wife. How well he knew the type. He’d been married to one for eight very long years, and free of her for half again as long. This one reminded him of his ex: Probably a decent girl once, but now she was a Doctor’s Wife and on the status trip.

Ba came by, resplendent in a white jacket and shirt, with a black bow tie and pants, carrying a tray full of bubbling champagne flutes. Some guests seemed afraid to take anything from him. Charles signaled to him.

While passing out the glasses to all those around him, he appreciated the awed expressions on Bulmer’s wife and her friend as they looked up at Ba. Most hostesses would keep someone like Ba out of sight for a party. Not Sylvie. Good old Sylvie liked the stir he caused in the uninitiated.

Charles decided to start some friendly-for-the-moment chatter with Bulmer and maybe find out what this real doctor was made of. He nudged him and nodded toward Ba’s retreating form.

“Big fellow, what?”

Bulmer nodded. “Reminds me of Lurch from The Addams Family.”

“Lurch? Oh, yes…the butler. Does remind one of him a bit, although I do believe Lurch’s face was more expressive.”

“Possibly,” Bulmer said with a smile. “I imagine Ba’s height gave him some rough times as a kid. I mean, the average Vietnamese male is five-three, and Ba’s got to be at least a foot over that.”

“Pituitary giant, wouldn’t you say?”

Bulmer’s reply was immediate. “Uh-huh. Arrested in his mid-teens, I’d guess. Certainly doesn’t show any acromegalic stigmata.”

Five points to you, Doc, Charles thought with a rueful mental grin. The bloke already had a diagnosis filed away and waiting. Sharp for a generalist.

“Is that English you two are speaking?” Sylvie said.

“Doctor talk, Love. We use it to befuddle the masses.”

“But it was about Ba. What were you saying?” She seemed genuinely concerned.

“We were saying that he probably had an overactive pituitary as a kid, maybe even a pituitary tumor. Made him a good foot taller than the average Vietnamese.”

Bulmer chimed in. “But his pituitary must have slowed down to normal when he reached adulthood because he doesn’t have any of the facial and hand deformities you see with adult hyperpituitism.”

“Lucky for him it stopped on its own. It’s eventually fatal if untreated.”

“But doesn’t he ever smile?” Bulmer asked. “I’ve never once seen him smile.”

Sylvie was silent a moment. “I have a picture of him smiling.”

“I’ve seen that picture,” Charles said. “It answers the old Pepsodent question about where the yellow went.” Sylvie was studiously ignoring him. Her eyes were on Bulmer, and they glowed in a way he had never seen.

“Want to see the picture?”

Bulmer shrugged. “Sure.”

“Good,” Sylvie said with a smile and a lascivious wink. “It’s upstairs in my bedroom…with my erotic Japanese etchings.”

Charles bit his lip to keep from laughing as he watched Bulmer almost drop his glass and begin to stutter. “I…well…I don’t really know—”

Sylvie turned to Charles and looked him squarely in the eyes. Her gaze was intense. “Charles, why don’t you show Virginia and Adelle around the ground floor. You know it almost as well as I do.”

Charles resented the twinge of jealousy that stabbed through him. “Sure, Love,” he said as nonchalantly as he could. “Be glad to.”

As he guided the two women away, he noticed Bulmer’s wife looking over her shoulder with a puzzled expression as Sylvie linked an arm through his and led him up the wide, winding stairway.

Charles watched, too.

Something going on between those two, but bloody damned if he could figure it out just yet.

Does she fancy him, I wonder?

Alan felt like a lamb led to slaughter. If she’d been sly and sneaky about getting him up here he would have backed straight out, no problem. But she’d been so open about it, dragging him away right in front of Ginny. What could he do?

She led him down the hall as she had Tuesday night, but this time they passed Jeffy’s room and traveled farther on, farther away from the party downstairs. And tonight she wasn’t swathed chin to toe in flannel. She wore a filmy black something that exposed the nearly flawless skin of her back and shoulders just inches away from him.

A turn of a corner and they were in her bedroom. Thank God it wasn’t dark. A nice bedroom, stylishly furnished with a king-size bed flanked by sleek, low night tables, long satiny curtains framing the windows. Feminine without being too frilly. And no Japanese erotica on the walls. Just mirrors. Lots of mirrors. At one point in the room, the mirrors reflected each other back and forth, and he saw an infinite number of Alans standing next to an endless line of Sylvias in an infinity of bedrooms.

She went over to a dresser and picked up a Lucite-framed eight-by-ten color photo. She said nothing as she handed it to him.

There was Ba—a much younger Ba—in a jungle setting, standing next to a shorter, dark-haired American soldier with Sylvia’s smile. Both were in fatigues, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder, and grinning from ear to ear. Obviously somebody had said, “Smile!” and they were complying with a vengeance. Ba’s teeth were indeed yellow. And very crooked. Small wonder he didn’t smile much.

“Who’s the soldier?”

“My father. That was taken in 1969, somewhere outside Saigon.”

“Where is he now?”

“Gone.”

“Sorry.”

She took the picture from his hands, gave it a lingering look, then replaced it on the dresser.

“My father and Ba fought together in Nam. They lost touch after we deserted the country. Then one night, shortly after his discharge, Dad happened to catch a news special on the continuous flow of Boat People from Nam. They showed some film from the Philippines about this fellow who had just piloted a fishing boat full of his friends and neighbors across the South China Sea. Dad recognized him at once. It was Ba.”

“He brought him back here?”

“Sure,” she said offhandedly. “They were friends. Dad wouldn’t leave a friend hanging. He found Ba and Nhung Thi jobs in the city. A few years before you came to town my father had a massive coronary—woke up dead, as they say. I met Ba at the funeral and learned he was out of work and his wife sick. I sensed he wasn’t the type to take a handout so I asked him if he’d like to work for me. He did, and you know the rest…about Nhung Thi and all that.”

Alan knew about Ba’s wife. She’d thought she had bronchitis, but she’d been sicker than anyone had guessed. He wanted to move the conversation to a lighter level. He glanced out the window into the floodlit yard and saw two trees in full blossom.

“Are those new?”

Sylvia moved up close behind him. “Only one—the one on the right.”

Alan was surprised. “I would have guessed this one here—that other has so many more blossoms.”

“Some secret root food Ba is trying. What ever it is, the new tree is really responding to it.”

She was so close. Too close. Her perfume was making him giddy. Without saying anything more, Alan eased out into the hall and waited for Sylvia there. She caught up and they strolled back toward the party. She was more subdued than he could ever remember.

At Jeffy’s door he stopped and waited in the hall while she tiptoed in to check on him.

“All’s well?” he said as she returned.

She nodded and smiled. “Sleeping like a baby.”

They walked on and stopped at the banister overlooking the front foyer. The glittering crowd below swirled in conflicting, intermingling currents, eddying into side pools of conversation in its ceaseless flow from one room to another. He recognized the bulky form of one of the Jets’ better-known defensive backs as he passed through. The familiar face of a longtime New York TV weatherman was there, and Alan swore he recognized the voice of his favorite morning disk jockey but couldn’t find the face.

That friend of Sylvia’s, Charles Axford, passed through below. He wondered what Axford was to Sylvia. Her current lover, no doubt. She probably had a lot of lovers.

Then he saw a face he recognized from the newspapers.

“Isn’t that Andrew Cunningham?”

“Right. I told you there’d be a few politicos here. Congressman Switzer is somewhere around, too.”

“You know Mike?”

“I contributed to his campaign last year. I hope he won’t be too disappointed when he doesn’t get any money from me this time around.”

Alan smiled. “Was he a bad boy in Washington?”

“I wouldn’t know. But I have a rule: I never support incumbents.” Her eyes narrowed. “Once they get comfortable, they get dangerous. I like to keep them off balance.”

Alan sensed that he was seeing a hint of the anger Tony had mentioned last night.

“Why?”

Her features were taut as she spoke. “Comfortable incumbents sent my father to Nam and sent my husband off to Iraq. Greg came back thinking he could handle anything. It got him killed.”

Alan recalled the story. It had happened before he came to Monroe, but back then people were still talking about Gregory Nash’s murder. Apparently he’d been waiting on line in the local 7-11 when someone pulled a gun on the clerk and told her to empty the cash register. According to witnesses, Nash stepped in and neatly disarmed the robber. But he hadn’t known about the man’s accomplice, who shot him in the back of the head. He was DOA at the hospital.

He looked down again at Cunningham, and thought of Mike Switzer, and suddenly remembered their feud.

“God, Sylvia! When Switzer and Cunningham run into each other tonight, all hell could break loose!”

Sylvia’s hand darted to her mouth. “Oh, my! I never thought of that!”

Sylvia wanted to get away from the subject of politicians and onto the subject of Alan. She’d known him all these years and had never had a chance to ask him about himself. Now that she had him all to herself, she wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

She put her hand on his arm and felt him flinch. Did she make him that nervous? Her heart stumbled over a beat. Could he possibly feel…? No, that would be too much to ask.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you how come you aren’t a pediatrician? You have a way with kids.”

“For the same reason I didn’t specialize in any other area: I need variety. In my practice I can see a five-day-old infant with colic and a hundred-and-two-year-old man with prostate trouble back-to-back. Keeps me on my toes. But as for pediatrics, I had a more specific reason for not going into that. I rotated through the peds ward in my senior year of medical school and that cured me of a career in that field.” A look of pain passed over his face. “Too many terminally ill kids. A few years of that and I knew I’d be an emotional basket case. And anyway, with the type of training I had, it was hard to go into anything but family practice.”

Sylvia leaned forward with her elbows on the banister. She loved listening to him, hearing about a side of him that was otherwise hidden from her. “How’s that?”

“Well, my medical school had this philosophy of teaching you all about every organ in the body but never letting you forget that it was part of a person. They always stressed the old cliché of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We were never supposed to treat John Doe’s heart disease—we were always to treat John Doe who happened to have heart disease.”

“Sounds like semantics.”

“Yeah. I thought it was a word game, too. But there’s a world of difference when you put the two approaches into practice. But getting back to pediatrics, I’ve come to see that sometimes I can practice better office pediatrics as a family doctor than as a pediatrician.”

Sylvia laughed. She knew a few pediatricians who might take issue with that.

“I’m serious. Best example I can think of is a nine-year-old girl in a few months ago with stomach pains, weight loss, and sinking grades in school. If I were a pediatrician I’d start ordering a battery of blood tests, and when they came out negative, maybe even some barium X-ray studies. But I didn’t.”

“Flying by the seat of your pants again?” she said, remembering Tuesday night and Jeffy’s bellyache.

“Not at all. Because over the past year I’d seen the mother three times for sprains, bruises, and contusions. Each time she’d say she’d fallen, but I know what it looks like when someone gets punched in the nose. I confronted her and she admitted that her husband had been getting physically abusive over the past year; I got them into family counseling, and when I last saw the girl her stomachaches were gone, she’d regained her lost weight, and was performing back up to par in school.”

“And you don’t think a pediatrician could do that?”

“Of course. I’m not saying I’m a better pediatrician per se. I’m saying that because I treat whole families, I have a more direct line into what’s going on in the home, which allows me a perspective no specialist has.”

Sylvia saw Virginia Bulmer and Charles stroll into view below and noted with a flash of satisfaction the relieved expressions on both their faces when they looked up and saw Alan and her standing in plain sight.

Lou Alberts, her uncle and Alan’s old partner, came out to make it a threesome.

Alan apparently saw them, too.

“I should let you get back to your guests.”

Was that a note of reluctance in his voice?

“If you must,” she said, looking him in the eyes.

Alan offered her his arm.

She sighed and allowed him to lead her down. It really was time to get back to the party—Switzer and Cunningham would be bumping into each other soon and she didn’t want to miss that.

Mike Switzer came up and grabbed Alan’s arm as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Alan!” he said, all smiles. “You did it!”

“What? Did what?” Alan said.

Sylvia smiled, gave his arm a squeeze, and drifted away.

“The Guidelines bill! It’s gone back to committee!”

“Is that good?”

“Hell, yes! It means it won’t get tacked onto the Medicare appropriations, which puts it in limbo for a while.”

Alan’s rising spirits dipped. “So it’s still alive.”

“Yes, but it’s wounded. And nowadays that’s the best we can hope for.” He slapped Alan on the back. “And you helped wound it, buddy!”

“The pleasure was all mine.”

“Great! Just don’t run against me in my district.”

“Never fear,” Alan said with heartfelt sincerity. “If I never see one of those committee rooms again it will be too soon.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Switzer suddenly sobered. “But be alert for any of the senator’s aides who may come around and say they want to ‘get you on the team’ where they can have ‘easy access to your valuable insight.’ They’ll offer positions on things like study groups and the like. Ignore them.”

“Why? Not that I have time for that kind of thing—but why ignore them?”

“It’s an old trick,” Mike said in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper from the corner of his mouth. “You get your most articulate critics off guard by appearing open to their ideas, then you lose them in your study groups, sub-subcommittees, brain trusts, et cetera. You muffle them by burying them under tons of paper and red tape.”

“Nice town you work in.”

Mike shrugged. “If you know the rules, you can play the game.”

“When it starts worming its way into my examining rooms,” Alan said, “it’s not a game anymore.”

As Congressman Switzer drifted off to press flesh with other guests, Axford strolled by and stopped at Alan’s side.

“So what field are you in?” Alan asked.

It was small talk, and then again it wasn’t: Alan was curious as to what sort of man interested Sylvia.

“Research. Neurology.”

“One of the schools? Pharmaceutical company?”

Axford shook his head. “Private. The McCready Foundation.”

“Oh, God!”

Axford smiled. “Now don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Alan couldn’t help the sour look on his face. “But McCready…Christ! Wasn’t it his kind that drove most of the good doctors out of England?”

Axford shrugged. “The famous ‘Brain Drain’? I don’t know and don’t bloody much care. National Health was already on the scene when I entered medical school. I just go where the research dollars are.”

Alan felt an almost instinctive hostility rise in him. “So you come from a tradition of doctors as government employees. Must make it easy for you to work for McCready. Ever meet him?”

“Of course.”

“What do you think of him?”

“His Circle of Willis is clogged with fecaliths.”

Alan burst out laughing. Axford was anything but charming, but his candor was endearing. So was his wit. Alan had never heard anyone called a shithead in such an oblique manner.

Axford gave him an appraising look. “Do I detect a note of hostility toward academic medicine?”

“No more than the average clinician.”

“And I suppose you think you can get along just ducky without the research physician and the academician?”

“They have their places, but when a guy who hasn’t laid a finger on a living patient since 1960 condescends to tell me how to practice clinical medicine—”

“You mean you actually touch people?” Axford said with an exaggerated grimace of distaste.

Lou Albert was passing by then and Axford caught him by the elbow.

“I say, why don’t we three doctor-types stand around and talk shop, what? I understand you two were partners once upon a time. Is that so?”

Sylvia’s uncle looked decidedly unhappy, but he stopped and nodded. He was shorter than either Alan or Axford, and at least a decade older, but he stood tall as always with his military-straight spine and gray, crew-cut hair.

“You know damn well that’s so. You asked me about it an hour ago.”

“That’s right, that’s right. I did, didn’t I?” Alan saw a gleam begin to glow in Axford’s eyes. His smile became vulpine. “Years ago, wasn’t it? And didn’t you tell me that Alan here stole a lot of patients from you?”

Lou’s face reddened. “I said no such thing!”

“Oh, do come along, old fellow. I asked you how many patients he stole from you and you said…?” Axford’s voice curved up at the end like the barb on a hook.

“I said ‘a few,’ that’s all.”

Alan couldn’t fathom what Axford was after, but he knew he was up to no good. Still, he found himself unable to keep silent.

“‘Stole,’ Lou?” Alan heard himself saying. “Since when do patients belong to anybody? I haven’t seen any yet that came with your Social Security number stenciled on them.”

“They wouldn’t be going to you now if you hadn’t had your secretary call them all up and tell them where your new office was.”

I don’t believe I’m getting sucked into this! Alan thought as he glared at the contentedly smiling Axford.

“Look, Lou,” he said. “Why don’t we drop it for now. I’ll just say that the only reason I had my secretary call all those patients was because the few who found me on their own said your office told them I’d left town.”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Axford said in a mock-conciliatory tone. “It wounds me to see two primary-care physicians, two foot soldiers on the bloody frontlines of medicine, bickering so! I—”

“I’ve had just about enough of this!” Lou said. “My niece’s taste in friends is equal to her taste in doctors!” He stormed off.

“Really, old boy,” Axford said, turning to Alan. “What did break you two up?”

Alan was about to suggest a dark place where Axford could store his curiosity when Ginny and Sylvia walked up. Alan thought the presence of the women might blunt Axford’s goading, but it only seemed to spur him on.

“I mean, was one of you using too much B-12? Not shooting enough penicillin? Tell me: Doesn’t general medicine get bloody boring, what with all those endless sore throats?”

“At times,” Alan said, keeping cool and pretending to take Axford very seriously. “Beats abusing white rats for a living, though.”

Axford’s eyebrows rose halfway to his hairline. “Does it now? And how many colds have you treated this week? How many stomach viruses? How many hangnails? How many boils and carbuncles?”

“Careful, Charlie,” Sylvia said somewhere to the right of Alan’s shoulder. Alan couldn’t see her. His face was no more than a foot from Axford’s and their eyes were locked. “You’re getting yourself too exercised.”

“None,” was all Alan said.

Axford’s face parodied shock. “None? Pray tell, then, old sock, what do you treat?”

“People.”

Alan heard Ginny clap and laugh and Sylvia say, “Touché, Chucko! A ten-pointer!”

Axford’s third-degree interrogator’s expression wavered, then broke into a rueful smile. “How did I let myself get maneuvered into that old saw?” He looked at Sylvia. “But ten points is a bit much, though, wouldn’t you say? After all, I gave him all those openings, unintentional though they might have been.”

Sylvia wouldn’t budge. “Ten.”

What’s going on here? Alan felt like a species of game fish that had spit a hook. He was about to say something when angry shouting arose in the living room. They hurried in as a group to find the cause.

Had to happen, Alan said to himself.

From his vantage point behind a couch he saw florid, overweight Andrew Cunningham of the MTA squared off against dapper Congressman Switzer in the center of the room. Cunningham had evidently had too much to drink, as evidenced by his unsteady stance. Alan and the rest of the New York Metropolitan area had been watching the two swap accusations and insults via the TV and the newspapers for the past three or four months. The situation had escalated from the political to the personal with Switzer painting Cunningham as the ringleader of the most graft-ridden, featherbedded transportation system in the country, and Cunningham calling the congressman a headline-grabbing traitor to the district that elected him. As far as Alan could tell, neither was completely wrong.

With Alan and most of the other guests watching, Cunningham roared something unintelligible and threw his drink in Switzer’s face. The congressman went livid. He grabbed the MTA chief by the lapels and swung him around. They pushed and shoved this way and that across the room like a couple of barroom brawlers while the rest of the guests either called for them to stop or shouted encouragement to one or the other.

Alan saw Ba standing off to the side in a corner of the room. But he was not watching the fight; instead, his eyes were fixed somewhere to Alan’s left. Alan looked and there stood Sylvia. He’d expected to see a look of dismay on her face, but he was wrong. She stood on tiptoes, her eyes bright, a tight smile on her face as she pulled short, quick breaths between her slightly parted lips.

She’s enjoying this!

What was it with her? And what with him? He should have been repulsed by the pleasure she took from these two grown men, two public figures, making fools of themselves. Instead, it drew him more strongly to her. He thought he knew himself, but where this woman was concerned…everything was new and strange.

Alan turned back to the struggle in time to see Cunningham lose his grip and stumble backward toward the fireplace. His heel caught the lip of the outer hearth and he lost his balance. As his arms flailed helplessly in the air, the back of his head struck the corner of the marble mantelpiece. He went down in a heap.

Alan leaped over the couch, but was not the first to reach the fallen man. Ba was already there, crouched over the bulky, unconscious form.

“He’s bleeding!” Alan said as he saw the characteristic red spray of an arterial pumper along the white marble of the mantelpiece. Probably a scalp artery. A small puddle had pooled around the back of Cunningham’s head and was spreading rapidly.

The room, filled a moment ago with shouting and catcalls, had gone deathly still.

Without being told, Ba lifted the head and rolled the man onto his side so Alan could inspect the wound. Alan immediately spotted the jagged two-inch gash in the lower right occipital area. Wishing he carried a handkerchief, he pressed his bare hand over the wound, applying pressure. Warm blood filled his palm as he tried to press the slick, ragged edges closed with his fingers.

It happened then: The tingling ecstasy and euphoria started where his hand covered the wound, darting up his arm, then spreading throughout his body. He shuddered. Cunningham shuddered with him as his eyes fluttered open.

Alan took his hand away and looked. Terror, wonder, and disbelief mingled furiously within him when he saw the scalp. The wound had closed; only a shallow, irregular scratch remained.

Ba leaned over and looked at the wound. Abruptly he released Cunningham and shot to his feet. For a moment, as Ba towered over Alan, the giant seemed to sway, as if he were dizzy. Alan saw shock and amazement in his wide dark eyes…and something else: Alan couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw recognition there. Then Ba turned to the people crowding nearer.

“Please, back! Please, back!”

Sylvia came forward and crouched beside Alan. The tight smile was gone, replaced by a mask of genuine concern. Axford was behind her but remained standing, aloof but watchful.

“Is he all right?”

Alan couldn’t answer. He knew he must look silly, kneeling here with his mouth hanging open and a puddle of another man’s blood clotting in his palm, but he couldn’t speak just yet. All he could do was stare at the back of Cunningham’s head.

“Of course I’m all right!” Cunningham said and sat up. He didn’t appear the slightest bit groggy. All signs of inebriation were gone.

“But the blood!” She looked at Alan’s hand.

“Scalp wounds bleed like crazy—even little ones,” Alan managed to say, then he looked pointedly at Axford. “Right?”

He watched the Brit’s eyes travel over the red spray along the mantelpiece and wall, to the puddle on the floor.

Axford hesitated, then shrugged. “Right. Bloody right.”

The party was in its final spasms and Ba was glad. He did not like so many strangers in the house. For the Missus it had no doubt been just another party, but for Ba it had been a revelation.

Dat-tay-vao.

As he stood at the front door and watched the Doctor’s car cruise toward the street, the phrase reverberated through his mind, echoing endlessly.

Dat-tay-vao.

Dr. Bulmer possessed it.

But how? It was not possible!

Yet he could not deny what he had seen tonight: the gout of blood, the open wound—stopped and closed at the Doctor’s touch. He had felt his knees go weak and rubbery at the sight.

How long had the Dat-tay-vao been with him?

Surely not long, for Ba had seen the surprise on the Doctor’s face when the wound had healed under his hand. If only…

Ba’s mind leaped back over the years to the time when his dear Nhung Thi was wasting away from the cancer that had started in her lungs and spread throughout her body. He remembered how Dr. Bulmer had returned again and again to her side during the endless torment, the year-long days, the epochal months as she was devoured from within. There had been many doctors treating Nhung Thi in those days, but for Ba and his wife, Dr. Bulmer had come to be The Doctor.

If only he had possessed the Dat-tay-vao then.

But of course he hadn’t. He had been an ordinary physician then. But now…Ba felt a pang in his heart for the Doctor, because all the tales about the Dat-tay-vao hinted that there was a balance to be struck. Always a balance…

And a price to be paid.

I can do it! Alan thought as he drove home.

He could no longer doubt that he’d come to possess some sort of healing power. Tonight’s episode proved it. Cunningham’s scalp had been hanging open, bleeding like crazy, and he’d put his hand over it and changed it to a scratch.

Eleven P.M…. he’d made a mental note of the time it happened.

Sonja Andersen and Henrietta Westin weren’t freak coincidences. He could do it! But how to control it? How to use it when he wanted to?

Ginny’s voice broke through.

“Josie and Terri won’t believe tonight when I tell them about it!”

“Won’t believe what?” Alan said, suddenly alert to what she was saying. Had she seen? If she had, they could talk about it without him sounding crazy. He desperately needed to share this with someone who believed.

“The party! All those celebrities! And the fight between Cunningham and Switzer! Everything!”

“Oh, that.” He was disappointed. Obviously she hadn’t seen.

He thought Ba might have seen what had happened, but perhaps he hadn’t quite believed his eyes. That would be the normal reaction—disbelief. Which was why Alan had to keep this to himself. If he couldn’t quite believe what was happening, how could he expect anyone else to accept it?

“You know,” Ginny was saying, “I can’t figure that Sylvia. She seems hard as nails, yet she took in that little retarded boy and cares for him by herself. I just don’t—”

“Jeffy’s not retarded. He’s autistic.”

“Just about the same thing, right?”

“Not really. Most autistic kids score poorly on intelligence tests, but their autism may get in the way of their testing. I have a sense that Jeffy might be pretty bright.” He gave her a quick summary of the latest theories, then said, “Sylvia once showed me a photo of a house he’d built out of blocks. So I know there’s intelligence in that boy: It’s just locked away.”

Ginny was staring at him. “That’s the most you’ve said in days!”

“Is it? I hadn’t realized. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. You’ve been only a little bit more preoccupied than usual. I’m used to it by now.”

“Again, sorry.”

“But back to our hostess: How did she come to adopt that little boy? I asked her but she never got around to answering me. As a matter of fact, I got the distinct impression she avoided answering.”

Alan shrugged. “I don’t know, either. I figure it’s something she doesn’t feel is anybody else’s business.”

“But isn’t there something that can be done for him?”

“Every known therapy has been tried.”

“With all her money, I’m surprised she doesn’t take him to see some bigwig pediatrician in the city—” She stopped abruptly.

Alan finished for her. “Instead of making do with a local family doc?” he said with a sour smile.

Ginny looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

“It’s okay.”

Alan was not angry, nor was he hurt. He had developed a thick skin on this topic. He knew Ginny wished that he’d specialized in some field, any field, of medicine. She said she wanted it for him so he wouldn’t have to work such long hours, but he knew the real reason. All her friends were the wives of specialists, and she’d come to think of a family doctor as the bottom of the medical pecking order.

“I didn’t,” she said quickly. “I simply—Alan! That’s our street!”

Alan braked and pulled in toward the curb.

“Are you all right?” Ginny asked, genuine concern on her face. “Were you drinking much?”

“I’m fine,” Alan said in a meticulously steady voice. “Just fine.”

Ginny said nothing as he backed the car along the deserted road and turned into their street. Alan didn’t understand how he could have missed the turn. He’d been paying attention to the road. He’d even seen the street sign. He simply hadn’t recognized it. And he hadn’t the vaguest notion why not.

10

Alan

Alan spent all day Sunday aching to get to the office to see if he could make the power work again. Finally morning came and he was chafing to get started.

It was 8:00 a.m. He was going to be scientific about this—get all the data down as it happened: dates, times, names, places, diagnoses. He had fresh batteries in his microcassette recorder. He was ready for his first patient and his first miracle of the day.

No such luck.

His first three patients consisted of an elderly couple, each with stable hypertension, and a woman with mild, diet-controlled, type II diabetes. He had no ready means of confirming a cure with these diagnoses. He wouldn’t feel right telling the first two to stop their medications, nor could he tell the third to throw away her 1500-calorie diet and rush down to Carvel’s for a hot fudge sundae.

He needed an acute illness or injury. It came with the fourth patient.

Six-year-old Chris Bolland was home from school because of a sore throat and a fever of 101.6 degrees. Alan looked in the child’s throat and saw a white exudate coating both tonsils: tonsillitis.

“Again?” said Mrs. Bolland. “Why don’t we take them out?”

Alan glanced back through the chart. “This is only his third episode in the past year. Not enough to warrant that. But let’s try something.”

He swung around behind Chris and placed his fingertips lightly over the swollen glands below the angles of the jaw. He concentrated—on what, exactly, he did not know; but he tried thinking of a nice pink, healthy throat with normal-sized tonsils; tried willing that ideal throat into little Chris.

But no outcry from Chris, no tingle in Alan’s fingers and arms. Nothing.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the mother looking at him strangely. He cleared his throat, adjusted the earpieces of his stethoscope, and began listening to Chris’ lungs, hiding the frustration that welled up in him.

Failure.

Why was this power, if it really existed, so damn capricious? What made it work?

He dutifully dictated a brief, whispered account into his recorder.

His next patient was an unscheduled emergency. Marla Springer—a new patient, twenty-three years old, brought in by a neighbor who had been coming to Alan for a long time—had cut her right hand earlier this morning. After half an hour of applying ice and direct pressure, the wound was still bleeding. Denise immediately placed her in an empty examining room.

Alan examined Marla’s hand and found a crescent-shaped laceration, an inch from end to end, on the fleshy edge of the palm below the fifth finger. Blood was oozing slowly but steadily from under the flap of cut skin. He noticed the hand was cold. He looked at the woman and saw the pallor of her face, her tight features, her lower lip trapped between her teeth.

“Hurt much, Marla?”

She shook her head. “No. But it won’t stop bleeding!”

“Sure it will—as soon as I get through with it.” He could feel some of the tension go out of her as she realized she wasn’t about to bleed to death. Now to use a little razzle-dazzle to get her confidence. “And maybe you can use this as an excuse to talk your husband into getting you a dishwasher. Or if not that, at least a sponge with a handle.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this is what you get for trying to get the bottom of the glass spotless.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

Alan winked at her. “My secret.”

What he didn’t say was that he’d seen dozens of similar wounds over the years, all from the same cause: a bit too much vigor in washing out the inside of a water glass, causing it to shatter and cut either the index finger or the edge of the palm.

As he had her lie back and relax, Alan realized that he’d been presented with a perfect opportunity to test the power. It had worked on a much larger laceration Saturday night; there should be no problem with a little cut like this. He glanced at his watch: 9:36 a.m. He wanted to document everything as accurately as possible.

He pressed the flap of skin tightly closed and wished-hoped-prayed for the wound to heal. He held it there for a good twenty seconds, but felt no shock, no rush of ecstasy. He released the pressure and examined the wound.

The edges of the cut were closed together in a thin crimson line with no sign of further bleeding. Alan felt exultation swell toward bursting—

—and then the wound edges gapped and fresh blood began to flow again.

He’d done nothing.

“Are you going to use a needle to numb it up?” Marla Springer asked.

“Getting ready to do just that,” Alan said, swallowing the bitter disappointment as he reached for the Xylocaine bottle next to the suturing set.

Another failure.

But he wasn’t giving up. As soon as he finished here, he’d go into his consultation room, dictate the failure, and move on to the next patient.

(Transcribed from microcassette)

Monday, April 12.

10:18 a.m.

MARIE EMMETT: 58-yr-old white female hypertensive on Zestoretic 20/12.5 BID. Bp = 136/84. Says “I think I’ve got shingles.” She’s right. Typical vesiculating rash on left flank along T-10 dermatome. Placed hand over the rash and wished it gone. Tried x 3. No change. Rash still present. No decrease in pain.

10:47 a.m.

AMY BRISCO: 11-year-old asthmatic. Mother states child short of breath all night. Auscultation reveals tight expiratory wheezing throughout lungs. Placed right hand on front of chest, left hand over back, and squeezed, willing lungs to loosen up and clear. No change other than odd expression on her mother’s face. Probably thinks I’ve gone a little strange. Bronchospasm sounded as tight as before. Started usual therapy—0.2 cc of aqueous epinephrine subcutaneously, etc.

11:02 a.m.

CHANDLER DEKKS: 66-yr-old white male with bilateral lower limb deep and superficial varicosities; severe associated stasis dermatitis. Presents with 2 × 2 cm. ulceration on posterior aspect of left lower leg of approximately 1 week’s duration. Examined carefully, all the time wishing and willing it to heal/fill in/disappear. No change. Prescribed usual treatment.

11:15 a.m.

JOY LEIBOV: 16-year-old white female. Unscheduled appointment. Helped in by father and brother after injury to right ankle during high school intramural soccer game. Typical inversion injury with swelling, tenderness, and ecchymosis in area of lateral malleolus. Cupped my hands around the ankle—gently—and willed the damn thing to heal. No change. Nothing!

This is idiotic.

(end of transcription)

Alan pushed all thoughts of mystical healing powers from his mind as he struggled to keep up with the patient load for the rest of the morning. He didn’t do too badly. He stepped into the room with his last patient, scheduled for noon, at 12:30.

He saw Stuart Thompson sitting on the edge of the examining table looking worried. Alan immediately knew something was wrong. Stu was a forty-two-year-old construction worker with tattoos on both arms and moderate essential hypertension. He was the macho sort who never let his feelings show, never admitted a frailty. If not for his wife virtually putting the medication in his mouth every morning and badgering him to get checkups, his blood pressure would have remained untreated all these years.

If Stuart Thompson looked the slightest bit frightened on the outside, it meant he was absolutely terrified on the inside.

“I ain’t no pussy, Doc, but somebody said this thing on my back looks like cancer and it’s got me spooked. Take a look at it and tell me it’s okay.”

“Sure thing. Lie on your stomach and we’ll see.”

Alan bit his lip when he saw what Stu was talking about. It looked bad: a blue-black lesion on the left scapula, measuring about two centimeters across, with an irregular border and an uneven surface.

Alan’s thoughts were ranging in all directions as he leaned closer over Stu’s back. This thing had to be removed, probably with a wide excision, and as soon as possible too. He was trying to think of a way to phrase his suspicions without shooting Stu’s blood pressure through the ceiling when he lightly touched a fingertip to the dark area.

The now-familiar feeling raced up his arm as Stu arched his back.

“Shit, Doc!”

“Sorry,” Alan said quickly. “Just seeing how sensitive it is.”

Alan stared at the man’s back. The lesion was gone—not a trace of pigment left in the area.

He looked at his hand. So many unanswered questions, but they sank in the exultation of knowing that he still had the power.

“Well, now that you know,” Stu said, “what are you going to do—amputate my back?” The tone was sarcastic but Alan sensed the fear beneath.

“No,” Alan said, thinking fast. “I’m just going to burn off that ugly little wart you’ve got there, and then you can try out for Mr. Universe.”

“A wart? Is that all?” There was profound relief in his voice.

“It’s nothing,” Alan said, realizing he was literally telling the truth. “I’ll get the hyfrecator and we’ll have this done in a minute.”

Alan stepped outside the room and took a deep breath. All he had to do was anesthetize the area, make a little burn where the lesion had been, and send the unsuspecting Stuart Thompson home cured of a malignant melanoma. That way he could avoid any difficult questions.

Then he heard Stu’s voice from the other side of the door.

“Hey! It’s gone! Hey, Doc! It’s gone!”

Alan stuck his head back into the room and saw Stu examining his back in the mirror.

“What are you? Some kinda miracle worker?”

“Naw,” Alan said, swallowing and trying to smile. “It must have fallen off. That’s the way it is with warts sometimes…they just…fall off.”

Alan brushed off the ensuing questions, all the while minimizing what had happened, and ushered the puzzled but happy man from the examining room.

He ran to the next examining room—empty! The ceiling light was off and the room was clean and ready for the afternoon patients.

But the afternoon would be too late! He needed somebody now, not later! He was hot! The power was on and he wanted to use it before it left him again! Denise and Connie were getting ready to go for lunch. Both were in excellent health. There was nothing he could do for them.

He turned in a slow circle, wanting to laugh, wanting to shout his frustration. He felt like a millionaire who had decided to give his fortune to the needy but could find only other millionaires.

For want of anything better to do, he rushed into his office and picked up the little recorder. He had to get all the details down while they were fresh. He thumbed the record button, opened his mouth…and stopped.

Funny…he couldn’t think of the patient’s name. He could picture his face perfectly, but his name was lost. He glanced down at the appointment sheet. There it was in the last slot: Stuart Thompson. Of course. Amazing how a little excitement could jumble the mind.

He began dictating—time, age and condition of the patient, his own feelings at the time. Everything.

He was going to cage this power, learn everything there was to know about it, train it, bend it to his will, and make damn good use of it.

In the back of his head he heard Tony Williams of the Platters singing, “You-oo-oo’ve got the maaaaagic touch!”

MAY

11

Charles Axford

McCready had invited him to the upper office for another of what the senator liked to call “informal chats.” Charles called them pumping sessions.

Which was just what they were. As namesake of the foundation, McCready seemed to feel it was his prerogative to sit with his director of neurological research and quiz him on the latest developments in the field. Perhaps it was. But Charles knew the Foundation was the furthest thing from the senator’s mind when he asked about neurological diseases. The interest was strictly personal.

As he waited for the senator, he spotted the Times headline about the strange wilt on Staten Island. The news shows weren’t talking about anything else. He wandered to the huge windows that formed the outer walls of the corner office. If he leaned his head against the panes of the left wall, he could see Park Avenue and its flowering islands twenty stories below.

The door opened and McCready hobbled in. He fell into the big padded chair behind his desk. He wasn’t looking good at all these days. His features sagged more than usual, and he had to tilt his head back in order to see past his drooping upper eyelids. Charles made a quick mental calculation: Six months and he’ll be in a wheelchair.

He’d known the man all these years; he owed his present economic security and prestigious position to him; yet he found he could not dredge up a bloody ounce of pity for James A. McCready. He wondered why. Perhaps it was because he knew what drove this man who’d been born with more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes. He’d been present during some of the senator’s most unguarded moments, and had seen the naked power lust shine through. Here was a man who could be President merely by choosing to run. Yet he could not run, and Charles was one of the few people in the world who knew the reason.

Maybe it was all for the best. Men like McCready had brought Great Britain to the edge of economic ruin; perhaps Charles’ adoptive country was lucky that this particular senator had an incurable disease.

He seated himself and listened to the questions. Always the same: Any new developments? Any promising lines of research we can encourage?

Charles gave his usual answer: No. He used the Foundation computers to keep tabs on all the medical literature worldwide. As soon as anything of the slightest potential interest to the senator showed up in the most obscure medical journal in the remotest backwater, it was flagged and brought to his attention. The senator could access the information as readily—perhaps more readily; after all, they were his computers—but preferred “a personal touch” from Charles.

In other words, he wanted Charles to predigest it and spoon feed it to him.

Well and good. Charles kept up on the field anyway. Small price to pay for the latitude he was given in his research at the Foundation.

The conversation followed its usual course to its customary dead end, and Charles was preparing to make his exit when the senator shifted to a new topic.

“What did you think of Dr. Alan Bulmer when you met him?” His voice was getting weaker and raspier as the afternoon wore on.

“Who?” Charles drew a complete blank on the name for a second.

McCready prompted him: “You met him at that Nash woman’s party last month.”

“Oh, the family doctor! I don’t—” And then it occurred to Charles: “How did you know I met him?”

“There’s been some talk about him.”

“What kind of talk? This wouldn’t have anything to do with his testimony before the committee, would it?” Charles knew that it was not good to get on the bad side of Senator James McCready.

“Not at all, not at all. That’s over and done with, gone and forgotten. This talk has to do with healings. Cures. That sort of thing.”

Charles groaned mentally. Here we go again: another try for a bloody miracle cure.

McCready smiled. The expression seemed to take a lot of effort. “Now, now, my esteemed Dr. Axford—don’t get that cynical look on your face. You know I like to investigate every one of these faith healers. One of these days—”

“Bulmer’s no faith healer. He’s a bloody ordinary family practitioner. And I stress the word ordinary. You’re going to drive us both dotty if you keep looking for a miracle!”

McCready laughed. “I could listen to you talk all day, Charles. I wish I had a British accent.”

It never failed to impress Charles how easily Americans were impressed by a British accent. It always sounded “classy” to them. But he knew that back in London his accent would have been recognized immediately as Paddington and his class identified as working.

“Still,” the senator said, hanging on to the subject, “there’s talk.”

“What do you mean by ‘talk’?”

“You know how things get around. Comments dropped here and there in laundromats and supermarket checkout lines eventually get around to a stringer or a reporter who works for one of my papers. Then it gets to me.”

“Fine. But talk about what?”

“About people with long-term illnesses, chronic conditions, progressive disorders, acute illnesses—all sorts of things—cured after he touches them in a certain way.”

“That’s bloody foolishness!”

McCready smiled again. “‘Bloody.’ How apropos. I was just going to ask you about a very bloody wound sustained by a certain Mr. Cunningham last month.”

“Jesus bloody Christ—!”

“There’s that word again.”

“—did you have a spy at that party?”

“Of course not. But it would be rather silly of me to own a string of newspapers and have all those editors and reporters at my command and not avail myself of their talents when the need arose, don’t you think?”

Charles nodded silently. He didn’t like the idea of anyone snooping into his off-hours, but he didn’t see any point in protesting.

McCready seemed to read his mind. “Don’t worry, Charles. You weren’t the object of investigation. I was just having someone look into the incident between my esteemed colleague, Congressman Switzer, and the MTA chief of this fair city. I’ve found one can deal more effectively with one’s colleagues if one is up to date on their improprieties and indiscretions.”

Charles nodded again. Looking for dirt on Switzer, he thought. But he said: “Works that way in research foundations too.”

“Right. Unfortunately, the only impropriety on the congressman’s part was not turning the other cheek, but rather giving as good—or perhaps better—than he got from Cunningham in the physical abuse department. And to many of his constituents, that would seem a virtue rather than a fault. So the inquiry was dropped.”

He paused for a moment. The extended monologue was obviously tiring him.

“But something serendipitously interesting was turned up. One of the guests who saw the struggle mentioned during her interview that she thought Cunningham had received a terrible gash to the back of the head. She spoke of blood spouting like…‘like a geyser,’ I believe she said. Yet after this unknown man—later identified as Dr. Alan Bulmer—put his hand over the wound, it stopped bleeding and closed itself up.”

Charles laughed. “She was probably drunker than Cunningham!”

“Possibly. That’s what this reporter thought. But not long ago, he heard some idle talk about ‘miracle cures’ at a Long Island doctor’s office. The name Bulmer clicked and he told his editor, who told me.” His eyes bored into Charles from under their half-closed lids. “You were there. What did you see?”

Charles thought for a moment. There had been an awful lot of blood. He could see it now, spurting against the mantel and the wall. But when he’d seen the wound, it had only been a scratch. Could it—?

“I saw a lot of blood, but that means nothing. Scalp wounds bleed far out of proportion to their length and depth. I’ve seen heads literally covered with blood from a shallow, two-centimeter laceration. Don’t waste your time looking for a miracle cure from Alan Bulmer.”

“I never waste my time, Charles,” the senator said. “Never.”

12

The Senator

Ah, Charles, McCready thought after Axford had gone. Doubting Charles.

He leaned far back in his chair and, as he often did, thought about his chief pet doctor. And why not? Their lives were tightly entwined, and would remain so as long as he remained ill and alive.

Despite the fact that Charles was a doctor and an arrogant bastard to boot, McCready privately admitted to a soft spot in his head for his chief of research. Perhaps that was because there was no pretense about Charles. He made no bones about being a devout atheist and confirmed materialist who was constitutionally unable to accept anything that did not yield to the scientific method. If he couldn’t observe it, qualify and quantify it, it didn’t exist. Refreshingly free of bullshit, his Charles. Humans were nothing more than a conglomeration of cells and biochemical reactions to him. He had once told McCready that his dream was to reduce the human mind to its basic neurochemical reactions.

All fine and well when you had your health. But when you didn’t, and when modern medicine failed you…then you looked for something more. You prayed, even when you didn’t believe in prayer. You investigated faith healers even when you had no faith. The sneers and the derogatory remarks no longer came so easily. You looked under every rock and followed every trail to its inevitable phony end. And then sniffed out another one to follow.

Hopelessness was a bitch.

He had given up hope on current research into neuromuscular diseases—he couldn’t trust it to go in the direction he needed. Thus the Foundation was born, with Charles Axford as its core. He had made Axford chief because he felt he owed him something.

Because the day he met Axford was the most traumatic day of his life. It had altered the course of his life, altered his perception of life, the world, the future. Because Charles Axford had been the first to know what was wrong with him.

All the other doctors before Charles had been wrong. To a man they had blamed his episodic fatigue on “overwork” and “stress.” That was the favorite fall-back catchword in medicine: If you can’t figure it out, it’s stress.

McCready had bought that for a while. He had been working hard—he’d always worked hard—but he’d never felt so tired. He would get up in the morning a ball of fire and by mid afternoon he was useless. He had stopped eating steak because it was too much work to chew it. His arm tired while shaving. Overwork and stress. He’d gone along with the diagnosis because time and again his physical examination, reflexes, blood tests, X-rays, and cardio grams had come out completely normal. “You’re the picture of health!” a respected internist had told him.

His first episode of double vision had sent him in a panic to the nearest neurologist who would give him the earliest appointment. That had been Charles Axford. He later learned that Axford had not squeezed him into that day’s schedule out of doctorly concern for a patient in distress, but because his afternoon appointment book had been virtually bare.

McCready had found himself seated before a cool, aloof, thickly accented Britisher in a white coat who chain-smoked cigarettes in his chair on the far side of an old desk as he listened to McCready’s symptoms. He asked a few questions, then said:

“You’ve got myasthenia gravis, a rapidly progressive case, and your life is going to be hell.”

McCready still remembered the slow wave of shock that had passed through him by inches, front to back, like a storm front. All he could see was Aristotle Onassis fading away month after month, year after year.

He’d managed to say, “Aren’t you even going to examine me?”

“You mean tap your knees and shine lights in your eyes and all that rubbish? Not if I can bloody help it!”

“I insist! I’m paying for an examination and I demand one!”

Axford had sighed. “Very well.” He came around and sat on the front edge of the desk. Holding out both his hands to McCready, he said, “Squeeze. Hard.” After McCready had gripped them and squeezed, Axford said, “Again!” And then, “Again!”

And with each successive squeeze, McCready felt his grip grow weaker and weaker.

“Now rest up a bit,” Axford had said. After smoking half another cigarette and further fouling the office air, he stuck out his hands again. “Once more now.”

McCready squeezed with all he had, and, with no little satisfaction, saw Axford wince. After a brief rest his strength had returned.

“See,” Axford said, wiping his hands on his lab coat. “Myasthenia gravis. But just to be absolutely sure, we’ll do an EMG.”

“What’s that?”

“Nerve conduction study. Which in your case will show the classic decremental pattern.”

“Where do I get this done?” He was suddenly desperate to have the diagnosis confirmed or denied.

“Lots of places. But my rig here in this office affords the most nutritional value.”

McCready was baffled by this Brit. “I don’t understand.”

“The fee I’ll charge you,” Axford said with the barest hint of a smile, “will help keep food on my table.”

McCready fled Axford’s office, fully convinced that the man was a lunatic. But second and third opinions, along with exhaustive testing, proved the Brit right. Senator James McCready had a particularly virulent case of myasthenia gravis, an incurable neuromuscular disease caused by a deficiency of acetylcholine, the substance that transmits messages from nerve cells to muscle cells at their junction.

Out of a sense of loyalty, he returned to Axford for therapy. And, as he had long ago learned about such supposedly noble impulses, it was a wrong move. Axford’s bedside manner embodied all the concern and personal warmth of the average cinder block. Axford didn’t seem to care how the medications were affecting his patient—the muscle cramps, the twitching, the anxiety, and insomnia. He cared only about how they improved the responses on his damned EMG machine.

And McCready went the route—the whole route. He had his thymus removed, he was juiced up with drugs like neostigmine and Mestinon, then bloated up with cortisone. He went through plasmapheresis. All to no avail. His case progressed slowly but relentlessly no matter what Axford or anyone else did.

But he had never fully accepted his illness, not even to this day. He had fought it from the beginning and would keep on fighting it. He had plans for his life and his career that went beyond the Senate. Myasthenia gravis threatened to stop him. It wouldn’t. He would find a way—over it, around it, or through it.

And toward that end, he began investigating Charles Axford years ago. He learned he’d been born into a working class family in London. He proved brilliant in his studies, graduating from medical school in England at the top of his class; he was considered equally brilliant by anyone who knew him during his neurology residency here in Manhattan—admired by all but considered far too abrasive for anyone’s comfort. After countless bids for research grants and fellowships had been turned down, he’d reluctantly opened up a private practice, where he was quietly starving. Brilliant though he was in the science of medicine, he was virtually an idiot in the art of dealing with people.

To add to his problems, his wife had run off to “find” herself, leaving him with a chronically ill daughter.

Charles, of course, had never mentioned a word of his personal problems to the senator. McCready had ferreted them out through his publishing empire.

It became evident to McCready that the two men were made for each other: Axford was a whiz in neurology and McCready had a neuromuscular disease that was considered incurable at medicine’s present state of knowledge; Axford was looking for a research post and McCready had more money than he knew what to do with—at last count his personal fortune had totaled somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars.

Two ideas were born then. The first was the seed of the Medical Guidelines bill. Doctors had explained to him over and over that myasthenia gravis was subtle and difficult to diagnose in the early stages. He didn’t care. It should have been discovered years before he went to Axford. These doctors needed a lesson or two in humility. If they wouldn’t do their jobs right, he’d show them how.

The second idea became reality sooner than the legislation: The McCready Foundation for Medical Research was begun, with Charles Axford, M.D., as its director. The setup was tax-advantaged and allowed McCready to direct the course of all research done. Axford seemed delighted—he was well paid and could follow his interests without having to deal too much with patients.

McCready too found the situation delightful: He had his first pet doctor.

With an influx of grants and donations, the Foundation grew until it presently provided inpatient as well as outpatient services in its own building on Park Avenue in Manhattan, a former office building raised in the thirties that looked like a smaller version of Rockefeller Center. McCready had started off with one pet doctor; now he owned a whole stable of them. That was the only way to keep doctors in line: Own them. Make them dependent on you for their daily bread and they soon lost their maverick ways. They learned to toe the line like anybody else.

Axford still showed a lot of maverick tendencies, but McCready laid that off to the fact that he gave his research chief plenty of room. Someday he would yank a few strings and see how the Brit danced. But not yet. Not while he needed Axford’s research know-how.

That might not be much longer, though. Not if one tenth of what he had heard about this Bulmer character were true. After years of false leads, it was almost too much to hope for. But those stories…

His mouth went dry. If those stories were even half true…

And to think that Bulmer had been in his committee room only last month. He hadn’t come across as a nut case—anything but.

Was it possible he had been sitting a few yards away from a cure and not known it?

He had to find out. He had to know! He didn’t have much time!

13

Charles

“C’mon, Daddy,” Julie said, her voice a shade away from a whine. “Tonight’s a dialysis night.” She stood there in her cut off jeans and long-sleeved Opus the Penguin T-shirt, holding the glass out to him. “Let me have some more. I’m thirsty.”

“How many ounces have you had already?” Charles asked.

“Six.”

“Only two more.”

“Four! Please!” She hung her tongue out of her mouth and made a choking sound.

“All right! All right!”

He filled her eight-ounce tumbler halfway to the top, but restrained her arm as she lifted the glass.

“Use it to wash down your last three Amphojels.”

She made a face but popped them in her mouth and began chewing. Of the twenty-eight pills Julie had to take a day—the calcium, the activated vitamin D, the iron, the water-soluble vitamins—she hated her aluminum hydroxide tablets the most.

When she had finished gulping down the juice, he pointed toward the back end of the apartment.

Julie slumped her shoulders and pouted. “Can’t it wait?”

“Toddle on, and no more lolly-gagging. It’s after six already.”

He followed her into the back room where she plopped herself into the recliner, rolled up her sleeve, and placed her bared forearm on the arm of the chair.

Charles had the dialyzer all warmed up and ready to go. He seated himself next to his daughter and inspected her forearm. The fistula was still in excellent shape after five years. The thickened, ropy veins, about as big around as his little finger, bulged under her skin. A few years ago one of the kids at school had seen her fistula and given her the name “wormy arms.” Julie had worn long sleeves ever since—even in summer.

After cleaning the area with Betadine and alcohol, he made the skin punctures and cannulated the arterial and venous ends. He hooked her up to the dialyzer and watched the blood begin to flow toward the machine.

“You want the telly?”

She shook her head. “Maybe later. I want to read this first.” She held up the latest Mutts collection. The comic strip was her current favorite; she loved Mooch the cat.

Charles placed the remote control for the TV next to her on the seat, then stood over the dialyzer—which came up to his chest—and watched it do its thing, drawing the red blood and the clear dialysate past each other on different sides of the membrane, then sending the freshened blood, relieved of most of its toxins, back to Julie’s vein while it stored away the tainted dialysate. Charles was happy with this particular model. There was seldom trouble with the transmembrane pressures, and Julie had got shocky only twice so far this year—a pretty good record.

He sank into the couch across the room from her.

How does she do it? he wondered for the thousandth time as he watched her smile and occasionally giggle as she paged through the book. How does she keep from going crazy?

How much longer did this have to go on? Something had to break soon. He couldn’t see how she could put up with this for the rest of her life. It was living hell…

…three hours on the machine three times a week. He always timed it as the last event of the day because it exhausted her. All those pills…the ones that didn’t nauseate her made her constipated. She had to measure every bloody ounce of fluid that passed her lips so as not to overload her vascular system. And the diet—rigidly restricted sodium, protein, and phosphorus, which meant no pizza, no milk shakes, no ice cream, no pickles, no cold cuts, or anything else that kids like. She was constantly anemic and tired, so she couldn’t get into any school activities that required exertion. That was no life for a kid.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Typical of a kid on long-term hemodialysis, she wasn’t growing or developing at a normal rate. As they became teenagers, they didn’t…become teenagers. They stayed small; they didn’t develop much in the way of secondary sexual characteristics, and that took a terrible emotional toll after a while. Julie wasn’t to that stage as yet, but she would be before too long. And she was already small for her age.

Charles studied Julie, with her big brown eyes and raven hair. So beautiful. Just like her mother. Lucky for her that was the only thing she had inherited from the bloody bitch. He felt his teeth grinding and banished his ex-wife from his mind. Every time he thought of her, or someone merely mentioned her name, he felt himself edge toward violence.

She didn’t have to leave. It was hard living with a child in chronic renal failure, but lots of parents lived with lots worse. And Jesus, look at Sylvie—she’d gone out and adopted a bloody autistic boy! If only his ex had been like Sylvie—what a life they could have had.

But no use gnawing on that subject. He’d chewed it to death over the years. He had more important concerns to deal with in the here and now.

Like the call from Julie’s nephrologist just an hour ago. Her circulating levels of cytotoxic antibodies were still high, years after her body had rejected the kidney he’d donated to her. She hadn’t been a good transplant candidate in the first place, and until those antibody levels came down, she was no candidate at all.

So she went on day by day, producing her ounce or so of urine per week, feeling tired most of the time, and getting her thrice weekly hemodialysis treatments here in this room. An unimaginable existence for Charles, but the only life Julie had ever known.

He watched television for a while, and when he glanced her way at 8:30, she was asleep. He waited until her dialysis was done, then he disconnected her from the machine, bandaged up her arm, and carried her into her bedroom where he changed her into her pajamas and slipped her under the sheet.

As he sat there for a moment stroking her hair and looking at that innocent little face, she stirred and raised her head.

“I forgot to say my prayers.”

“That’s okay, Love,” he said soothingly and she immediately went back to sleep.

Nobody’s listening anyway.

It never ceased to amaze him how people could believe in a provident God when so many children in this world suffered from the day they were born.

There was no God for him. There was only Julie and this world and today. And, hopefully, tomorrow.

He kissed her on the forehead and turned out the light.

14

Alan

The patient was lying.

A new patient. His file said he was Joe Metzger, age thirty-two, and he was complaining of chronic low back pain. He said he wanted a cure for his backache.

The cure bit threw him. Alan had thought he’d had him pretty well pegged as a drug abuser looking for some Percodan or Oxycontin. He ran into his share of them—always a chronic painful condition, always “allergic” to NSAIDS and non-narcotic analgesics, always with a story about how “Nothing works except one kind of pill—I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s yellow and has something like ‘Endo’ on it.”

Yeah. Right.

Perhaps Alan would have been less suspicious if he hadn’t happened to glance out the window at the parking lot and seen Joe Metzger of the terrible back pain limberly hop out of his little Fiat two-seater.

“Just what do you mean by ‘cure’?” He had recounted an extensive work-up—myelogram, CT, MRI, and all—and consultations with big-shot orthopedists. “What do you expect from me that you haven’t been offered elsewhere?”

Joe Metzger smiled. It was a mechanical expression, like something Alan would expect to see on a computer-generated face. His thin body was bared to the waist, with the belt to his jeans loosened. His bushy hair stuck out on all sides and a thick mustache drooped around each side of his mouth; wire-rimmed granny glasses completed the picture, making him look like a refugee from the sixties.

“A healing. Like you did for Lucy Burns’ sciatica a couple of weeks ago.”

Oh, shit! Alan thought. Now it starts. He couldn’t quite place the name Lucy Burns, but he’d known something like this would happen sooner or later. He couldn’t expect to go on working his little miracles without talk getting around.

He hadn’t exactly caused the blind to see as yet—although old Miss Binghamton’s cataracts had cleared after he’d examined her—but he had caused the deaf to hear and performed many other…he could think of no better word than miracles.

He was still unable to control the power and doubted he ever would. But he had learned a lot about it in the preceding weeks. He had the power twice a day for approximately one hour. Those hours were approximately twelve hours apart, but not exactly. He possessed the power at a different time each day, anywhere from forty to seventy minutes later than he had the day before. Day by day, the “Hour of Power,” as he now called it, slowly edged its way around the clock. It occurred in conjunction with no biorhythm known to medical science. He had given up trying to explain it—he simply used it.

He had been judicious with the power, not only for reasons of discretion, but for safety as well. For instance, he could not try a cure on an insulin-dependent diabetic without informing the patient of the cure, otherwise the patient would take the usual insulin dose the next morning and wind up in hypoglycemic shock. He had never promised results when he used the power, never even hinted that he possessed it. He did everything he could to make the cure appear purely coincidental, purely happen-stance, brushing off any cause-effect relationship to him.

He didn’t know what would happen if word got around about his little miracles, and he didn’t want to find out.

But if this Joe Metzger sitting here before him had heard something, so had others. Which meant it was time to lay low, hold back from using the power until the rumors died out. It would be such a shame, though, to waste all the healing he could do in those hours. The power had come suddenly and without warning—it might leave the same way.

But for now, he’d do what he’d planned to do: stonewall it.

Today the Hour of Power was scheduled to begin around 5:00 p.m., three hours away.

Not that it mattered to Joe Metzger, if indeed that was his real name.

“Mr. Metzger, I’ll do what I can for you, but I can’t make any promises—certainly not of a ‘cure’ of any sort. Now let’s check you out and see what’s what.”

Alan went through the routine of checking the range of motion in the spine, but then stopped. He was annoyed that this phony, for what ever reason, was taking up his time. He was also tired. And, to be frank with himself, he couldn’t think of the next step in the routine low-back examination.

This was happening a lot lately. He wasn’t sleeping well, and therefore he wasn’t thinking well. This power, or what ever it was, had turned all his beliefs on their heads. It was blatantly impossible. It went against everything he had learned in life, med school, and a decade of practice. Yet it worked. There was no getting around the reality of that, so he’d surrendered and accepted it.

“What would a cure cost me?” Metzger asked.

“If I could perform a ‘cure,’ it would be the same as a usual office visit. But I can’t: Your back’s in better shape than mine.”

Joe Metzger’s eyes widened behind his granny glasses. “How can you say that? I have a—”

“What do you really want?” Alan said, deciding on a hard-line approach. “I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with clowns looking for drugs for non ex is tent problems.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the door. “Take off.”

As Alan reached for the doorknob, Joe Metzger reached into his pocket. “Dr. Bulmer—wait!” He pulled a card from his wallet and extended it toward Alan. “I’m a reporter.”

Oh, God.

“I’m from The Light.”

Alan looked at the card. A photo of Metzger’s face looked back at him. His name really was Joe Metzger and he did indeed work for the infamous scandal sheet. “The Light? You mean you actually admit that?”

“It’s not such a bad paper.” He had retrieved his shirt from behind him and was putting it on.

“I’ve heard otherwise.”

“Only from people with something to hide—dishonest politicians and celebrities who like the spotlight but don’t like anyone to know what they did to get there. Have you ever read an issue, Doctor, or does your low opinion come secondhand?”

Alan shook his head. “Patients bring in copies all the time. They show me articles about DMSO, Laetril, curing psoriasis with B-12, preventing cancer with lettuce, or losing ten pounds a week eating chocolate cake.”

“Looks like the tables are turned, Dr. Bulmer,” Metzger said with his marionnette smile. “Lately your patients have been coming to us with stories about you.”

Alan had a sinking feeling inside. He had never imagined things getting this far out of hand so soon.

“And what stories!” Metzger continued. “Miracle cures! Instant healings! If you’ll pardon the cliché: What’s up, Doc?”

Alan kept his expression bland. “What’s up? I haven’t the faintest. Probably a few coincidences. Maybe some placebo effect.”

“Then you deny that you’ve had anything to do with any of these cures your patients are talking about?”

“I think you’ve wasted enough of my time already today.” Alan held the door open for the reporter. “If you can’t remember the way out, I’ll gladly show you.”

Metzger’s expression became grim as he hopped off the table and walked past Alan.

“You know, I came here figuring I’d find either a quack who’d jump at the chance for some publicity, or maybe a small time charlatan ripping off gullible sick old ladies.”

Alan put a hand on Metzger’s back and gently propelled him toward the rear of the building.

“Instead, I find someone who denies any power and who wasn’t going to ask for extra even if he could cure me.”

“Right,” Alan said. “You found nothing.”

Metzger turned at the back door and faced him. “Not quite. I found something I want to look into. If I can produce evidence of genuine cures, I may have found the real thing.”

The sinking sensation deepened in Alan. “Aren’t you worried about ruining that real thing if it exists?”

“If someone can do what I’ve heard, everyone should know about it. It should be spread around like a natural resource.” He flashed that mechanical smile again. “Besides—it would be the story of the century.”

Alan closed the door behind the reporter and sagged against it. This was bad.

He heard his phone ringing in his office and went to pick it up.

“Mr. DeMarco on ninety-two,” Connie said.

He punched the button.

“Alan!” Tony said. “Still interested in Walter Erskine?”

“Who?”

“The bum in the ER you wanted me to check out.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Now he remembered. “Sure.”

“Well, I know all about him. Want to hear?”

Alan glanced at his schedule. He wanted to run next door right now, but he had three more patients to see.

“Be over at five-thirty,” he said.

At last!

15

Ba

“What on earth did you feed that new peach tree, Ba?” the Missus said as she looked out the library window. “It’s growing like crazy!”

The Missus had been quizzing him on the material for his Naturalization test. He had filed the forms. After they were reviewed, he would hear from an examiner if he qualified for citizenship. They were taking a break now.

The Missus was disturbed. Ba could tell. She was hiding her troubles with small talk.

Over the years Ba had come to recognize the signs—the way she held her shoulders high, the stiffness of her back, and her pacing. On those rare occasions when the Missus gave the slightest hint of a disturbed inner face, she always paced. And smoked. It was the only time she smoked. She puffed on the cigarette as she slapped a folded newspaper against her thigh. The afternoon sun was slanting through the high windows of the two-story library, illuminating the haze from her cigarette, silhouetting her as she passed back and forth through the light.

“Is there something Ba can do, Missus?”

“No…yes.” She threw the newspaper onto the coffee table. “You can tell me why people spend money on garbage like this!”

Ba picked up the newspaper. The Light. He had seen it often at the supermarket checkout aisle. This issue was folded open to an article on a Long Island doctor named Alan Bulmer whose patients were claiming miracle cures at his hands.

Ba had seen the MIRACLE CURES ON LONG ISLAND banner on the front page yesterday and had bought the issue. He knew the Missus would eventually learn of it and would be disturbed. He had wanted to be ready to help her, so he had gone to the New York Public Library and found Arthur Keitzer’s book, The Sea Is in Us. He had remembered the author passing through his village during the war, asking many questions. He remembered that the author had written down the song of the Dat-tay-vao. To Ba’s immense relief, he found that Keitzer had included a translation in his book. Ba would not have trusted his own translation. He had photocopied the page and returned to Monroe.

“Do you know what’s going to happen now?” the Missus was saying, still puffing and pacing. “Every kook from here to Kalamazoo will be knocking on his door, looking for a miracle! I can’t believe someone’s printing a story like this about him! I mean, if there was ever a more conservative, cautious, touch-all-bases kind of doctor, it’s Alan. I don’t get it! Where do they dig up this nonsense?”

“Perhaps it is true, Missus.”

The Missus whirled and stared up at him. “Why on earth do you say that?”

“I saw.”

“When? Where?”

“At the party.”

“You must have been sampling too much of the champagne.”

Ba did not flinch, although the words cut like a knife. But if the Missus wished to speak to him so, he would allow her. But only her.

The Missus stepped closer and touched his arm. “Sorry, Ba. That was as cruel as it was untrue. It’s just that…” She tapped a finger against the paper he still held in his hand. “This infuriates me.”

Ba said nothing more.

Finally the Missus sat on the sofa and indicated the chair across from her. “Sit and tell me what you saw.”

Ba remained standing, speaking slowly as he reran the scene in his head.

“The man, Mr. Cunningham, was bleeding terrible. I saw when I turned him over for the Doctor.” He spread his thumb and index finger two inches. “The cut was that long”—he reduced the span to half an inch—“and that wide. The Doctor put his hand over the cut and suddenly the bleeding stopped and the man woke up. When I looked again the wound was closed.”

The Missus crushed out her cigarette and looked away for a long moment.

“You know I trust your word, Ba,” she said without looking at him. “But I can’t believe that. You must be mistaken.”

“I have seen it before.”

Her head snapped around. “What?”

“At home. When I was a boy, a man came to our village and stayed for a while. He could do what Dr. Bulmer can do. He could lay his hand on a sick baby or on a person with a growth or an old sore that wouldn’t heal or an infected tooth and make them well. He had what we call Dat-tay-vao…the Touch.” He handed her the photocopied sheet from the Keitzer book. “Here are the words to a song about the Dat-tay-vao.”

The Missus took it and read out loud:

“It seeks but will not be sought.

It finds but will not be found.

It holds the one who would touch,

Who would cut away pain and ill.

But its blade cuts two ways

And will not be turned.

If you value your well-being,

Impede not its way.

Treat the Toucher doubly well,

For he bears the weight

Of the balance that must be struck.”

“It sounds much better in my village tongue,” Ba told her.

“Sounds like a folktale, Ba.”

“I had always thought so, too. Until I saw. And I saw it again at the party.”

“I’m sorry, Ba. I just can’t believe that something like that can happen.”

“The article lists many of his patients who say it has.”

“Yes, but…” A look of alarm crossed her face. “If it’s true—God, they’ll eat him alive!”

“I think there might be another danger, Missus.” Ba was silent a moment, picturing the face of the man with the Dat-tay-vao as he remembered it from so many years ago: the vacant eyes, the confusion, the haunted look about him. “I once spoke to a Buddhist priest about the man with the Touch. He told me that it is hard to tell whether a man possesses the Dat-tay-vao, or the Dat-tay-vao possesses the man.”

The Missus stood up. Ba could tell by her expression that she still did not believe. But she was deeply concerned.

“Would you be willing to tell Dr. Bulmer what you told me?”

“If you wish it, of course.”

“Good.”

She stepped over to the phone and punched in a number. “Yes. Is the doctor in? No, never mind. I’ll call him tomorrow. Thank you.”

She turned to Ba again. “He’s left the office and I don’t want to disturb him at home. We’ll catch him tomorrow. He should know about this.” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe I’m buying this. I just don’t see how it can be true.”

Lost in thought, she walked slowly from the room.

It is true, Missus, Ba thought as he watched her leave. He knew beyond all doubt. For he had been touched by the Dat-tay-vao in his youth, and the awful growth that had stretched him so far above his fellow villagers was finally halted.

16

Alan

Ginny met him at the door as he returned from the office.

“Alan, what’s going on?”

Her lips were slightly parted as they tended to be when she was annoyed, and she had taken her contacts out, leaving her eyes their natural blue. Tonight they were a very worried shade of blue.

“I don’t know.” It had been a long day and he was tired. A game of Twenty Questions didn’t appeal to him. “You tell me.”

She held up a newspaper. “Josie dropped this off.”

Alan grabbed the paper and groaned when he saw the logo: The Light. Then he saw the banner across the top of the front page: MIRACLE CURES ON LONG ISLAND! (See Pg. 3).

It was all there: five of his patients—Henrietta Westin, Lucy Burns, and others—all documenting their former chronic or incurable illnesses, now cured after a trip to Dr. Alan Bulmer. There was no malice in them. Quite the contrary. They sang Alan’s praises. Anyone reading their comments would come away convinced he walked on water as well.

He looked up and found Ginny’s gaze fixed on him.

“How did something like this get started?”

Alan shrugged, barely able to hear her. He was too shaken to think straight. “I don’t know. People talk—”

“But they’re talking about miracles here! Faith-healing stuff!”

Alan scanned through the article again. It was worse the second time through.

“That reporter says he spoke to you. He even quotes you. How can that be?”

“He came by the office, posing as a patient. I threw him out.”

“How come you didn’t tell me about it?”

“It didn’t seem worth it,” Alan said. Actually, he had forgotten to tell Ginny. Perhaps he had simply blotted it out of his mind. “I thought that would be the end of it.”

“Did he quote you right?” She pulled the paper away and read from the article. “‘Probably a few coincidences. Maybe some placebo effect’?”

Alan nodded. “Yeah. I believe that’s about what I said.”

“That’s all?” Her face was getting red. “How about something like ‘Bullshit!’? Or ‘You’re nuts!’?”

“Come on, Ginny. You know he’d never print that. It would ruin the story.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But I can tell you one thing he is going to print, and that’s a retraction!”

Alan felt a twinge of despair. “That would only magnify the problem and give the story more publicity, which is just what The Light would love. If we simply refuse to dignify it with a reply, interest will slowly die out.”

“And what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Nothing?”

“Easy, easy,” Alan said, rising and moving toward her.

She was working herself up into one of her rages. He went to put his arms around her but she pushed him away.

“No! I don’t want to be known as the wife of the local witch doctor! I want this junk straightened out and fast! You just tell me why—!”

Her voice was reaching a screechy pitch that frazzled Alan’s nerves.

“Ginny…”

“You just tell me why you can’t call Tony and have him sue this rag for defamation of character or libel or what ever it’s called and print a retraction!”

“Ginny…” Alan felt his own patience wearing thin.

“You just tell me!”

“Because it’s true, goddamnit!”

Alan regretted the explosion immediately. He hadn’t wanted to say that.

Ginny stepped back as if she’d been slapped in the face. Her voice was tiny when she spoke.

“What?”

“It’s true. I tried to tell you last month but I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

Ginny reached a shaking hand behind her, found a chair, and sat down.

“Alan, you’ve got to be kidding!”

He lowered himself onto the sofa across from her. “At times, Ginny, I almost wish I were. But it’s true. Those people aren’t lying and they aren’t crazy. They’ve really been cured. And I did it.”

He saw her mouth form a question that found no voice. He asked it for her:

“How? I don’t know.” He didn’t mention the incident with the derelict. This was all hard enough to believe without adding that and what Tony had recently told him about the man. “All I know is that at certain times of the day I can cure people of what ever ails them.”

Ginny said nothing. Neither did Alan. Ginny watched her hands; Alan watched her.

Finally she spoke, falteringly. “If it’s true—and I really can’t believe I’m sitting here talking about this—but if it’s true, then you’ve got to stop.”

Alan sat in stunned silence. He couldn’t stop. Not permanently. He could cut back or hold off for a while, but he couldn’t stop.

“It’s healing, Ginny,” he said, trying to catch her eyes. She wouldn’t look at him. “I don’t know how long I’ll have this power. But while I have it, I’ve got to use it. It’s what I’m about. How can I stop?”

Ginny finally looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “It will destroy everything we’ve worked for. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Ginny, you’ve got to understand—”

She shot to her feet and turned away. “I see it doesn’t.”

Alan gently turned her around and pulled her to him. She clung to him as if she were about to fall. They stood there in silence, arms wrapped around each other.

“What’s happened to us?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Ginny said. “But I don’t like the way things are going.”

“Neither do I.”

As they held the embrace, Alan thought, This is the way it used to be. This used to be the simple answer to everything. I’d hold Ginny and she’d hold me, and it would be enough. Everything would be all right.

“Let’s not talk about this any more tonight,” she said finally, pulling away. “Let me sleep on it.”

“We should talk this out, Ginny. It’s important.”

“I know it’s important. But I can’t handle it right now. It’s too much. You’re talking like someone who belongs in a mental hospital, and I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

As Alan watched her go up the stairs, he remembered that tomorrow was the twenty-seventh. His receptionist had reminded him that his office hours started late in the morning because of that. He always started late on May 27. Now was hardly the best time to ask, but maybe this year Ginny would come.

“Ginny? Would you come with me?”

She turned at the top of the stairs and looked at him questioningly.

“It’s the twenty-seventh.”

Her face suddenly went blank, devoid of any feeling. She shook her head silently and turned away.

He wandered around the first floor aimlessly for a while. He felt lost and very much alone. If only he could talk to someone about this! The pressure was building to explosive proportions inside him. If he didn’t let it out soon, he’d really be crazy.

He went to the kitchen, made a cup of instant coffee, and brought it back to the living room. He stopped and stared in surprise when he saw another cup of coffee already there.

When had he made that?

Shaking his head, he dumped both into the kitchen sink. He returned to the living room and lay back in the recliner, thinking about the power.

How could something that seemed like such a miraculous boon become such a curse?

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

17

Sylvia

“There he is now,” Sylvia said as she spotted Alan’s Subaru. She leaned forward and pointed past Ba’s shoulder.

Ba nodded from the driver’s seat. “I see him, Missus.”

“We’ll follow him to his office and catch him before he goes in.”

Jeffy had been dropped off at the Stanton School and Sylvia was on her way to Alan’s office, determined to speak to him before he saw his first patient.

She leaned back in the rear seat, wondering how she would broach the subject. Last night she’d almost been able to accept what Ba had said about this healing touch, this Dat-tay-vao, as he called it. Now, with the sun flickering and slanting through the oaks along the road on a beautiful spring morning, it seemed preposterous. But she had decided to follow through with her decision to speak to Alan about it, and pass on Ba’s warning. She owed him at least that much.

They were approaching the office now. But Alan didn’t turn into the parking lot. She saw his car slow momentarily as it passed, then pick up speed again. There were two cars and a van in the parking lot, and one man sitting on the front steps.

“Do I follow him, Missus?” Ba said as he slowed the car.

Sylvia hesitated. He wasn’t headed toward the hospital—that was in the other direction. “Yes. Let’s see where he’s going. Maybe we’ll still get a chance to speak to him.”

They didn’t have far to go. He turned into Tall Oaks Cemetery. Ba stopped the car at the gate and waited.

Sylvia sat tense and quiet while invisible fingers of ice encircled her stomach and squeezed.

“Go on,” she said at last.

Ba turned the Graham through the gate and followed the winding asphalt strip through the trees. They found Alan’s car pulled to the side about a third of the way along the drive. Sylvia spotted him a few hundred feet off to the left, kneeling in the grass on a gentle rise.

She watched him a moment, puzzled. She didn’t know much about his past, but she knew he was not from around here and had no family in the area. On impulse she got out of the car and walked toward him.

She knew Tall Oaks well. Too well. It was one of those modern cemeteries that didn’t allow standing markers. All headstones had to be flat little slabs laid in the ground in neat rows to facilitate groundskeeping. Gone was the old-fashioned creepy cemetery with its mausoleums and cracked, tilted headstones. In its place was this open, grassy field ringed by trees.

As she came up behind Alan she saw that the ground around him was littered with colorful cardboard and clear plastic packaging, all torn to pieces. When she saw what he was doing, she stopped in shock.

He was lining up little plastic action figures along the edges of a headstone plaque.

She moved closer to get a look at the inscription of the headstone:

THOMAS WARREN BULMER

Tommy, we hardly knew ye.

Her throat tightened. She took another step to see the dates at the bottom of the brass plaque. The date of birth was eight years ago today. She caught her breath involuntarily when she saw that the date of death was only three months later.

Oh, God! I didn’t know!

Filled with guilt and embarrassment for intruding on him at a moment like this, she spun and began to hurry back down the rise.

“Don’t go,” he said.

Sylvia stopped, turned. He was still squatting, but he was looking up at her. His eyes were dry and he was smiling.

“Come say happy birthday to Tommy.”

She went and stood at his side while he gathered up the toy packaging.

“I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should.” He stood up and surveyed the toys he had displayed on the headstone. “How’s it look?”

“Great.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, it won’t last long. One of the groundskeepers will rip them off for his kids. But that’s okay. Better than having them ground up by the lawnmowers. At least somebody will be getting something out of them. Tommy would have loved Harry Potter, you know.”

“How did he—?” She caught herself. The question had filled her mind since the instant she had read the plaque, but she hadn’t meant to ask.

Alan didn’t seem to mind. “Tommy had a congenital heart defect: endocardial fibroelastosis. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say that his heart wasn’t up to the job. We had every specialist in Manhattan look at him. They tried everything they knew. But nobody could save him.” His voice cracked. “And so he died. He was just learning to smile when he up and died on us.”

He raised his free hand to his eyes as a sob racked him. Then another. He dropped the wrappings and covered his face with both hands.

Sylvia didn’t know what to do. She had never seen a man cry before, and Alan’s grief was so deep that she wanted to cry herself. She put an arm around his hunched shoulders. Touching him and feeling the tremors within him made his pain a physical thing. She wanted to say something comforting…but what could she say?

Alan suddenly regained control and wiped his face dry on his sleeves.

“Sorry,” he said, looking away, obviously embarrassed. “I’m not a crybaby. I come here every May twenty-seventh, and I haven’t cried for the last five or six times.” He sniffed. “Don’t know what’s the matter with me today.”

A thought struck Sylvia with the force of an explosion. “Is it because you think that maybe if he had been born this year, you could have saved him?”

Alan’s eyes were wide as he turned toward her.

“Ba told me,” she said.

“Ba?” It almost seemed as if he didn’t recognize the name.

“You know—the big Vietnamese guy. He says he saw you do something at the party.”

“The party,” Alan said in a flat, vacant tone. “It seems so long ago.” And then his eyes lit. “The party! That MTA guy’s head! Yeah…Ba could have seen.”

After a lingering silence, Alan took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s true, you know. I can…do things I would have laughed off as utterly impossible two months ago. I…I can cure just about anything when the time is right. Anything. But it doesn’t do Tommy any good, does it? I mean, what goddamn good is it if I can’t use it on Tommy who was the most important little sick person in my life!”

Biting his lip, he turned and walked a few steps away, then returned.

“You know something?” he said, slightly more composed. “Before you came I was sitting there actually thinking of digging up the grave and seeing if I could bring him back.”

With a quake of fear, Sylvia remembered the old story of The Monkey’s Paw.

“Sometimes I think I’m going crazy,” he said, shaking his head sharply.

Sylvia smiled and tried to lighten the mood. “Why should you be any different from the rest of us?”

Alan managed to return the smile. “Did you come here to see someone?”

Sylvia thought of Greg, whose marker was on the other side of the field. She had buried him close to home rather than in Arlington, but she had never returned to the site.

“Only you.” He gave her a puzzled look. “Ba has some things to tell you.”

He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

18

Alan

“And you say this man simply touched you?”

Ba nodded in response to the question.

Alan sat with Sylvia in the back of the Graham; it was the first time he had been in the car, and he marveled at its plush interior. Ba sat up front, half-turned toward them. The car was still parked in the cemetery.

Ba had told them of his freakish growth as a teenager and how his mother feared he would grow too tall to live among others. When the man who had what Ba called the Dat-tay-vao came to his village, his mother had brought him forward for healing.

“What did you feel?” Alan asked.

He could barely suppress his excitement. The folky-mythical aspects of Ba’s tale were hokey, but they didn’t matter. Here was proof! Eyewitness corroboration that such a power existed!

“I felt a pain deep in my head and almost fell to the ground. But after that I grew no taller.”

“That backs up the Vietnam connection. It all fits!”

“What’s the Vietnam connection?” Sylvia asked.

Alan decided it was best to start at the beginning, so he told her about the derelict, Walter Erskine, and the incident in the emergency room.

“The healings started shortly after that. I’ve always suspected that bum passed on the power to me—how and why, I don’t know, but I had my lawyer, Tony DeMarco, look into Erskine’s past. Tony found out he was a medic in Vietnam. Came home crazy. Thought he could heal people. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by the V.A. Joined a faith-healing tent show in the South but got kicked off the tour because he wasn’t healing anybody and was never sober.”

“Alcohol puts the Dat-tay-vao to sleep,” Ba said.

Alan wondered if that could be why Erskine became a drunk—to stifle the power.

“Evidently he lived on the streets for the past few years until for some reason he came out here to Monroe and found me, gave me some sort of electric shock, and died. Is that how the Dat-tay-vao is passed on?”

Ba said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I do not know. It is said that the Buddha himself brought the Dat-tay-vao to our land.”

“But why me, Ba?” Alan desperately wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I cannot say, Doctor. But as the Song tells: It seeks the one who would touch, Who would cut away pain and ill.”

“‘Seeks’?” Alan was uneasy about the idea of being sought out by this power. He remembered the derelict’s words: You! You’re the one! “Why seek me?”

Ba spoke simply and with conviction. “You are a healer, Doctor. The Dat-tay-vao knows all healers.”

Alan saw Sylvia shudder. “Do you still have that poem, Ba?” The driver handed her a folded sheet of paper and Sylvia passed it to Alan. “Here.”

Alan read the poem. It was confusing and sounded more like a riddle than a song. He found one line particularly disturbing.

“I’m not too keen on this part about the balance. What’s that mean?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Ba said. “I do not know. But I fear it might mean that there is a price to be paid.”

“I don’t like the sound of that!” Sylvia said.

“Neither do I.” Alan felt his uneasiness growing. “But so far I’ve kept my health. And I haven’t got any rotting portrait in the attic. So I think I’ll just keep on doing what I’ve been doing—only a little more discreetly.”

“A lot more discreetly, I hope,” Sylvia said. “But just what have you been doing?”

Alan glanced at his watch. He still had a good hour and a half until his first patient showed up. And there was something very important he wanted to discuss with Sylvia.

“I’ll tell you over breakfast.”

Sylvia smiled. “Deal.”

19

Sylvia

Alan sat across from her, sipping his fourth cup of coffee, silent at last. They had left Ba to run some errands and Alan had driven her to this Glen Cove diner where he swore they made the best hash browns on the North Shore.

They sat in a rear booth. While polishing off scrambled eggs, bacon, a double helping of the famous hash browns, and a torrent of coffee, Alan had talked nonstop about what he had accomplished since the Dat-tay-vao had found him.

Sylvia listened in wonder and awe. If all this were really true…she thought about Jeffy for an instant, and then blocked the thought. If she let herself hope for a single minute….

Besides, as much as she respected and admired Alan, she simply couldn’t believe all the cures he described had really happened. This was the real world. Her world. Miracles didn’t happen in her world.

“God, it’s good to be able to talk to someone about this,” he said as he hunched over his cup.

“Doesn’t your wife…?”

He shook his head. Pain hid in his eyes. “She doesn’t want to hear about it. She’s frightened about the publicity.”

“She should be. You both should be.”

“I can handle it.”

“And you should be concerned about what Ba told you about who is the master with the Touch.”

“I can handle that, too. I’m going to cut back on when and how I use it. Don’t worry. I can control it.” He laughed. “I sound like a drunk, don’t I?” He suddenly switched to an authentic Brooklyn accent. “‘Don’t worry, Doc. I may put away a fifth now an’ den, but I ain’t no alcoholic, y’know? I can han’le it.’”

Sylvia laughed. “That’s good. Where’d you pick that up?”

“From life. I grew up in Brooklyn. Mine was the token Wasp family between Jewish and Italian neighborhoods. We lived on…” His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. The street name slips my mind. Doesn’t matter. I think the only reason they tolerated us was because we were poorer than they were.”

They sat in silence a moment, then he said:

“Ginny and I have had our problems since Tommy died. She changed. Maybe it would have been different if he’d been stillborn or had died in the first couple of days. But he held on.” She saw a wavering smile pull up the corners of Alan’s mouth. “God, what a little fighter he was! He wouldn’t give up. He shouldn’t have lasted as long as he did. And that was the real problem, I guess. A priest told us it was better to have had him for a little while and lose him, than not to have had him at all. I don’t know about that. You can’t ache like this for what you’ve never known.” His hands gathered into fists. “If only Tommy hadn’t become a real person to us, a little guy who could grab your finger and smile, and even giggle if you tickled him in the right spot. But to have him and love him and hope for him for those three months—eighty-eight days, to be exact—and then to lose him, to see the life drain from his face and the light in his eyes go out. That was cruel. Ginny didn’t deserve that. Something inside her died right along with Tommy, and nothing has been the same since. She…”

Alan let the word dangle as he leaned back in the booth. Sylvia hung on, waiting for him to continue, dying to know what went on in his marriage.

“I shouldn’t be talking about her,” he finally said. “But the fact remains, I can’t talk to Ginny about this…this thing I have. I can’t talk to any other doctor about it, because I know they’ll all want me to see a certain kind of specialist—stat.”

“A shrink.”

“Right. So excuse me for running off at the mouth, but this has been dammed up for too damn long.”

“Glad to be of service.”

His gaze burned into her. “Do you believe me?”

Sylvia hesitated, taken aback by the directness of the question. “I don’t know. I believe in you as a person, but what you’ve told me is so…so…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Took me a while before I could accept it myself, even with the cures happening right before my eyes. But now that I have accepted it, and learned how to use it, it’s just…” He spread his hands. “It’s wonderful!”

Sylvia watched his face, feeling the glow of his enthusiasm.

“I can’t tell you what it means to be able to actually do something! Most of medicine is just buying time, staving off the inevitable. But now I can make a real difference!”

“You always have,” Sylvia told him. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short.”

“Why not? I was like a guy trying to swim the Channel with both arms tied behind his back. God! There was so much I could have done! So many lives…”

His eyes got a faraway look, as if he had wandered into a private world and couldn’t find his way back right away. Which was fine with Sylvia. It made her angry to hear him put down his pre-Touch self.

“You always had something special!” she told him as his eyes focused again. “You had compassion and empathy. I still remember the second or third time I saw you with Jeffy and told you how you were the only doctor who made me feel I wasn’t imposing by asking a few questions.”

“Good. Then let me ask you a question.”

“Okay.” The intensity of his gaze made her uncomfortable. “What?”

“Jeffy.”

Her stomach twisted. She sensed what was coming. “What about him?”

“I’ve been thinking about him ever since I found I really had this power, this Touch or what ever it’s called. But I didn’t know how to approach you. And you haven’t brought him in since he had that abdominal pain and, I mean, I couldn’t exactly come knocking on your door.” He seemed to be fumbling for words. He took a deep breath. “Look: I want to try the Touch on Jeffy.”

“No!” Sylvia said automatically. “Absolutely not!”

Alan blinked. “Why not?”

She didn’t know why, exactly. She had refused reflexively. The thought of placing Jeffy at the mercy of some power she couldn’t quite believe in frightened her. It was too mystical, too scary. But it went deeper than mere fright. A nameless dread, baseless and formless, had risen within her as Alan was speaking. She didn’t understand it, but knew she was helpless before it. Who knew what the Dat-tay-vao might do to Jeffy? Bad enough if she got her hopes up and it didn’t work. But what if it backfired somehow and made him worse? She couldn’t risk anything happening to her Jeffy.

“I-I-I don’t know.” The words tumbled out. “Not yet. Not now. I mean, you said yourself you don’t know how it works, or exactly when it will work. There’s too many unknowns here. And besides, all the cures you’ve told me about have been for physical ills. Jeffy’s problem isn’t purely physical. It’s developmental.”

Alan was watching her closely, searching her face. Finally he nodded.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should wait. It’s up to you. Just remember: I’m at Jeffy’s service anytime you say.”

“Thank you, Alan.” She felt the dread and near panic recede.

He glanced at his watch. “Getting late. I’ll get Ba to drive you back.”

Sylvia felt a nudge of concern. Alan seemed to be forgetting a lot. She’d always been struck by the keenness of his memory in the past.

She shrugged it off and laughed as she reminded him that Ba was gone and that Alan was supposed to drive her back. With the strain he must be under—between grappling with this miraculous power and now with the press—it was a wonder he could concentrate on anything.

“And thank you for thinking of Jeffy.”

“Oh, I think of him a lot. Tommy would be just Jeffy’s age if he’d lived.”

20

Alan

Alan drove toward his office in an almost lighthearted mood. Finally he’d found someone to talk to about the Hour of Power. It was like having a great weight eased from his shoulders; he had someone to share it with now.

Too bad it wasn’t Ginny. He truly enjoyed talking to Sylvia. Enjoyed it too much, perhaps. He’d revealed more of himself than he wished today. Perhaps the fact that she’d seen him crying had opened the door. He’d always preferred to leave his feelings for Sylvia unexplored, but he could see the day approaching when he would have to confront them. An intimacy was growing between them, almost in direct proportion to the lengthening distance between Ginny and him. He wished it weren’t so, but saw no use denying the obvious.

He knew when things had started going downhill. He’d almost blurted it out to Sylvia today but had caught himself. It was a private thing, between husband and wife, and he wouldn’t have felt right talking about Ginny behind her back like that.

Saying that something in Ginny had died with Tommy had been true enough. But only a piece of the story. Guilt and the self-flagellation had strangled a part of her too.

Ginny had smoked during the pregnancy. Only an occasional cigarette—she had been a pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker for years but had ostensibly stopped when she became pregnant. Ostensibly. When the house was empty she would sneak a smoke. Only one or two a day, and heavily filtered.

Tommy’s cardiac defect had had nothing to do with her smoking. Nicotine had ill effects on the fetus, but this type of heart problem was completely unrelated to smoking. The pediatricians and cardiologists had assured her of that, her obstetrician had reinforced it, and Alan had repeated it like a mantra.

None of that mattered to Ginny. She’d decided that she was responsible and no one could convince her otherwise. Over the years she had slowly poisoned herself with guilt and self-loathing. She locked a part of herself away forever and refused to even consider the thought of another pregnancy. She had decided that she wasn’t fit to raise a child and that was that. She’d walled off the memory of Tommy, too. She never mentioned him, never visited the grave site. It was as if he’d never existed.

Alan sighed as he drove. He almost wished he could do the same. Maybe it would ease the pain of the wound that never seemed to heal; the wound that tore open every May 27.

The parking lot was jammed. So was the front entrance. Alan didn’t recognize any of the faces. And the way all those strange people stared at him as he drove by on his way to the rear of the building made him glad he’d given up his MD plates years ago. Having his car broken into and ransacked twice had been enough to convince him that the few prerogatives granted the MD plates were not worth the hassle of drug-hungry junkies popping the lock on his trunk.

His nurse, Denise, red-faced and breathless, met him at the back door.

“Thank God you’re here! The waiting room’s filled with new patients! I don’t know what to do! They all want to be seen today—now!”

“Didn’t they see the sign? ‘Patients Seen by Appointment Only’?”

“I don’t see how they could miss it. But they’ve all seen that newspaper, The Light. Most of them have a copy with them, and they ask if you’re the Dr. Bulmer in the article. And even when I say, ‘I don’t know,’ they say they’ve got to see you, got to see you, and they plead and beg with me to give them an appointment. I don’t know what to tell them. Some of them are dirty and smelly and they’re crowding out our regular patients.”

Alan cursed The Light and he cursed Joe Metzger, but most of all he cursed himself for letting things get to this point. He should have known, should have foreseen…

But what to do now? This was an impossible situation, yet he shied from the unpleasant decision it called for.

He should say no to these people. They had come to him expecting to be healed, and anything less would disappoint them. To agree to see them and then withhold the power would be unconscionable.

The trouble was, they were looking for miracles. And if he supplied them, they would talk. God, how they would talk! And then the National Enquirer and the Star and all the rest would be knocking on his door. Followed soon by Time and Newsweek.

To protect himself and his ability to practice any sort of medicine, he would have to lie low for awhile. With nothing new to fuel it, the controversy would die down and eventually be forgotten. Then he could start using the power again.

Until then he would be just another family practitioner. Good ol’ Doc Bulmer.

He had no choice. He was backed into a corner and could see no way out.

“Tell them I’m not taking any new patients,” he told Denise.

The nurse rolled her eyes skyward. “Thank God!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well,” she said, suddenly hesitant and uncomfortable, “you know how you are about turning people away.”

“This is different. This is chaos. I won’t be able to see anybody with that mob outside. They’ve got to go.”

“Good. I’ll tell Connie and we’ll shoo them out.”

Alan headed for his office as Denise bustled toward the front. As he flipped through some of the morning mail, he heard Connie’s voice rise to make the announcement. She was answered by a babble of voices, some angry, some dismayed. And then he heard Denise shouting.

“Sir! Sir! You can’t go back there!”

A strange voice answered: “The hell I can’t! My wife’s sick and she needs him and I’m gonna get him!”

Alarmed at the commotion, Alan stepped out into the hall. He saw a thin, balding, weathered-looking man in an equally weathered-looking leisure suit striding down the hall toward him.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” Alan said in a low voice, feeling anger boil up in him.

That anger must have shown in his face, for the man came to an abrupt halt.

“Are you Dr. Bulmer? The one in the paper?”

Alan jammed a finger into the man’s chest. “I asked you where you’re going?”

“To…to see the doctor.”

“No, you’re not! You’re leaving! Now!”

“Now wait. My wife—”

“Out! All of you!”

“Hey!” someone yelled. “You can’t kick us out!”

“Oh no? Just watch! Connie!” His receptionist’s worried face appeared around the corner behind the crowd. “Call the police. Tell them we have trespassers in the building interfering with patient care.”

“But we need care!” said a voice.

“And what’s that mean? That you own me? That you can come in here and take over my office? No way! I decide who I treat and when. And I don’t choose to treat any of you. Now get out, all of you. Out!”

Alan turned his back on them and returned to his office. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk and sat there, watching his trembling hands. His adrenaline was flowing. His anger was genuine and had been effective in confronting the crowd.

His heart finally slowed from its racing tempo; his hands were steady again. He stood and went to the window.

The strangers were leaving. In singles and pairs—walking, limping, in wheelchairs—they were returning to their cars. Some were scowling and muttering angrily, but for the most part their faces were withdrawn, vainly trying to hide the crushing disappointment of one more lost hope.

Alan turned away so he would not have to see. They had no right to take over his office, and he had every right to send them packing. It was a matter of self-preservation.

Then why did he feel so rotten?

People shouldn’t have to be so hopeless. There was always hope. Wasn’t there?

Their forlorn expressions hammered at him as he sat there, assaulting him, battering his defenses until he felt them crumble. He flung open his office door and strode up the hall. He couldn’t let them go away like that, not when he had the power to help them.

I’m going to regret this.

He hated stupidity. And he’d decided to do something very stupid. He was going to go out into the parking lot and tell those people that if they went home and called up and said they had been here this morning, his receptionist would make appointments for them.

I can do it, he told himself.

If he was scrupulously careful to swear each of them to secrecy, maybe he could make it work without screwing himself.

It would be like walking a tightrope.

How good was his balance?

JUNE

21

Alan

“I knew it would come to this!” Ginny said from behind the morning paper.

“Come to what?” Alan said.

He was pouring himself a second cup of coffee at the counter.

“As if things weren’t bad enough already—now this!”

She pushed the paper across the breakfast table onto his place mat. It was the local weekly, the Monroe Express. She had it folded open to the editorial page. Alan’s gaze was immediately drawn to the headline in the upper left corner:

THE SHAME OF SHAMANISM

“Cute,” Alan said.

“You won’t think so after you’ve read it.” Ginny’s voice had taken on the belligerent tone that had become too familiar during the past few weeks.

Alan glanced down the column. It took up half the editorial page. He spotted his name. Uneasy now, he began reading.

Most of the first half was a rehash of the notoriety that had surrounded him for the past few weeks; then it became more pointed. It spoke of the fund-raising drive for Monroe Community Hospital’s new expansion program, of how extra beds were desperately needed in the area, of how the hospital had to keep a dozen or so patients on cots in the hallways at all times because of the chronic need for new beds.

The closing paragraphs chilled Alan:

And so we wonder here at the Express what the Board of Trustees of Monroe Community Hospital will do. Will they wait until a single staff member’s unsavory notoriety undermines the institution’s credibility as a healthcare facility, thereby jeopardizing its certificate-of-need applications? Or will they take the reins of leadership in their teeth and confront Dr. Bulmer on this matter?

Granted, Dr. Bulmer is not solely to blame for the brouhaha that surrounds him, but the fact remains that he has done nothing to stem the rising tide of speculation and hysteria. Under normal circumstances we would respect his right to decline comment on the wild stories about him. But when that silence acts only to feed the fire, a fire which threatens the expansion of a facility so vital to the healthcare of our community, then we must demand that he speak out and refute these sensational tales. And if he will not, then we see it as the duty of the Board of Trustees to reconsider his position on the staff of Monroe Community Hospital.

“They’ve got to be kidding!” Alan said, a knot tightening in his stomach. “They’re identifying me with the hospital. That’s ridiculous! I could see it if I was a board member but I’m—”

“You’re a doctor on the staff!” Ginny said. “If you look like a kook, then they look like kooks for keeping you on. Simple as that.”

“Why can’t they just leave it alone?” Alan said, more to himself than to Ginny.

“Why can’t you? That’s the question! Why can’t you give an interview or something and say it’s all a crock?”

“I can’t do that.” He didn’t tell her that People Magazine had called three times last week for just that purpose and he’d turned them down flat. Or had it been this week? Time seemed so jumbled lately.

“In God’s name, why not?”

“Because I told you—it’s not a crock!”

“I don’t want to hear that, Alan. I don’t want to hear that kind of talk from you.”

Alan knew she had shut her mind to the possibility that it might be true.

“All right, then: Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

“I’m not interested in hypo—”

“Just hear me out. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I can heal people.”

“I don’t want to hear this, Alan!”

“Ginny—!”

“You need help, Alan!”

“Just play along with me. What should I do? Deny it?”

“Of course.”

“Even if it’s true?”

“Sure.”

“And continue using it in secret?”

“No!” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “You couldn’t hide something like that! You’d just have to forget about any weird power and go back to regular medicine. Don’t you see how you’re becoming some kind of leper around here?”

“No.”

“Of course you don’t! You’re walking around like you’re on drugs lately. But I do! So put a stop to this once and for all. Tell everybody it’s all bull. Please!”

Was she right? He had hoped it would all die down, but it hadn’t. He realized now that as long as he used the Dat-tay-vao and cured the incurables, it would never die down. It would only get worse.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should put a stop to this once and for all.”

Ginny smiled. The first genuine smile he had seen on her face in weeks. “Great! When?”

“Soon. Real soon.”

“Dr. Bulmer!”

He heard Connie hurrying down the hall. She burst into his office and shoved a magazine under his nose.

“Look!”

It was the waiting-room copy of the latest issue of People. Connie had it opened to an article titled “The Miracles in Monroe.” There were photos and case histories of a number of his patients. At the end of the article was a grainy, long-range shot of him exiting the private door to his office building.

The caption read: “The secretive Dr. Bulmer who has refused all comment.”

“Wonderful!” he said, feeling sick. This capped it. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Connie brought him the registered letter two days later.

The return address was for Monroe Community Hospital. The letter said that he was “invited” before the Board of Trustees “to explain and clarify the rumors and sensational stories” concerning him that were coming to have “a deleterious effect on the hospital’s reputation.” They expected him on Friday—three days from now.

Here it comes.

All along some corner of his mind had realized that sooner or later he was going to run afoul of the medical establishment. Not so much the individual practitioners themselves, but the administrative types who lived off disease and trauma without ever treating or coming near a patient.

“Start canceling all my appointments for the rest of the week. And see if Mr. DeMarco is in his office next door. Tell him I have to speak to him right away.”

A moment later she called him back. “Mr. DeMarco is in court and will not be back until this afternoon. He’ll call you then. And there’s a Mrs. Toad on the phone. She said she must speak to you immediately.”

22

Sylvia

“I think you’ve got trouble.”

“So what else is new?”

Alan smiled at her from across the table—the same table as after meeting in the cemetery. It was a weak smile, but it seemed genuine. He looked more worn and haggard than the last time she’d seen him. She’d been shocked that the board would even think of calling Alan on the carpet and had rushed to lend him what ever support she could.

“I just got word about this hearing of yours before the Board of Trustees.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

“Not as fast as you might think. I’m a big contributor to the building fund over there and I hear things sooner than most. So I made some calls and…” She didn’t want to say this, but he had to be told. He had to be ready.

“And?”

“It doesn’t look good.”

He shrugged.

“Don’t take this lightly, Alan. The four board members I spoke to are really upset with that editorial in the Express and are taking its implications very seriously. They’re beginning to see you as a real threat to the hospital’s expansion bid.”

“Who’d you speak to?”

“My father-in-law, naturally. He sells the hospital all its insurance—an expanded hospital means expanded premiums for him. Two others made me promise not to mention their names to anyone, but I can tell you that one runs the bank where I keep my accounts and the other brokers some real estate for me now and then.”

She waited for the light of recognition in Alan’s eyes and a conspiratorial smile that would reflect her own. Neither came.

“I’m sorry…” he said with a baffled shake of his head. “I don’t…”

How could he forget the board members? Was it possible to be on the staff of the hospital all these years and not know the names on the Board of Trustees?

“Never mind,” she said quickly to cover his obvious embarrassment. “Their names aren’t important. It’s what they think that counts, and they think you’re a liability.”

“You’re making my day,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Who was the fourth?”

“My uncle, naturally—your esteemed ex-partner.”

“I’m sure he’ll give a stirring speech in my defense.”

“Right—when water flows uphill. So you can see why I’m worried. That’s four out of ten. I don’t know the others but I doubt they feel any different.”

Alan leaned back and mused in silence. She watched his troubled face, sharing his anguish.

“You don’t deserve this,” she said. “You haven’t hurt anybody. You’ve—”

“Maybe I should just resign from the staff,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “I hardly use the hospital nowadays anyway.”

“I’m sure they’d love that. It would save them a lot of trouble if you made the decision for them.”

He sighed. “I’ll tell you quite frankly, Sylvia: The thought of standing before that board scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to have to explain myself to them or anyone else.”

“But if you don’t show, that will give them more ammunition against you.”

“Well, I don’t want to make it easy for them,” Alan said, straightening in his seat. “And I don’t want to put another bullet in their gun. So that leaves me with showing up and toughing it out.”

“I guess so.” But you’re going to get hurt, she thought with a tightening in her chest.

“They’re not going to shut me off,” he said with sudden determination.

He gave her a tight smile and she smiled back with her lips only. She knew he was putting on a show for her, but she saw through it. He was afraid.

And he should be.

23

Alan

Alan swerved in toward the curb when he saw Tony standing there, waving.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as Tony got in. “We were supposed to meet at the office.”

“You can’t get into the goddamn parking lot,” he said, lighting a cigarette as soon as he settled himself in the seat. “It’s loaded with cripples.”

“Handicapped,” Alan said.

“You speak Newspeak, I’ll speak Oldspeak. What ever they are, they’ve taken over the whole fucking lot. I figured there’d be a mob scene if you showed up so I walked up a couple of blocks to head you off at the pass.”

He dragged on his cigarette, rolled his window down two inches, and let the smoke flow through the opening.

“I spoke to some of them, you know. Most of them are here because of that article in People. Like they’ve been to Lourdes and the Vatican and Bethlehem already, looking to be cured of something. But others know somebody who’s already seen you and been cured of something incurable.”

They passed the office then. Alan was startled by the congestion of cars and vans and people that filled the lot and over-flowed onto the street and lined the curbs. He hadn’t been to the office in days. He hadn’t realized…

Guilt filled him. He hadn’t used the Touch in days. He’d wasted hours of power.

“And so now they’re all here—looking for you. It’s taken me a couple of days, Al, but I got to tell you, I’m a believer. You’ve got something.”

Alan feigned a wounded expression. “You mean you doubted me?”

“Shit, yes! You threw me some real curves there. I thought maybe you needed a checkup from the neck up, if you know what I mean.”

Alan smiled. “So did I at first. But then I realized that if I was having delusions, an awful lot of formerly sick people were sharing them.”

When he’d called Tony for help, he’d told him the truth about the Dat-tay-vao. He had felt it necessary to lay everything out for the man who would be advising him at the hearing. He’d told him about the incident in the emergency room, about how his new power dovetailed with the life history of the derelict Tony had researched.

Tony had been skeptical, but not overtly so. Alan was glad that he seemed to be convinced now.

“No lie, Al: It’s still pretty hard for me to swallow, even after talking to the pilgrims on your doorstep. But the one thing we can’t do is tell the Board Bastards that you really have this power.”

At the mention of the board, Alan’s palms became slippery on the wheel and his stomach went into spasm. In fifteen minutes or so he’d be seated before the trustees like some juvenile miscreant. He hated the idea. It angered him, but it frightened him even more.

“Why not bring it out in the open once and for all?” Alan asked. “Get it over with.”

“No!” Tony fumbled his cigarette, dropped it on the floor, and hastily retrieved it. “Christ, don’t even consider it! That’ll open up a can of worms I don’t even want to think about dealing with!”

“But sooner or later—”

“Al, old buddy, trust me with this. I’ve looked over the medical staff bylaws and there’s nothing in there that threatens you. You don’t even have to show up today—and I’ve advised you not to, but you choose to ignore that advice. So be it. But the fact remains: They can’t touch you. Let them play their little head games on you all they want. Just sit back and relax. If you haven’t been convicted of a felony or found guilty of moral turpitude or gross negligence of your duties as an attending physician in the department of medicine, they can’t lay a finger on you. They’re just blowin’ smoke, baby. Let ‘em blow.”

“If you say so, Tony. I just—”

“Just nothing, Al. You don’t take nothin’ from these money-lenders, real estate shills, and used car salesmen. You just sit mum and look clean and neat while I do the dirty work.”

Alan could see that Tony was working up a head of steam in preparation for the meeting. He let him roll.

“If those turkeys think they can hang you because of a little yellow journalism, they got another think comin’! Let ’em try. Just let ’em try!”

Alan felt his fear and uneasiness slip away in the wash of Tony’s belligerent confidence.

“Now, gentlemen,” Tony was saying, “I’m sure you’re all aware of how embarrassing this is to Dr. Bulmer, to be called before the Board of Trustees like some errant schoolboy before the principal because of some graffiti written about him on the schoolyard wall.”

Alan sat in wonder and watched Tony pacing back and forth before the board members. He was eloquent, respectful, and deferential, yet never obsequious. He made it seem as though Alan had granted them an audience out of the goodness of his heart.

There they sat, the twelve of them—ten trustees plus Alan and Tony—seated around the oblong table in this small rectangular meeting room on the hospital’s first floor. A coffee urn was set up in the corner, its red light beckoning; maritime paintings by local artists depicting the North Shore broke the muted beige of the walls.

The occupants had sifted into two groups: Alan and Tony down at their end, the members of the board—two physicians and eight local businessmen who devoted their spare time to “community service”—clustered around theirs. He knew both physicians well—Lou, of course, was his former partner, and old Bud Reardon had practically run the surgery department single-handedly in the hospital’s early days. Bud was showing his years, lately. Alan had noticed him limping as he came in.

Alan didn’t know the others as individuals. He didn’t do business with them, didn’t get involved in hospital politics, and although he belonged to the same club as most of them, he didn’t spend enough time there to have more than a nodding acquaintance with them.

While none of them actually stared, they all looked at him and glanced away as if he were a stranger, as if they were trying to put some mental distance between themselves and this doctor they might have to discipline. But they didn’t frighten him now. Tony was right. He’d broken no laws, either civil or criminal, had done nothing that would put him outside the bylaws. They couldn’t touch him. He was safe.

“What I would like to know, Mr. DeMarco,” the car dealer said, interrupting Tony, “is why Dr. Bulmer thinks he needs a lawyer here today? This isn’t a trial, you know.”

“Precisely. I am aware of that, and so is Dr. Bulmer. And I am heartened to hear that you are aware of that, sir. In fact, I had to talk Dr. Bulmer into allowing me to speak for him today. He didn’t want me here, but I insisted on coming to make sure that none of you tries to turn this little informal gathering into a trial.”

The white-haired Dr. Reardon cleared his throat. “All we want is to discuss the rather peculiar publicity Dr. Bulmer’s gotten lately and ask him how it started, why it keeps on going, and how come he’s done nothing to discourage it.”

“Dr. Bulmer is under no obligation to respond. The ‘peculiar publicity’ you mention is nothing of a criminal nature. He can’t be expected to hold a press conference every time some—”

“I would prefer to hear Dr. Bulmer’s reply from Dr. Bulmer himself,” the banker said. The other board members nodded and murmured in agreement. Tony turned to Alan.

He said, “It’s up to you.”

Alan felt his heart pick up its tempo as he let his eyes scan the faces of the board members. “What would you like to know?”

Lou spoke up immediately. His words were clipped, his tone frankly irritated.

“Why in God’s name haven’t you done or said anything to squelch the ridiculous stories about these miracle cures you supposedly perform?”

Alan opened his mouth and then closed it. He’d been about to give his usual reply about not dignifying the stories by taking the trouble to deny them, then changed his mind. Why not get it out in the open? He was tired of the half-truths, the surreptitious cures, the constant tension. Why not put an end to all that and come clean? He pushed himself to speak quickly before he had a chance to change his mind.

“I haven’t made any denials because the stories are true.”

There—I’ve said it.

A dead hush fell over the room, broken only briefly by Tony’s muttered, “Christ on a crutch!”

“Let me get this straight, Alan,” Lou said with an incredulous, half-amused, tell-me-I’m-wrong smile on his face. “Do you mean to say that you can actually cure incurable illnesses with a touch?”

“I know it sounds nuts,” Alan said with a nod, “but yes—it’s been happening for…” How long had it been? He couldn’t remember when it had begun. “For months.”

The board members exchanged worried glances. As they began to bend their heads together to confer, Bud Reardon said:

“Alan, do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Believe me, I do. And if I were in your shoes, I know I’d be looking at me just the way you are.”

Alan’s statement seemed to have a disarming effect on the board, but only for a moment. The consternation on their faces remained, and they all seemed to be urging an opinion from the two medical members. Alan looked over at Tony and found him glaring his way in frustration. The lawyer made a punching motion with his fist. He wasn’t encouraging Alan—he was angry.

Finally Lou broke the silence. “We simply can’t accept what you’ve said, Alan. You’ve put us in a dreadful position with this. We thought maybe you were simply ignoring the wild stories in the hope they would go away; some of us even thought you might be letting the stories continue because of the tremendous boost the publicity gave your practice. But none of us ever even considered the possibility that you would stoop to propagate such nonsense—”

“Now just a minute!” Tony said, leaping to his feet. “Just a goddamn minute! Nobody’s going to call this man a liar while I’m around. This isn’t a court and I don’t have to be constrained by court decorum. Anybody who calls him a liar will answer to me!”

“Now, now,” said the car dealer. “There’s no call for that sort of—”

“Bullshit, there ain’t! When this man tells you something is so, it’s so!”

Bud Reardon cleared his throat again. “I would tend to agree, Mr. DeMarco. I’ve known Dr. Bulmer since he first came to this community—interviewed him when he applied here to the staff, in fact. And having observed him over the years, I can say that his level of care and sense of medical ethics are beyond reproach. Which leaves us with a critical and most uncomfortable question: What if Dr. Bulmer is indeed telling the truth, but only as he sees it?”

There were puzzled expressions all around Dr. Reardon, but Alan knew exactly where he was going.

“He means,” Alan said to the group, “that although I may be telling the truth, I might be having delusions which lead me to honestly believe that I can cure with a touch, even though I can’t.”

Reardon nodded. “Exactly. Which would classify you as a psychotic.”

“I can show you documentation if you—”

“I was thinking of something a little more immediate and concrete,” Reardon said. He pushed back his seat, pulled off his left loafer and sock, and placed his bare foot on the table. “This has been killing me since about three a.m.”

Alan saw the angry, reddened, slightly swollen area at the base of his great toe. Gout. No doubt about it.

Bud Reardon looked him in the eye. “Let’s see what you can do about this.”

Alan froze. He hadn’t expected this. Not now. He’d been certain he would be called upon eventually to prove his fantastic claim, but he’d never dreamed it would be here in the conference room.

The Hour of Power—when was it scheduled to begin today? He’d been out of the office for a few days so he’d lost track. Damn! If only he could remember! He made some rapid calculations. Monday it had been…when? Late afternoon, about 4:00. His mind raced through a series of calculations. He would have to depend solely on those calculations, because the Hour of Power never announced itself.

If his calculations were correct, he could count on about thirty minutes of the Touch right now.

But were his calculations correct? It all depended on Monday’s Hour of Power occurring at 4:00 p.m. Had it? Had it really? His memory had been so haphazard lately, he didn’t know if he could trust it on this. He strained to remember. Yes. On Monday he remembered using the Touch on his last patient. That had been late afternoon. Right. It had been 4:00 p.m., he was sure of it.

Tony’s low voice stirred him back to the here-and-now.

“You don’t have to do this, Al. You can tell them you don’t put on exhibitions and you’d prefer—”

“It’s all right, Tony,” he told his worried-looking friend. “I can handle this.”

Alan stood up and approached the board’s end of the table. The silent members swiveled in their seats as he passed behind them, as if afraid to lose sight of him for a fraction of a second. Lou Albert’s jaw hung slack and open as he watched from the far side. Bud Reardon’s smile became hesitant as Alan approached. He was clearly astonished that Alan had accepted his challenge.

Alan paused before the spot where Reardon’s foot rested on the table. He was taking a terrible risk here. If his calculations were off by a single hour, he would be branded a quack or worse by these men. But it was going to work, he was sure of it. And that would wipe the frank disbelief off these smug faces in the blink of an eye.

He reached forward and touched the toe, wanting to heal it, praying that it would be healed.

Nothing happened.

With his blood congealing in his veins, he held on, although he knew in his very core that he was going to fail. The Touch never delayed; if it was working, it worked right away or not at all. Still, he hung on and gripped the angry-looking joint with increasing pressure until Bud Reardon winced in pain and pulled his foot away.

“You’re supposed to make it better, Alan, not make it hurt worse!”

Alan was speechless. He’d been wrong. His calculations had been off. Damn his sieve of a memory! He could feel their eyes boring into him. He could hear their thoughts—Charlatan! Phony! Liar! Madman! He wanted to crawl under the table.

Dr. Reardon cleared his throat once more. “Assuming we were in your office and you tried what you just tried with similar results, what would be your next move?”

Alan opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He’d prescribed the medication thousands of times, yet its name crouched over the far edge of his memory, just beyond his reach. He felt like a castaway on a desert isle watching the smoke from the stacks of a passing ship that was just over the horizon.

Reardon mistook Alan’s hesitation for uncertainty about what was being asked of him and tried to clarify.

“What I’m saying is, what tests would you order now? What medication?”

Alan’s mind was completely blank. He stabbed at an answer. “An X-ray and a blood test.”

“Oh, I hardly think an X-ray would be necessary,” Reardon said in a jovial tone, but his smile quickly faded as he stared at Alan. “‘Blood test’ is a little vague, don’t you think? What, specifically, would you order?”

Alan racked his brain. God, if he could only think! He played for time.

“A profile. You know—a SMAC-20.”

Alan saw the concern and suspicion growing in Reardon’s face. It was reflected in the other faces around him.

“Not very specific, Alan. Look. I know this is very elementary, but for the record, tell me the etiology of gout.”

Tony jumped in then. “First of all, there is no record. And secondly, Dr. Bulmer is not here to be examined on gout or whatever’s wrong with Dr. Reardon’s foot!”

“It was not intended as such,” Reardon said, “but we seem to be faced with an incredible situation here. I’ve asked Dr. Bulmer a question any first-year medical student could answer, and I’m still waiting for a reply.”

Alan felt the room constrict around him as he sank into a fog of humiliation. Why couldn’t he think? What was wrong with him?

“Well, don’t hold your breath!” Tony said as Alan felt himself grabbed by the arm and pulled toward the door. “Dr. Bulmer didn’t have to come here and he sure as hell doesn’t have to stay here!”

Alan allowed himself to be led to the door. He heard Reardon’s voice behind him.

“It would be better if he stayed. From what I’ve seen this morning, Dr. Bulmer appears mentally impaired and the board will have to take appropriate action.”

And then they were out in the hall and heading for the parking lot.

“Shit, Alan! Shit, shit, shit!”

That was all Tony had said since they’d reached the car.

“And the worst part of this whole thing is that you didn’t even have to be there! Christ! What happened in there?”

Alan shook his head as he drove. He felt absolutely miserable, and Tony’s rantings weren’t helping.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t come up with the answer. I’ve diagnosed and treated gout countless times, but it just wasn’t there. It was as if part of my memory had been blocked off, like it was there but it was hiding, or hidden. It still is.”

“If they decide you’re impaired, they can suspend your privileges—I remember seeing that in the bylaws. They can put you on suspension until you’ve been evaluated by a shrink or a drug-rehabilitation guy—”

“Drugs? You think I’m on drugs?”

“No. I know you better than that. But, Al, you haven’t been yourself lately. And you looked spaced this morning when he started quizzing you. I’m sure the board thinks you’re either on something or you’ve cracked.”

Alan couldn’t argue with him. He’d seen their expressions. One face lingered in the front of his mind. As Tony had propelled him from the room, Alan had glanced back and seen Lou Alberts staring after him. It was as if all their years of ill-feeling and competition had been washed away; Lou’s face was a study of shock, dismay, and—worst of all—pity.

“And there’s worse coming, let me tell you. The hospital is required by law to notify the State Board of Medical Examiners if any staff member is suspended because of suspected impairment or any other form of incompetence.”

Impairment…incompetence…the terms rankled in Alan’s brain. After fighting constantly to stay on top of clinical medicine, to be judged incompetent while so many other doctors coasted along with outdated knowledge and practices…

He slowed to a stop at an intersection and sat there, staring at the road ahead as a crystalline ball of fear formed and grew in his chest.

“Maybe they’re right,” he said. “Maybe I do need help.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m lost, Tony. I don’t know which way to go.”

“Don’t worry, Al. I’m with you all the way. We’ll sit down and—”

“No!” Alan heard his voice rise in pitch as the fear spread down his arms and legs, encompassing him. “I mean now. Here. This road! I know I’ve been here thousands of times, but I’m lost!”

He turned and stared into Tony’s shocked eyes.

“How do I get home from here?”

24

Sylvia

“You didn’t have to come along,” Alan said as he got into the rear seat and sat beside her.

“I wanted to,” Sylvia said and forced a smile. He looked so haggard and tired, his eyes haunted.

As Ba put the Graham in gear and began to drive, Alan said, “I’m glad you did, though. That was why I asked if I could borrow Ba instead of hiring a cab. I need a friend along, and you’re it.”

His words warmed her. She was glad he considered her someone he could turn to in time of need.

“But what about…?” She didn’t finish the question.

“Ginny?” He sighed. “We’re barely speaking. She wants me to see a psychiatrist. Even Tony wants me to see one.”

“Is that who you’re seeing at Downstate? A psychiatrist?” She wanted to tell him that he was the sanest man she knew, but thought better of it. Her opinion was purely personal.

“No. No psychiatrist—at least not yet. There’s something I’ve got to rule out first.”

“Going to tell me about it?” she asked after a lengthy pause during which he seemed to go into a trance. But when he spoke, the words froze her blood.

“Got to rule out a brain tumor.”

“Oh, God! You can’t—”

“I can’t bury my head in the sand any longer, Sylvia. My memory has gone to hell. Why do you think I’m not driving myself? Because I could get lost. Or forget where I’m going. Hell, I got lost on the way back from the hospital the other day.”

“Couldn’t that just be stress?” she asked, praying for a simple answer.

“It could, but that’s a wastebasket diagnosis. It could be directly related to the Dat-tay-vao, for all I know. But I have to face the possibility that a tumor could be behind it all. I had a patient a few years back with exactly the same symptoms, but he was older so I laid it off to an organic brain syndrome—Alzheimer’s or the like. But the progression of his symptoms was too rapid for my comfort—as rapid as mine—so I ordered a brain scan. Guess what? He had a big midline frontal meningioma. Benign. They shelled it out and his memory was back to normal in a couple of months. So before I do anything else”—he tapped his forehead with a finger—“I’ve got to make sure there’s nothing growing in here.”

The thought of Alan with a brain tumor made her almost physically ill. “I can see why you wouldn’t want it done in Monroe Community.”

“Right. Too close to home. Too many nosy trustees.”

“Those trustees!” she said. “I can’t believe the rotten way they’ve treated you! Suspending your privileges and then releasing the news immediately to the Express!”

“Yeah,” he said softly. She sensed his hurt and humiliation. “I didn’t expect the public execution before a hearing. Anyway, I went to school with one of the radiologists at Downstate. He fitted me in for an MRI this morning.”

“Have you seen another doctor about any of this?”

Alan smiled. “‘The physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.’ Is that what you mean? I’m not treating myself, just doing a little diagnostic work.”

“But if you had to see someone, who would you choose?”

“Oh, there’s any number of men I’d trust. A bunch of us in the area have this unofficial network of cross-referrals and cross-coverage. After awhile you learn to sense which consultants give a damn about patients as people and which don’t. Considering that competence is pretty much equal, those are the ones who get my referrals. Vic O’Leary would probably be my first choice for a consultation. I trust him to cover my practice when I’m away, and I’d trust him with my own health. But at the moment I don’t want to put him in the hot seat.”

Sylvia sat in silence, stewing in the fear that Alan might have something seriously wrong with him. Then she realized that if she was terrified, how must he feel?

She found his hand and squeezed it.

“Scared?”

“A little.” He shrugged, then he looked at her and smiled. “Okay—a lot.”

“Then I’m glad I’m along. No one should have to face this alone.”

Her hand rested in his for the rest of the trip.

As she waited on the top floor of the multilevel garage near University Hospital, Sylvia tried to read the newspaper, tried the Times crossword puzzle, tried a novel—nothing worked to take her mind off Alan. Except thinking about Jeffy’s continued regression, and that was hardly a relief.

Please, God. You can’t let there be anything wrong with Alan. He’s one of the good guys. Let one of the bad guys have a brain tumor. Not Alan.

She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, as much to shut out the world as to rest them. Why? Why did death and disease and misfortune swallow up everyone she cared for? First Greg’s senseless death, then Jeffy’s regression, and now Alan. Was there some sort of black cloud hanging over her? Maybe everyone would be better off if she just threw an iron gate across the driveway entrance and never left Toad Hall.

Ninety minutes crawled by. Sylvia was getting a headache from the tension, and muscle aches in every part of her body from sitting in the back seat for so long. She was about to suggest to Ba that they get out and stretch their legs when it started to drizzle. Then she saw Alan threading his way through the parked cars in their direction. He opened the door on the other side and hopped in.

“Well?” she said, holding her breath.

“I’ve got one.”

She gasped. “A tumor?”

“No. A brain—a perfect one. No problem.”

Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and clutched him.

“Oh! I’m so glad!”

Alan returned the hug. “You’re glad! Let’s celebrate!” He pulled a CD from his coat pocket and handed it forward to Ba. The interior of the car soon filled with falsetto “Oooohs” and basso “Bowms.”

“Good lord!” Sylvia laughed. “What is that?”

“‘I Laughed’ by the Jesters. Great, huh?”

“It’s awful! I can’t believe you listen to doo-wop!”

His face fell. “You don’t like oldies? They’re not all doo wop, you know.” He leaned forward. “I’ll tell Ba to turn it off.”

“No,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. She had such an urge to touch him. “I like some of the old stuff, but listening to it all the time seems like such a dead end.”

“You could say the same about opera…or Vivaldi.”

“Touché.”

“Wait’ll you hear the next one!” He was like a teenager.

“That’s ‘Maybellene’ by What’s-His-Name!” she said, recognizing it almost immediately.

“Chucker! The Berry!”

“Chuck Berry! Right. I didn’t think anybody listened to him anymore.”

“He’s the best. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys—they all borrowed from him. Maybe I long for the naiveté of those days. I like stuff from the sixties and seventies—I love early Beatles, before they started thinking of themselves as artistes. Like anything else, a lot of the old stuff was crap, but the good stuff…there was a simplicity, an innocence about it that’s missing today and will never be recaptured. No one was ranting, no one trying to change the world. They were going for a sound. And there’s a certain purity in that.”

And I was worried about his memory, Sylvia thought with a mental shake of her head.

“You’re really into this stuff, aren’t you?” she said.

Alan shrugged. “It makes me feel good. And I need some good feelings these days. What else can I say?”

“Nothing more. That’s what matters.”

“Here comes ‘Florence’ by the Paragons,” he said. He grinned at her as he sang along with the falsetto opening.

She winced at his sour notes. She felt so close to him at that moment, and realized with a bittersweet pang that she was very much in love with a man she could never have.

25

Alan

“What are you doing?” Alan asked as he entered their bedroom.

He had rushed upstairs to tell her about the MRI results.

Ginny’s reply was terse and she didn’t look up when she spoke.

“I should think that would be pretty obvious.”

It was. She was taking clothes from her closet and her drawers and placing them in the three suitcases lined up in descending order of size on the bed.

“Where are we going?”

He knew with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that there was no “we” involved here, but he used the word anyway. The drum of the rain against the windows filled the room as he waited for an answer.

“Florida. And it’s just me. I…I need some time to myself, Alan. I need to get away and just think about things for awhile.”

“You mean about us.”

She sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Us. What’s left of us.”

Alan stepped toward her but she held up a hand.

“Don’t. Please don’t. I just want to get away by myself. I can’t take it around here anymore. “

“Everything’s going to be all right, Ginny. I know it.”

“Oh, really?” she said, throwing a pair of slacks into the big suitcase. “And who’s going to make it all right? You? You made a fool out of yourself in front of the Board of Trustees! You’ve lost your hospital privileges! You can’t even get into the office with all those kooks around it! And all you do is hang around the house and have conferences with Tony about how to keep from losing your medical license altogether!”

“Ginny—”

“Nobody wants to know us anymore!” Her voice rose steadily in pitch and volume. “It’s like we’re living in a vacuum. All our friends either have something else to do when I call or don’t even bother to return my calls. They think I’m married to a nut! And I can’t argue with them!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“It’s not just me! Tony may be on your side, but I’m sure he thinks you’re coming unwrapped too!”

“Is that so?” Alan was suddenly angry—with Ginny and Tony for their lack of faith, and with himself for expecting them to accept something as bizarre as his power without seeing it for themselves.

He went to the phone at the bedside. “Okay. If I can prove that I’m not crazy, will you stay?”

“No games, Alan. And no deals.”

“Will you give me a chance?”

“I’ve got a six o’clock flight out of JFK. If you can change my mind by then, fine. But I hope you won’t mind if I finish packing.”

Six o’clock…that gave him five hours. He didn’t know if he could—

He dialed Tony’s business number and told him to go next door into his office and take a file marked “Timetable” from his desk, then bring it here to the house. Tony agreed, although he sounded hesitant.

Alan paced the first floor of his home like an expectant father while Ginny labored upstairs with the suitcases. Then a rainsoaked Tony was at the door with the folder. Alan snatched it from him, told him to wait, and took it to his study.

He pored over the figures, dimly aware that Ginny had come downstairs and that she and Tony were exchanging worried glances behind his back. He saw at once his mistake on the day of the board hearing. Again, it was his memory that had failed him—he’d been only forty minutes off with his calculation of the arrival of the Hour of Power. Forty minutes! Forty rotten minutes! If the meeting had started an hour later, he would have been golden. Instead…

But he couldn’t dwell on that now. Here, with all the figures in black and white in front of him, he couldn’t go wrong. He even double-checked on a hand calculator. No doubt:

Today’s Hour of Power would start in approximately twenty minutes.

He strode into the living room and waved the car keys in the air.

“Let’s go—both of you!”

“Wait a minute—” Ginny began.

“No waiting. I’m going to prove I’m not crazy. Call my bluff and give me an hour. If you’re still not convinced, I’ll drive you to the airport myself in plenty of time for your six o’clock flight.”

Tony looked surprised at the remark about the flight but only said, “I want to see this.”

“I don’t know…” Ginny said.

Alan and Tony together managed to convince her to come along. Then they were in the car and heading through the rain. Alan had a fairly clear picture of the route he would take and was reasonably sure he wouldn’t get lost. He planned to go to the office, let a few of the people in, and heal them before Ginny’s and Tony’s eyes. Alan knew it would be risking a mob scene, but if he could demonstrate to them that he truly had this power, he would have two firm allies. Maybe if he could anchor himself to them, he wouldn’t feel so alone and adrift.

As he slowed for the light at Central and Howe, Clubfoot Annie hobbled out of Leon’s Superette. Her usual tattered dress was sheltered under an equally tattered umbrella; a plastic shopping bag hung from her free hand. Alan checked his watch, then slammed on the brakes and leaped out of the car, ignoring the startled noises from Ginny and Tony.

Why go to the office? he thought. Here was someone who really needed healing and wasn’t clamoring for it. Someone who had been tearing at his heart for years.

“Miss!” he said as he hopped over a puddle onto the curb. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

She whirled, startled. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “What? I ain’t got no money!”

“I know that,” Alan said, approaching more cautiously. “I just want to help you.”

“Get away. Don’t want no help!”

She turned and started to hobble away.

“Miss! I just—”

She hobbled faster, her body jerking left and right like a trip-hammer.

Alan could feel the rain soaking through his shirt, plastering down his hair against his scalp. But he couldn’t let her go. He trotted after her.

“Wait!”

She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes full of fear. His heart broke for her. How many times throughout her life had people made fun of her, picked on her, teased her, tormented her, pushed her around, tripped her, just because of that foot?

“I’m not going to harm you!”

And then she tripped. She was looking at him and not at the sidewalk; her foot caught on a raised section of walk and she went down in a muddy puddle.

She was crying when Alan reached her.

“Don’t hurt me! I ain’t got no money!”

“I don’t want anything from you. I just want to do this.” He grabbed her malformed left foot and ankle and twisted them toward the normal physiologic position. He felt the tingle, the rush, heard her cry out, and then it was over. He took both her hands.

“Stand up.”

She looked at him with a puzzled, still-fearful expression, but accepted his help. Her eyes nearly bulged from their sockets when she regained her feet and felt her left sole lie flat against the ground for the first time in her life. She gasped, tested it, then walked in a slow circle, her mouth gaping, utterly speechless. Alan picked up her umbrella and shopping bag and put them back into her hands.

“Take these and get home and get out of those wet clothes.”

“Who…who are you?”

“Just someone who wishes he could have been here for you forty or fifty years ago.”

He walked back to the car in a cloud of jubilant euphoria. Oh, that had felt good!

Ginny and Tony were staring out the side windows of the car.

Tony’s eyes kept darting between Alan and the woman, now walking back and forth on the sidewalk on her normal left foot.

“Holy shit, Alan!” he kept saying. “Holy shit!”

Ginny said nothing. She simply stared at him, her face a tight, unreadable mask.

Alan opened the door on her side. “Would you mind driving home, honey? I’m a bit shaky after that.”

Actually, he had suddenly realized that he didn’t know the way home. But it didn’t bother him. He felt too damn good!

Wordlessly, Ginny slid over and put the car in gear.

“Now you know,” Alan said as they waved good-bye to Tony from their front steps.

Ginny turned and went into the house.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said. “I saw it, but…”

“So you can see why I can’t come out and say that the stories aren’t true.”

Ginny dropped onto the couch and sat staring at the far corner of the room.

“God, Alan.”

“You can see that, can’t you?”

He desperately wanted to hear her agree. She’d been so quiet and pensive since his little demonstration at Central and Howe. He hadn’t a clue as to what was going on in her mind.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I can’t see that at all. Not only have you got to deny it, you’ve got to stop using it.”

He was stunned. “What?”

“I mean it, Alan.” She rose and began to circle the couch, head down, her arms folded in front of her. “It’s ruining our life!”

“You mean forget I have it? Ignore it? Pretend it doesn’t exist?”

Finally she looked at him, face-to-face, eyes blazing. “Yes!”

Alan stared at her. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

“Of course I do! Look what it’s done to you! You can’t practice medicine anymore—the hospital won’t let you admit patients and you can’t get into your office without being mobbed by all the kooks hanging around outside it. Can you imagine what would happen if you publicly admitted that you can cure people? They’d tear you to pieces!”

Alan was numb. Deny the power exists? Not use the Hour of Power when it comes?

“So…” Ginny hesitated, took a deep breath, then began again. “So, I want a decision, Alan. I want a promise. I want you to hold some sort of news conference, or put out a press release, or what ever it is people do in a case like this, and tell the world that it’s all a pack of lies. I want you to go back to being a regular doctor and me back to being your regular wife. I can’t deal with what’s been happening here!”

There were tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Ginny,” he said, stepping toward her and taking her hands, “I know it’s been tough on you.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“You haven’t answered me, Alan.”

He thought of a future full of sick and miserable people with no hope trudging through his office, looking for help, and he saw himself letting them pass by as he stood mute and still with his hands in his pockets.

“Don’t ask this of me, Ginny.”

“Alan, I want things as they were!”

“Tell me: Could you stand on a dock and hide a life preserver behind your back while a drowning man cries for help?”

“Never mind the hypothetical stuff! This is real life—our life! And we’ve lost control of it! I want our old life back!”

Regret and resignation suddenly flooded through him. This was it. This was the end.

“That life is gone, Ginny. Things will never be the same again. I can’t stop.”

She jerked away from him. “You mean, you won’t stop!”

“I won’t stop.”

“I knew it!” Her features hardened into an angry mask. “I knew you wouldn’t do this for me, for us, but I made myself ask. You didn’t disappoint me! If nothing else, you’re consistent! I’ve never come first with you—never! So why should I have expected any special consideration this time?” She whirled and headed for the stairs. “Excuse me. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

Alan stood and watched her go, unable to refute her. Was she right? Had he really put her and their marriage second all along? He had never really thought about it before. He’d taken it for granted that they were both leading the kind of lives each of them wanted. But maybe that was the problem: the taking for granted and the living of separate lives. The bonds that had united them early on had long since dissolved and they’d forged no new ones.

And then the Touch had come along.

Alan shook his head and walked to the window to watch the rain. The Touch—it would test the strongest marriage. It was exploding his.

But I can’t give it up. I can’t.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, brooding, mulling the past and the future, watching the rain sheet the screen, wondering how long Ginny would stay in Florida to “think things over.” But he wasn’t giving up yet. He would use the time they’d have together in the car during the trip down to JFK to try to convince her to change her mind. He’d—

A taxi pulled into the driveway and honked.

Ginny was suddenly on her way down the stairs, somehow managing all three suitcases at once.

“I’m driving you, Ginny,” he said, angry that she thought he’d let her go off to the airport by herself.

She pulled on her raincoat. “No, you’re not!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I—”

“No, Alan! I’m leaving here to get off by myself. I don’t want to be with you, Alan. Can I make it any clearer than that?”

That hurt. He hadn’t realized things had got to this point. He shook his head and swallowed.

“I guess not.”

He picked up the two biggest bags and carried them out into the downpour to the taxi. Ginny got in the back seat and closed the door while he and the cabbie loaded the trunk.

Ginny didn’t wave, didn’t roll down the window to say good-bye. She huddled in the back of the cab and let it drive her away, leaving Alan standing in the driveway, in the rain, feeling more alone than he’d ever felt in his life.

JULY

26

Alan

The divorce papers arrived on Monday morning a week later. Alan fought a sinking sensation as he unfolded them, and shook his head sadly when he read that he was being charged with mental cruelty. Tony dropped by shortly after the mailman left. Alan showed him the papers.

“Things like this don’t happen so fast,” Tony said as he folded the sheets and slipped them into his inside jacket pocket. “I can almost guarantee you she had this in the works before she left.”

“So she wasn’t going to her folks’ place ‘to think things over.’ She was going for good. Great.”

Alan sighed. The marriage had been over for years; he simply hadn’t realized it. He wanted to be angry, and he should have been hurt. All he could do was shrug. He wanted to feel something. He couldn’t seem to feel much of anything anymore. He spent his days hanging around the house waiting to see what the State Board of Medical Examiners was going to do. Not knowing from one day to the next whether he was going to be able to keep his medical license was paralyzing him. He hadn’t left the house once over the long July Fourth weekend just past. One day had become pretty much like any other.

“Heard from the State Board yet?”

Tony smiled. “That’s why I stopped over. The board’s not going to do anything until after Labor Day. I talked to one of the members today and he said since there hasn’t been a single complaint registered against you by a patient, or any malpractice suits started, no civil or criminal charges, and no intimation that you’ve harmed anyone, and since a couple of board members are out of state on vacation, he saw no reason for an immediate hearing.”

Alan felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted off him. “Really?”

“Really. That gives us two whole months to prepare for the hearing. And I think we’ll really be able to put it to the hospital board by then. They’re either going to have to shit or get off the pot. And after what I saw last week—I still can’t quite believe I saw what I saw—I have a feeling they’re going to go into acute anal retention, if you know what I mean. And then we can sue their asses off!”

“I just want my privileges reinstated.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Al! They released your suspension to the Express within an hour! That’s pretty goddamn low!”

“They deny it.”

“They lie. We’re gonna nail these clowns to the wall!”

“Okay, Tony,” Alan said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Okay. Just calm down.”

“I’m fine. Just don’t go playing Mr. Forgiveness with those bastards. Once you put on your little show like you did for me last week, we’ll—”

“No show, Tony.”

“What?” Tony’s face went slack. “What do you mean, no show?”

Alan dropped into the recliner. “I’ve thought about it a lot since Ginny left—let’s face it: I haven’t had much else to do. But I’ve come to realize that if I admit to the public what I can do, and if I effectively demonstrate it to prove I’m not crazy, my personal life will be destroyed. Worse than that, I’ll become some sort of natural resource, to be metered out. Cripes, I might even become the object of a religious cult. I’d be in the spotlight around the clock. I’d have no freedom, nothing. I’d probably even become a favorite target for assassins.” He shook his head slowly, back and forth. “No way.”

Tony was silent for a moment, then: “Yeah. I see what you mean. Well, okay. I can get you clear without the magic show.” He pointed his finger at Alan. “But just don’t screw up like you did before the hospital board. You wouldn’t be in this spot if you’d listened to me and kept quiet!”

Alan folded his hands as if in prayer and bowed his head. “Amen, brother.”

Tony laughed. “That’s the attitude!”

“How are things at the office?” Alan said as he rose and led him to the door. “Quieted down any since word got out about suspension of my hospital privileges?”

“Just the opposite. The crowd’s bigger than ever. I mean, some of them have been there for weeks now, waiting for a chance to see you. You’d think they’d give up by now.”

“They’re the type who can’t give up,” Alan said. “They’ve been everywhere else and tried everyone else. They haven’t got anyplace else to go.”

Alan stood at the door, looking down the driveway without seeing Tony drive off.

They haven’t got anyplace else to go. God, what an awful feeling that must be. And then to wait and wait and have the miracle you’ve been praying for never show up.

He went to his charts on the Hour of Power. After making some quick calculations, he grabbed the phone and called his receptionist.

“Connie? Can you get down to the office right away? Great!

We’re going to work!”

27

Charles

Another “informal chat” with the senator.

Charles stifled a yawn. He had taken Julie out to Montauk for the long July Fourth weekend—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the beach. The purely American holiday held a special significance for him, allowing him to celebrate his own personal independence from England. The sunburn he’d developed on the beach—and he deserved it for leaving his shirt off most of yesterday—had kept him awake half the night.

“By the way,” the senator said as Charles got up to leave, “I heard a strange story over the weekend. Seems that sometime last month a woman in Monroe with a lifelong history of a clubbed left foot was accosted by a man who chased her, knocked her down, and straightened out her foot right there on the side of the road.”

Charles rolled his eyes. The man never tired of the subject! He didn’t want to waste more time here. He was to meet Sylvie shortly when she dropped Jeffy off for a few days of testing. He was looking forward to seeing her.

“An apocryphal tale if I ever heard one. Which one of the saints was it? Anthony? Bartholomew?”

The senator smiled. “No. Actually, the description she gave matches Dr. Alan Bulmer quite closely.”

Bulmer again! The senator seemed to be developing an obsession with the man. Lately, between Sylvie and the senator, every conversation seemed to turn to Alan Bulmer. Charles had met him only once, but he was getting bloody sick of hearing about him.

“Just let me guess,” Charles said before McCready could go on. “Her supposedly deformed foot is now bloody perfect. Right?”

The senator nodded. “Right. Only ‘supposed’ isn’t quite accurate. I understand the woman’s deformity has been common knowledge for many years. There’s no evidence of it now.”

Charles smirked at the senator’s gullibility. “Got any before-and-after X-rays?”

“None that can be found. Apparently the woman suffered from an unfortunate combination of poverty and ignorance—she never sought help for it.”

Charles laughed. “How convenient.”

“Would X-rays convince you?”

“Not likely. Especially not old ones. They could be of someone else’s foot.”

It was the senator’s turn to laugh, and there seemed to be genuine good humor in the sound.

“That’s what I like about you, Charles! You accept nothing at face value. You trust no one! I take great comfort in knowing that if you believe in something, it’s certainly safe for me to do the same.”

“I’ve told you before, Senator—I don’t believe in things. I either know something or I don’t. Belief is a euphemism for ignorance combined with sloppy thinking.”

“You’ve got to believe in something sometime.”

“You are free to believe that if you wish, Senator. I bloody well don’t.”

Deliver us all from men who “believe,” Charles thought as he walked out into the hall.

Marnie, his secretary, held up a yellow slip of paper as he walked into his office.

“Mrs. Nash is at the front desk.”

Charles’ spirits lifted. Sylvie had been so bloody preoccupied lately, she seemed to have no time left for him. He knew she was worried about Jeffy, but there seemed to be more to it than that.

Well, she was here now and that offered an opportunity to revive the relationship. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be a Blue Monday after all.

28

Alan

It threatened to become a mob scene at first. The people in the parking lot recognized him immediately and surrounded his car, pressing so tightly against it that he couldn’t get the door open. Finally, after he had leaned on the horn for a full minute, they backed off enough to let him out.

And then it was a sea of desperate humanity pressing close, touching him, grabbing his hands and placing them on their heads, or upon heads of the sick ones they had brought with them. Alan fought the panic that surged through him—he could barely breathe in the crush.

This bunch was noticeably different from previous crowds. These, the diehards, the most determined of the pilgrims, the ones who had stayed on despite news of the suspension of Alan’s hospital privileges and rumors that he either had lost his power or had been proven a fake after all. As a group they were scruffier, dirtier than any others Alan could remember. All the women seemed to have ratty hair, all the men at least a two-day growth of beard. They appeared much worse for the wear, much poorer for their illnesses. But most striking was the look of utter desperation in their eyes.

Alan shouted for them to let him through, but no one seemed to hear. They kept reaching, touching, calling his name…

He managed to crawl up on the roof of his car where he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. Eventually they quieted down enough to hear him.

“You’ve got to back away and let me into the office,” he told them. “I’ll see you one at a time inside and do what I can for you. Those I don’t see today, I’ll see tomorrow, and so on. But all of you will be seen eventually. Don’t fight, don’t push and shove. I know you’ve all been waiting here a long time. Just be patient a little longer and I’ll see you all. I promise.”

They parted and let him through. Connie was already inside, having sneaked by while the crowd’s attention was on him. She opened the door and quickly locked it behind him.

“I don’t like this,” she told him. “There’s something ugly about this group.”

“They’ve been waiting a long time. You’d be disheveled and short-fused too if you’d been living in a parking lot for two weeks.”

She smiled uncertainly. “I guess so. Still…”

“If they make you nervous, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll let them in two at a time. While I’m seeing one, you can be filling out a file on the next. That way we’ll keep a good flow going.”

Because I’m only going to have an hour or so to do what these people came for.

It began on a sour note, with a surge of pushing and shoving and scuffling to get in when Alan first opened the door. He had to shout and threaten to see no one unless there was order. They quieted. A middle-aged man and a mother with her child were admitted. Both man and child were limping.

Five minutes or so later, Connie brought the mother and child back to the examining room. As Alan stepped in, the mother—dressed in a stained house coat, with dark blue socks piled around her ankles—tugged at the child’s hair and it came off. A wig. She was completely bald. Alan noted her pallor and sunken cheeks. She looked to be no more than ten.

“Chemotherapy?”

The mother nodded. “She got leukemia. Least that’s what the doctors tell us. Don’t matter what they give her, Laurie keeps wastin’ away.”

The accent was definitely southern, but he couldn’t place it. “Where are you from?”

“West Virginny.”

“And you came all the way—?”

“Read aboutcha in The Light. Nothin’ else’s worked. Figure I got nothin’ to lose.”

Alan turned to the child. Her huge blue eyes shone brightly from deep in their sockets. “How are you feeling, Laurie?”

“Okay, I guess,” she said in a small voice.

“She always says that!” the mother said. “But I hear her crying at night. She hurts every hour of the day, but she don’t say nothin’. She’s the bravest little thing you ever saw. Tell the man the truth, Laurie. Where does it hurt?”

Laurie shrugged. “Everywhere.” She pressed her hands over her painfully thin thighs. “’Specially in my bones. They hurt somethin’ awful.”

Bone pain, Alan thought. Typical of leukemia. He noticed the scars on her scalp where she’d been given intrathecal chemotherapy. She’d been the route, that was for sure.

“Let’s take a look at you, Laurie.”

He placed a hand on either side of her head and willed all those rotten little malignant centers in her bone marrow to shrivel up and die.

Nothing happened. Alan felt nothing, and neither, apparently, did Laurie.

Alan experienced an instant of panic. Had he miscalculated again?

“Excuse me,” he said to the mother, and stepped into his adjoining office. He checked his figures. All the calculations seemed right. The Hour of Power should have started at 4:00 p.m. and here it was 4:05 already. Where had he gone wrong?

Or had he? He’d never been able to chart the power to the exact minute. It never failed to appear, but his calculations had been off by as much as fifteen minutes in the past. Hoping the failure a moment ago was due to the quirky margin of error in his charts, he returned to the examining room. Again he placed his hands on Laurie’s head.

The charge of ecstasy came, and with it, Laurie’s cry of surprise.

“What’s the matter, Honeybunch?” the mother said, at her child’s side in a flash, pulling her away from Alan.

“Nothin’, Ma. Just felt a shock is all. And…” She ran her hand over her legs. “And my bones don’t hurt no more!”

“Is that true?” The mother’s eyes were wide. “Is that true? Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” She turned to Alan. “But is her leukemia cured? How can we tell?”

“Take her back to her hematologist and get a blood count. That will tell you for sure.”

Laurie was looking at him with wonder in her eyes. “It doesn’t hurt anymore!”

“But how—?” the mother began.

With a quick wave, Alan ducked out and crossed the hall to the next room. He felt exultant, strong, good. It was working! It was still there. The Hour of Power was not perfectly predictable—at least not by him—but he still had it, and he had no time to waste with explanations.

There was work to be done.

Time to quit.

Alan had just effected one of his most satisfying cures. A forty-five-year-old man with a long history of ankylosing spondylitis had come in with the typically rigid spine curved almost to a right angle at the upper back and neck so that his chin was pushed down against his chest.

Sobbing his thanks, the man walked out with his spine straight and his head high.

“That man!” Connie said as she came to the rear. “He was all bent over when he came in!”

Alan nodded. “I know.”

“Then it’s really true?” Her eyes widened steadily in her round face.

Alan nodded again.

Connie stood before him, gaping. It was making him uncomfortable.

“Is the next patient ready?” he said finally.

She shook herself. “No. You told me to stop bringing them in as of five. It’s ten after now.”

Five-ten. The Hour of Power was over.

“Then tell them that’s it for today. We start again at five tomorrow.”

“They’re not going to like that,” she said and bustled away toward the front.

Alan stretched. It had been a satisfying hour…but he wasn’t really practicing medicine. It took no skill, no special knowledge to lay his hands on someone. The Dat-tay-vao was doing the work; he was merely the carrier, the vessel, the instrument.

With a start he realized that he had become a tool.

The thought disturbed him. The whole situation was bittersweet—emotionally satisfying but intellectually stultifying. He didn’t have to get to know the patient or build a relationship. All he had to do was touch them at a certain time of day and wham!—all better. Not his kind of medicine. He felt the high of seeing the relief and joy and wonder in their faces, but he was not using any of his training.

Then again, none of his training had anything to do with what he had accomplished today. His fellow doctors would find ways to write off most of the results as “placebo effect” and “spontaneous remission.” And why not? In their position he’d do the same. He’d been taught not to believe in miracles.

Miracles—how easily he’d come to accept them after witnessing—after causing them. If only he could find a way to get Sylvia to let him try the Touch on Jeffy. She seemed afraid of it and he couldn’t understand why. Even if the Touch were useless against Jeffy’s autism, he couldn’t see how it would hurt to try.

If he could make little Jeffy normal, it would make all the trials he had been through because of the Touch worthwhile. If only Sylvia would give him—

He heard shouting from up front and went to investigate. A number of people from the parking lot had pushed their way into the waiting room. When they saw him they started shouting, pleading, begging for him to see them.

Alan raised a hand in the air and held it there, saying nothing until they finally quieted down.

“I’ll say this once and once only. I know you’re all sick and hurting. I promise I will see everyone of you and do everything I can for you, but my power lasts only one hour a day, no more. I have no control over that. Just one hour a day. Understand? That hour is over and done for today. I’ll be back tomorrow for another hour at five p.m.”

There was some rumbling from the rear.

“That’s all I have to say. I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.”

“That’s what you said two weeks ago and we never saw you again until today!” a voice called out. “Don’t play games with us!”

“Maybe we’ll just stay in here until you do come back!” said another.

“If you’re going to threaten me, I won’t be back at all.”

There was sudden silence.

“I’ll see you here tomorrow at five.”

He watched as they reluctantly shuffled out. After she’d locked the door, Connie leaned her plump frame against it and sighed with relief.

“I don’t like this bunch, Doctor. I tell you, there’s something mean and ugly about them. They frighten me.”

“They’re all right one on one.”

“Maybe, but not all together. As each cured patient walked out, the rest got meaner and meaner, the bigger and stronger ones pushing the smaller and weaker ones out of the way.”

“A lot of them have waited a long time, and they’re sick of being sick. They’re tired of hurting. When relief is in sight, another night can seem like a year.”

Connie shook her head. “I guess you’re right. Oh, Dr. Bulmer,” she said as he turned to go, “my mother suffers something terrible from arthritis in her hips. I was wondering if…”

“Of course,” he said. “Bring her with you tomorrow.”

They closed up and Alan walked her out to her car and made sure she was on her way before he got into his own. The crowd had gathered at a decent distance and stood there staring at him like a starving horde watching the owner of a fully stocked supermarket. But their hunger was of a different sort, and he knew he would have nothing in his cupboard for them until tomorrow.

He drove away feeling tense and uneasy. He wondered if they had believed him.

29

Sylvia

She hated the idea of leaving Jeffy here for one night, let alone three, but Charles insisted it was the best and quickest way to have him evaluated.

“We’ll scan him head to foot,” he said from behind his desk. “We’ll monitor and record him awake and asleep, collect twenty-four-hour urines, and you can have him back in seventy-two hours. By then we’ll know everything there is to know about him. Otherwise it will take forever on a piecemeal basis.”

“I know,” she said, sitting with Jeffy on her lap, her arms tight around him. “It’s just that it’s been years since he’s been away overnight. What if he needs me?”

“Sylvie, dear,” Charles said, and she resented the touch of condescension in his voice, “if he calls for you in the night, I will personally send the Foundation helicopter to pick you up and bring you here. It will be an unprecedented breakthrough.”

Sylvia said nothing. Charles was right. Jeffy interacted with no one now. Not even the pets; not even himself. She wondered if he would even know she was gone.

“What else is wrong?” Charles said. She looked up to see him watching her face. “I’ve never seen you so blue.”

“Oh, it’s a bunch of things. Little things, big things—from my favorite bonsai getting root rot to Alan having his hospital privileges suspended, and very possibly about to lose his license. Everything was going so well for so long; now everything seems to be going sour at once.”

“Bulmer’s problems aren’t yours.”

“I know.” She hadn’t seen much of Charles since the party, so he couldn’t know how her feelings for Alan had intensified.

“It’s not as if you’re bloody married to him.”

Was there a trace of jealousy in Charles’ voice?

“And from what I’ve heard, most of his troubles are his own doing. Sounds to me as if he’s come to believe what the yellow press has been saying about him.”

“According to Alan, the stories are true. And Ba told me he saw something similar in Vietnam when he was a boy.”

Charles snorted in contempt. “Then Bulmer’s license should be revoked for practicing medicine without a mind!”

Sylvia resented that and instantly came to Alan’s defense.

“He’s a good, kind, decent man who’s being crucified!” But her anger cooled quickly, for what Charles had said reflected the tiny doubts that had been clawing at the walls of her mind for weeks now. “You met him. Did he seem unbalanced to you?”

“Paranoids have a knack for appearing perfectly normal until you tread on their forbidden ground. Then they can be bloody dangerous.”

“But Ba—”

“With all due respect to your house man, Sylvie, he is an uneducated fisherman from a culture that worships its ancestors.” He came out from behind the desk and leaned against it, looking down at her, his arms folded in front of him. “Tell me: Have you ever seen Bulmer perform one of these miraculous cures?”

“No.”

“Have you ever personally known someone incurably ill who has returned in perfect health from seeing him?”

“No, but—”

“Then watch out for him. If something breaks all the known rules, and can’t be seen or heard or touched, then it isn’t there. It exists only in someone’s head. And that someone has broken with reality and is potentially dangerous!”

She didn’t want to hear this. She couldn’t conceive of Alan being dangerous to anyone. Charles was simply lashing out at someone he was coming to see as a rival.

And yet…what if he was right?

30

Alan

Alan poured himself a scotch as soon as he entered the house. It was scotch he liked, wasn’t it? He sipped and decided he liked the taste. He flopped onto the couch and let his head fall back.

The ride had been an ordeal. If he hadn’t had the presence of mind to write down the directions from his home to his office and back again before leaving here earlier, he’d still be driving around. His memory was shot. He couldn’t think! Even in the office, when that fellow with the bamboo spine had come in, he’d had to go look it up in a textbook to find the name—Strümpell-

Marie disease, also known as ankylosing spondylitis.

God, what was happening to him? Why couldn’t he remember everyday things anymore? Was it related to the Dat-tay-vao, or was he getting senile? There was a name for the condition but he couldn’t think of it at the moment. At least he didn’t have a brain tumor. He had proof of that in black type on yellow paper from the radiology department at University Hospital.

He closed his eyes. He was tired.

When he opened them again, it was dark. He jerked upright. He couldn’t have dozed off that long. A glance at his watch revealed that barely an hour and a half had passed. Then he heard a rumble of thunder and understood: A summer storm was brewing.

The front doorbell rang. Was that what had awakened him? Alan turned on the lights, then opened the door and found a man standing there. He was short and thin, wearing a Miami Dolphins jacket, nervously twisting a baseball cap in his hands as he looked up at Alan.

“Dr. Bulmer, could I speak to you a minute?”

He had that look, that hungry look. Alan swallowed.

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

“It’s my wife, Doc. She—”

Alan had a sudden queasy feeling. “Were you over at my office?”

“Yeah. But they wouldn’t let me in to see you. You see, my—”

“How did you find out where I live?”

“I followed you from the office.”

My God! He hadn’t thought of that.

Alan looked beyond the man to the street. The storm was rapidly swallowing the light, but flickers of lightning revealed a caravan of cars and vans and Winnebagos pulling up to the curb.

“I see you didn’t come alone.”

The man looked around with obvious annoyance. “A couple of other guys followed you too. They must’ve told the rest. I was gonna wait till you came out, but when I saw them coming I figured I better get to you first.”

“I can’t do anything for you now,” Alan said. Is this what it was going to be like? People ringing his doorbell, camped on his lawn? “I told you: tomorrow at five.”

“I know that. But y’see, we live in Stuart—that’s a ways north of Palm Beach in Flahda—and the wife’s too sick to be moved so I was wondering if maybe you’d sorta like come down and see her.” He laughed nervously. “A long-distance house call, if you know what I mean.”

Despite the uneasiness that was growing by inches and yards within him, Alan couldn’t help being touched by this little man who had come all the way up the coast on behalf of his sick wife.

“I don’t think so,” Alan said. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the growing crowd outside. “At least not now.”

“I’ll drive you. Don’t worry about that. It’s just that”—his voice caught—“that she’s dying and nobody seems to be able to do anything for her.”

“I really can’t leave,” Alan said as gently as he could. “I’ve got too many people here to care—”

“You’re her only hope, man! I seen what you did today and if you can help those people, you can help her, I know it!”

A dozen or more people were straggling across the lawn toward them. Thunder rattled the windows. The sky was going to open up any minute. Alan started to close the door.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Sorry, hell!” the man said, stepping forward and blocking the door’s swing. “You’re comin’ with me!”

“But don’t you see, I—”

“You’ve got to, man! I’ll pay you anything you want!”

“Money has nothing to do with it.” The people had reached the walk and were closing in on the front steps. “I’m sorry,” he said as he tried to push the door closed.

A hoarse “No!” chorused from the man and the others directly behind him as they all leaped forward and slammed the door open, sending Alan reeling backward, off balance.

But they didn’t stop at the door. In a blind, frantic rush, squeezing through the open doorway two and three at a time, eyes wild, faces desperate, hands outstretched and reaching, they came for him. Not to hurt him. He could see no malice in their eyes, but that didn’t lessen his terror. There was no stopping them. They wanted to touch him, to grab him, to pull him toward their sick loved ones, or toward their cars and pickups to drive him where the needy ones waited, to use him, to own him for a minute, just a few seconds, just long enough for him to work his miracle and then he could have his freedom back and go about his business with their eternal thanks.

That was what frightened him the most—he had become a thing to them.

There were so many of them, and as they pushed and shoved at each other to get to him, he stumbled and fell to the floor. And then some of the others around him tripped too and fell on him, driving him down, knocking the wind out of him with explosive force. And still more fell atop them. Alan felt the thick fibers of the rug grind into his left cheek from below as someone’s belly molded itself around his face from above. An elbow drove into his stomach. Frantic, he tried to cry out his pain, his fear, but he couldn’t breathe.

If they didn’t get off him and give him some air, he was going to suffocate!

Then everything went black.

31

Ba

The Missus had been silent all the way in from the city. Lately she had spent much of their time in the car quizzing him for his naturalization exam. He was glad for no questions today; he had been having second thoughts about citizenship. Not because he didn’t love this new country—he truly did—but because naturalization seemed so final, like a deathblow to his homeland, a final slap in the face, saying You are dead and gone and useless to me, so I’ve found another place and hereby renounce you forever.

Could he do that?

And yet, his village was gone, his friends were no longer in the country, and those ruling his homeland would probably execute him if he returned.

He wished there were an easy answer.

The Missus watched the threatening sky and flickering lightning in silence. As they passed Dr. Bulmer’s office, she finally spoke.

“Well, look at that—the lot’s empty.”

Ba slowed and glanced to his left in the pre-storm dimness. The lot was not completely empty—there were still two cars there—but it was a far cry from the around-the-clock congestion for the past few weeks.

“I wonder what happened?”

“Perhaps they gave up and left, Missus.”

“I doubt it. They waited this long…hard to believe they’d all lose patience at once.”

“Perhaps the police drove them off.”

“Maybe. Tony must have finally got fed up with the mob scene around his office and blown the whistle. But I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it without checking with Alan, and I can’t see Alan agreeing to that. Maybe…”

Her voice trailed off. Although the Missus thought she hid them from the world, Ba knew her deep feelings for Dr. Bulmer. The tales warned against loving the one with the Dat-tay-vao. But what could he say to her? How could one warn against feelings? Besides, the die was cast. The Dat-tay-vao sought those whose lives were already pointed along a certain path. Ba knew that the Doctor would follow that path at all costs. It was his karma.

Still, for some unaccountable reason, the nearly deserted parking lot struck an uneasy note within him.

He accelerated to cruising speed and was ready to bear right toward Toad Hall at the fork in the road when the Missus spoke.

“Swing by Dr. Bulmer’s house before we go home.”

“Yes, Missus,” Ba said with a secretly approving smile. The Missus too sensed that something was wrong.

The lightning grew brighter, the sky darker, and the thunder was now audible through the car’s soundproofing. As rain poured from the sky in a sudden torrent, Ba turned on the headlights and heard the Missus gasp as they revealed the street ahead, lined on both sides with a motley assortment of vehicles. Either someone was throwing a very big party or—

“They’ve found his house!” Her voice was a hoarse whisper behind his right ear as she leaned forward and stared ahead.

He pulled to a stop in the middle of the road before the Doctor’s house. Through the sheets of rain he could see a crowd of people pushing and squeezing their way through the front door.

“Oh, Ba! They’re in there!”

The anguish in her voice was all he needed to hear. He slammed the Graham into neutral, set the emergency brake, took off his chauffeur’s cap, and leaped out into the pelting rain. He did not run, but a quick stride with his long legs moved him along almost as quickly as another man at a run. He reached the crowd from its rear and began working his way through it. Those who would not or could not move aside he grabbed by the back of the shirt or blouse or nape of the neck and pulled from before him and deposited behind, one after the other in a rhythmic swimming motion.

He was soon in the house. Although he could not see the Doctor, he knew immediately where he was—in the flailing knot of humanity lumped in the middle of the living room. Were these people mad? Were they trying to crush the life out of the Doctor? How long had he been under them? He had to get to him.

Ba waded into the crowd, roughly pushing aside anyone who was in his way until he reached the knot.

The lights flickered, then went out. It didn’t matter to Ba. He simply reached into the knot and yanked on anyone he contacted, using the sporadic flashes of lightning through the windows to adjust his course. He worked hard, knowing he didn’t have much time. The people in here were more determined—some fiercely so. They struck back at him, aiming fists at his face, kicks at his groin. Ba was rougher on these, literally hurling them aside. The room became filled with sound, shouts of pain and anger breaking through the nearly continuous roar of the thunder.

The lights suddenly went on again and he found himself standing over the form of Dr. Bulmer, white-faced, gasping, disheveled. He held his hand out to the man. As the Doctor grasped it and pulled himself to his feet, Ba heard the babble of voices around him die to the point where he could understand snatches of sentences here and there.

…“Who the hell is he?”…“Where’d he come from?”…“Gawd he’s big!”…“Looks sicker than you, pal!”…

The people backed away, leaving Ba and the Doctor in a rough circle of clear floor. Ba knew that his appearance was forbidding as he stood there dripping water, his thin wet hair plastered to his skull and hanging over his forehead. Perhaps that alone would be enough to get the Doctor out to the car without further violence.

“The Missus awaits you in her car,” he told Dr. Bulmer.

The Doctor nodded. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay.”

Ba knew that was a very slim possibility. “Perhaps, but would you please speak to her to assure her of your safety?”

“Sure.” He started toward the door.

A man stepped in his way. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you’ve seen my sister, pal.”

Ba stepped forward but the man was apparently waiting and ready for him: Without warning, he swung a vicious uppercut at Ba’s jaw. Ba blocked the blow with his palm and wrapped his long fingers, around the man’s fist. He would have to make an example of this one. He held the man’s hand trapped in his own so that all could see how powerless he was, and then he twisted it back sharply. There was a loud crack and the man screamed and went down on his knees.

“Jesus!” the Doctor said. “Don’t hurt them!”

“The Missus awaits you.”

“Okay,” said the Doctor. He turned to the crowd. “I want you all out of here when I get back.”

Amid angry murmuring, Ba followed him out through the rain to the car. As the Doctor opened the door to the Graham and leaned in, people began to shout.

…“Sure! He’s got plenty of time for the rich but none for us!”…“Is that what I’ve got to do to get to him, buy a classic car?”…

Over the roar of the thunder, Ba heard glass crash behind him as he reached the curb. He turned and saw a lamp land on the lawn after smashing through a front window. More shattering: Some of the people were pulling bricks from a garden border and hurling them through the windows. Others were turning Ba’s way. Even before the bricks started flying toward him and the car, Ba was moving. He pushed Dr. Bulmer into the back seat and closed the door after him. Then he jumped into the driver’s seat, threw the car into gear, and sped off.

“What in the name of—” the Doctor said from the back, and then a brick bounced off the trunk with a loud thunk!

“My car!” the Missus cried, turning to stare out the tiny rear window. “Why would they want to hurt my Graham?”

“They’re angry, frustrated, and afraid,” the Doctor said.

The Missus laughed. “Anybody else I’d call a sap for saying something like that. But you, Alan, you’ve really got the curse.”

“What curse?”

“Empathy.”

Peering through the rain as he drove toward Toad Hall, Ba realized that his own reply to the Doctor would have been, “The Dat-tay-vao.”

32

At Toad Hall

Sylvia stood at the library doors and watched Alan as he gazed out the tall windows at the lightning. She wished the drapes were drawn. Lightning had terrified her ever since five-year-old Sylvia Avery in Durham, Connecticut, had seen a bolt of lightning split a tree and set it ablaze not twenty feet from her bedroom window. She had never forgotten the terror of that moment. Even now, as an adult, she could not bear to watch a storm.

Alan must have sensed her presence, for he turned and smiled at her.

“Good fit,” he said, tugging on the lapels of the blue bathrobe he was wearing. “Almost perfect. You must have known I was coming.”

“Actually, it belongs to Charles,” she said, and watched closely for his reaction.

His smile wavered. “He must be a pretty regular visitor.”

“Not as regular as he used to be.”

Was that relief in his eyes?

“Your clothes will be out of the dryer soon.”

He turned back to the windows. “My memory keeps betraying me—I could swear you told me the new peach tree was on the right.”

“I did. It’s just that it’s been growing like crazy. It’s now bigger than the older one.”

The phone rang and she picked it up on the first ring.

It was Lieutenant Sears of the Monroe Police Department, asking for Dr. Bulmer.

“For you,” she said, holding it out to him.

The first thing Alan had done upon arriving at Toad Hall was to call the police and report the disturbance at his home. He’d said he didn’t want to press charges, just wanted everybody out of his house and off his property. The lieutenant was probably calling to say mission accomplished.

She watched him speak a few words, then saw his face go slack. He said something like, “What? All of it? Completely?” He listened a bit longer, then hung up. His face was ashen when he turned to her.

“My house,” he said in a small voice. “It’s burned to the ground.”

Sylvia’s body tightened in shock. “Oh no!”

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “Jesus, yeah. They don’t know if it was the mob or lightning or what. But it’s gone. Right down to the foundation.”

Sylvia fought the urge to take him in her arms and say it would be all right, everything would be all right. But she just stood there and watched him go back to the window and stare out at the storm. She let him have a few moments to gather himself together.

“You know what keeps going through my mind,” he said at last with a hollow laugh. “It’s crazy. Not that I lost my clothes or all that furniture, or even the house itself. My records! My moldy-goldy-oldy forty-fives are gone, reduced to little black globs of melted vinyl. They were my past, you know. I feel like someone’s just erased a part of me.” He shrugged and turned toward her. “Well, at least I’ve still got the CDs I burned off the records. Got them in my office and my car. But it’s not the same.”

Something about his speech had been bothering her since he’d leaned into the car during the storm. Now she identified it: A trace of Brooklyn accent was slipping through. He had used it jokingly before; now it seemed part of his speech. Probably due to the tremendous strain he was under.

“Maybe you’d better call your wife,” Sylvia said. “She’ll be worried if she calls and learns the phone’s out of order.”

Sylvia knew his wife was in Florida. She didn’t know exactly why, but assumed that the lady found the storm around her husband easier to weather from a thousand or so miles away.

“Nah. Don’t worry about that,” Alan said as he walked around the room, inspecting the titles on the shelves. “Ginny hasn’t much to say to me these days. Lets her lawyer do her talking for her. His latest message was a packet of divorce papers that arrived today.”

Oh, you poor man, Sylvia thought as she watched him peruse the bookshelves with such studied nonchalance. He’s lost everything. His wife has left him, his house has burned to the ground, he can’t even get into his own office, and he stands a good chance of losing his license to practice medicine. His past, his present, his future—all gone or threatened! God! How can he stand there without screaming out to heaven to give him a break?

She didn’t want to pity him. He obviously wasn’t wallowing in any self-pity and she was sure he would resent any from her.

Yet it was certainly a safer emotion than the others she felt for him.

She wanted him so badly now. More than she could ever remember wanting any man since Greg. And here he was, in her home, alone. Gladys had gone for the night after putting Alan’s wet clothes in the dryer, and Ba had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters over the garage. Alan had nowhere else to go, and all the moral restraints that had separated them were now gone.

Why was she so frightened? It wasn’t the storm.

Sylvia forced herself to go to the bar. “Brandy?” she said. “It’ll warm you.”

“Sure. Why not.”

He came closer.

She splashed an inch or so into each of two snifters and handed him one, then quickly retreated to the far corner of the leather sofa, tucking her legs under her and hiding them in the folds of her robe. Why in God’s name had she undressed and put on this robe? Just to make him feel more comfortable in Charles’s? What was the matter with her? What had she been thinking?

Obviously she hadn’t been thinking at all. Her hands trembled as she tipped the glass to her lips and let the fiery liquid slide down her throat.

She didn’t want this. She didn’t want this at all. Because if she and Alan came together, it wouldn’t be another casual affair. It would be for keeps. The Real Thing—again. And she couldn’t bear another Real Thing, not after what had happened to Greg. She couldn’t risk that kind of loss again.

And she would lose Alan. He had an aura of doom. He was one of those men who was going to do what he had to do, no matter what. Greg had been like that. And look what had happened to him.

No. She couldn’t let it happen. Not again. No matter how she felt about Alan. She would keep her distance and help him out and treat him as a dear friend and that would be it. No entanglements.

So she put on her just-good-friends face and watched him stalk the room.

But as she watched, she felt a flame inside glowing, trying to grow and warm her, trying to ignite her need to touch him and be touched by him. She smothered it.

She was not going to get burned again.

Alan watched Sylvia out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to scan the titles on the library shelves. He barely saw the books. Like the song: He only had eyes for her.

God, she was beautiful sitting there in her burgundy robe with her hair down and falling about her face. He’d always felt attracted to her, but now…fate seemed to have thrown them together. She was sitting on the sofa over there with her robe demurely tucked around her, but he had caught sight of a length of long white thigh before she had arranged herself, and it was as if one of those lightning bolts arcing across the sky outside had struck him in the groin.

This was crazy! His life had completely fallen apart—he didn’t even have a home anymore, for Chrissake!—and all he could think about was the woman across the room from him.

Yet where was all her banter, where were her come-ons when he needed them? He didn’t know how to handle this, what to do, what to say.

Hi! You live around here? Come here often? What’s your sign?

He took a gulp of the brandy and felt the fumes sear his naso-pharynx.

Well, at last he could admit to himself that he wanted Sylvia, had wanted her for a long time. And now they were here, alone, with all the walls broken down. But instead of playing Mae West, she was suddenly Miss Manners.

He couldn’t let the moment pass. He wanted her too much, needed her too much, especially now. Especially tonight. He needed someone to stand up with him, and he wanted Sylvia to be that someone. She had the strength to do it. He could go it alone, but it would be so much better with her beside him.

He wandered along the wall, gazing at the spines of the books, not seeing their titles. Then he came around behind the couch where she was sitting and stood directly behind her. She didn’t turn around to look at him. She said nothing. Merely sat there like an expectant statue. He reached out toward her hair and hesitated.

What if she turns me away? What if I’ve read her wrong all these years?

He forced his hand forward to touch her hair, laying his fingers and open palm gently against the silky strands and stroking downward from where they fell from the center part. The tickling sensation in his palm sent a pleasurable chill up his arm. He knew Sylvia felt it too, for he could see the gooseflesh rising on the skin of her forearm where it protruded from the sleeve of her robe.

“Sylvia—”

She suddenly jumped up and spun around. “Need a refill?” She took his glass. “Me too.”

He followed her over to the bar and stood at her side, desperately searching for something to say as she poured more brandy into the snifters. Alan noticed her hand trembling. Suddenly there was a deafening crash of thunder and the lights went out. He heard Sylvia wail, heard the brandy bottle drop, and then she was in his arms, clutching him in fear, trembling against him.

He put his arms around her. God, she was quaking! This wasn’t an act. Sylvia was genuinely frightened.

“Hey, it’s all right,” he said soothingly. “Just a near miss. The lights will go on soon.”

She said nothing, but soon the tremors stopped.

“I hate thunderstorms,” she said.

“I love them!” Held her tighter. “Especially now. Because I was racking my brain for a way to get my arms around you.”

She looked up at him. Although he could not see her expression in the darkness, he felt a change come over her.

“Stop it!” she said. Her voice was strained.

“Stop what?” She was still against him, but it was as if she had just pulled herself a step or two away.

“Just stop it!”

“Sylvia, I don’t know what—”

“You know and don’t pretend you don’t!”

She slammed her right fist against his chest, then her left, then she was pounding at him with both at once.

“You’re not going to do this to me! It’s not going to happen again! I won’t let it! I won’t! I won’t!”

Alan pulled her tightly against him, as much to comfort the pain he sensed within her as to protect himself.

“Sylvia! What’s wrong?”

She struggled fiercely for a moment, then slumped against him. He heard and felt her sobs.

“Don’t do this to me!” she cried.

“Do what?” He was baffled and shaken by her outburst.

“Don’t make me need you and depend on you to be there. I can’t go through that again. I can’t lose one more person, I just can’t!”

And then he understood. He tightened his arms around her.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s what Greg thought.”

“Nobody can guarantee against that kind of tragedy.”

“Maybe not. But sometimes it seems like you’re courting disaster.”

“I think I learned a big lesson tonight.”

“I hope so. You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t. I’m here. I want to be with you, Sylvia. And if you let me, I will be with you—tonight and every night. But especially tonight.”

After a long pause he felt her arms wriggle out from between them and slip around his back.

“Especially tonight?” she said in a small voice.

“Yeah. It’s been a long time coming and I don’t think I can turn back now.”

He waited patiently through another long pause. Finally she lifted her face to him.

“Me neither.”

He kissed her then and she responded, bringing her hands up to his face and then clasping her fingers behind his neck. Alan pressed her against him, nearly overwhelmed by the feelings growing within him, old feelings that had lain dormant so long he’d almost forgotten they existed. He opened the front of her robe and she parted his, and then her skin was hot against the length of him. Soon the robes had fallen to the floor and he led her to the couch where he explored every inch of her with his fingers and his lips as she explored him. Then they were together, straining against each other, strobe-lit by lightning, the thunder and pounding rain all but drowning out the sounds they made as they peaked with the storm.

“God! Is that what it’s like?” she heard him say after they had caught their breaths and lay together on the couch.

“You mean it’s been so long you’ve forgotten?” Sylvia asked with a laugh.

She could almost see him smile in the dark.

“Yeah. Seems like forever since it’s been like this. I’ve been going through the motions so long I’ve forgotten what passion feels like. I mean real passion. It’s great! It’s like being cleansed. Like being run through a wringer and hung out to dry.”

The lights remained out. Lightning still flickered, but not as brightly, and there were increasingly longer intervals between the flashes and the rumbles.

Alan pulled away and moved to the window. He seemed to love the storm.

“Do you know that you’re the second woman I’ve ever made love to?”

Sylvia was startled. “Ever?”

“Ever.”

“You must have had plenty of opportunities.”

“I guess so. Lots of offers, anyway. I don’t know how many were serious.” She saw the silhouette of his head turn her way. “Only one offerer ever attracted me.”

“But you never took her up on them.”

“Not because she didn’t appeal to me.”

“But because you were married.”

“Yeah. The Faithful Husband. Who committed adultery every day.”

That puzzled her. “I don’t get you.”

“My paramour was my practice,” he said in a low voice, as if talking to himself. “She came first. Ginny had to be satisfied with what was left over. To have been the kind of husband she needed, I would have had to settle for being something less than the kind of doctor I wanted to be. I made my choice. It wasn’t a conscious decision. And I never really saw it before. But now that Ginny’s gone and the practice is gone, it’s all very clear. Too often my mind was someplace else. I cheated on her every hour of every day.”

Is he trying to scare me off?

“And now that they’re both gone, I feel free to be with you, and that’s the most important thing in the world right now.”

Sylvia felt a glow upon hearing those words. “Come back over here,” she said, but he didn’t seem to hear. She decided to let him talk. She sensed it was good for him. Besides, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

“And I’m talking about how I feel. I can’t tell you the last time I opened up to anybody. Anybody. Trouble is, I feel lost. I mean, what am I going to do with myself? For the first time in my life I don’t know what I want to do. Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to be a doctor. And do you know why? For the money and the prestige.”

“I don’t believe that!”

“Actually, I wanted to be a rock star but found I had no musical talent. So I settled on medicine.” He laughed. “Seriously, though—money and prestige. Those were what were important to the kid from Brooklyn all the way through pre-med and most of med school.”

“What changed you?”

“No big deal. I didn’t renounce all things material and don sackcloth and ashes. I just changed. Gradually. It started during my clinical training, when I got my first contact with patients and realized they were more than just case histories—they were flesh-and-blood people. Anyway, I achieved both my goals. The prestige automatically came with the degree, and the money came, too. Like one of my professors had told us: ‘Take good care of your patients and you won’t have to worry about balancing the books.’ He was right.

“So I came out determined to be the best goddamn doctor in the whole world. And after I got into practice, it was an all-day job to try to be that kind of doctor. But now I’m not any kind of doctor. I’m a tool. I’ve become some sort of organic healing machine. Maybe it’s time to quit.” He grunted a laugh. “You know, Tony and I used to say that when the legal jungle got too thick and the politicians made twenty minutes of paperwork necessary for each ten minutes I spent with a patient, we’d chuck it all and open a pizzeria.”

He finally turned away from the window.

“Speaking of pizza, I’m starved. Got anything to eat, lady?”

Sylvia slipped into her Mae West voice. “Of course, honey. Don’t you remember? You were just—”

“Food, lady. Food!”

“Oh, that stuff. Come on.”

They groped for their robes and put them on, then she took him by the hand to the kitchen. She was fumbling in a drawer for a flashlight when the lights came on.

“Whatcha got?” Alan said, hanging over her shoulder as she peered into the refrigerator.

The shelves were almost bare. What with taking Jeffy into the Foundation today, she hadn’t got around to shopping.

“Nothing but hot dogs.”

“Oh, my!” Alan said. “What would Dr. Freud say about that?”

“He’d tell you to eat them or go hungry.”

“Any port in a storm. Pop them in the micro wave and we’ll have byproducts-in-a-blanket.”

“That sounds awful!”

“Can’t be worse than the meatloaf I had last night. Made it myself. All the flavor and consistency of a Duraflame log.” He stuck his tongue out in a disgusted grimace. “Blech!”

Sylvia leaned against him and began to laugh. This was a side of Alan she’d never known. A little-boy side that she hadn’t even dreamed existed. Whoever would have guessed that the handsome and dedicated Dr. Bulmer could be charming and witty and fun? Fun!

She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him. He returned the kiss. Without separating her lips from his, she tossed the package of hot dogs back into the refrigerator and closed the door. As she put her arms around his neck, he lifted her and carried her back to the library.

Later, as they lay exhausted on the couch, she said, “We’ve got to try this in a bed sometime.”

He lifted his face from between her breasts. “How about now?”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Maybe I am,” he said with a smile. “Maybe I’m not. All I know is I feel like my life has just begun tonight. I feel giddy, high, like I can do anything. And it’s because of you.”

“Oh now—”

“It’s true! Look at what’s happened to me in the past few weeks. None of it matters now that I’m with you. I can’t believe it, but touching you, loving you, it shrinks all those troubles to nothing. For the first time in my life I don’t know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow and I…don’t…care!”

He got up and put on Charles’ robe again. Seeing him in the light now, she noticed how thin he was. He couldn’t have been eating well at all since his wife walked out on him.

“Maybe you should open that pizzeria on your own. Put some meat on your bones if nothing else.”

“Maybe,” he said, walking back to the window.

She put on her own robe and followed him.

“Maybe, like hell,” she said, snaking her arms around him and snuggling against his back. The storm was gone now. Still he stared out at the sky. “You’ll never quit medicine and you know it.”

“Not voluntarily anyway. But it looks like medicine is quitting me.”

“You still have the Touch, don’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s still there.”

She still hadn’t one-hundred-percent accepted the existence of the Dat-tay-vao. She believed Alan, and she believed Ba, but she hadn’t as yet seen it work, and the idea was so far beyond anything in her experience that the jury was still out for a small part of her mind.

“Maybe you should lay low with it for a while.”

She felt him stiffen. “You sound like Ginny. She wanted me to deny it existed and never use it again.”

“I didn’t say that!” She resented being compared to his wife. “I just think maybe you should back off a bit. Look what’s happened to you since you began using it.”

“You’re probably right. I probably should let things cool down. But, Sylvia…”

She loved to hear him say her name.

“…I don’t know how to explain this, but I can feel them out there. All those sick and hurting people. It’s as if each one of them is sending out a tiny distress signal, and somewhere in the center of my brain is a little receiver that’s picking up every single one of them. They’re out there. And they’re waiting. I don’t know if I can stop—even if I want to.”

She hugged him tighter. She remembered the day in the diner after they’d been to the cemetery when he’d first told her about what was happening. It had seemed like such a gift then. Now it seemed like a curse.

He suddenly turned to face her.

“Now that I’m here, don’t you think it’s about time I used the Touch on Jeffy?”

“No, Alan, you can’t!”

“Sure! Come on. I want to do this for you as well as him!” He began pulling her toward the stairs. “Let’s go take a look at him.”

“Alan,” she said, her voice quavering with alarm, “he’s not here, I told you before—he’s at the McCready Foundation until Thursday.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. “Slipped my mind.”

He gathered her into his arms.

“Can I stay the night? If I may be permitted to quote Clarence Frogman Henry”—his voice changed to a deep croak—“‘I Ain’t Got No Home.’”

“You’d better!” she laughed.

But the laugh sounded hollow to her. How could Alan have forgotten about Jeffy being away? She didn’t know what it was, but something was wrong with him.

33

Charles

Charles looked up and was shocked to see Sylvia wending her way toward him through the tables of the staff cafeteria. In the bright red and white print dress that hugged her waist and bared her shoulders, she was a breathtaking mirage floating across a wasteland of white lab coats. Her smile was bright, but it didn’t seem to be for him alone—it was for the world at large.

“You’re early,” he said, rising as she reached his table. She hadn’t been due for another two hours.

“I know.” She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. Her words came rapid fire. “But it’s been three days and I’ve missed Jeffy and couldn’t wait any longer. Your secretary told me you were here, told me how to get here when I asked her not to page you. What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Tea. Want one?”

She nodded and made a face in the direction of his cup. “But not hot and milky like that. Iced, if you don’t mind. And clear.”

He went and got it for her, and a refill of hot for himself, conscious of all the eyes on them, wondering no doubt where Charles Axford had been hiding the lovely bird.

She sipped it appreciatively. “Good.” She looked around, a mischievous smile playing about her lips. “Never thought of you as the type for the staff caf.”

“Every once in a while,” he said with his best deadpan expression, “when I feel the approach of a hint of self-doubt, I find it therapeutic to move among the lesser of my fellow creatures. It restores my faith in myself.”

Sylvia favored him with a smile. “How’s Jeffy?”

She’d asked him that question every day since she’d left him here on Monday and he had managed to put her off. Now it was Thursday and he had to answer. He would lay it out straight for her.

“Not good. He’s definitely withdrawing. The clinical evaluations confirm it across the board when compared to his last work-up. We did the works on him—scanned him every which way, waking and sleeping EEGs, and computer-generated spectral analysis of those EEGs. All normal. There’s nothing structurally or electrically wrong with his brain.”

“Which means there’s nothing you can do for him.”

“Probably not.”

Anyone else watching Sylvia’s face would have thought it calm, impassive. Charles saw the fleeting twist to her lips, the single prolonged blink, and knew how deeply disappointed she was.

“There’s a new medication we can try.”

“None of the others worked, not even that last one, what ever it was.”

“Dalomine. It works in some autistics. Not Jeffy, unfortunately.”

“And this one?”

He shrugged. It was a structural analog of dalomine and probably useless where Jeffy was concerned. But he wanted to give her hope.

“It may help, it may not. At least it won’t hurt him.”

“How can I refuse?” Sylvia said with a sigh.

“You can’t. I’ll ring you up later on and come by. I’ll drop some off then.”

Sylvia glanced away. “Maybe you should know…I have a house guest.”

“Who?” He couldn’t imagine what she was getting at.

“Alan.”

“Bulmer?” Jesus bloody Christ! Everywhere he went—Bulmer, Bulmer, Bulmer! “What happened? Wife kick him out or something?”

“No. She left him.”

Charles held his breath. “Because of you?”

Sylvia looked puzzled, then: “Oh, no. It was because of all this healing business.”

“So he came knocking on your door with an empty sugar bowl in his hand, right?”

“Why, Charles!” she said with a humorless smile. “I believe you’re jealous! What happened to all that talk of ‘no strings’ and ‘no exclusives’? I thought you promised not to ever get possessive, and above all, never get involved.”

“I did and I’m not!” he said, feeling flustered and hiding it well, he hoped. He was jealous. “But I know your weaknesses as well as anybody.”

“Maybe so. But he didn’t camp on my doorstep in any way, shape, or form.” Her face clouded. “It was awful.”

She told him about the mob outside Bulmer’s house Monday evening, forcing its way in, how he’d been bruised and battered and his clothes half torn from his body.

Charles shuddered at the thought of being in that position. All those people reaching, touching.

And then she told him about how they had received word that his house had burned down.

“We went there Tuesday,” she said softly. “There was nothing left, Charles! It had rained like crazy the night before, yet the ashes were still smoldering. You should have seen him—stumbling around the foundation like a drunken man. I don’t think he truly believed the place had burned until he got there and saw it. Before that it had only been a story from a voice on the phone the night before. But when he pulled up in front of his yard, oh, you should have seen his face.”

A tear slid down Sylvia’s cheek, and the sight of it, knowing it was for another man, was like a drop of nitric acid slipping down the outer wall of his heart.

“You should have seen his face!” she repeated, volume rising with her anger. “How could they do that to him?”

“Well,” Charles said as cautiously as he could, “when you play with fire—”

“You’re so damn sure he’s a phony, aren’t you?”

“I’m absolutely positive.” Charles could not remember being more sure of anything else in his life. “Diseases don’t disappear at the touch of someone’s hand, even if that someone is the wonderful Dr. Bulmer. He’s had a lot of free publicity, a lot of new patients, and now it’s backfired on him.”

“You bastard!”

“My-my!” he said, giving her a dose of her own medicine. “Is this the woman who swore she would never get emotionally entangled with anyone ever again?”

“He’s a good man and he didn’t need any new patients! He had all he could handle already!”

“Then he’s daft!”

Charles had expected a quick retort, but instead he faced silent uncertainty. Which meant he had struck a nerve. Sylvia herself had questions about Bulmer’s mental status. Yet she had taken him into her home. Charles realized with a pang he did not wish to acknowledge that her feelings for Bulmer must run deep. Quite a bit deeper than her feelings for him. He could not help but resent that.

“Do you love him? Or is he just another stray you’ve taken in?”

“No,” she said with a sudden ethereal smile that bothered him more than anything else since she’d sat down. “He’s not just a stray.”

Charles found the whole conversation unpleasant and wanted off the subject.

“Why don’t we go up to my—”

He stopped in midsentence because he had suddenly noticed that the cafeteria had gone silent. He glanced around and saw that everyone in the room was staring at a point somewhere behind him. He turned to look.

Senator McCready had entered the cafeteria and was heading in their direction. His progress was slow, what with the way he had to lean against his cane, but there was no doubt that Charles’s table was his destination.

When McCready reached them, Charles stood up and shook his hand—a formal gesture for the sake of the rest of the people in the room. They spoke a few banal words of greeting, then McCready turned to Sylvia, his political twinkle in his eye.

“And who might this be?”

Charles introduced them and then the senator asked if he might join them for a few minutes. After he sat down, the normal buzz of the cafeteria returned, but at a higher volume than usual.

Charles was nearly struck dumb by McCready’s appearance. Since the Foundation had bought this building, he had never—never!—shown his face in the staff cafeteria. And to show up in public in the afternoon when his strength was fading was unheard of. Charles knew the physical toll this was taking on the man. What the bloody hell was he up to?

“Where are you from, Ms. Nash?” he asked, acting as if this were just another one of his routine daily visits to the caf.

“I’m one of your constituents, Senator,” Sylvia said with her half smile that Charles knew to mean that she was amused but not impressed by McCready’s presence. “I live in Monroe. Ever hear of it?”

“Of course! As a matter of fact, I remember reading a piece in Tuesday’s paper about a house fire in Monroe. Said the place belonged to a Dr. Alan Bulmer. I wonder if that’s the same Dr. Bulmer I know.”

Sylvia’s smile and insouciant manner evaporated. “You know Alan?”

“Well, I’m not sure. There was a Dr. Bulmer who testified before one of my committees a few months ago.”

“That’s him! He’s the one!”

McCready shook his head and tsked. “A shame. Lightning is such a capricious thing.”

“Oh, it wasn’t lightning,” Sylvia said, and launched into her story about the mob.

When McCready professed to know nothing about Bulmer’s publicity as a healer, she filled him in on what the press had been saying.

Charles folded his arms across his chest, trying to keep a self-satisfied smile off his face. It was all clear now. McCready was here to pump Sylvia about Bulmer. Charles had to admire the way the senator had broached the subject so gracefully without wasting as much as a second. The man was smooth.

“That really is too bad,” McCready was saying with a slow, sympathetic shake of his head. “We were on opposite sides of the political fence at the committee hearings, but I deeply respected his integrity and obvious sincerity.”

The lopsided smile was suddenly back on Sylvia’s face. “Oh, I’m sure you did.”

The senator rapped the tabletop with his knuckles as if he had just thought of something.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If Dr. Bulmer is agreeable, I will put the resources of the Foundation at his disposal to investigate this power he is supposed to have.”

Charles watched Sylvia blink in shock. “You will?”

Charles wasn’t the least bit surprised, however. This surely had been the senator’s aim all along: Get this Bulmer chap here and see if he’s for real. And now that Charles knew where the play was going, he leaned back and enjoyed the performance.

“Of course! The raison d’être of the Foundation is research. What if Dr. Bulmer truly has some power of healing that is as yet unknown to medical science? We would be negligent of the very purpose of this institution if we did not at least attempt to subject his supposed power to the scientific method. If he has something—truly has something—then I will place my reputation and the full weight of the Foundation’s prestige behind vindicating him to the world.”

“Senator,” Sylvia said, eyes bright, “that would be wonderful!”

She’s really got it bad for Bulmer, Charles thought. Otherwise she’d never swallow this load of tripe.

“But be warned,” the senator said, his voice turning stern and stentorian. “If we determine that he’s a fake, we will publicly expose him as such and advise anyone who is sick, even if they suffer from but a runny nose, to have nothing to do with him. Ever!”

Sylvia was quiet for a moment, then she nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll convey it to him in just those terms. And we’ll let you know.”

Charles felt his jaw clamping. We’ll let you know. Already they were a team.

I’ve lost her, he thought. The realization brought a sharp stab of pain, surprising him with its intensity. He didn’t want to let her go. Their relationship had atrophied, but it wasn’t dead. He could still revive it.

“And I will assign Dr. Axford to oversee the investigation.” He glanced pointedly at Charles. “Providing he agrees, of course.”

Nothing could have made Charles refuse. He would take the greatest pleasure in exposing Alan Bulmer as a fraud. Then what would Sylvia think of him?

“Of course,” he said without missing a beat. “I’d be delighted.”

“Splendid! Let’s see…today is Thursday. Most of the week is shot. But if he can come in tonight, we can start the work-up right away. Right, Charles?”

“What ever you say, Senator.”

“There’s one more thing,” Sylvia said slowly, as if measuring her words. “This power of Alan’s is doing something to him.”

Power corrupts, my dear, Charles wanted to say. Just look at the senator.

“If he agrees to come in, will you check out his memory?”

“Memory?” Charles’s interest was suddenly piqued. “How so?”

“Well, he can recall things from his childhood clear as day. But by lunch he’s forgotten what he had for breakfast.”

“Interesting,” he said, thinking how it could mean nothing, or could be something very serious. Very serious indeed.

34

The Senator

“Front security just called, sir,” said his secretary’s voice through the intercom speaker. “He just arrived.”

“Very good.”

Finally!

McCready had been on edge for hours, wondering if Bulmer would really show. Now he could allow himself to relax.

Or could he?

He settled deeper into the thickly padded chair behind his desk and allowed his nearly useless muscles to relax. But his mind could not rest; not with the possibility of a cure so near at hand. To regain the strength of a normal man, to walk across the Capitol parking lot, to climb a single flight of stairs, to pursue a woman, to take part once again in the innumerable daily activities the average person took for granted. The prospect set his adrenaline flowing and his heart thumping.

And then there were the ambitions that went beyond the average man’s—to once again look upon the possibility of capturing the party’s nomination and running for the White House as something more than an empty pipe dream.

So many doors waiting to open for him if Bulmer’s power proved to be real.

And Bulmer was here at last.

But at what cost? said a small voice from some dim, boarded-up corner of his mind. Were all the maneuverings and machinations to get him under your roof really necessary? Couldn’t you simply have arranged to meet with him and asked him straight out if those incredible stories were true?

McCready squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the voice back to wherever it had been hiding.

It sounded so easy in those simplistic terms. But how could he go to that man as a meek and humble believer and put himself at his mercy? His whole being recoiled at the idea of assuming the role of supplicant before any man. Especially before a doctor. Most especially before Dr. Alan Bulmer.

How could he ask that man for a favor?

And what would Bulmer demand in return?

And worst of all: What if Bulmer turned him away?

He almost retched at the thought.

No. This way was better. This way he could call the shots. The Foundation was his territory, not Bulmer’s. When all the data were in, he would know for sure one way or the other. If Bulmer was a fraud, it would be another in a long list of dead ends.

But if the data supported the stories, Bulmer would owe him.

Then McCready could go to Bulmer with his head high. And collect.

35

Alan

“I can’t do it now,” Alan said, looking up at Charles Axford, who concealed his annoyance so poorly.

“Well, when can you do it?” Axford said.

Alan consulted his notes. Thank God for the notes. He couldn’t remember a damn thing without them. The Hour of Power had come between 4:00 and 5:00 on Monday, and this was Thursday, so that meant it would probably come between 7:00 and 8:00 this evening. He glanced at his watch.

“Should be ready in about an hour.”

“Super.” He pronounced it seeYOO-pah. “Make yourself at home until then.” He rose. “I have a few things to check on in the meantime.”

So Alan found himself alone in Charles Axford’s office. He didn’t want to be here, hadn’t wanted to come to the McCready Foundation at all. But Sylvia had insisted. She’d come home from the Foundation with Jeffy and McCready’s proposal and had worked on him relentlessly all afternoon, saying that he would never know peace, never be able to practice any sort of reputable medicine again, that he owed it to himself, to his regular patients, to the special ones only he might be able to help, and on and on and on until he had capitulated out of sheer exhaustion.

Very per sis tent, that woman.

But he loved her. No doubt about that. She made him feel good about himself, good about her, good about the whole damn world. He hated leaving her, even for the few days it would take to go through this clinical investigation here at the Foundation. He had come as much for her as for himself. That had to be love.

Because he hated being here.

It was a nice enough place. Rather impressive, actually, with its steel and granite exterior and that huge art-deco lobby. But beyond the lobby all twenty stories had been refurbished and furnished with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

The decor didn’t make him feel the least bit comfortable, however. He hated being probed and studied and looked at and treated like an experimental lab rat. None of that had happened as yet, but it was coming. He could feel it coming. He had signed a waiver of liability and had agreed to sleep here and stay within the confines of the Foundation building for the duration of his testing in order to minimize the variables that might otherwise be introduced.

He sighed. What choice did he have? Either go on as he had been and lose his license and his reputation as a reliable, conscientious physician, condemned to practice miracle medicine on the fringes as some sort of quack or tent-show healer; or let someone like Axford do a hard-nosed, nitty-gritty scientific work-up under controlled conditions, get hard data, replicate the results, and document first the existence of the Touch, and then the whys and wherefores of it.

Alan wanted to know—for Sylvia, for the world, but mostly for himself. Because the Touch was doing something to him. He didn’t know exactly what, but he knew he wasn’t quite the same person as when he started with this back in the spring. Axford’s conclusions might not be good news, but at least Alan would know, and maybe the knowledge would help him re-assert some modicum of control over his life. He sure as hell hadn’t had much lately.

The digital LED display on the desk clock said 7:12 when Axford returned.

“Are you quite ready now?” he said with his haughty air.

“Won’t know for sure until I try.”

“Then let’s try, shall we? I’ve kept my secretary and a few others after hours on your account. I trust you won’t disappoint us.”

Axford led him down an elevator and into the opposite wing of the building, talking all the while.

“A man you shall know only as Mr. K. has agreed to allow you to ‘examine’ him. He knows nothing about you—has never heard of you, never seen your picture in the paper, knows nothing other than the fact that you are another physician who is going to examine him and possibly contribute something to his therapy.

“Pretty much the truth, hmmm?”

Axford nodded. “I don’t lie to people who come here for treatment.”

“But you’re also trying to avoid any hint of placebo effect.”

“Bloody right. And we’ll have the room miked and you’ll be on videotape to make sure you don’t try to sell him on a miracle.”

Alan couldn’t help but smile. “Glad to see you’re taking no chances. What’s the diagnosis?”

“Adeno-CA of the lung, metastatic to the brain.”

Alan winced. “What’s been tried so far?”

“That’s a rather involved story—and here we are.” He put his hand on a doorknob. “I’ll introduce you and leave you alone with him. From then on you’re on your own. But remember—I’ll be watching and listening on the monitor.”

Alan bowed. “Yes, Big Brother.”

Mr. K was tall, very thin, and his color was awful. But his eyes were bright. He sat shirtless and stoop-shouldered on the examining table and showed more empty spaces than teeth when he smiled. He had a two- or three-month-old scar, one inch long, at the base of his throat above the sternal notch—mediastinoscopy, no doubt. Alan also noticed knobby lumps above his right clavicle—lymph nodes swollen with metastasized cancer. Mr. K wheezed at times when he spoke, and he coughed intermittently.

“What kind of doctor are you?”

“A therapist of sorts. How do you feel?”

“Not bad for a dead man.”

The reply startled Alan. So casual, and so accurate. “Pardon?”

“Didn’t they tell you? I got cancer of the lung and it went to my head.”

“But there’s radiation therapy, chemotherapy—”

“Horse shit! No death rays, no poisons! I’ll go out like a man, not some puking wimp.”

“Then what are you doing here at the Foundation?”

“Made a deal with them.” He pulled out a pack of Camels. “Mind if I smoke?”

“After I examine you, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” He put them away. “Anyway, I made a deal: Keep me comfortable and out of pain.” He lowered his voice.

“And grease the chute on the way out when the time comes, if you know what I mean. Do that and I’ll let you study me and the effects of all this cancer. So they’re gonna keep giving me tests to see what happens to my mental function, my moods, my—what they call it? Oh, yeah—motor skills. All that shit. Never did much with my life these last fifty-two years. Figure I can do something on the way out. Man’s gotta be good for something sometime in his life, ain’t he?”

Alan stared at Mr. K. He was either one of the bravest men he had ever met or a complete idiot.

“But you know all this already,” Mr. K said. “Don’t you?”

“I like to find things out on my own. But tell me. If for some reason your tumors just disappeared and you walked out of here a healthy man, what would be the first thing you’d do?”

Mr. K winked at him. “Quit smoking!”

Alan laughed. “Good enough. Let’s take a look at you.”

He placed a hand on each side of Mr. K’s head. There was no waiting. The shocklike ecstasy surged through him. He saw Mr. K’s eyes widen, then they rolled upward as he went into a brief grand mal seizure.

Axford rushed into the room.

“What in bloody hell did you do to him?”

“Healed him,” Alan said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

It was time to wipe that smug, superior look off Axford’s face.

“You son of a bitch!”

“He’s all right.”

“I’m fine,” Mr. K said from the floor. “What happened?”

“You had a seizure,” Axford said.

“If you say so.” He brushed off Axford’s attempt to make him lie still, and got to his feet. “Didn’t feel a thing.”

“Check him out tomorrow,” Alan said, feeling more confident of the Touch than ever before. “He’s cured.”

“Tomorrow, hell!” Axford said, leading Mr. K to the door. “I’m hauling in the on-call techs right now! We’ll see what a chest X-ray and brain CT scan have to say tonight!”

36

Charles

It’s a mistake! It’s got to be!

Charles sat before the light boxes, staring at the chest X-ray. The PA view on his left was two months old; it showed an irregular white blotch in the right hilar area, a mass of cancerous tissue. The view in the middle had been shot a week ago; the mass was larger, with tendrils reaching out into the uninvolved lung tissue, the hilum swollen with enlarged lymph nodes. The third film, to the right, was still warm from the developer.

It was normal. Completely clean. Even the emphysema and fibrosis were gone.

They’re having me on! Charles told himself. They’re pissed at being called in at night so they’ve stuck in a ringer to give me a scare!

He checked the name and date on the third film: Jake Knopf—known to Bulmer as Mr. K—and today’s date were printed in the upper right corner. Then he checked the film again and noticed an irregularity of the left clavicle in the third film—an old fracture that had healed at a sharper-than-normal angle. A glance at the other two studies almost froze his blood—the same clavicle abnormality was in all three!

“Wait a minute now,” he said to himself in a gentle tone. “Just wait a minute. No use getting your knickers in a twist just yet. There’s got to be an explanation.”

“Did you say something, Doctor?” a voice said from behind him.

Charles swiveled his chair around. Two men, one blond, one dark haired, both in white lab coats that were tight across their shoulders, stood inside the door.

“Who are you?”

“We’re your new assistants.”

Assistants, my ass! These two were goons. He recognized one of them from the senator’s personal security team.

“The hell you are. I don’t need any assistants and didn’t ask for any.”

The blond fellow shrugged. “This is where we’ve been assigned. This is where we’ll stay. Personally, I’d rather be out on the town, but the orders came straight from the senator’s office.”

“We’ll see about that.” He jabbed at the intercom. Here he was, faced with the most astounding puzzle of his medical career, and he had to put up with interference from McCready. “Marnie—get me the senator. Now.”

He was glad he had had her stay tonight; it would save him the trouble of tracking McCready down.

“Uh, Dr. Axford?” she said, uncertainly. “He’s already on the line. He called about a minute ago and said you’d be calling him very shortly and he’d hold until you did.”

Despite his anger, Charles had to laugh. That sly bastard!

“He’s on 06,” Marnie said.

“Right.” He picked up the handset.

“I was expecting your call,” McCready said without preamble. “Here’s why I must insist on Henly and Rossi staying with you: You are aware no doubt of Dr. Bulmer’s penchant for publicity; I want to make sure that none of his test results leak out until you are completely finished. I will not have him use the Foundation and some inconclusive data as a springboard to greater heights of notoriety. And I won’t have any of the staff tempted into leaking some of these results to the outside.

“Therefore, Henly and Rossi will be on hand to see that all—and I do mean all—records of Dr. Bulmer’s stay remain locked in your office files until you and the Foundation are ready to issue a statement.”

“You really think all this is necessary?”

“I do. And I ask you to cooperate with me.”

Charles thought a moment. It would be a pain in the ass to have these two characters traipsing around after him, but if all the data were to be confined to his office, where he could have access to it at any time, then how could he object?

“All right. As long as they don’t get in my way.”

“Thank you, Charles. I knew I could count on you. Any results yet?”

“Of course not! I’ve only just begun!”

“Very well. Keep me informed.”

Charles grunted and hung up. He edited Henly and Rossi from his mind and studied the X-rays again. There had to be a mistake there. Somewhere along the line somebody had either screwed up or was trying to make a fool out of him.

He’d find out which, and heads would roll.

Charles just missed Mr. Knopf at the EEG lab.

“He’s on his way to radiology,” the tech told him.

Charles picked up the thick, fan-folded EEG record and spread part of it out on a desk. He felt his mouth go dry as he unfolded more and more of it from the stack.

It was normal. None of the typical irregularities signifying an underlying mass, no hint of a recent grand mal seizure. He had the tech pull out a previous tracing. Yes, all the usual signs of brain tumor had been there. All gone now.

He rushed down to radiology, idly noting Henly and Rossi entering the EEG lab after him and gathering up the tracing he’d been reading.

Knopf was already in the CT scanner. Charles paced the floor in front of the monitor. He was sweating, whether from the extra heat thrown off by the machine or from tension, he didn’t know. The radiologist wouldn’t be in until morning, but that didn’t matter.

Charles could read the scans himself. As the films rolled out of the developer, each with four radiographic cuts of Knopf’s brain, he grabbed them one by one and slapped them up on the view box.

Normal! One after the other: Normal!

He was almost frantic now. This was a nightmare! Things like this just didn’t happen in the real world! Everything had an explanation, a cause and an effect! Primary tumors and their metastases simply didn’t disappear because some balmy faith healer put his hands on a head!

He saw that the red light over the door was out so he rushed into the scanner room. Jake Knopf was sitting on the edge of the roller table.

“What’s up, Doc?” he said. “You look like you need a transfusion.”

I do! Charles thought. Straight vodka!

“Just want to check your neck, Jake.”

“Sure. Check away.”

Charles pressed his fingers above Knopf’s right clavicle where the lymph nodes had been swollen and knotty. They were gone now. The area was clean.

Nausea rose up like a wave. He felt as if his world were coming apart. He lurched away and hurried toward Bulmer’s quarters.

It was true! Knopf was cured! And Bulmer had done it! But how? Jesus H. bloody fucking Christ—!

He cut himself off with a bitter laugh. If Bulmer’s power was possible, then anything was possible. Even Jesus Christ was possible. Better watch his tongue. He might really be up there. Or out there. Or somewhere. Listening.

“Nope,” Bulmer said with a slow, deliberate shake of his head from where he sat by his room window. “Can’t do it.”

“Why the bloody hell not?”

“Too late. It only lasts for an hour and then it’s gone.”

“How convenient.”

“I’ve got no control over it.”

“So when will it be back?”

He glanced at his watch. “Sometime tomorrow morning, probably, but definitely somewhere around eight tomorrow evening.”

Axford sat down on the bed. He suddenly felt exhausted.

“You’re so sure?”

“Been keeping track of it for months.” He indicated a manila envelope.

“Records?” Charles said, feeling his lethargy lift slightly. “You’ve kept records?”

“Sporadically at first, but pretty consistently lately. You want to use them, you can have them. I mean borrow them. I want them back.”

“Of course.” Axford sifted through the contents—there were index cards, scratch pad sheets emblazoned with the logos of various pharmaceutical companies, even prescription blanks with notes jotted on the back. There were a few audio micro-cassettes, too.

“What’s all this?”

“Names, dates, times. Who, what, where, when—when the Hour of Power started and when it ended.”

The Hour of Power—sounded like one of those Sunday-morning gospel shows.

Charles could feel his excitement growing. Here was something he could deal with—dates, times, data! He could work with these. He could understand and toy with and analyze these. But Jake Knopf…

How could he deal with what had happened to Jake Knopf today?

“You haven’t asked about Mr. K.”

“Who?” Bulmer looked genuinely puzzled.

“The chap with the brain metastases. You saw him a few hours ago.”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” Bulmer smiled. “He’s fine, I’m sure. A remarkable ‘spontaneous remission,’ no?”

“You read minds, too?” Charles blurted in surprise. That had been exactly what he had been thinking.

Bulmer’s smile was laconic. “I’ve heard that one a few times before.”

“Right. I’ll bet you have.”

He looked Bulmer in the eye and hesitated before asking the question. The question. Because he was afraid of the answer.

“Is all this for real?”

Bulmer held his gaze. “Yes, Charles. It’s for real.”

“But how, dammit?”

Bulmer went on to tell him about a former Vietnam medic who eventually wound up in the Monroe Community Hospital, where he touched him and died.

A fantastic story, but certainly no more fantastic than Jake Knopf’s remission. He studied Bulmer. The man’s bearing, his laid-back manner, the pile of notes in the envelope, all indicated a sincere man.

But it can’t be!

Charles stood and hefted the envelope.

“I’m going to sift this stuff through the computer and see if any correlations fall out.”

“There’s a definite rhythm to the Touch, but I haven’t been able to figure it out.”

“If it’s there, we’ll find it.”

“Good. That’s why I’m here. You’re going to do a work-up on me, aren’t you?”

“Starts first thing in the morning.”

“Do a good one. The works.”

“I intend to.” He noticed Bulmer’s grim expression. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Because there’s something wrong with me. I don’t know if it’s stress, or if it’s something else, but I can’t seem to remember things the way I used to. I can’t remember even half the people I’ve cured. But I cured them. That I know.”

“Short-term or long-term memory?”

“Mostly short-term, I think. It’s pretty spotty, but there’s definitely something wrong.”

Charles didn’t like the sound of that, but he reserved judgment until he had some data to work with.

“Rest up tonight, because tomorrow and the next day you’re going to be tested like you’ve never been tested before.”

As Charles turned to go, Bulmer said, “You do believe me just a little now, don’t you?”

Charles saw something in his eyes at that moment, a terrible loneliness that touched him despite his desire to prove Alan Bulmer a cheap fraud.

“I don’t believe in believing. I either know or I don’t know. Right now I don’t know.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

Charles hurried out.

It was late, but Charles made the calls anyway.

He had looked through Bulmer’s notes and couldn’t believe that the man would put all this down in black and white. He’d listed dates and times. He named names. He even listed other physicians caring for the patient. If he was a phony, he was either a very naive or a very stupid one. It would be so easy to trace these people and check out their medical records.

But, of course, if Bulmer was completely caught up in a delusional system, he could be expected to record his imagined data rigorously.

Charles couldn’t say exactly why he had looked through Bulmer’s manila envelope before sending it down to data processing, but now that he had, he was compelled to call at least one of the other doctors mentioned within the mess to check out a “cure” Bulmer described.

He picked one at random: Ruth Sanders. Acute lymphocytic leukemia. He called information, found the number of the hematologist Bulmer had listed, and dialed him. After blustering his way past the answering service, he got Dr. Nicholls on the line.

The hematologist was instantly suspicious and very guarded. Rightly so. He did not want to give out privileged information over the phone to a voice he didn’t know. Charles decided to lay his cards on the table.

“Look. I’m at the McCready Foundation. I’ve got someone here who says he cured Ruth Sanders’ leukemia three weeks ago. I’m looking for proof that he’s bonkers. I’ll hang up. You call me back here at the Foundation—that way you’ll know I’m really calling from here—and ask for Dr. Charles Axford. Then give me a few straight answers. I promise you they’ll go no further.”

Charles hung up and waited. The phone rang three minutes later. It was Dr. Nicholls.

“Ruth Sanders’ leukemia is in complete remission at this time,” he said immediately.

“What protocol were you using?”

“None. She had refused further treatment due to side effects.”

“And her peripheral smear is suddenly normal?”

“It happens.”

“What about her bone marrow?”

Dr. Nicholls hesitated. “Normal.”

Charles felt his throat go dry.

“How do you explain that?”

“Spontaneous remission.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

He hung up and pawed through the envelope for more “cures” that listed consultants. He found one that Bulmer apparently wasn’t sure about: a teenage girl with alopecia totalis—bald as a billiard ball when she came and left the office. He called her dermatologist. After going through a similar rigamarole with the consultant, he finally got the man to admit reluctantly:

“Yeah. Her hair’s growing back. Evenly. All over her scalp.”

“Did she tell you about a Dr. Bulmer?”

“She sure did. According to Laurie and her mother, that quack will be raising the dead next.”

“You think he’s a rip-off artist, then?”

“Of course he is! These guys make their reputations on placebo effect and spontaneous remissions. The only thing about this Bulmer character that doesn’t fit in with the usual pattern is his fee.”

“Oh, really?” Charles hadn’t thought about how Bulmer must be cleaning up on these “cures” of his. “What did he take them for?”

“His usual office fee: sixty-five bucks. I couldn’t believe it, but the mother swore that was all he charged. I think you’ve got a real kook on your hands. I think he may really believe he can effect these cures.”

“Could be,” Charles said, feeling very tired. “Thanks.”

With steadily growing alarm, he made five more calls which yielded three more contacts. The story was always the same: complete spontaneous remission.

Finally he could not bring himself to dial another number. Each doctor he had spoken to had had only one encounter with a “Bulmerized” patient and had easily written off the incident as a fluke. But Charles had a sheaf of names and addresses, and so far Bulmer was batting a thousand.

Charles fought off a sudden desire to throw the envelope into his wastepaper basket and follow it with a match. If what Bulmer had said about his failing memory was true, he wouldn’t be able to recall much of the data. It would be gone for good. And then Charles would feel safe.

He smirked at the thought of Charles Axford, the relentless researcher and pursuer of scientific truth, destroying data to save himself from facing the collapse of all his preconceptions, the repudiation of his precious weltanschauung.

A perfectly heinous idea, yet oh, so attractive.

For the events of the day—first Knopf and now these phone calls with the unbroken trail of “spontaneous remissions” they revealed—were making Charles physically ill. He was nauseous from the mental vertigo it caused him.

If he could destroy the data, he was sure he could make himself forget they had ever existed. And then he could once again return his mind to an even intellectual and philosophical keel.

Or maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he would never recover from what he had learned today.

In that case the only thing to do was follow it through.

He looked once more—longingly—at the wastebasket, then stuffed Bulmer’s papers back into the envelope. He was locking them in his office safe when his secretary popped her head in the door.

“Can I go now?”

“Sure, Marnie.” She looked as tired as he felt.

“Need anything before I leave?”

“Do you have any Mylanta?”

“Your stomach bothering you?” she said, her brows knitting together in concern. “You look kind of pale.”

“I’m fine. Something I ate. Crow never did agree with me.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, Marnie. Go home. Thanks for staying.”

How could he tell her or anyone else how he felt? Like being the first astronaut in space looking down from orbit and seeing that the earth was flat.

37

Sylvia

“What’s the matter, Jeffy?”

Sylvia had heard him whimpering in his sleep. As she looked in, she saw him raking at his pajamas and neck. She went over to investigate. He had never shown tendencies toward self-destruction or self-mutilation, but she had read of autistic children who developed them. With the way he was regressing, she feared every change was for the worse.

She pulled his hands away and saw the rising welts on the skin of his neck. Lifting his pajama top, she saw more on his back.

Hives.

There had been nothing new in his diet, and she hadn’t changed her detergent or fabric softener. She could think of only one thing that had been recently added to his intake—his new medicine from the Foundation.

Sylvia slumped on the bed next to Jeffy. She wanted to cry.

Wasn’t anything going to help this child? Jeffy was slowly fading away and there seemed to be nothing she could do other than sit and watch him vanish. She felt so damned helpless! So impotent! It was like being paralyzed. She wanted to do something, anything but cry.

She took a deep breath and settled herself. Crying never solved anything—she’d learned that after Greg’s death.

She phoned Charles at home. His house keeper said he hadn’t returned from the Foundation yet. She called him there.

“You’ll have to stop the medication,” he told her. “Were you seeing any results?”

“No. Too soon to see any change, wouldn’t you think?”

“I suppose. But it’s a moot point now. He could have a more severe reaction with the next dose, so pour the rest down the toilet. And have you got some Benadryl around?”

She ran a mental inventory of the medicine cabinet. “I think so. The liquid.”

“Good. Give him two teaspoons. It’ll stop the itching.”

“Thank you, Charles. Will do.” She paused, then: “How’s Alan?”

His voice sharpened. “Your precious Dr. Bulmer is doing fine. Better than I, for that matter.”

Something odd about his voice…strained…Charles almost never showed emotion. It made her uneasy.

“Something wrong?”

“No.” A tired sigh. “Everything’s fine. We start testing him in the a.m.”

“You won’t hurt him, will you?”

“Jesus, Sylvie, he’ll be fine. Just don’t ask bloody stupid questions, okay?”

“Okay. Pardon me for asking.”

“Sorry, Love. I’m a bit rushed here. I’ll ring you up later to see how the boy’s doing.”

He made some excuse about checking reports and said good-bye, leaving Sylvia standing there, holding the phone. Charles was upset about something and that wasn’t good. But Charles also sounded indecisive…almost unsure of himself. That was unsettling.

She hung up and went to get the Benadryl. The house seemed so empty as she walked down the hall to the medicine cabinet. Alan had been here only three days and nights, but he had filled Toad Hall for her in a way that she had not known since buying the old place. It seemed all the emptier now for his leaving.

After all these years it was so strange to miss somebody.

She had just spooned the antihistamine into Jeffy when the phone rang. Her heart tripped a few beats when she recognized the voice.

“A lonely froggy calling Mrs. Toad.”

“Alan!”

He told her about Mr. K and how he had cured the man, and how Charles had reacted.

“No wonder Charles was acting so strangely!”

“You don’t sound quite yourself tonight, either.”

She didn’t want to burden him with her own problems, but she had to tell him.

“It’s Jeffy. He’s allergic to that new drug.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But look,” he said, and she could hear his voice brighten, “when I get out of here we’ll know all about the Touch. Then will you let me try it on Jeffy?”

She felt every muscle in her body suddenly tighten of its own accord. Was it possible?

“Alan—will it work?”

“I don’t know. Seems to work on everything else. Why not autism?”

God, if I could believe for just a minute, for just a second.

“Sylvia? You still there?”

She took a breath. “Yes, Alan. Still here. Hurry home, will you? Please?”

“I’m on my way!”

She laughed, and that relaxed her a bit. “Wait till they’re finished with you.”

“Good night, Mrs. Toad.”

“Good night, Alan.”

She hung up the phone and went over to Jeffy. She gathered him up in her arms and hugged him close, ignoring his struggles to get free, struggles that were as impersonal as someone in a deep sleep trying to untangle himself from his sheets.

“Oh, Jeffy. Everything’s going to be all right. I can feel it coming.”

And she could. The bitter discouragement of a few moments ago was gone. She wouldn’t let herself get carried away, but she felt that somewhere up around the bend she might catch sight of the light that was supposed to wait at the end of every tunnel.

38

Alan

So this is what it’s like to be a patient.

Alan was into his second full day of testing and he didn’t like it.

Starting at 6:00 a.m. yesterday they had stuck leads to his scalp and attached a box to his belt for a twenty-four-hour EEG by telemetry. They had punctured him and poked at him for the rest of the day. And all without a word of explanation. This morning had started off with hour after hour of written psychological tests.

At least he knew what was going on. But how must a patient feel when everything around him was strange and mysterious and vaguely threatening?

And he was lonely. He missed Sylvia desperately. Just a few days with her and he felt like a new man. To be away from her now was an almost physical pain. But he was doing this as much for her as for himself. If their relationship was to have any sort of future, he had to know what he was getting her into.

And so he would be a patient for a while. And like any patient he was afraid of what these tests would show. It might be just another routine work-up to Axford, but there was nothing routine about the ordeal to Alan. He was seriously concerned about his erratic memory, the gaps that had seemingly been cut out of his life, especially his recent life. That suggested a diagnosis too awful to consider.

Better to have a brain tumor than Alzheimer’s disease. He knew he was out of the usual age range, but the signs were there.

He was now lying on a hard-surfaced table in the Foundation’s radiology department, waiting to be rolled into the maw of a machine that looked like a CT scanner. A young technician wearing a good four pounds of eye makeup approached with a syringe.

“This place even runs full blast on Saturdays?” he said as she swabbed his arm with alcohol.

She spoke around a big wad of chewing gum. “Every day.”

“By the way, I had a CAT scan a few weeks ago.” He remembered the rush of warmth when the contrast material had been infused into his veins.

“This is similar but different,” the girl said nonchalantly. “This here’s a PET scan.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, putting on a pedantic tone. “Positron Emission Tomography.” He was pleased that he had remembered the meaning of the acronym. Maybe his memory wasn’t so bad after all. The technician cocked her head as she looked at him. “Hey. Pretty good. How’d you know that?”

“Read about it in Newsweek. What’s that you’re going to inject into me?”

“Just sugar.”

More than just sugar, Alan knew. FDG—radioactive sugar that would show the most active and least active areas of his brain. He remembered a few articles he’d read in the journals had said that PET scans had demonstrated abnormalities in the brain metabolism of schizophrenics. Is that what Axford was after—proof that he was a grade-four tweety bird?

“Dr. Axford wants you to walk around for a while before you’re scanned,” she said as she withdrew the needle from his vein.

Evidently Axford wanted to see the overall activity of his brain.

And what if he found a schizophrenic pattern on the PET? What if everything Alan had seen and done lately had never happened? What if it was all part of an elaborate delusional system?

No, he wasn’t going to fall into that trap. I’m NOT crazy, he thought. But they all say that, don’t they.

The tests were finally finished and he was sitting in his bare little room on the seventh floor when someone knocked on the door.

It was Mr. K. His color was so much better that Alan didn’t recognize him at first. A suitcase rested on the floor beside him.

“Just came to say good-bye,” he said, thrusting out his hand.

Alan shook it. “Leaving?”

“Yep. Goin’ out for a Saturday afternoon walk and I ain’t coming back. Said they can’t use me anymore ’cause I’m not sick anymore.”

“Did they tell you how your cancer cleared up?” He was curious how Axford & Co. would explain that.

“Said it cleared up by itself. Nocturnal emission or something like that,” he said with a grin and a wink. “But I know what it was and so do you.”

“What?”

He poked a finger at Alan’s chest. “It was you. You did it. I don’t know how, but you did it. Only explanation I can think of is you’re an angel or something sent down by God to give me another chance. Well, I’m taking it! I screwed up the first time around, but I ain’t screwin’ up again!”

Sudden tears flooded Mr. K’s eyes. Obviously embarrassed, he pulled something from his pocket and thrust it into Alan’s hand. It crinkled.

“Here. Take these. I won’t be needing them.”

Thinking it was money, Alan began to protest. Then he saw that it was a half-empty pack of Camels.

“Good-bye,” said Mr. K, averting his face as he picked up his suitcase and hurried off.

Alan went to throw the cigarettes into the wastebasket, but stopped in midstride and stared at the crumpled pack. He decided to keep it. Every time he had his doubts about the reality of what he was experiencing, he’d take it out and use it as a reminder of Mr. K’s “nocturnal emission.”

39

Charles

“This everything?”

Henly nodded as he placed the last printout on Charles’s desk. “Every last bit.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re paid to be thorough.”

Charles had to admit that McCready’s two goons were extremely thorough. They had dogged Bulmer’s progress from department to department for the past two days, gathering up each scrap of data as it was produced and tucking it away for Charles’s eyes only.

For two days now he had suppressed the gnawing desire to scan each test result as it came in, afraid that he would prejudice himself by forming a hasty diagnosis. He wanted to see the whole picture at once.

“You waiting for something?” he asked Henly and Rossi as they stood across the desk from him.

“Yeah,” Rossi said. “We’re waiting for you to put that stuff in the safe.”

“I want to look at it.”

“Everything’s on the computer, Doc. Filed under your access code. We’re not supposed to leave until all that stuff’s locked away.”

“Forget it,” Charles said, his annoyance rising. “I like to see the originals.”

“Give us a break, Doc,” Henly said, agitatedly running a hand through his blond hair. “It’s Saturday night and the women are waitin’. Lock up the safe and we’re gone. What you do after that ain’t our problem.”

Charles sighed. “Anything to speed you on your way.”

He went to the wall safe, tapped in the code, and shoved all the papers inside. After slamming it shut and pressing the clear button, he turned back to the two security men.

“Happy?”

“‘Night, Doc,” they said in unison, and they were gone.

Charles seated himself before his computer terminal and found a three-by-five index card taped to the screen. It read:

All data from Bulmer notes and cassettes entered into memory as “Hour of Power,” your access only.

He stared at the dull, lifeless surface of the screen, almost afraid to turn it on, afraid that he would find no explanation for the incredible phenomena Bulmer had left in his wake for the past few months.

But he had to start sometime, somewhere, and Bulmer’s notes seemed as good a place as any. He flipped on the power and entered his access code when prompted. He went first to the data Alan had given him and had the computer list it sequentially.

It was a mess. He scrolled through, noting that times would be recorded for three consecutive days, then a gap of two days with no data, then four days with times, then three without. He could see no pattern. It looked completely random, chaotic.

He entered:

correlate with all known human biorhythms

No sound of a whirring hard drive because they were all in the Cray supercomputer on the third floor. The answer flashed on the screen with a beep:

NO CORRELATION

Charles typed:

correlate to memory.

That would initiate a search through the Cray’s entire memory bank, one of the most complete bioscience databases in the world. It was a longer wait, but finally came the beep:

NO CORRELATION

This was looking like a dead end, but for the hell of it, Charles decided to let the computer search the Internet for an answer:

correlate rhythm with all other accessible databases

PROCESSING flashed on the screen.

This search would take considerable time, so while that was going on, he cleared the screen and prepared to find out what there was to know about Dr. Alan Bulmer. He decided to start with the basics, so he cued up Bulmer’s blood profile.

The metabolic, lipids, and thyroid panel were all normal, as was the CBC. For the hell of it, he had ordered a drug screen. He checked that:

Test

Abnormal

Normal Units

ALCOHOL, ETHYL

0

mg/dl

10–50

mg/dl: NO INFLUENCE

50–100

mg/dl: SL. INFLUENCE

100–150

mg/dl: MOD. INFLUENCE

150–200

mg/dl: MOD. POISONING

200–250

mg/dl: SEVERE POISONING

350–400

mg/dl: DEEP COMA

AMPHETAMINE

NONE DETECTED

METHAMPHETAMINE

NONE DETECTED

PHENOBARB

NONE DETECTED

SCOBARB

NONE DETECTED

DORIDEN

NONE DETECTED

QUININE

NONE DETECTED

MORPHINE

NONE DETECTED

METHADONE

NONE DETECTED

PHENOTHIAZINE

NONE DETECTED

CODEINE

NONE DETECTED

COCAINE

NONE DETECTED

DILAUDID

NONE DETECTED

AMOBARB

NONE DETECTED

DARVON

NONE DETECTED

DILANTIN

NONE DETECTED

As expected, no abusable substances were floating around in his blood or urine.

So far so good. His cardiogram and chest X-ray were normal too. Next he cued up Bulmer’s MRI scan from Downstate and reviewed the series of computer-generated slices of the brain at various levels with and without contrast: no infarcts or masses evident anywhere. The CT studies done here were negative as well.

So Bulmer didn’t have a brain tumor and hadn’t had any previous strokes. No surprise. He moved on to see what his brain-waves looked like.

An edited version of Bulmer’s twenty-four-hour EEG from yesterday scrolled horizontally across the screen. The computer presented a good sample of the six parallel zigzag lines that formed the basic electrical pattern of his brain, then edited that particular pattern out of the rest of the record, leaving only irregularities and significant variations for review.

Charles noticed immediately that the basic pattern was diffusely abnormal. Nothing terribly specific, but the background activity was disorganized, showing generalized slowing.

That puzzled Charles. This was not the type of EEG he would associate with an active professional pushing forty. It was a senile old man’s.

He scrolled on. The first variation showed around 7:15 a.m., when an undulating pattern began to appear, barely noticeable at first, but growing more pronounced with every passing minute. It wasn’t confined to any one section of the brain, but affected all the leads, causing the lines to glide up and down. The undulation was most pronounced at 7:45, after which the magnitude of each wave began to slacken off, finally disappearing at 8:16.

Charles leaned back and chewed his lip. Odd. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anything like that before. He shrugged it off. Probably some transient electrical disturbance in the telemetry. He scrolled on, finding nothing until 7:37 p.m. last night, when the same pattern repeated itself, peaking shortly after 8:00 and disappearing by 8:35.

Doubly odd. Two apparent artifacts, both identical, approximately twelve and a half hours apart, each lasting an hour.

The Hour of Power.

A tingle ran up Charles’ back.

He shook himself. This was ridiculous. It was just an artifact—a unique one, he’d grant that, but a mere artifact nonetheless.

He cleared the screen, cued up Bulmer’s PET scan, and gasped. The EEG had been unsettling, but this was outright shocking. He ran through a number of slices on the PET, then flashed back to the CT scan and MRI. Those were definitely normal, with normal ventricles and sulci and no sign of impaired circulation in any area of the brain. Back to the PET scan—grossly abnormal. The FDG injected into Bulmer had not been taken up by his brain cells in the usual way. The CT scan showed that nothing was stopping the glucose from getting there, but in the PET, the yellow and orange areas of active brain were markedly reduced, while other areas of the scan were dark, showing no uptake at all. The neurons there weren’t working.

Which meant that areas of Bulmer’s brain were not functioning.

Charles’s mind whirled in confusion. He had seen PET scans with similar abnormalities before, but not in a brain so perfectly normal in anatomy and vasculature.

The computer beeped and flashed in the lower left corner of the screen:

SEARCH COMPLETED—0.95 CORRELATION FOUND

Charles quickly cleared the screen and typed:

list correlation

The computer beeped and wrote:

SOURCE: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DATABASE. CORRELATION: TIME COORDINATES OF ALL DATA ENTERED APPROXIMATE TIME OF HIGH TIDE IN LONG ISLAND SOUND OFF GLEN COVE, NY. COMMENCING APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES BEFORE HIGH TIDE AND CEASING APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES AFTER.

Charles slumped back in his chair. Well, he had wanted to identify the rhythm of Bulmer’s so-called Hour of Power, and here it was. The oldest rhythm in the world.

The tide.

It gave him the creeps.

He stood and walked around his desk and back again to relieve the tension that had begun to grip his muscles. He remembered the two sine-wave artifacts that had risen and fallen about twelve hours apart. Didn’t the tide rise and fall twice a day, about twelve hours apart? He rechecked the tracings on the screen and jotted down the time each artifact appeared and disappeared—7:15 a.m. to 8:16 a.m. and 7:37 p.m. to 8:35 p.m. If the artifact represented Bulmer’s Hour of Power, and it was linked to the rise and fall of the tide, then high tide should occur right in the bloody middle of those two periods. He figured the midpoints, then sat down at the terminal again.

CORRELATE WITH HIGH TIDE IN LONG ISLAND SOUND OFF GLEN COVE JULY 11: 7:45 A.M. AND 8:06 P.M. REFER TO N.W.S. DATABASE

The computer beeped almost immediately.

0.35 CORRELATION

Damn! If that had correlated, he’d have had something concrete to go on.

Wait. Bulmer hadn’t been near Long Island Sound when the tracing was made. He’d been here, on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The East River was the nearest body of water.

Charles leaped to the keyboard.

CORRELATE WITH HIGH TIDE IN THE EAST RIVER JULY 11: 7:45 A.M. AND 8:06 P.M. REFER TO N.W.S. DATABASE

An instant beep:

0.97 CORRELATION

Got it!

But exactly what did he have?

40

Alan

Alan felt his heart throw a few premature beats when he answered the knock on his door and saw Axford standing there.

This is it, he thought.

Axford had a bottle in one hand and a sheaf of papers under his other arm. He looked like he’d already sampled the bottle a couple of times before his arrival.

“Is this a party?” Alan said, stepping back to let him in. “Or a wake?”

“Get some glasses,” Charles said gruffly. “This is good stuff even if you don’t like bourbon.”

He poured an inch or so into each of the two plastic cups Alan got from the bathroom and they tossed it off together.

“Smooth. What’s the brand?”

“Maker’s Mark,” Axford said. “Have some more.” He quickly poured another shot, but Alan didn’t drink.

“Well?” Alan said, forcing himself to ask the question that had made the last two days a living nightmare. He had envisioned himself slowly deteriorating over the next few years until he became a drooling vegetable sitting in a pool of his own excrement. “Do I have Alzheimer’s disease or don’t I?”

Axford emptied his glass and walked over to the window.

“You know something, Bulmer? Sometimes I have to wonder about myself. I’d have found it so much easier to tell you you’ve got Alzheimer’s than what I really have to say. Some kind of bloody bastard, what?”

“I’ll tell you something, Axford,” Alan said, allowing his rancor to rise to the surface. “You’ve got the bedside manner of Attila the Hun! What did you find?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” He knew he was shouting, but he couldn’t help it. “All those tests—”

“—reveal something I can’t explain.”

Alan sat down on the bed and sipped at his glass. “So there is something after all.”

“Your memory changes are similar to the Alzheimer pattern, but as you know, the way things stand now, the only way to make a definitive diagnosis is at autopsy.”

Alan couldn’t help but smile. “I signed a lot of consents, but I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

Axford’s face was completely deadpan as he looked at Alan. “You did. You just don’t remember. It’s scheduled for nine a.m. tomorrow.”

“Not funny.”

“But seriously: We can make a pretty good presumptive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s clinically and radiographically without cutting into your brain and finding some neurofibrillary tangles.”

Alan realized that Axford was speaking to him as he might to a layman, probably not sure of how much Alan had retained about the disease. Alan himself didn’t know what he knew or had forgotten, so he let Axford go on.

“Clinically you might be suspected of having a case, but your scans show none of the usual stigmata—no cerebral atrophy or ventricular dilation, no widening of the sulci.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Your PET scan, on the other hand, is markedly abnormal. Areas of the cortex and hippocampus have shut down, showing no metabolism—a classic picture of the advanced Alzheimer brain.”

Alan’s insides knotted. “Well, is it or isn’t it?”

“I can’t say. If you have Alzheimer’s, you don’t have any form I’ve ever seen.”

Alan held out his cup for more bourbon. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Do you think it’s the Touch that’s doing it to me?”

Axford shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know much, do you?” Alan snapped.

“We know what rhythm your Hour of Power follows.”

Alan felt his spine stiffen. “I’m listening.”

“It comes and goes with high tide.”

It was like a punch in the gut. “High tide?”

Axford nodded.

Feeling shaky, Alan got up and took his turn at the window, looking down at Park Avenue below, barely hearing Axford talk about a periodic disturbance in his EEG.

High tide! God! Why hadn’t he seen it? The clues were all there—t he way the power traveled around the clock, coming an hour or so later every day. It was so obvious once it was pointed out. If he’d only known! It would have been so easy to work with it. All he’d have needed was a tide chart. If he’d had one in his pocket at the Board of Trustees hearing, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

But the tide controlling the waxing and waning of the Touch. It had such an elemental feel to it, hinting at something extraordinarily ancient at work.

He turned to Axford as a thought occurred to him.

“You realize, don’t you, that you’ve just so much as admitted that the Touch exists.”

Axford had dispensed with his cup and was now taking pulls straight from the bottle. His voice was slurred.

“I don’t admit a bloody damned thing. Not yet. But I do want to do a repeat PET scan on you tomorrow. Confirm those dead areas.”

Alan wanted to confirm those areas, too.

“Fine. I’ll be here.” He watched as Axford walked unsteadily for the door. “You’re not driving, are you?”

“Hell, no. Only a bloody idiot would keep a bloody car in this bloody city!”

He slammed the door behind him, leaving Alan alone with the prospect of trying to find sleep while thinking about dead areas in his brain.

41

Charles

“I’ll be damned!” he said aloud as he looked at the computer analysis of the repeat PET scan.

It was still grossly abnormal, but the computer said that the glucose uptake had increased over the past twenty-four hours as compared to Saturday’s scan. The improvement wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but the computer saw it, and that was good enough for Charles.

And good news for Bulmer, although it didn’t bring Charles any closer to a diagnosis.

He now spread out the new two-hour EEG on his desktop. Despite the cotton mouth and pounding headache from too much bourbon last night, he’d managed to remember to pick up a tide chart for the East River on his way to the Foundation this morning. When he had seen that high tide was due at 9:17 a.m., he had ordered a stat EEG on Bulmer at 8:30.

And here before him on paper was the same sine-wave configuration that had appeared on the longer EEG two days ago, rising approximately thirty minutes before high tide at 8:46 and ending at 9:46.

He took a certain perverse satisfaction in his newfound ability to predict the occurrence of something he had been absolutely sure did not exist.

His private line buzzed. He picked it up, wondering who would be calling him here on a Sunday morning.

He recognized the senator’s hoarse voice immediately.

“Why haven’t I seen a report yet?”

“And a very good morning to you, too, Senator. I’ll be finishing up testing today.”

“You’ve done enough tests! The Knopf case is proof enough for me.”

“Maybe so, but it explains nothing.”

“I don’t care about explanations. Can you deny that he has a healing power? Can you?”

“No.” It killed him to admit that.

“Then that does it! I want you to—”

“Senator,” Charles said sharply. He had to put McCready off for a little while longer. He couldn’t let Bulmer go just yet. “This power, or what ever it is that he has, works sporadically. By tonight I’ll have the exact pattern of its occurrence confirmed. With that nailed down we can predict to the minute when it’s operating. Until we do that, we’ll just be fumbling around in the dark. One more day. That’s all. I promise.”

“Very well,” McCready said with obvious reluctance. “But I’ve waited a long time.”

“I know. Tomorrow morning for sure.”

Charles hung up and stared at Bulmer’s EEG without seeing it. The report McCready was looking for had already been dictated, and tomorrow Marnie would type it into the main computer’s word processor. But Charles hadn’t mentioned that, because he knew the senator was not really after a report.

He was after a cure.

McCready wanted Alan Bulmer to touch him and make his myasthenia gravis go away. So he was becoming more anxious, more impatient, and more demanding than usual. And why shouldn’t he? If he was going to restore Bulmer’s reputation and credibility as a physician, he had a right to a touch.

But in order to give Bulmer back his credibility, he needed Charles Axford’s signature on the report stating that Dr. Alan Bulmer could indeed, at the right time of day, cure the incurable with a simple touch of his hand. Charles, however, needed one last bit of proof, one final shred of irrefutable evidence before he would sign.

He intended to acquire that proof tonight, sometime after 9:00. But first he wanted a tête-à-tête with Bulmer.

“So that’s the Hour of Power, ay?” Bulmer said, looking down at the sine waves flowing through the EEG laid out on his bed.

“If you want to call it that.”

Bulmer looked at him. “You never give in, do you?”

“Not often.”

“And you say my PET scan is better?”

“Minimally, yes.”

“Then I might as well get out of here.”

“No!” Charles said, a bit more quickly and loudly than he would have liked. “Not yet. I just want to hook you up to the EEG tonight and have you use your so-called power on a patient while we’re recording.”

Bulmer frowned, looking distracted.

“Are you all right?” Charles said.

Bulmer shrugged. “Something bad happened today. I felt it around midday. Don’t ask me what it is, I don’t know. But…” He shrugged again. “Maybe this place is getting on my nerves. I’m bored out of my mind.”

“You’ve come this far. What difference is another twenty-four hours going to make?”

Alan shook his head again. “Do you know how many times I’ve said those exact words to inpatients with hospitalitis? Thousands!” He sighed. “Okay. One more day and then I’m out of here.”

“Right.” Charles turned at the door. He didn’t want to ask this question, but he needed the answer. “By the way, how do you make this bloody power work?”

“What power?” Bulmer said with a smile. “The one that doesn’t exist?”

“Yes. That one.”

He scratched his head. “I don’t really know. When the hour’s on, I just put my hand on the person and sort of…will it.”

“Just touching them in passing’s not enough?”

“No. Many times I’ve done a physical on someone—ENT, heart, lungs, blood pressure, and so on—and nothing’s happened. Then I’ve found something, wished it gone and”—he shrugged—“it goes.”

Charles saw the light in Bulmer’s eyes and realized for the first time that the man was a true healer, power or no power. Charles knew plenty of physicians who loved the practice of medicine—ferreting out the cause of a problem and then eliminating it. Bulmer was that sort, too, but Charles had come to see that he had another, almost mystical dimension. He wanted to heal. Not merely to stamp out the disease, but to make a person whole again, and he was bloody damned elated when he could. You could be taught to do the first; you had to be born to do the second.

And damned if he wasn’t starting to like the man.

“Do you have to know the diagnosis?”

“I don’t know. I usually know because I talk to them and examine them.” He cocked an eyebrow toward Charles. “Just like a real doctor.”

“Do you feel anything when it happens?”

“Yeah.” His eyes got a faraway look. “I’ve never shot dope or snorted cocaine, but it must be something like that.”

“That good?”

“Great.”

“And the patients? Do they all have seizures?”

“No. Mr. K probably had his because all of a sudden his brain metastases were gone and that triggered something. A lot of them seem to feel a brief pain in the target organ, but he’s the only one ever to seizure on me. Why the interest all of a sudden?”

Charles started for the door again and did not look back. “Just curious.”

Since it was Sunday night and there were no technicians around, he had brought the EEG telemetry set to Bulmer’s room and hooked him up himself. Just as well. He didn’t want an audience tonight. The leads were now fastened to his scalp and the telemetry pack hooked to his belt. Charles flicked the switch and started transmission.

He checked his watch: 9:05. High tide was scheduled for 9:32. The Hour of Power had begun and it was time for Charles to perform the most difficult task of his life.

“I want you to meet someone.”

He went to the door and motioned Julie in from where she had been waiting.

“Dr. Bulmer,” he said as she stepped into the room, “I’d like to introduce my daughter, Julie.”

A look of confusion passed over Bulmer’s face, then he stepped up to Julie, smiled, and shook her hand.

“Hello, Ms. Axford!” he said with a bow. “Do come in.”

Julie threw Charles an uncertain look but he smiled and motioned her forward. He had warned her that the man would have wires on his head, but had said nothing else beyond the fact that they were going to meet a man he knew. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything more than that, couldn’t risk allowing the slightest glimmer of hope to glow in her when he didn’t dare hope himself.

Bulmer made a big fuss over Julie, seating her in his chair, finding her a Pepsi in his little refrigerator.

“I can only have two ounces,” she told him.

He paused and then nodded. “Then that’s all you shall have.”

He turned on the telly for her, and as she turned her attention to a situation comedy, Alan turned to Charles.

“When’s her next dialysis?”

Charles was speechless for a few seconds. “Did Sylvie tell you?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t even know you were a father. I saw how pale she was, the puffiness around her eyes, and then I spotted the fistula when her cuff slipped up. Care to tell me about it?”

Charles made the long story short—chronic atrophic pyelonephritis due to congenital ureteral atresia, a contracted bladder, donor rejection, high cytotoxic antibody titers.

“Poor kid,” Bulmer said, and there was genuine feeling in his eyes. But not all of it seemed to be for Julie.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Charles asked.

Bulmer tapped his forehead. “I can imagine what it cost you up here to bring her to me.”

He went over and talked to Julie, gradually drawing her away from the telly. She responded to him, and soon she was babbling on and on about her dialysis treatments and how she measured her daily fluids and took her dozens of pills. Charles found himself responding to Bulmer, almost wishing, despite his abhorrence of the very thought of being in private practice, that he had his knack with people.

Suddenly Bulmer grasped both of Julie’s shoulders and closed his eyes for a second. He shuddered and Julie gave a little cry of pain.

Charles leaped toward her. “What’s wrong?”

“My back!”

He could feel his teeth baring as he turned toward Bulmer. “What did you do to her?”

“I think she’ll be all right now.”

“I’m okay, Daddy,” Julie said. “He didn’t touch my back. It just started to hurt.”

Not knowing what to think, Charles hugged Julie to him.

“You’re pretty lucky with your timing, you know,” Bulmer said.

“What do you mean?”

“Bringing her here during the Hour of Power.”

“It wasn’t luck. I used the tide chart.”

Bulmer looked at him as if he were crazy. “Tide chart? What’s that got to do with it?”

“It’s high tide now. That’s what brings on your so-called Hour of Power.”

“It does? When did you find that out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Charles felt a cool lump of dread settle on the back of his neck. “You don’t remember me telling you?”

“Of course not! You never did!”

Charles had no intention of arguing with him. He called radiology and ordered a repeat PET scan in the morning, top priority. He had a dreadful suspicion as to the cause of Bulmer’s cognitive deficits and abnormal scans.

But right now he wanted to get Julie home. It was time for her dialysis.

They said good-bye to the slightly confused Alan Bulmer and headed for the elevator. He let Julie press all the buttons, and she seemed as happy as a clam until they were about halfway to the ground floor. Suddenly she leaned forward and bent her knees, jamming her thighs together.

“Oh, Daddy, it hurts!”

Alarmed, he crouched beside her. “Where?”

“Down there!” she cried, pointing toward her pubic region. Then she was sobbing. “And it’s all wet!”

He looked and saw the wet stain spreading down her thighs, turning her jeans a darker shade of blue. The air within the elevator car filled with the unmistakable ammonia odor of the urine that was pouring out of a child who hadn’t produced more than an ounce a week for years, pouring into a bladder that had forgotten how to hold it.

Charles hugged his daughter against him as his chest threatened to explode. He closed his eyes in a futile attempt to muffle the sobs that racked his body from head to toe, and to hold back the tears that streamed down his cheeks.

42

Alan

“When can we expect you?” Sylvia’s voice said from the phone.

Alan longed to be with her on this sunny Monday morning. Now that his stay at the Foundation was nearly over, every extra minute here seemed like an eternity. He wished she were stretched out beside him on the bed right now.

“In a few hours.”

“In time for dinner?”

“I sure hope so. The food here isn’t bad, but institutional food is institutional food. After dinner I’ll see what I can do for Jeffy.”

There was a pause on the other end, then: “Are you sure he’ll be all right?”

“Can he be any worse?”

“Not much.” Her voice suddenly brightened. “Anyway, it’ll be nice to have a doctor around the house again.”

“Not for long. I’ll move into a motel and start getting the insurance straightened out on the house and get construction going on a new place.”

“Alan Bulmer! You are staying here with me, and that’s final!”

Her words warmed him. This was what he had wanted her to say, but he still felt compelled to put up a show of resistance.

“What will the neighbors say?”

“Who cares? What can either of us do to make our reputations any worse?”

“Good point, Mrs. Toad. I’ll see you later.” If I can remember how to get back to Monroe.

As Alan hung up, he glanced down at the morning headlines screaming about some bizarre occurrence near the Central Park turtle pond yesterday. Was that what had so disturbed him?

Then Axford walked in without knocking. He took three paces in from the doorway and stood there, staring at Alan. His face was pale and lined and haggard. He looked physically and emotionally exhausted.

“Her BUN is down to twenty-six,” he said in a flat voice. “Her creatinine is down to two-point-seven. Both are still dropping. We spent most of the night running back and forth to the loo until about four a.m., when her sphincters started toning up and her bladder started stretching.” His voice quavered and Alan could see the muscles of his throat working. “Her renal sonogram shows both kidneys have enlarged since her previous study, and a renal-flow scan shows normal function.”

Alan was completely baffled. “Charles, is something wrong?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep, tremulous breath. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. Then he looked at Alan again.

“What ever you want that I have or can get for you is yours. Just say the word. My right hand? I’ll cut it off. My balls? Say the word.”

Alan laughed. “Just get me out of here! And tell me what the hell you’re talking about!”

Axford’s eyes widened. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Oh, Christ! I—” He glanced over at the chair. “Can I sit down?”

Once he was seated, he faced Alan squarely and leaned forward. He seemed more in control of himself now and started to speak in low, measured tones.

Charles told Alan how he had cured Julie, Charles’ daughter, of her chronic renal failure last night. And with each word Alan felt a terrible sick feeling grow within him, because he did not remember seeing Charles since yesterday afternoon, and didn’t remember ever knowing that he had a daughter.

“All this leads to what I’m about to say, which is going to be tough for you to hear. But you’ve got to know and you’ve got to do something about it.”

Charles paused, then said:

“You’ve got to stop using the Touch.”

“What?”

“It could kill you.”

Alan’s mind whirled. How could something that healed kill him?

“I don’t understand.”

“That repeat PET scan you had this morning—it shows a significant increase in the nonfunctional areas of your brain.”

“And you think there’s a connection?”

“I’m sure of it. Look: You say your memory has deteriorated during the past few months. The Touch started a few months ago. Your baseline PET scan was abnormal and consistent with Alzheimer’s. After a couple of days of not using the power, your PET scan improved and so did your mental function. Then you used the Touch last night and suddenly forgot that the Hour of Power coincides with high tide.”

“It does?” It was news to Alan.

Charles ran a hand over his eyes. “This is worse than I thought. We discussed it Saturday, and again last night. I even showed you an EEG of yours that demonstrated it.”

“Jesus.” He felt sick.

“Right. Bloody damn Jesus. So with your short-term memory all shot to bloody hell, and your PET scan this morning significantly worse than yesterday morning’s, there’s only one conclusion I can come to. How about you?”

Alan sat in numb silence for a moment, then: “My brain’s shutting down.”

“Not by itself it isn’t, mate. Bit by bit, a little piece of who you are and what you are gets eaten up by this power every time you use it.”

“But you just said my second scan was better.”

“Right. By not using the power, your brain function improved an infinitesimal degree. By using the power once—and remember it or not, you cured the most precious person in the world to me last night—you knocked out a grossly appreciable area of your brain.”

Alan jumped to his feet and paced, his heart pounding, his stomach in a knot. He didn’t want to believe what he had heard.

“You’re sure of this?”

“It’s all there on the scans. It comes down to the ratio of a centimeter forward over a period of two days to a meter backward in an instant.”

“But if I’m really careful, I can rest up, so to speak, and use the Touch judiciously.”

He was grasping at straws, he knew, but he was desperate. He kept thinking of the people who needed that power to live. He thought of Jeffy. He couldn’t possibly say no after he had promised Sylvia.

“You ever play Russian roulette?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, it’s the same thing. You’ve already damaged lots of nonvital parts of your brain. But what happens if you knock out the basal ganglia, or the motor cortex, or the limbic system, or the respiratory center? Where does that leave you?”

Alan didn’t reply. They both knew the answer: Parkinsonism, paralysis, psychosis, or death. Some choice.

“One more thing I should warn you about,” Axford said. “Senator McCready will be expecting to have a meeting with you tonight.”

“Tonight? Why tonight? I expect to be gone by then.”

“He has myasthenia gravis, if you get my drift.”

Alan got the drift. “Oh.”

“Right. It’s a decision you’ll have to make when the time comes. But I wanted to be sure you knew all the risks.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” He smiled at a grim thought. “Maybe I should write all this down. I might not remember it an hour from now. But no matter what the risk, there’s one person who’s got to get a dose of the Touch.”

“Who?”

“Jeffy.”

Charles nodded. “That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?”

He stood and thrust out his hand. “I’ll send you a copy of my report. But in case I don’t see you before you go, remember: You have a friend for life, Alan Bulmer.”

When he was gone, Alan lay back on the bed and reviewed all Charles had told him. It still seemed clear to him. His retention seemed good at the moment. But knowing that there were pieces of his memory missing—maybe permanently—terrified him. For what was anyone but a sum of their memories? Where he had been, the things he had done, why he had done them: They all made him Alan Bulmer. Without them he was a cipher, a tabula rasa, a newborn.

Alan shuddered. He had made his share of mistakes, but he liked who he was. He didn’t want to be erased. He wanted to remain Alan Bulmer.

But what of the senator? If McCready could save his reputation and tell the world that Dr. Alan Bulmer was not a charlatan or a nut, then Alan would owe him. And he would pay that debt.

But Jeffy came first. Nothing would stop him from putting the Touch to work on Jeffy. And if the senator wanted to give it a try after that, fine. But Jeffy came first.

After all that was settled up, maybe it would be time for him to go away with Sylvia and Jeffy for a while to recharge the batteries. When he returned, he’d get his life in order, get everything into perspective, and try to get back into a regular practice. And maybe save the Dat-tay-vao for rare cases of dire need.

One thing was certain: He would not allow himself to fall into the rut that had put such distance between Ginny and him.

No, sir. Alan Bulmer was going to learn to say no once in a while.

43

Charles

“Dr. Axford!” Marnie said, running up to him as he entered the corridor. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

She looked positively frazzled. “What’s up, Love?”

“Those two new assistants of yours came down to your office and just about emptied your safe!”

“What? Did you call security?”

“They were wearing security uniforms!”

Baffled and alarmed, Charles hurried to his office. He found the safe closed and locked.

“They had the combination,” Marnie said in response to his look. “And they were neat. Seemed to know exactly what they wanted.”

“I didn’t have any money in there,” Charles said to himself as he tapped in the combination. “What on earth did they—?”

His question was answered as soon as he opened the door. All the Bulmer data were missing. This didn’t make sense.

“Call the senator for me.”

“I was about to suggest that, since he’s the one who sent them down.”

A shock ran through Charles. “The senator?”

“Sure. He called first thing this morning. When I told him you weren’t in yet, he said that was just as well and that he was sending Henly and Rossi down to pick up some papers from your office. I had no idea he meant from your safe. I’m sorry about this…I didn’t know how to stop them.”

“It’s okay, Marnie.”

“Oh, and one more thing,” she said as she tapped at the phone buttons. “The senator said to compliment you on your report. But I just typed it in this morning.”

Charles felt his intestines knot. He quickly depressed the cradle arm on Marnie’s phone.

“Cue it up for me,” he said, and directed her to her monitor. “How did you file it?”

“I named it Bulmerrep.”

Try as she might, she could find no trace of the report.

“It’s been erased,” she said. “I swear I typed it in.”

“Don’t worry, Love,” Charles said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder and hiding the turmoil within him. “Nothing’s perfect. Not even a computer. By the way, did you see which way Henly and Rossi went?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I followed them all the way to the elevators trying to find out what was going on and I noticed that they went down. I was a little puzzled ’cause I figured they’d head for the senator’s office.”

“Did you happen to notice where they stopped?”

“Yes. One stop down—the ninth floor.”

“Right. You sit tight here and I’ll go have a talk with the senator.”

Charles hurried toward the fire stairs. But he headed down, not up. The events of the morning had suddenly taken on a sinister tinge, but he was sure it was just his own mind creating melodrama out of a series of incidents that no doubt had a simple, rational explanation. He couldn’t imagine what that explanation might be, but he did know that he wanted his data back. The ninth floor was the central records section. If Henly and Rossi were storing the data there, he would see what he could do to unstore it, and then pay a little visit to McCready and find out what in bloody hell was going on!

He was storming along the main corridor on the ninth floor when he spied a familiar profile through a magazine-sized window in a door. He stepped back and looked inside.

Henly and Rossi were calmly running a stack of papers—much of it EEG tracings that he recognized as Alan Bulmer’s—through a shredder. Charles’ first impulse was to burst in, but he backed away and forced himself to walk down the hall the way he had come. Little to be gained by confronting the two security men—most of the data was already confetti, anyway—but he might well learn a lot by pretending he knew nothing more than what Marnie had told him.

He was sure now that it wasn’t his imagination. Something nasty was going on.

He could understand the senator’s anxiety to read the report and saw nothing wrong with his dipping into the word-processing files for a sneak preview. But he wasn’t just gathering up data—he was destroying it.

Why?

At least all the data was still available to Charles in the main computer.

Or was it?

He fairly ran back to his office and keyed in his access code to retrieve the Bulmer data.

FILE NOT IN MEMORY

A chill rippled over him. It was almost as if someone were trying to eradicate every trace of Alan Bulmer from the Foundation’s records.

Again—why?

Only one man could answer that question.

Charles headed for the elevator.

“Charles!” the senator rasped from behind the desk as Charles entered his office. “I was expecting you.”

“I’m sure you were.”

“Sit down.”

“I’d rather stand.” Charles found he could best hide his uneasiness over the last hour’s events by acting properly angry.

“Now, now,” the senator said with a friendly chuckle. “I know you’re upset, and with good reason. But I had to get those records to a safer place. You’ll forgive me a little paranoia, won’t you?”

Charles went cold at the lie. “They’re in a safer place than my safe?”

“Oh, yes! I have them in my own ultra-secure hidey-hole where I keep very sensitive documents. The Bulmer data are there.”

“I see.”

Charles could almost admire the smoothness of the senator’s line. Beautifully done, even down to that cute, folksy, hidey-hole bit.

But the bloody damn why of it all still plagued him. He suppressed the urge to call the senator out on his lies and wring the truth out of him. That would be futile. Besides, he had just thought of another avenue of approach.

“So,” McCready said in a conciliatory tone, “are we still friends?”

“We were never friends, Senator. And let me warn you: I’m changing the combination to my safe, and if it’s ever even touched by one of your stooges, you’ll be looking for a new director.”

With that, he strode from the senator’s office and hurried for his own.

Charles sat in his locked office and punched Senator McCready’s access code into his computer terminal.

He had seen the senator use it on occasion when they had to call up his personal medical file. For some reason—perhaps because the senator knew everyone’s code and no one knew his—Charles had memorized it.

He now ran through all the files keyed exclusively to the senator’s code.

He found the missing Bulmer data. Everything regarding Bulmer that had been keyed to Charles’ access had been transferred to the senator’s exclusive access. Most of the rest was pure rubbish—McCready’s most recent medical test results, notes, memos. Charles came across a public opinion projection done by the computer and was about to move on when he spotted the word “healed” in the center of a paragraph. He read it through.

The projection exhaustively covered the effect of illness and its cure upon public reaction to a presidential candidate.

It found that a seriously ill candidate had little chance of nomination and virtually no chance of winning.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the contrary, a candidate who had been seriously ill but somehow miraculously cured was haunted by a specter of doubt as to if and/or when the illness might recur, and was severely handicapped against a healthy opponent.

But even worse off was a candidate who had hidden a serious illness from the public and had then been cured. A question uppermost in many voters’ minds concerned what else he might be hiding from them.

Everything was suddenly perfectly clear to Charles. Except for one thing: The “somehow miraculously cured” in the second scenario obviously referred to Bulmer, but the date on the report was June 1—almost six weeks ago.

He didn’t have time to figure that out now—he had to get to Bulmer immediately.

44

Alan

“So that’s his plan,” Charles said in a fierce, whispered voice. “He’s going to dump you in the street!”

Alan struggled to disbelieve all that he’d just been told.

“Charles, I never thought much of the man, but this…this!” He felt cold.

“It’s true. I owe you too much to play games with you. But you don’t know what I know. He’s going to have you work your magic on his myasthenia gravis and then he’s going to say he never heard of you. And I’ll tell you straight, mate: If I had to prove we’d ever done so much as a urinalysis on you here, I couldn’t.”

“But you said that computer projection was dated almost a month and a half ago. That would mean he’s been planning since May. That’s crazy! Nobody in the world could have predicted back in May that I’d wind up here. Everything looked fine back then.”

Alan knew he had a point, and so, apparently, did Charles. His voice lost some of its intensity.

“There was no hint that things were going to get dodgy for you?”

“Not the slightest. There was a little flak when the article in The Light came out, but hardly anybody takes them seriously.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to remember. “No. Near as I can say, things started falling apart when the local paper got on my case. That led to the hospital hearing and everything just escalated from there.”

Charles’ head snapped up. “Local paper? Jesus bloody Christ! What’s it called?”

“The Monroe Express. Why?”

“I’ll know in a second.”

He picked up the phone and began jabbing at the numbers. Alan turned to the window and fought the sense of betrayal that threatened to overwhelm him.

He turned as he heard Charles hang up the phone and saw the reluctant excitement in his eyes. Apparently Charles had confirmed his deduction, but he didn’t look happy about it.

“Everybody thinks of either politics or medical research when the McCready name is mentioned. We all forget where his money came from: a chain of newspapers! And your hometown paper is part of the McCready chain!”

Alan slumped into a chair. “The Express! I never dreamed!”

His mind marveled and recoiled at the subtlety and pervasiveness of the conspiracy McCready had engineered. Those seemingly public-spirited editorials calling for Alan’s removal, and the immediate trumpeting of the news that he had been suspended from the hospital staff. They’d accomplished their purpose: He’d been left with no place to turn and had fairly leaped at McCready’s offer of help.

“That bastard!” he shouted, feeling the rage surge up in him. His marriage, his practice, his reputation—they all might be still intact if not for McCready. “That son of a bitch! I still can’t believe it.”

“Let’s try one more thing, then, shall we?” Charles picked up the phone and laid it in Alan’s lap. “I haven’t checked this out, but try it yourself. Dial the operator and ask her to connect you with Alan Bulmer’s room.”

Alan lifted the receiver, pressed “0,” and asked for himself.

“I’m sorry,” said the voice. “We have no one by that name listed as a Foundation patient.”

Despite the sensation of a lead weight settling in his stomach, Alan told himself that this didn’t necessarily confirm Charles’ theory. Today was his last day here; perhaps they had simply removed his name from the inpatient list a little ahead of time.

“When was he discharged?” Alan asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but our records don’t list that name as having ever been a patient here within the past year.”

Fighting the sick feeling that slithered up inside him, Alan slammed the receiver down.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“I was going to suggest that.”

“But first,” Alan said, feeling the muscles of his jaw knot as he spoke through clenched teeth, “I want to pay a little visit to the senator and tell him just what I think of him and his rotten little scheme. “

“That might cause more problems than we can handle,” Charles told him.

He had a strange feeling that Charles was afraid.

“Like what?”

“Like you may find yourself detained here longer than you wish.”

“Come on, Charles!” Alan said with a laugh. “You’re letting this make you paranoid. I came in here of my own free will and I can leave whenever I want.”

“Don’t count on it, mate. And don’t call me paranoid. You’re the bloke whose psychological profile shows delusional activity.”

“What are you talking about?” Alan said, feeling the first twinges of alarm now.

“The MMPI and all those other multiple choice tests you took on your second day here, they portray you as a chap who sees himself as possessing a God-like power. Just hold on now!” he said quickly as Alan opened his mouth to protest. “I’m a believer. Those tests were designed to ferret out the schizoid types. They’re invalidated by a chap who can really do the things you can. So you and I both know you haven’t broken with reality. But let me tell you, friend: Little red flags went up all over the place when your tests were scored.”

“So you’re saying they might be able to justify detaining me if they want?”

“Right. I don’t know how much you remember about New York State commitment laws, but believe me, you could be out of circulation for a bloody long time.”

It cost him a lot of effort, but Alan managed to smile. “Maybe I’ll just leave now and send the senator a telegram. Tomorrow.”

“Good. And just to be on the safe side, I’ll get you a lab coat to wear on the way out. Everybody on staff here wears them. It’ll be the next best thing to being invisible. I’ve got an extra in my office. Lay low until I get back.”

Alan quickly gathered up the few incidental belongings he could stuff in his pockets. He was traveling light anyway. He had lost all his clothes except for what he’d been wearing when the house burned down. He checked and made sure he had his wallet and car keys, then sat down to wait.

Through the closed door he could hear constant movement out in the hall—footsteps back and forth, carts being wheeled by. He did not recall that much activity during the past few days, but then, he hadn’t been waiting anxiously for someone to arrive and lead him out of here.

He’d been on edge to begin with. After half an hour, he was one tight knot of tension. Where the hell was Charles?

He’d intended to stay out of sight until Charles returned, but he could not sit still any longer. For want of doing something, he decided to take a look and see if Charles was anywhere in sight.

The hall was eerily silent. He noticed immediately that the door leading to the elevator atrium was closed. That struck him as odd. It had always been kept open during the day and was closed only after 10:00 p.m. He hurried down to it and pulled on the handle.

It wouldn’t budge.

Beyond the small pane of wired glass, the elevator area stood empty. As Alan rattled the handle and pounded on the door, a face appeared at the glass. He was dark, wore a security guard’s cap, and looked vaguely familiar.

“The door’s jammed!” Alan said.

“No, sir,” said the guard. His voice was slightly muffled through the door. “It’s locked.”

“Well, unlock it, then!”

The guard shook his head apologetically. “It’s for your own protection, sir. A violent patient escaped from the security ward. We’re pretty sure we’ve trapped him between the fourth and sixth floors, but until we catch him we’re sealing off all the wards and administrative areas.”

Alan rattled the handle. “I’ll take my chances. Open it.”

“Sorry, sir. Can’t do that. Orders. But as soon as this loony’s caught, I’ll be right here to open up.”

He moved away from the door and, despite Alan’s repeated pounding and calling, did not reappear.

Anger and fear intermingled. He was tempted to run into the nearest room, grab a chair, and use it to smash the little glass window in the door. Not that it would get him out of here, but it sure as hell would make him feel a lot better.

Of course, the act could later be used as proof that he was not only deranged, but violent. Why play into their hands? Why make it easy for them?

He gave the door a final frustrated kick and then headed for the nursing station to see if the guard’s story was on the level. As he moved along the hall, he noticed that all the rooms were empty. The wing hadn’t been filled to anywhere near capacity, but now there was no one in any of the rooms.

He increased his pace. By the time he reached the nursing station, he was not surprised in the least to find it deserted.

Alan didn’t have to search any further. He knew from the dead silence of the wing that he was the only one here.

He hurried back to his room and picked up his phone. Dead. He’d half expected that.

Alan took a deep breath and sat. He wasn’t afraid, he was angry. But as he sat there, he felt his anger cool from the wall pounding, lamp-throwing type to a sharp, icy rage that put his teeth on edge and set his fingers to drumming.

He knew what was up. He would be kept here for the rest of the afternoon and most of the early evening under the ruse of protecting him from a deranged patient. And then at, oh, say, about 9:45 or so—approximately half an hour before high tide—the security ward escapee would be captured and the door to Alan’s wing unlocked. Alan would be free to go, but first the good senator would like to have a friendly word or two with him to explain what wonderful things the Foundation planned to do for him now that his healing ability had been proven.

And by the way, while you’re here, and since it happens to be high tide at the moment, would you mind clearing up this little ol’ neuromuscular disease I’ve got?

Obviously Senator McCready didn’t know that Alan was on to him. Else why put on this elaborate charade?

So Alan waited patiently, grinding his teeth and drumming his fingers on his thigh as he stared out the window at the Manhattan skyline. He’d had it with being pushed around. He’d lost control of his own life somewhere along the way. He’d become a pawn, moved here and there at various times by circumstance, by the hospital Board of Trustees, by the Dat-tay-vao, and now by Senator James McCready.

Well, it stopped here and now. Alan Bulmer was climbing back into the driver’s seat. He was reclaiming his life and making his own decisions from here on in.

And he actually was looking forward to seeing the senator.

He had a surprise for him.

45

Sylvia

“Charles!” Sylvia was shocked to see him at her front door. She glanced behind him. “Isn’t Alan with you?”

He shook his head and walked past her. He was still in his white lab coat and obviously upset. His normally high coloring was higher than usual.

“He was supposed to be, but they’re keeping him there.”

“Keeping him?” Her heart tripped over a beat, paused to catch itself, then went on in rhythm. “How long?”

“Till after high tide, I imagine. If he cooperates.”

“Charles, what are you talking about? Why isn’t he with you?”

“They kicked me out! Just like that!” Charles snapped his fingers and talked on at breakneck speed. “‘Here’s your severance pay and please leave the premises now, thank-you-very-much.’ Must have found out I was snooping into his personal-access-only files.”

“Charles!” Sylvia was frightened and baffled and Charles wasn’t making any sense.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll tell you in a minute!” he said, heading for the library. “Just let me get a bleeding whiskey!”

Eventually he told her. She sat on the arm of the leather sofa while he paced the length of the library, swirling and sipping from the glass of Glenlivet clutched in his hand as he told her incredible things—about a man with metastatic cancer to the brain who suddenly didn’t have a tumor cell in his body, about abnormal scans and EEG sine-wave artifacts coinciding with high tide and Alan’s Hour of Power, and an Alzheimer-like syndrome that Alan’s use of the Dat-tay-vao seemed to be causing.

“You mean it’s damaging his brain?” She wanted to be sick. Alan…senile at forty. It was too awful to imagine.

“I’m afraid so.”

“But that fits in with the poem Ba showed me. Something about ‘keeping the balance.’ If only I could think of it.”

She stepped over to the intercom and called Ba in from the garage, asking him to bring the Dat-tay-vao poem. Then she wandered the room, rubbing her tense palms together.

It was all frightening and bewildering to Sylvia, yet she still hadn’t had her question answered.

“Why is he still there?”

“Because our great and wonderful friend, Senator James McCready, who has used all of us so very neatly, wants to use Alan as well and then throw him to the wolves!”

Another explanation followed, this one even more fantastic than the first, concerning McCready’s manipulation of events to get Alan into the Foundation and the subsequent destruction of all the data.

“Then it’s true?” Sylvia said, finding her voice at last. “He really can…cure? With a touch? I’m hearing this from you of all people?”

She watched Charles nod, saw his lips tremble.

“Yes.” His voice was barely a whisper. “I believe.”

“What happened?”

“Julie—” His voice broke. He turned and faced the wall. Sylvia’s heart leaped. She came up behind him and put both her hands on his shoulders.

“Julie’s cured?”

He nodded but remained faced away.

“Oh, Charles!” she cried, throwing her arms around him. The burst of joy inside her brought tears to her eyes. “That’s wonderful! That’s absolutely wonderful!”

Sylvia had only met Julie a few times, but had been deeply touched by the child’s quiet courage. There was, however, another more personal reason for her joy: If Julie could be cured, then there was real hope for Jeffy.

Charles seemed to read her mind. He turned and gathered her in his arms.

“He says Jeffy’s his next patient.”

“But didn’t you say the Dat-tay-vao was damaging his mind?”

The realization was like a dark cloud drifting past the sun. Would Alan have to trade a part of his mind to break through Jeffy’s autism? She didn’t know if she could allow that.

She didn’t know if she could refuse.

Sylvia pushed it all to the rear of her mind, to be dealt with when the time arose. Right now she had to concentrate on getting Alan back to Toad Hall.

But she noticed something different about Charles, a change in him. He’d mellowed in the past few days. His hard, glossy façade had peeled away in spots, leaving soft, vulnerable areas exposed.

“He touched you too, didn’t he?” she said after watching him for a long moment.

“Rubbish! I didn’t have anything that needed curing.”

“No. I mean the other way—with his own personal touch—the one he’s had all along. His empathy, his caring.”

“He really does care, doesn’t he?” Charles said. “I thought it was an act, part of the dedicated, hardworking family doctor role he was playing. You know: foot soldier on the front lines in the never-ending battle against death and disease and all that sort of rot. But he’s the real thing. And I always thought someone like him would be a wimp who’d carry his devotion to his practice like a cross. But he’s a man.” Charles bit his lower lip. “Jesus! The things I thought about him! Said about him!”

Sylvia gave him a hug. “Now maybe you can understand why he’s been staying here.”

Charles looked at her. She saw pain in his eyes, but it was distant, and fading. “I dare say I do. And I hope you’re both very happy together.”

“You called for me, Missus?” Ba said from the doorway.

“Oh, yes, Ba. Did you bring that poem—the one about the Dat-tay-vao?”

He handed it to her and she read it to Charles:

“It seeks but will not be sought.

It finds but will not be found.

It holds the one who would touch,

Who would cut away pain and ill.

But its blade cuts two ways

And will not be turned.

If you value your well-being,

Impede not its way.

Treat the Toucher doubly well,

For he bears the weight

Of the balance that must be struck.”

Sylvia turned to Charles. “See? ‘He bears the weight of the balance that must be struck.’ That sounds like what’s happening to Alan: Every time he uses the Touch it takes something from him. For every something given, something is taken away.”

“Sounds like a variation on the old TANSTAAFL thing—

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch: Somewhere along the line somebody gets stuck with the bill. But that’s not what concerns me most right now. We should waste no time setting the wheels in motion to get Alan out of the Foundation.”

“Won’t he be getting out tonight? He’ll use the Dat-tay-vao on the senator and then he’ll be on his way.”

“I don’t think so,” Charles said with a slow shake of his head. “Alan was mad—I mean really angry when I told him how McCready had set him up.”

“You don’t think he’ll refuse to heal him, do you?” Sylvia said, her alarm slipping back on her. “That’s not like Alan.”

“You didn’t see his eyes. And if McCready doesn’t get what he wants, he won’t let Alan go.”

“But he can’t hold him!”

“He can for a while. I thought he’d destroyed all of Alan’s original test results, but now that I think of it, I’ll bet he kept the originals of his psychological profiles.”

“Why?”

“Because Alan scores out as a bloody paranoid schizo. They could hold him on the grounds that he’s dangerous to himself or others.”

“I’ll call Tony,” Sylvia said, angry as well as frightened now. “He’ll turn that place upside down.”

“Don’t count on it, Sylvie. Those profiles, along with the Foundation’s reputation and the senator’s personal influence…well, it could be a long time before we spring Alan.”

“Pardon me,” said Ba, who hadn’t moved from the doorway. “But does the Missus want the Doctor returned from the Foundation?”

“Yes, Ba,” she said, noting the hint of eagerness in his voice. She knew how highly he regarded Alan. “Any ideas?”

“I shall go there and bring him back.”

He said it so matter of factly, yet Sylvia saw the determination in his eyes.

“Forget it!” Charles said with a laugh. “The Foundation’s security is airtight.”

“I have been there many times with the Missus. I shall go there tonight and bring the Doctor back.”

Charles laughed again. But Sylvia watched Ba’s face, remembering what her father had told her about the simple fisherman who had attached himself to the Ranger group and trained with them, and who Dad had said he wanted most at his side in any combat situation. Ba wanted to do this. And Sylvia realized with a sudden tingle of excitement that she wanted him to do it.

“Very well, Ba. But be careful.”

The smile dropped from Charles’ face as if he’d been shot. “What? Just like that? Go get Alan? Are you crazy?”

Sylvia returned Ba’s grateful little bow, but stopped him as he turned to make his exit.

“Wait, Ba.” She turned to Charles. “Would you draw a few floor plans and tell him where you think Alan may be? It would greatly help matters.”

“But this is insane! Security will be all over him as soon as he sets foot inside!”

“Let’s hope Ba doesn’t have to hurt too many of them.”

She was enjoying the befuddled expressions playing over Charles’ face.

He finally settled down and she watched as he sketched out the floor plans of the upper levels. Ba leaned over them in silence.

“Where’s Alan now?” Sylvia asked. She didn’t know why, but it was important to her to know the location of his room.

“Most likely he’s still in the seventh-floor patient wing—room 719—but he could be anywhere in the complex.” He pointed to a section of the top floor. “Your safest bet is here: Alan will be in McCready’s private quarters between 9:45 and 10:45 tonight.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I remember my chart saying that high tide is 10:18 tonight. That would probably be the best place and time to find him.”

Ba shook his head. “The best time is when he is between. It would be very hard to enter the senator’s private place.”

Charles was looking at him with new respect. “That makes good sense, old boy. I daresay you might bring this off after all, although I sincerely doubt it.” He took off his lab coat. “Here. Take this. I can’t imagine any place or circumstance in the Foundation where you wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb, but this might make you less conspicuous.”

“Want to go along, Charles?”

He smiled sardonically. “Sounds like I’d have a wonderful time. I’m especially entranced by the possibility of being arrested for breaking and entering and spending a few nights in the Tombs. No, Love. I’ll pass on this. Doubt if I’d be much use anyway. They know me there, and all security shifts have surely been informed that I’m persona non grata. And besides, I’ve got to get home to Julie. A functioning renal system is still a very new thing for her. I want to be there if she needs me.”

That reminded Sylvia that she would have to catch Gladys and ask her to stay with Jeffy for a few hours while she was out. She waited until Ba showed Charles out, then caught him as he headed back toward the garage.

“I’m coming along tonight, Ba,” she told him, and watched as his usually placid features reflected bewilderment and concern.

“Missus, there might be trouble! You cannot come!”

“Oh, but I must, Ba. And if you won’t have me along, I’ll drive there on my own. So let’s not waste time arguing.”

“But why, Missus?”

Sylvia thought about that. Why, indeed? Why get personally involved in something like this when Ba could probably do just as well on his own? Maybe it was because she felt so helpless in the face of Jeffy’s regression. Would this make her feel useful? She wasn’t sure, and it really didn’t matter. She only knew she loved Alan and wanted to be there for him. And that was enough.

“Because, Ba,” she told him. “Just because.”

46

At the Foundation

Ba had a bad feeling about tonight as he pulled into the curb before the Foundation building. His initial plan had been simple: one man moving stealthily through the halls. Now it had been complicated by the Missus.

He was still recovering from the shock of the Missus’ insisting on coming along tonight. He had planned to take his AMC Pacer, but now he was driving the Graham, and the Missus was in her usual place in the rear seat.

During the drive, Ba had argued strenuously to limit her to the most marginal involvement, such as waiting at the wheel of the car while he went inside, but she had flatly refused. She wanted to be there. So he had reluctantly given the Missus a safe assignment: Go to the front entrance and make a scene—create a diversion.

“That’s my specialty,” she had said. “Making scenes.”

As he put on the emergency brake, Ba heard the top twist off a bottle. He turned and saw her pouring liquor into a short glass. She took some in her mouth, rinsed it around like mouthwash, then swallowed with a grimace.

“Ugh! How do people drink scotch?” She breathed into her palm. “At least I’ll smell the part. Let’s go. It’s showtime.” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

Ba got out and stepped around to let her out, then watched as she walked up to the brightly lit front entrance, glass in hand, staggering just enough to look like someone who had had more than enough to drink.

He took a small duffle bag from the front seat and left the car under the lights at the curb. It would be safe there for a while, and he had decided that the best way to bring Dr. Bulmer out was straight through the front door.

He hurried off toward the side of the building.

It was 9:20 and he could wait no longer.

Senator McCready had rested all day. Sleep in other than short dozes had been almost impossible due to the excitement and anticipation of tonight. But he had resolutely stored up his strength, all but screaming at the clock for the unbearably slow caress of the hands across its face.

Now the time was almost here. He was going to Bulmer. At first he had intended to have him brought up here to the top-floor residence, but had dropped that idea in favor of one with more psychological appeal. He would go to Bulmer, thus appearing to be a humble supplicant rather than someone expecting a command performance.

Yes, this was the better approach. And after he was cured, Bulmer would have to be discredited. Try as he might, McCready could think of no alternative solution. That small, almost forgotten part of him let out a faint cry of protest. He turned a deaf ear to it. He couldn’t relent now. He couldn’t ignore the polls or the computer projection. A vindicated Dr. Alan Bulmer would be too much of a liability. McCready had to ruin him. There was simply no other way out.

The doors slid open and Rossi wheeled him into the elevator. They headed for the seventh floor.

The guard spotted her from his marble-enclosed guard station and was moving toward her before she was halfway through the revolving door.

“Sorry, miss,” he said, holding out his hands in a “Stop” gesture. “We’re closed to all visitors now.”

Sylvia took a deep breath and launched herself into character.

“Wanna shee my doctor.”

“None of the staff doctors are here now. Only a few resident physicians. Who’s your doctor? We’ll leave a message for him.”

She had decided to be a belligerent drunk. She had seen enough of them at her parties—she hoped she could be convincing.

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout one of your goddamn staff doctors! I’m talkin’ ’bout Dr. Alan Bulmer. He’s a patient here!”

“Visiting hours ended at seven. They start again at one tomorrow.”

“I don’t give a shit about your visiting hours! I’m here now…and I wanna shee Bulmer now!” She started toward the elevators. “What floor is he on?”

He grabbed her gently but firmly by the arm and guided her back toward the door. “Tomorrow, lady. Tomorrow.” Sylvia snatched her arm away. “Do you know who I am, you…. you lackey?”

“No. And I don’t care. Git!”

Sylvia had to hand it to the guard—he was keeping his cool. But it was showing signs of wear.

“Call the senator!” she cried as he grabbed her shoulders from behind and firmly propelled her toward the door. “He’ll tell you who I am!”

It was time to play her ace card. She lurched away from him and leaned over the front of the guard station. There was a large panel of green and red lights there. Only the green were lit; they glowed steadily. She let her knees buckle.

“I’m gonna be sick!”

“Not there you ain’t!” He pulled her away and eased her onto a bench a few feet away. “Sit here. I’ll get you some water.” He reached for her glass of scotch. “And you’ve had too much of that already.”

“Doncha touch that! Just get me some water.”

As he stepped over to the water fountain and filled a paper cup for her, Sylvia took a breather. So far, so good. She glanced at her watch.

Almost time.

She stood up again and staggered over to the guard station.

“Hey! Get away from there!” the guard cried as he returned with her water.

“You’re right,” Sylvia said, holding up her glass of scotch. “I don’t need any more of thish.” She placed the glass carefully on the marble rim directly above the control panel, then she made sure to hit it with her elbow as she swung around to return to the bench.

The guard’s cry of “Oh, shit, no!” mixed with the tinkle of breaking glass, followed by a chorus of electrical pops and hisses accompanied by acrid white smoke rising from the control board as twelve-year-old scotch leaked down into the printed circuits.

As buzzers and bells began to sound, Sylvia moaned. “Oooh, I’m gonna be so sick!”

The small aluminum grappling hook had caught the ledge of a darkened second-floor window on the third try. Ba hauled himself up the length of the attached quarter-inch nylon cord until he could grab the ledge and pull himself up and balance there. He repeated the process with the window directly above.

This was as far as he would go on the outside. Dr. Axford had said that the administrative offices were on the third floor. As Ba had hoped, they were deserted at this time of night, and there was no sign that the windows were hooked up to the alarm system. A brief flick of his flashlight revealed that the floor inside was carpeted. Good. He pulled the duffle bag up to the ledge, withdrew Dr. Axford’s white lab coat, and wrapped it around his right hand. Turning his face away, he struck the window a hard backhand blow. A splintering crash was followed by a softer clatter of the shards falling against each other as they hit the carpet, then silence.

Ba hooked his grapple inside the frame and waited, ready to slide down to street level at the first sign of anyone coming to investigate. No one showed, so he climbed in. He donned the lab coat, which was far too short in the arms, and waited until it came: a cacophony of bells and beeps. It sounded as if every alarm in the building was going off at once.

Ba checked his watch: 9:32. He bowed his respect to the Missus. His old friend Sergeant Nash had fathered a wonderful daughter. She was as resourceful as she was compassionate. He stepped into the deserted hall and from there made his way to the fire stairs near the elevator alcove. He was on the third floor; the senator’s domain was on the twentieth.

He began to climb.

He was breathing hard when he reached the top level, so he stopped and rested a moment, peering through the small rectangle of wired glass. There was only one elevator door at this level, and one doubtlessly needed a key to travel this far. He checked the latch on the door. It was unlocked. A warning sounded in his brain. It would be senseless to lock a door to a fire stair, but if the senator was as security conscious as Dr. Axford had said, this door would be wired with an alarm. The security system, however, was in chaos now, so it might be safe to open it and check around for any other possible entry to the top floor besides the single elevator.

He moved out into the alcove and followed a short hallway to a set of double doors that was tightly closed. It was the only doorway on the entire floor. He briefly put his ear against it but could hear no sound from within. The entire level had a deserted feeling to it. He checked his watch: 9:40. He was on schedule, and it was apparent that Dr. Bulmer hadn’t arrived yet.

Ba hurried back to the stairwell to wait. He had decided that the simplest and safest course was to intercept Dr. Bulmer as he stepped from the elevator and bring him back down to street level—leaving behind whoever had been escorting him to the twentieth floor, of course.

When he heard the knock on the door, Alan glanced at the clock. Nine twenty-six. Right on time.

He opened the door and found himself face-to-face with the swarthy security guard who had refused to let him leave the wing hours ago. With him was another guard. They looked familiar, and then he recognized them as Axford’s assistants. Their name tags said “Henly” and “Rossi.”

He swallowed the anger that had been simmering for hours and said: “What happened to the white coats?”

“Traded them in,” Henly, the blond guard, said.

“Catch that maniac?” Alan asked Rossi.

He nodded. “Yep. And we brought you a visitor.”

Leaning heavily on his cane, Senator McCready shuffled into the room. An empty wheelchair sat behind him in the hall.

“Good evening, Dr. Bulmer!” he said, genially enough. “I hope the unavoidable extension of your stay here hasn’t inconvenienced you too much.”

Alan hid his shock at seeing the senator come to him. He had expected the opposite. Much of his rage evaporated at seeing the infirmity and debility of the man close up. The slowness of his movements, the exertion they cost him—he was in sad shape.

“What an unexpected pleasure!” he managed to say. “And don’t give my incarceration a second thought. How often does a man get a chance to be alone with his thoughts for nearly half a day? A little introspection is good for the soul.” He grabbed McCready’s hand and shook it. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me!”

That last sentence, at least, was true. By coming to the Foundation, Alan had learned that he could prove the existence of the Dat-tay-vao and could predict the hour of its occurrence with a simple tide chart. He had also learned that it was destroying his mind. He had gained something despite McCready’s treachery.

McCready smiled. “As the barker said, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’” He fairly dropped into the chair. “We’ve gathered enough evidence to polish up your reputation and safeguard your medical license.”

But you’ve destroyed it! Alan thought, his anger rising.

“We’ll be sending out a general press release first thing tomorrow morning.”

You lying bastard! It would never be composed, much less released.

Alan forced a smile. “I can barely wait to see it.”

Suddenly the air was full of whooping sirens and clanging bells. McCready snapped a glance at the two guards. “What’s that all about?” His voice was barely audible above the din.

“Beats me,” Henly said, his expression concerned and puzzled as he unclipped his walkie-talkie from his belt. “Sounds like fire and break-in and everything else. I’ll check with Dave.”

He turned and stuck his head into a relatively quiet corner while Alan and the others waited in silence. Finally Henly turned back to them.

“It’s all right. Dave says some lady came in stewed to the gills demanding to see a patient and spilled a drink on the control console. Says it’s a mess down there.”

“Go help him out,” McCready said. He turned to Rossi. “And you wait outside. I have a personal matter to discuss with Dr. Bulmer.”

The guard stepped out and closed the door, muffling somewhat the continued clamor of the alarms.

“Personal matter?” Alan said.

“Yes.” The senator rested both hands atop his cane and leaned forward. “As I’m sure you can see, I’m not a well man. By this time of night I’m usually fast asleep from exhaustion. It is only from sheer force of will that I made it here tonight.”

“What’s the problem?”

McCready removed his dark glasses. “You tell me, Doctor.” Alan saw the pathognomonic drooping, half-closed eyelids.

“Myasthenia gravis.”

“Correct. A relentlessly progressive case. I…this IS so difficult to ask…I was wondering if you might—”

“Heal you?”

“Yes. If you would.”

Over my dead body! was what Alan wanted to say, but he kept his expression bland.

“Do you happen to know when high tide is, Senator?”

“It’s at ten-eighteen.” McCready checked his watch. “Just a little over thirty minutes away.”

“Good. Then the Dat-tay-vao should be working soon.”

“The what?”

“The Touch, Senator. The Touch that heals. Let’s give it a try, shall we?”

Alan waited a few moments until his watch ticked around to 9:50. He had had a long time to think today, and had decided that his life had been manipulated too often for too long. He was reclaiming control, and here was where it began. McCready could wreck his career, ruin his reputation, send his teetering marriage over the edge, and convince the world that he was insane. But Alan Bulmer could still decide if and when to use the Dat-tay-vao. It was all he had left.

And it was all that McCready wanted.

Not quite knowing what would happen next, Alan stood up and placed his hands upon the senator’s head.

Out in the hall, the alarms stopped.

Ba’s watch said it was almost ten o’clock. All was quiet—too quiet. No one had come or gone on the top floor here. This troubled him. If they were going to bring the Doctor up to the senator’s quarters, they surely would have done so by now.

Which left two possibilities: Either Dr. Bulmer wasn’t coming up here tonight or the senator had gone to him. Dr. Axford had seemed quite sure that the senator would stay where he was and have Dr. Bulmer brought up. But Dr. Axford had been wrong before.

Seven-nineteen. That was the number of Dr. Bulmer’s room.

Ba started down the steps.

“Had a few too many, lady?”

The blond guy was leering down at her as she slumped on the bench. He had arrived like the cavalry to help the downstairs guard stop the racket and reset all the alarms. He strutted before her as if he knew without question that his uniform made him irresistible to women. Sylvia hated uniforms. Especially paramilitary models.

“Buzzsh-off, bozo,” she said. “I ain’t feelin’ too good.”

“Oh, but you’re looking fine!”

Yeah. Right.

He took her gently but firmly by the arm. “Let’s you and me take a walk back to the overnight quarters where we can talk about this privately.”

Sylvia snatched her arm away. She wanted to lash out at lover-boy here, but held back.

“Talk about what?”

“About how much trouble you’re in, honey. But maybe we can work something out.”

Sylvia had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to work out. “Ain’t in no trouble. Senator’s a friend of mine.”

“Yeah? What’s your name?”

“Toad. Mrs. S. Toad.”

The guard waved her off with disgust. “Get her out of here, Dave. I’ve got to get back upstairs to the senator.”

Sylvia’s heart leaped. Alan would be wherever the senator was. She took a fresh and sudden interest in the guard.

“You’re gonna see the senator?” she cried, rising and following him toward the elevator. “Take me with you! I gotta see him!”

“Get lo—!” he began, then stopped. A calculating gleam lit his eyes. “Well…okay. What say I take you up to the senator’s personal quarters and see if he’s there? And if he ain’t there”—he winked at Dave—“we can wait for him.”

“S’go,” Sylvia said, taking his arm. She wanted in the worst way to get upstairs to where Alan was, and this seemed as good a route as any. “Senator’s an ol’ buddy of mine.”

The guard patted her hand as he led her toward the elevator.

“Mine, too.”

As the elevator doors closed and the car started up, he leaned against her and ran a hand up her flank.

“Ooh,” she said, swaying against the side wall of the car. “This elevator’s making me sick.”

He backed away. “Hold on, hon. It’s a short ride.”

“Nothing’s happening,” McCready said after Bulmer’s hands had rested on him almost a full minute. He fought the uneasiness creeping into him like a chill. “Does it usually take this long?”

“No,” Bulmer said. “It usually happens instantly.”

“Why isn’t it working?” McCready fought off a rising panic. Bulmer seemed so unconcerned. “It’s supposed to work half an hour before and after high tide! What’s wrong? All the conditions are right! Why isn’t it working?”

“Something’s missing,” Bulmer said.

“What is it? What? Just tell me and I’ll have Rossi get it! What?”

Bulmer glared into his eyes.

“Me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve got to want to cure you.”

And then it was all clear. “So. Axford got to you.”

“He sure did, you son of a bitch.”

McCready repressed a desire to scream in rage at Axford’s treachery. He kept cool on the outside.

“That makes things difficult, which is unfortunate, but it doesn’t change anything.”

“Meaning?”

“You’ll remain our guest until you do something about my condition.”

“I do have friends, you know.”

McCready allowed himself a bitter laugh. “Not many. Hardly any, in fact. I had my people take a careful look into your life, hoping to find some sort of lever against you. But there was none. No mistress, no vices. You’re pretty much a work-obsessed loner, Alan Bulmer. Much like me. The only friend who might present a problem is that lawyer, DeMarco. But I can deal with him. So you can consider yourself out in the cold.”

Bulmer shrugged carelessly, almost as if he had been expecting this. Wasn’t he frightened? His uncaring attitude worried McCready.

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? 1 can tie up your life indefinitely! I have personality profiles, answered in your own hand, that any psychiatrist in the country will interpret as the product of a severely psychotic and probably dangerous mind! 1 can keep you here or have you committed to state institutions for the rest of your life!”

Bulmer leaned back and folded his arms. “You exaggerate. But that’s okay. You still won’t get what you want.”

“Oh. You want to deal, is that it?”

“No deal. Either I stay or I go free, but in neither case do you get the Dat-tay-vao.”

McCready stared at him, his mind whirling in confusion. What was the matter with this man? The determination in his eyes was unnerving.

“So that’s how it’s to be?” McCready said finally, leaning heavily on his cane as he struggled to his feet. “Suit yourself.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

McCready felt his legs go weak—the weakness now was due to more than just the myasthenia gravis—and sat down again. All you had to do was ask. Such a naive statement…yet it cut him to the core to think that he could have avoided all the intrigue and plotting simply by walking into Bulmer’s office two months ago when he first got wind of those stories. Oh, God, if that were true, if he could have been well all that time, if he could have—

No! This was a crazy way to think. Bulmer was lying! McCready stood firm against the wave of uncertainty. He had proceeded the only way he could.

“That was impossible. I couldn’t give you a gun like that to let you hold to my head. You showed what you think of my politics at the committee hearing in April. I couldn’t take the risk that you’d exploit what you knew and what you’d done as soon as I decided to run for President.”

“I’m a doctor. Anything that went on between us would be privileged.”

McCready snorted. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“I guess not,” Bulmer said, and for an instant McCready thought he saw pity break through the anger in the other man’s eyes. “You assume I’m like you.”

He could no longer fight the overwhelming fear that he would never be free of this disease.

“I’m sick!” he cried through a sob that tore itself from his heart. “And I’m sick of being sick! I’m desperate, can’t you see that?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Then why don’t you help me? You’re a doctor!”

“Oh, no!” Bulmer said, rising and stepping toward him. “Don’t try to run that game on me, you cold-blooded bastard! You were going to have me committed for the rest of my life a minute ago. That didn’t work, so now you do the poor-broken-down-old-man number. Forget it!”

Alan hoped his words were convincing, because inside, much to his frustration and dismay, he was actually beginning to sympathize with McCready.

“I want to live again! Make love again! Shout again!”

“Stop it!” Alan said, trying to block out the words, made all the more compelling by the steadily fading power of McCready’s voice.

“No! I won’t stop! You’re the only hope I have left!” With a sudden burst of strength he grabbed Alan’s hands and pulled them down against his shoulders. “Heal me, damn you! Heal me!”

“No!” Alan said through clenched teeth.

And then it happened. Lancing pain, like fire, like ice, like electricity, ranged up his arms and throughout his body. Alan fell back and McCready screamed, a howl from the depths of his lungs.

Rossi lunged into the room.

“What the fuck’s goin’ on here?”

He looked at McCready, who was gray in the face and rapidly shading toward blue as he tried to pull air into his lungs.

“What’d you do to him?”

“Nothing!” Alan said, hugging his burning arms against his chest. “Nothing!”

“Then what’s the matter with him!”

“Myasthenic crisis, I think. Get a house doctor or somebody up here with oxygen! Quick!”

“You’re a doctor!” Rossi said, looking from Alan to the senator and back again. “Help him out!”

Alan hugged his arms more closely against himself. Something awful had just happened at his touch, and he was afraid to lay a hand on McCready again, afraid he’d make it worse.

“I can’t. Get somebody else.”

As Rossi leaped to the phone, Alan glanced at the open door that led to the hall. He started for it. He wanted out of here.

He made it all the way out to the elevator area, where he pressed the Up and Down buttons. He was waiting for the doors to open and take him away from there—he didn’t care in which direction—when Rossi rushed up and grabbed his arm.

“Wait a minute, pal. You ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

It was fear and it was anger and it was sheer frustration at being told what he could and could not do once too often that made Alan lash out at the guard. He rammed his elbow into Rossi’s solar plexus; as he doubled over, Alan got both hands against the back of the guard’s head and pushed him toward the floor. Rossi landed with a grunt as the air wooshed out of him.

But then he was rolling over onto his back and pulling his revolver from its holster.

Suddenly a foot and a long leg, both in black, appeared and pinned Rossi’s gun arm to the floor.

Alan jerked his head up and nearly cried out in fright and pleasure. Ba! The lanky Vietnamese stood there like a pallid vision from a nightmare. The door to the fire stairs was swinging closed behind him.

“Excellent, Dr. Bulmer.”

He bent and casually plucked the weapon from the guard’s hand. Rossi looked up at him in wonder and terror.

Just then the elevator doors opened. The blond guard stood within, a woman slouched next to him.

“Sylvia!” Alan cried in shock. How could she be—!

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Henly said, stepping forward as Sylvia straightened up behind him and beamed at Alan.

Ba stepped up beside Alan, the pistol dangling in his hand.

“Good evening, Missus,” he said, then turned to Henly. “We shall need this car.”

Henly said, “What the fuck—?” and reached for his own pistol.

Ba stepped into the car and slammed him against the back wall.

“Take us down, please, sir,” he said.

Alan stepped in and took Sylvia in his arms. She clung warm and soft against him.

Henly was nodding and fumbling with his key ring. “Yeah. Sure.” He keyed an override and the car started down.

“Thank God you’re all right!” Sylvia said, hugging Alan close.

“I’m fine,” Alan said, “but I don’t know about the senator.” He suddenly realized that he was touching Sylvia and nothing was happening. What ever had caused the sudden progression of the senator’s disease seemed to have passed.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. The Dat-tay-vao—some sort of reverse effect.”

His eyes were drawn to Ba, who was holding his hand out to Henly. The awestruck guard meekly handed his revolver over to the gaunt figure that towered over him. Ba emptied the cartridges from both pistols, put them in his pocket, then handed the empty weapons back to Henly. “Please not to do anything foolish.”

The doors slid open and they were on the ground floor. Alan hurried Sylvia toward the doors while Ba brought up the rear.

“Dave!” Henly yelled from behind them as they passed the front desk. “Stop ’em!”

Dave looked at Alan and Sylvia, then looked at Ba and shook his head.

“You stop ’em!”

47

Ba

Ba felt refreshed in the warm, humid air of the outdoors. He had never been able to adjust to air conditioning. He stepped ahead of the Doctor and the Missus and opened the rear door to the Graham for them. It was a proud moment for him to be able to lead these two safely from the Foundation. He would have freed anyone had the Missus asked, but it was especially pleasing to aid the Doctor. It lessened the weight of his debt to the Doctor for Nhung Thi; it helped to balance the scale between them.

Once they were inside, he got in the driver’s seat and made a U-turn into Park Avenue’s downtown flow at the next cross street.

“I don’t think it would be wise to take Dr. Bulmer back to Toad Hall just yet, Ba,” the Missus said from the back seat.

Ba nodded. The same thought had occurred to him. “I know a place, Missus.”

“Then take us there.”

“Now hold on, everybody!” the Doctor said. “Just hold on a minute! I’m a free man and I want to go home!”

“Alan,” the Missus said softly, “you haven’t got a home anymore. It’s gone. They burned it.”

“I know that! I mean Monroe. That’s where I live. I’m not going to hide from anybody!”

“Alan, please. I know you’ve been pushed around a lot lately, but Ba and I have just gone to a lot of trouble to get you out of the Foundation. A little legal finagling could put you back there in no time—or worse. If something has happened to McCready, they could blame it on you and you could wind up in Bellevue!”

There was silence in the rear. Ba thought he knew what might be going through the Doctor’s mind. It seemed not only cowardly, but an apparent admission of guilt to run and hide. But the Missus was right—better to seek shelter until the storm passed.

Still, he could not help but sympathize with the Doctor, who must be feeling that his life was no longer his own. And truly it wasn’t. Ba had now been privileged to meet two men with the Dat-tay-vao, and neither had been fully in control of his life. For the Touch has a will of its own, and knows no master.

The Monday night traffic was thin. He reached Canal Street quickly and followed it east between Little Italy and Chinatown, then turned downtown on Bowery until he came to a tiny sidestreet where refugees from his country had collected during the seventies. They all shared the kinship of strangers far from home, but none so close as those who had risked the open sea together in his boat. Most of his fellow villagers had settled in Biloxi, Mississippi, still living as fishermen, only now in the Gulf of Mexico instead of the South China Sea. But one or two had straggled to the Northeast. He stopped now before the ram-shackle tenement that housed one of the elders of his former village.

The trip had taken less than fifteen minutes. Ba set the emergency brake and turned in his seat.

“You will be safe here,” he told the Doctor.

Dr. Bulmer looked up and down the dark, ill-lit street, then up at the rickety building. “I’ll have to take your word on that, Ba.”

“Come,” he said, stepping out and opening the door.

“Go, Alan,” said the Missus. “If Ba says it’s all right, then you can take it to the bank.”

Ba glowed with pride at her words as he watched them embrace and kiss.

“All right,” the Doctor said. “But just for tonight. Twenty-four hours and that’s it. Then I’m coming home.”

As the Doctor stepped out of the car, Ba closed and locked the door behind him. He didn’t like leaving the Missus alone here on the street, but the motor was running and he would only be a few minutes.

He guided Dr. Bulmer into the building and up the flaking stairway to the fourth floor.

“Chac is an old friend,” he said as they climbed. “If my fishing village still existed, he would have been an elder there.”

“What’s he do now?”

“He sells newspapers.”

“What a shame.”

“Better than what was in store for him at home. The communists wanted us to work for them in exchange for a ration of rice. We call that slavery. We have always worked for ourselves.”

“You work for Mrs. Nash.”

Ba did not pause or look back at the Doctor. He knew the question and knew the answer. “When I work for the Missus, I work for myself.”

“I hear you,” the Doctor said. And by the tone of his voice, Ba knew that he understood and there was nothing more to be said.

They reached the fourth-floor landing. Ba knocked softly but persistently on the door that read 402. His watch said 11:16. Chac might be asleep—he rose daily at four and was on the street in less than an hour. He hated to disturb the older man’s sleep, but the time of his arrival was not of his choosing and Chac would understand.

A voice spoke from the other side of the door. “Who’s there?”

Ba announced himself in the Phuoc Tinh dialect. There came the clicks of locks and the rattle of chains, and then the door was pulled open and Ba felt himself embraced by the shorter, older man.

“I cannot stay,” Ba said, fending off offers of food and drink. He heard a child cough in the back room. He glanced questioningly at Chac.

“My grandson, Lam Thuy. He’s almost three now. He stays here while Mai Chi and Thuy Le work at the restaurant. Here. Sit and let me make you tea.”

“The Sergeant’s daughter awaits me below. But I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything for Ba Thuy Nguyen! You know that!”

Ba smiled, warmed by the elder’s approbation. “A friend needs shelter for a few days—shelter from the weather and from all eyes except those of this house hold.”

Chac nodded. “I understand perfectly. It shall be done. This is he?”

Ba brought the Doctor forward and spoke in English for the first time. “This is Dr. Bulmer. He did all that could be done to make Nhung Thi’s last days peaceful.”

“Then he shall be as one of us,” Chac replied, also in English.

He shook the Doctor’s hand and brought him forward, welcoming him into his home.

“I must go,” Ba said, feeling the urgency to get back down to the street where the Missus waited unprotected. But first there was something he had to tell the Doctor.

He drew him aside as Chac bustled toward the kitchen to make tea.

“Doctor,” he said in a low voice, leaning very close. “Please not to mention the Dat-tay-vao to anyone.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows lifted. “I hadn’t planned to. But why not?”

“Not time to explain now. All will be made clear later. Please do not mention the Dat-tay-vao here. Please?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Okay. Fine with me. But, listen”—he touched Ba’s arm—“thanks for tonight. And take good care of that lady.”

Ba gave him a slight bow.

As he left the apartment, he heard the child coughing again. Louder.

48

Alan

“You were Nhung Thi’s doctor?” Chac said in thickly accented English after Ba had gone and the kettle had yet to boil.

“Yes. Not much I could do for her, I’m afraid.” He worked to shut out the memory of her death agonies. A horrible way to go. He’d prefer almost any form of death to being eaten alive by lung cancer.

Alan distracted himself by studying Chac’s grotesquely arthritic hands, noting the thickened and gnarled joints, the ulnar deviation of the wrists and fingers. How did this man manage to hand out his papers? How on earth did he make change?

He let his gaze wander around the tiny front room. The cracking plaster had been freshly painted; the furniture was old and rickety but waxed and dust free. A chubby plaster Buddha sat cross-legged on a corner table; a crucifix hung on the wall above it.

The child coughed again from the rear of the apartment. It carried a higher-pitched sound this time.

“Your son?” Alan asked. It seemed unlikely, but you never knew.

“Grandson!” Chac said, puffing himself up.

The coughing persisted, its bark becoming distinctly seal-like. But that wasn’t what alarmed Alan. It was the whistling intake of breath, the increasingly labored stridor between coughing spasms that lifted him to his feet and drew him toward the sound.

That child was in trouble!

Chac, too, recognized the distress in the cough. He darted ahead of Alan and led the way. Halfway there, a thin woman of about Chac’s age in a long, dark blue robe came out into the hall and joined the procession to the bedroom at the far end of the apartment.

Just before they reached the door, the cough shut off abruptly, as if a noose had been tightened around the throat. Chac turned on the light as they rushed into the room. Alan took one look at the black-haired boy with the mottled face and wide, panicky, black eyes, and knew there wasn’t a second to spare.

Croup—with epiglottitis!

“Get a knife, small and sharp!” he said to Chac, shoving him back toward the kitchen.

He was going to have to try an emergency tracheotomy. He’d seen it done twice during his clinical training a dozen or so years ago, but had never yet been called upon to do one himself. He’d always prayed the situation would never arise. Cutting open someone’s throat and then crunching through the cricothyroid membrane to form an airway without severing an artery or lacerating the thyroid was a difficult enough proposition on a still patient. On a squirming, bucking, fear-crazed child, it seemed madness to try. But this boy was going to die if he didn’t get air soon.

Chac rushed back in and handed him a small knife with a sharp, two-inch blade. Alan would have preferred a narrower blade—would have loved the 14-gauge needle he’d kept in his black bag for a decade now just for an occurrence such as this. But his bag was in the trunk of his car.

The child was rolling and thrashing on the bed, arching his back and neck in a hopeless effort to pull air into his lungs.

“Hold him down,” Alan told Chac and his wife.

The woman, whom Chac called Hai, looked at the blade with horror, but Chac shouted something to her in Vietnamese and she steadied her hands on either side of the child’s face, now a dark blue. When Chac had situated himself across the boy’s body, pinning his arms under him, Alan moved forward. With his heart pounding and the knife slipping around in his sweaty palm, he stretched the skin over the trachea.

Ecstatic voltage shot up his arm.

With a vortical wheeze, air rushed into the child’s starved lungs, then out, then in again. Slowly his color returned to normal as he sobbed and clung to his grandmother.

Alan stared at his hand in wonder. How had that happened? He glanced at his watch: 10:45. Was the Hour of Power still on? What time had McCready said for high tide? He couldn’t remember! Damn! But did it matter? The important thing was that the little boy was alive and well and breathing normally.

Chac and his wife were staring at him in awe.

“Dat-tay-vao?” Chac said. “You Dat-tay-vao?”

Alan hesitated. For some strange reason he had a feeling he should say no. Had he been told to deny it? But why? These people knew about the Touch.

He nodded.

“Here?” Chac said, leaning closer and looking in his eyes. “Dat-tay-vao here in America?”

“So I’m told.”

The Vietnamese couple laughed and wept and hugged their sobbing grandson, all the while babbling in Vietnamese. Then Chac came forward, holding out his deformed, arthritic hands, smiling timidly.

“Help me? Please?”

Another warning bell sounded in a distant corner of his mind. Hadn’t Axford told him that the Touch was damaging his mind? But how could he say such a thing? Alan felt fine!

“Sure,” he said. It was the least he could do for the man who was giving him shelter. Alan enclosed the gnarled fingers in his own and waited but nothing happened.

“The hour has passed,” he told Chac.

The Vietnamese smiled and bowed. “It will come again. Oh, yes. It will come again. I can wait.”

“I’m getting cabin fever,” Alan told Sylvia.

He had spent a restless night and had been delighted to hear from her this morning. But talking on the phone was a far cry from being next to her and did little to ease his growing claustrophobia. The little apartment occupied the southeast corner of the building. Nice and warm in the winter, no doubt, but the sun had been blazing through the windows since 6:00 a.m. and the temperature of the soggy air here in the front room had to be pushing into triple figures already.

Hai, dressed in the classic loose white blouse and baggy black pajama pants of her people, bustled around the kitchen while her grandson munched on a cracker, both unmindful of the heat. It all came down to what you were used to.

“I’ve been cooped up for days—first in that glorified hospital room at the Foundation, now in an apartment so small you rub shoulders with somebody every time you move!”

“You promised to stay one day.”

“And I will,” he said, looking at the clock. It was 9:00. “In just a little over twelve hours I’m walking out of here. I don’t care who’s looking for me—McCready or the Mafia—I’m gone.”

“I don’t think the senator will be doing much looking. He’s in a coma in Columbia Presbyterian.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Of course not! You sound surprised.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Well, didn’t you tell me last night that he went into some sort of convulsion when he tried to make you heal him? What’d you call it—a myasthenic crisis?”

Alan groped for the memory. The story sounded familiar. It came back slowly, like a slide projection very gradually being brought into focus.

“Oh, yeah. Sure. They say anything else about him?”

“No. Just that he’s critical.”

Did I do that? Alan asked himself after he had said good-bye to Sylvia.

Had he wanted to harm the senator? Had that somehow influenced the Touch to worsen his illness rather than cure it? Or had McCready simply worked himself into such a state that he brought the crisis upon himself?

Why try to kid himself? He had felt an odd sensation in his arms before McCready collapsed. Not the usual electric pleasure. Something different. Had he brought that on or had the power itself initiated it?

He didn’t know. And not knowing worried him.

He shifted in the chair, felt something crinkle in his pocket, and pulled out Mr. K’s empty Camel pack. Smiling, he set it on the table. Mr. K…Alan wondered if he had really stopped smoking.

There came a click of a key in the lock of the apartment door and Chac came in, dressed in a blue work shirt and denim cover-alls. He bowed to Alan, then embraced his wife. Hai brought tea for both of them. Alan accepted it with what he hoped was a gracious smile. He was swimming in tea.

He watched with amazement as Chac deftly lit an unfiltered cigarette with his deformed hands. As Alan tried to hold up his end of a halting conversation about the weather, he detected a growing murmur of voices in the hall outside the door. He was about to ask Chac about it when the Vietnamese slapped his hands on his thighs and said, “It is time!”

“Time for what?”

“Dat-tay-vao.” He held out his hands to Alan. “Please?”

Was the Hour of Power on? And if so, how did Chac know? Alan shrugged. Only one way to find out.

He grasped the twisted fingers—

—and there it was again. That indescribable pleasure. Alan found something very comfortable in the Touch today. Maybe it was because Chac took its existence and effects for granted; there was no doubt to overcome, no preconceptions to butt against, no need to cover it up, just simple acceptance. And maybe it was because the Dat-tay-vao itself was back among the people who knew it best and revered it most. In a sense, the Touch had come home.

Chac raised his new hands and wrists before his eyes and flexed his slim, straight fingers. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. Speechless, he nodded his thanks to Alan, who placed an understanding hand on the older man’s shoulder.

Chac stood and showed Hai, who embraced him, then went to the door and opened it.

The hall was filled with people. It looked like half of the city’s Southeast Asian population was on the landing. They gasped in unison at the sight of Chac’s normal, upraised hands, then broke into a babble of singsong voices, none of them speaking English.

Chac turned to him and dried his eyes. “I thank you. And I wonder if you would be so kind as to let the Dat-tay-vao heal others.”

Alan didn’t answer.

Why me? he wondered for the thousandth time. Why should he wind up with responsibility for the Dat-tay-vao? To decide whether to use it or not? He vaguely remembered being told that it was hurting him, that he paid a personal price every time he used it.

Do I want this?

He looked across the table at the happy little boy sitting with his grandmother, alive and well this morning instead of dead or on a respirator. He saw Chac flexing and extending his new fingers again and again. And he saw Mr. K’s empty cigarette pack.

This was what it was all about: second chances. A chance to go back to when and where the illness had struck and start fresh again. Maybe that was the answer to Why me? He wanted to provide that second chance—give them all a second chance.

“Doctor?” Chac said, waiting.

“Bring them in,” he told Chac. “Bring them all in.”

Alan waited in anticipation as Chac went back to the door. This was going to be good. He could be up front about the Touch here. No worry about newspapers and hospital boards and conniving politicians. Just Alan, the patient, and the Dat-tay-vao.

He motioned to Chac to hurry. There would be no holding back today, no pussyfooting around. The Touch would recede in an hour and he wanted to treat as many as he could.

Chac brought the first forward: a middle-aged man with both arms locked at right angles in front of him.

“The Cong broke his elbows so that he would go through life unable to take food or drink by himself.”

Alan wasted no time. He grabbed both elbows and felt the familiar shock. The man cried out as his arms straightened at the elbows for the first time in years, and then he began to swing them up and down. He fell to his knees, but Alan gently pushed him aside and motioned a limping boy forward.

On they came, in a steady stream. And as the Dat-tay-vao worked its magic on each one, Alan felt himself enveloped in an ever-deepening cloud of euphoria. The details of the room faded away. All that was left was a tunnel view of his hands and the person before him. A part of him was frightened, calling for a halt. Alan ignored it. He was at peace with himself, with his life. This was as it should be. This was what his life was about, this was what he had been born for.

He pressed on, literally pulling the people toward him and pushing them aside as soon as the pleasure flashed through him.

The haze grew thicker. And still the people came.

The flashes of ecstasy stopped coming but the haze remained. It seemed to permeate all levels of his consciousness.

Where am I?

He tried to remember but the answer wouldn’t come.

Who am I?

He couldn’t even think of his name. But there was another name surfacing through the haze. He reached for it, found it, and said it aloud.

“Jeffy.”

He clung to the name, repeating it.

“Jeffy.”

The name ignited a small flame within him. He turned his face northeast. He had to find Jeffy. Jeffy would tell him who he was.

He stood and almost fell. His left leg was weak. He called for help, and shadowy figures babbling gibberish propped him up until he was steady. As he began to walk toward the door, gentle hands tried to hold him back. He said one word: “No.” The hands fell away and the figures parted to let him pass. He came to a set of stairs and paused, unsure of where his feet were. He tried to reach out for the banister with his left hand but could not raise it high enough. It was so heavy.

“Help,” he said. “Jeffy.”

Hands and arms lifted him and carried him down and around a number of times and finally brought him into the bright, hot sun where they set him on his feet again.

He began to walk. He knew the direction. Jeffy was like a beacon.

He moved toward it.

“Jeffy.”

49

Sylvia

Sylvia sat on the library couch where she and Alan had made love last week and patiently listened to the noon news, waiting for further word on McCready. There was nothing new. She rose and reached to switch off the weatherman when the camera abruptly cut away from him to the anchorman.

“This just in: Senator James McCready is dead. We have just received word that the senator has died from complications of a long-standing illness. We will break into our regular programming as more details become available.”

Her heart pounding, Sylvia strode forward and spun the dial. She searched across the band, hunting more details, but heard only the same information in almost exactly the same wording. All the stations must have received identical releases.

She flicked off the set.

Complications of a long-standing illness.

That was a relief. She had worried that the senator or his staff might try to lay the blame for what had happened on Alan. Normally such a fear would never have crossed her mind, but after what had happened lately….

The realization struck her: Alan could come home!

She checked the slip of paper that Ba had given her and called Chac Tien Dong’s number. It went four rings before it was answered by a Vietnamese woman. Sylvia could barely hear her over the wild babble of voices in the background at the other end of the line.

“May I speak to Dr. Bulmer, please?” There came a confusion of noise over the wire. “How about Chac?” Sylvia said. “Can I speak to Chac?”

More confusion, then a male voice.

“Yes? This is Chac.”

“This is Mrs. Nash, Chac. May I speak to Dr. Bulmer?”

There was a long pause, then Chac said, “He not here.”

Oh, my God! “Where is he? Where did he go? Did someone come and take him away?”

“No. He leave all by self.”

That, at least, was a relief. It meant that none of the Foundation people were involved.

“But why didn’t you stop him?”

“Oh, no,” Chac said. “Never stop Dat-tay-vao! Very bad!” Alarm spread through her like a cold wind. Ba said he had warned Alan against mentioning the Touch. How did Chac know?

“Did he use the Dat-tay-vao?”

“Oh, yes! Many times!”

Sylvia slammed the receiver down and shouted, “Ba!”

50

Ba

Ba pushed his way through the thinning crowd in the tiny apartment to where Chac was standing and waving his reborn fingers in the air. His anger must have shown in his face, for the older man looked up at him and paled.

“I couldn’t help it, Ba!” he said, retreating a step.

“You promised!” Ba said in a low voice, feeling hurt and angry. “You said you would keep him from all eyes except your family’s, and here I find a party!”

“The Dat-tay-vao! He has the Dat-tay-vao!”

“I know that. It was why I asked you to hide him.”

“I didn’t know that! Perhaps if you had told me, it would have made a difference!”

“Perhaps?”

“Little Lam Thuy would have died if he hadn’t been here! Don’t you understand? He was sent here! He was meant to be here at that very moment! The Dat-tay-vao knew it would be needed and so it brought him here!”

“I brought him here! And I’m glad with all my heart that he saved Lam Thuy, but that does not justify inviting the entire community to come here!”

Chac shrugged sheepishly. “I boasted. I was so honored to have the Dat-tay-vao in my home that I had to tell someone. The news spread. Like fish to the spawning ground, they descended on me. What could I do?”

“You could have turned them away.”

Chac gazed at him reproachfully. “If you had heard that someone with the Dat-tay-vao was down the street when Nhung Thi was dying of the cancer, would you have been turned away?”

Ba had no answer. None, at least, that he wished to voice. He knew that he would have fought like a thousand devils for a chance to let the Dat-tay-vao work its magic on his withering wife. He sighed and placed a gentle hand on Chac’s shoulder.

“Tell me, old friend. Which way did he go?”

“He was looking northeast. I would have kept him here, but he was seeking someone. And as you know, one never impedes the Dat-tay-vao.”

“Yes, I know,” Ba said, “but I’ve never understood that.”

“‘If you value your well-being/Impede not its way.’ What more is there to understand?”

“What happens if you do impede its way?”

“I do not know. Let others learn; the warning is enough for me.”

“I must find him for the Missus. Can you help me?”

Chac shook his head. “We did not follow him. He was under the spell of the Dat-tay-vao—he was not walking right and his thoughts were clouded. But he kept saying the same word over and over again: ‘Jeffy.’ Again and again: ‘Jeffy.’”

Spurred by a sudden and unexplainable sense of danger, Ba stepped to the phone and dialed the Missus. He now knew where the Doctor was going. But if he was walking and if his mind was not right, he might never reach his destination. Ba would do his best to find him, but first he had to call the Missus.

Glancing out the window, he saw the first thunderheads piling up in the western sky.

51

During the Storm

Sylvia had watched the gathering darkness with a growing sense of foreboding. Her longtime general fear of all storms paled before the dread that rose in her minute by minute as she watched the billowing clouds, all pink and white on top but so dark and menacing below, swallow the westering sun. Alan was out there somewhere. And he was coming here. That should have thrilled her; instead it filled her with an even greater unease. Ba had hinted that Alan wasn’t quite in his right mind. Alan and the storm—both were approaching from the west.

The phone rang. Sylvia rushed to it.

It was Charles. He seemed to have regained his composure since yesterday. Quickly, Sylvia relayed what Ba had told her.

“The bloody fool!” he said. “Did Ba say how many people he worked his magic on before he wandered off?”

“He wasn’t sure, but from what he could gather from Chac, maybe fifty.”

“Good lord!” Charles said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse.

Sylvia pressed on, hoping that if she kept feeding information to Charles he might be able to give her an idea of what had happened to Alan.

“Chac also told Ba that Alan was walking funny—as if his left leg wasn’t working right.”

“Oh, no!”

“What’s wrong?”

“That poor stupid bastard! He’s gone and knocked out part of his motor cortex! God knows what will go next.”

Sylvia felt as if her heart were suspended between beats. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that this Touch or what ever you call this bloody power of his has apparently used up most of the nonvital areas of his brain, and now it’s moving into more critical areas. No telling what will go next if he goes on using it. If it hits a vital motor area, he could wind up crippled; if it knocks out a part of the visual cortex, he’ll be partially or completely blind. And if he should happen to damage something like the respiratory center in the brainstem, he’ll die!”

Sylvia could barely breathe.

“God, Charles, what’ll we do?”

“Isolate him, keep him safe and happy, and don’t let him go around touching people when the tide is in. Given time, and, assuming he hasn’t caused too much damage, I think his brain will recover. At least partially. But I can’t guarantee it. Of course, the first thing you’ve got to do is find him.”

“He’s coming here,” Sylvia said with a sinking feeling.

“Well, good. No problem then.”

“He’s coming for Jeffy.”

“Oh, yes, he mentioned Jeffy at the Foundation.” There was a lengthy pause, then: “That does present a problem now, doesn’t it? A moral dilemma, one might say.”

Thunder rumbled.

Sylvia couldn’t answer.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Charles said. “Anything. I owe that man.”

Sylvia hung up and corralled Jeffy from the now dark sunroom. She pulled the drapes closed across the tall library windows, then sat on the couch and snuggled with the ever more placid Jeffy as she listened to the growing din of the storm.

On the Five O’Clock News, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle were extolling the courage and integrity of the late Senator James A. McCready. Sylvia tuned them out.

What am I going to do?

She knew the choice that faced her and she didn’t want to choose. According to the chart, it would be high tide off Monroe at 10:43 tonight. If Alan arrived then, she would have to make a decision: a meaningful life for Jeffy against brain damage, maybe even death, for Alan.

She hugged Jeffy against her and rocked back and forth like a child with a teddy bear.

I can’t choose!

Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Ba could intercept him and bring him to Charles or someplace where he could rest and become himself again. That would rescue her from the dilemma of either letting him go ahead with what he thought he had to do, or standing in his way and delaying him until the hour of the Dat-tay-vao passed.

And later, after Alan had had days and weeks to rest up, and if he recovered the parts of his mind he had lost over the past few weeks, and knew what he was doing and was fully aware of the risks involved, then maybe she could let him try the Dat-tay-vao on Jeffy.

But what if the Dat-tay-vao was gone by then? Sylvia squeezed Jeffy tighter.

What do I do?

She looked at the old Regulator school clock on the wall—5:15. Five and a half hours to go.

Alan realized he was wet. The water poured out of the sky in torrents, soaking through his clothes and running down his arms and legs. His feet squished in his shoes as he walked.

He had been walking as fast as his weak left leg would allow him for a long time. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he knew he was closer to Jeffy. He had crossed a bridge over a river and was now walking down a narrow alley between two run-down apartment houses. He came to a spot where an overhang gave shelter from the downpour. He stopped and leaned against the wall for a rest.

Two other men were already there.

“Beat it, asshole,” one of them said. Alan strained his vision in the dim light to see the one who had spoken. He saw a filthy man who wore his equally filthy long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, dressed in torn jeans and a T-shirt that might have been yellow once. “This spot’s taken.”

Alan didn’t know why the man was so belligerent, but he took it as good advice. He had to keep on moving. Had to get to Jeffy. Couldn’t let a little rain stop him. He started for the end of the alley toward which he had been heading, but tripped and almost fell.

“Hey!” said the other man. He too was wearing dirty jeans, and his greasy, gray sweatshirt cut off at the shoulders exposed crude tattoos over each deltoid. His hair was short and black. “You kicked me!”

In a single motion, he levered himself off the wall and gave Alan a vicious shove. Off balance and stumbling backward, Alan’s wind-milling arms caught the wall, but his left leg wouldn’t hold him. He went down on one knee.

“Bad leg, ay?” Ponytail said with a smile as he stepped forward. Alan felt a stab of pain in his good leg as the man kicked him. He went down on the other knee.

Hurt and afraid now, Alan struggled back to his feet. He saw that both men had identical tattoos in their thumb webs—a spidery, stick-limbed figure he’d seen before. He turned away.

“Hey, gimp! Where y’goin’?” one of them said from behind.

“Jeffy,” Alan said. How could they not know that?

“What he say?” said the other voice.

“Dunno. Didn’t even sound like English.”

“Hey! A foreign dude. Let’s check him out!”

A hand clamped on his shoulder and spun him around. “What’s the rush, pal?” Ponytail said, grabbing his arms and pinning them to his sides. Sweatshirt came up beside him and rammed his fingers into Alan’s left rear pocket.

“Fucker’s got a wallet!”

A vaguely female voice shouted from far above. “Hey! What’s goin’ on down there?”

“Eat me, sweetheart!” Sweatshirt yelled, almost in Alan’s ear, as he struggled with the button on Alan’s rear pocket.

“Jeffy!” Alan said.

Ponytail stuck his face almost against Alan’s. His breath was foul. “I’ll Jeffee your head, asshole, if you don’t shut up!”

Alan freed his right arm and pushed against him.

“Jeffy!”

And suddenly Ponytail began to gurgle and writhe in his grasp. His eyes rolled upward and a swollen tongue protruded from his mouth.

“What the fuck?” Sweatshirt shouted. “Hey, Sammy! Hey!”

He pulled on the front of Alan’s shirt and Alan fended him off, grabbing his wrist with his newly freed left hand.

Sweatshirt began to shudder uncontrollably in Alan’s grasp, as if suddenly struck with a malarial chill. His short black hair began to fall out and rain down on Alan’s arm.

Alan glanced back at Ponytail, now swaying drunkenly. Lumps had appeared all over his skin; as Alan watched, they swelled, pointed, and burst, oozing trails of purulent, blood-tinged slime down his quaking body.

Reeling in confusion and shock, Alan tried to loosen his grip but found his fingers locked. Sweatshirt’s knees crumbled under him. As Alan watched, the man’s stomach began to swell, becoming enormously distended until it ruptured, spewing loops of his intestines out of the cavity to drape over his thighs like strings of boiled sausage.

A woman’s voice screamed from high above. Ponytail, now an unrecognizable mass of festering sores, sank to the ground. As the buzz of the gathering flies mixed with the shrill sound of the woman’s continued screaming, Alan turned and started walking once more. The images of the scene behind him were already fading into unreality as he picked up the beacon that lay to the north east.

“Jeffy,” he said.

Ba wheeled his Pacer up and down the rain-soaked streets. Chac had told him that the Doctor had headed northeast, and so Ba had driven that way, weaving a path from street to street through the teeming housing projects until he came to the East River. From there he took the Williamsburg Bridge and crossed into Brooklyn. He was unfamiliar with this area of the city. That, coupled with the maniacal fury of the storm and the almost nightlike darkness, slowed his search to a frustrating crawl.

Wherever this was, it was a nasty neighborhood. He did not like to think of the Doctor walking through here alone. Anything could happen to him. The storm, at least, was in his favor. It seemed to be keeping most people indoors.

He turned a corner onto a wider street and saw flashing red lights a few blocks down—two squad cars and an ambulance. Saying a silent prayer to his ancestors that the lights were not flashing for the Doctor, he accelerated toward them.

Ba double-parked and pressed through the buzzing crowd of rainsoaked onlookers to see what had drawn them out into the storm. Over their heads Ba could see a number of attendants in the alley fitting the second of two body bags around the gangrenous and shriveled remains of what had once been a human being. Despite the rain, he caught a whiff of putrescence on a gust of wind from the alley. And even in the red glow of the flashers, Ba detected a grim pallor to the attendants’ faces. Both body bags were loaded into the ambulance. The sight of them brought back unwanted memories of the war back home.

“A murder?” Ba said to the man next to him.

He shrugged. “Two rotted bodies. Somebody must have dumped them there.” As he glanced up at Ba, his eyes widened. He turned and hurried away.

A man who appeared to be a police detective cupped his hands around his mouth and called to the crowd. The man next to him held an umbrella over the two of them.

“I’ll ask you all one last time: Did anyone see what happened here?”

“I told you!” said a wizened old woman from the stoop of the building behind the scene. “I saw the whole thing!”

“And we have your statement, ma’am,” the policeman said in a tired voice without turning around. He rolled his eyes at his companion.

No one came forward. The crowd began to thin. Ba hesitated, unsure of what to do. Two rotted corpses…at least he was now sure that the Doctor had not been in one of those body bags. He should leave and continue the search, he knew, but something held him here.

That old woman on the stoop. He wanted to speak to her.

Alan walked up a ramp toward a highway. Cars rushed by him; the sheetlike cascades of dirty water from their tires added to the downpour, leaving not a dry spot on his body. He barely noticed. He did not know the name of the highway but sensed that it traveled in the right direction.

He reached the main span of the road and continued walking. Lightning blanched the dark sky and thunder drowned out the rumble of the cars and trucks speeding by. Wind lashed the rain into his eyes. He walked on, faster now, a sense of urgency lighting inside him. He was late, behind schedule. If he didn’t hurry, he’d arrive too late for Jeffy.

Without thinking, he turned and began walking backwards. Of its own accord, almost as if by reflex, his arm thrust out toward the traffic, his thumb pointing toward his destination.

It was at a point in the road where the water was particularly deep and the cars had to slow to a crawl to pass through that a car pulled to a stop beside him and the passenger door flew open.

“Boy, do you look like you could use a lift!” said a voice from within.

Alan got into the car and pulled the door closed after him. “Where y’going?” said the plump man in the driver’s seat.

Alan said, “Jeffy.”

Finally, the crowd, the ambulance, and the police cars were all gone. Only Ba and the old woman on the stoop remained, he in the rainy darkness, she in the pool of light under the overhang on her front stoop.

Ba walked over and stood at the bottom of the steps.

“What did you see?”

She gasped as she looked down at him. “Who the hell are you?”

“Someone who has seen strange things in his lifetime. What did you see?”

“I told the police.”

“Tell me.”

She sighed, looked over to the opening of the alley beside the building, and began to speak.

“I was watching the storm. Sitting at my window, watching the storm. I always sit at my window, rain or shine. Not much going on outside most of the time, but it’s sure a helluva lot more than’s going on inside. So I was sitting there, watching the lightning, when I seen this guy come walking down the alley, walking kind of funny, like he’d hurt his leg or something. And he’s walking in the rain like he don’t know it’s raining. I figure he’s on drugs, which means he’s right at home around here.”

“Excuse me,” Ba said, his interest aroused now. “But what did this man look like?”

“Maybe forty. Brown hair, blue pants, and a light blue shirt. Why? You know him?”

Ba nodded. That described the Doctor perfectly. “I’m looking for him.”

“Well, you better hope you don’t find him! You should have seen what happened to those two bums, God rest their souls”—she crossed herself—“when they tried to rob him! He grabbed them and they went into fits and died and rotted, all in a few minutes! You’ve never seen anything like it! And neither have I until today!”

Ba said nothing, only stared at her, stunned.

“You think I’m crazy, too, dontcha? You and those cops. Well, go ahead. Think what you want. I saw what I saw.”

“Did you see which way he went?” Ba said, as he found his voice again.

“No, I—” was all he heard, for she flinched as a particularly bright bolt of lightning cut through the rain and gloom, and what ever else she might have said was lost in the thunderclap that followed on its heels. She turned and opened the door to the building.

“I didn’t hear you!” Ba called.

“I said I didn’t want to see.”

Ba hurried back to his car. As he sped along the streets, looking for a phone, his mind raced in time with the engine.

What was happening? First the senator, now these two men. Was the Dat-tay-vao turning evil? Or were these examples of what was meant by that line from the song: “If you value your well-being/Impede not its way”?

Perhaps Chac had been wise after all not to prevent the Doctor from leaving. He might have ended as a rotted corpse.

Ba was no longer searching for the Doctor. That could wait. Before he did anything else, he had to find a phone. The Missus had to be warned. If the Doctor made it to Toad Hall, the Missus might try to keep him from Jeffy, thinking it was for the Doctor’s own good.

His mind turned away from what might happen.

He came to a light at a main thoroughfare, but couldn’t find a sign to tell him its name. He saw a Shell station half a block to his left and headed for it. Fortunately, the pay phone there hadn’t been vandalized and he called Toad Hall.

A recorded voice came on the line: “We are sorry, but your call did not go through. Please hang up and dial again.”

Ba did, and received the same message. A third try with the same result left one conclusion: The lines were down again in Monroe.

Ba asked the station attendant the quickest route to the Long Island Expressway and then sped off, his mind consumed with a vision of the Missus withering and rotting under the Doctor’s hand as she tried to stop him.

A glance at the dashboard clock showed 8:15. Plenty of time. Still he hurried, weaving through the traffic, dodging the potholes. A sign pointed straight ahead for the L.I.E./495. The red light ahead turned green so he accelerated.

And then he saw the delivery truck careen into the intersection as it ran its red light. Ba all but stood on the brakes. As the Pacer went into a spin on the wet pavement, he saw the driver’s wide eyes and shocked, open mouth, saw the name IMBESI BROS. in big yellow letters on its side, and then the world disappeared.

“Sure this is where you want to get out?”

Alan nodded. He had remembered his own name—at least his first name—and recognized some of his surroundings. The sign had said, EXIT 39—GLEN COVE RD. The car was stopped under the overpass, out of the rain. He knew that Jeffy was directly off to his left, due north of here. The driver was heading farther east.

“Yes.”

The driver glanced around at the narrow shoulder of the road. “This is where this Jeffy is gonna meet you?”

“Not far,” Alan said as he opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

“It’s eight-forty-five now. What time they comin’?”

“Soon.”

“You’re gonna catch pneumonia soon.”

Alan said, “Jeffy.”

“Just remember me the next time you’re driving along and see someone soaked and walking in the rain.”

“Yes,” Alan said and closed the door.

After the car had sped off, Alan struggled up the embankment to the road above and turned north.

It wasn’t far now. He was tired, but he knew that once he reached Jeffy he would be able to take a long, long rest.

Where was Ba?

Sylvia paced the library, dark but for the glow of a few candles placed here and there around the room. The power was out, the phones were out, and the tide was coming in. Quarter to ten now. An hour to high tide.

An involuntary yelp of fright escaped Sylvia as a jab of white-hot lightning lit the room and thunder rattled Toad Hall on its foundations.

Would this storm never stop?

Futile as it was to rail at nature, Sylvia took comfort in the gesture. It vented her tension. And it was better than thinking about the decision facing her.

If Ba had found Alan and was keeping him away until the hour of the Dat-tay-vao had passed, then she was home free. But if Alan was still on his way here….

If only she knew! If only Ba would call!

I’m copping out.

She had to make a decision. If she was ever going to respect herself after this nightmare was over, she would have to get off the fence and stop hoping for someone to decide for her.

She started to sigh but it came out as a sob. She bit her lip to hold back the tears. There was only one choice.

She had to stop Alan.

God, how she ached to give Jeffy a chance at being a normal little boy. But the price…the price.

How could she allow Alan, in his brain-damaged state, to risk further damage, perhaps death, on the chance that he might cure Jeffy’s autism? So far the Dat-tay-vao had been used only on physical ills. Who even knew if it could help Jeffy at all?

And if it could, wasn’t that the most frightening prospect of all?

In that moment, she faced the gut-wrenching realization that she wasn’t afraid for Alan as much as she was afraid for Jeffy and herself. What if Jeffy’s autism was suddenly cured and he became a normal, responsive child? What kind of child would he be? What if he loathed her? Or even worse—what if she loathed him? She couldn’t bear that. Almost better to have him stay the way he was and still love him than to face the unknown.

Still, her mind was made up: If Alan arrived, she’d stop him, even if it meant physically blocking his way.

She should have felt relieved now that she had finally reached a decision. Why did she feel so defeated?

She took the flashlight and ran upstairs to check on Jeffy. She found him sleeping peacefully despite the storm. She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed his curly, sun-bleached hair.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she felt her resolve weaken, but she took a deep breath and held it until she hurt. Then she let it out, slowly.

“Your day will come, little man,” she whispered, and kissed his freckled forehead.

Then she went back downstairs to wait for Alan.

The jostling brought Ba back to consciousness. Flashing red lights glowed dimly through the blur that coated his eyes like thick jelly. As he blinked and his vision cleared, he saw a concrete overhang a few yards above with a sign that read EMERGENCY ENTRANCE. From below him he heard a clank and felt one firm, final jostle. He realized with a start that he was on a stretcher that had been slid out of an ambulance and had its wheels lowered. He tried to sit up but found straps buckled across his chest. The effort caused a blaze of pain to rip up the back of his neck and explode in his head.

“Let me up,” he said in a voice that did not quite sound like his own.

A brusque but gentle hand patted his shoulder. “Take it easy, mac. You’ll be okay. We already thought you was dead but you ain’t. We’ll be unstrapping you in a minute.”

He was wheeled up next to a gurney, unstrapped, and moved laterally. Only then did he realize that he was on a wooden backboard. Ba waited until the backboard had been removed, then made his move before any more straps could be fastened around him.

The room swam and a wave of nausea washed over him as he sat up. He clenched his teeth and bit back the bile that welled up in his throat.

“Just a minute there, pal,” one of the attendants said. “You better lie down until they get a doctor in here.”

“What time is it?” Ba said. The room had righted itself and was holding steady. He realized there was a bandage around his head. There were other people on other gurneys spaced evenly along the walls of the emergency ward, some enclosed in curtains, some open. Activity swirled and eddied around him.

“Ten-seventeen,” said the other attendant.

Two hours! Ba slid off the gurney onto his feet. I’ve lost two hours!

He had to get to Toad Hall, to the Missus!

As he began to walk toward the door to the outer hallway, ignoring the protests from the ambulance attendants, a middle-aged nurse, clipboard in hand, marched up to him.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

Ba looked at her once, then brushed by her. “Please do not stop me. I must leave.”

She stood aside and let him pass without saying another word.

He went through the automatic doors and stood there on the curb, his fists clenching and unclenching against his thighs.

He had no car!

A door slammed to his right and he saw an ambulance driver walking away from his rig. The diesel engine was still running.

Before actually making a conscious decision, Ba found himself walking toward the vehicle as the driver passed him and went through the emergency doors. The door was unlocked. Without looking back, Ba seated himself behind the wheel, put it in gear, and pulled out onto the street. Because a right turn would take him out of sight more quickly, Ba turned that way and came upon an arrow pointing straight ahead to 495.

He found the switches for the flashers and the siren and turned them on. With no little sense of satisfaction, he floored the accelerator and watched cars slew out of his way to let him pass. He began to think that he might have a chance to make it to Toad Hall in time after all.

The streets here looked vaguely familiar, yet try as he might, Alan could not remember the name of the town. A number of times he wanted to turn from his path and investigate a side road or follow a tantalizing thread of familiarity to see where it led.

But he found he could not. What ever was guiding him—driving him—would not allow him to veer from the path toward Jeffy. There was a monumental singularity of purpose within him that had all but taken control.

He turned off the road and walked between two brick gateposts onto an asphalt driveway, then off the driveway and into a stand of willows where he stopped and stood among the drooping leafy branches that swayed like soft bead curtains in the wind. He was glad to stop; he was exhausted. If it were entirely up to him, he’d drop onto the sodden ground and go to sleep.

But it was not up to him. So he stood and waited, facing the huge, dark house across the lawn. Beyond the house he could hear water lapping high and hungry against the docks. The tide was almost in. He didn’t know how he knew that, but there was no doubt in his mind. And that was what he seemed to be waiting for—the crest of the tide.

He felt a new sensation, a tension coiling within him, pulsating eagerly, readying to spring. His hands felt warm.

And then he began to walk toward the house.

It was time.

“Jeffy,” he said to the darkness.

Finally, the storm was dying. The lightning was now dim flashes and the thunder only low-pitched rumbles, like an overfed stomach with indigestion.

Thank God! Sylvia thought. Now, if only the lights will come back on….

Phemus began to bark.

Sylvia went to the window that looked out on the driveway, but saw no car. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was 10:40. Three minutes to high tide. A chill ran over her. Someone was out there in the darkness, moving this way across the lawn toward the house. She wished she could turn on the outside spotlights. At least then she could see him. Not that it really mattered. She could sense his presence.

Alan was coming.

But how could that be? How could he get all the way here from lower Manhattan? It just didn’t seem possible. Yet he was out there. She was sure of it.

Flashlight in hand, she took Phemus by the collar and led him back to the utility room where she closed him in with the washer and dryer. As she was moving toward the library, she heard the front door swing open. She stopped for a minute, listening to her heart thudding in her chest. She thought she had locked that door! What if it wasn’t Alan? What if it was a burglar—or worse?

Turning her flashlight off, Sylvia steeled herself and crept softly along the hall until she got to the front foyer. A distant flash of lightning flickered through the still-open door, reflecting off wet footprints on the floor and backlighting a dark figure starting up the stairs.

“Alan?”

The figure didn’t reply, but continued to climb. It seemed to be limping as it took the steps one at a time. Ba had said that Alan was limping when he left Chac’s. It had to be him.

She flicked on the flashlight and angled the beam until she caught his face.

Yes, it was Alan, and yet it was not Alan. His face was slack, his eyes vacant. He was different.

“Alan—don’t go up there.”

Alan glanced her way, squinting in the beam of light.

“Jeffy,” he said in a voice she barely recognized.

Cajole him, she told herself. Talk him down. He’s not all there.

She held the light under her own face. “It’s me—Sylvia. Don’t go to Jeffy now. He’s asleep. You’ll only disturb him. Maybe you’ll frighten him.”

“Jeffy,” was all that Alan said.

And then the lights came on.

Sylvia gasped at the sight of Alan in his entirety. He looked terrible. Wet, dirty, his hair matted and twisted by wind and rain, and his eyes—they were Alan’s and yet not Alan’s.

He continued up the stairs one at a time at his painfully slow pace, moving like an automaton.

With fear and pity mixing inside her, Sylvia started toward him. “Don’t go up there, Alan. I don’t want you to. At least not now.”

He was halfway up the staircase now and didn’t look around. He simply said, “Jeffy.”

“No, Alan!” She ran up the stairs until she was beside him. “I don’t want you to go near him! Not like this. Not the way you are.”

The lights wavered, flicked off for a second, then came back on.

“Jeffy!”

Fear had taken over now. There was no longer any question in her mind that Alan was completely deranged. In the distance she heard a siren. If it was the police, she wished they were coming here, but it was too late to call them now. She couldn’t let Alan near Jeffy. She’d have to stop him herself.

She grabbed his arm. “Alan, I’m telling you now—”

With a spasmodic jerk of his left arm, he elbowed her away, slamming her back against the banister. Sylvia winced at the pain in her ribs, but what hurt more was that Alan did not even look around to see what he had done.

The siren was louder now, almost as if it were passing directly in front of the house. Sylvia scurried up to the top of the stairs ahead of Alan and faced him, blocking his way.

“Stop, Alan! Stop right there!”

But he kept on coming, trying to squeeze by to her left. She tightened her grip on the banister and wouldn’t let him pass. She was so close to him now, and she could see the determination in his eyes. He pressed against her with desperate strength as the lights flickered again and the siren’s wail became deafeningly loud.

“Jeffy!”

“No!”

He grabbed her arms to push her aside and then everything happened at once. Pain—it started at her core and began to boil within her, tearing at her, making her feel as if she were being turned inside out. Her vision dimmed. She heard a pounding sound—footsteps on the stairs or the blood in her ears?

Then Ba’s voice shouted, “Missus, no!”

She felt an impact that knocked the wind out of her, felt strong arms around her, lifting her, carrying her, falling to the floor with her.

Sylvia’s vision cleared as the pain faded away. She was lying on the second-floor landing. Ba was beside her, breathing hard, a bloody bandage around his head.

“Missus! Missus!” he was saying, shaking her. “You all right, Missus?”

“Yes, I think so.” She saw Alan limp by. He looked down at her, and for a moment seemed to start toward her, a confused and concerned look on his face. Then he turned away, as if drawn by an invisible cord, continuing on his path toward Jeffy’s room. “Alan, come back!”

“He must go, Missus,” Ba said soothingly as he restrained her. “You must not try to stop him.”

“But why?”

“Perhaps because he has always wanted to help the Boy, and perhaps his time with the Dat-tay-vao is near its end and he must complete this final task. But you must not try to stop him.”

“But he could die!”

“As you would have died if you had barred his way any longer.”

There was a note of such finality in Ba’s voice, and such unfailing certainty in his eyes, that Sylvia did not dare ask how he knew.

The lights went out again.

Sylvia looked down the hall and saw Alan’s shadowy form turn into Jeffy’s room. She wanted to scream for him to stop, to run down the hall and grab him by the ankles. But Ba held her back.

Alan disappeared through Jeffy’s doorway. A pale glow suddenly filled the room and spilled out into the hall.

“No!” she cried and broke away from Ba. Something awful was going to happen. She just knew it.

She rolled to her feet and ran down the hall, but was brought to a halt for a frozen second as a child’s cry of pain and fear split the silent darkness.

And then the cry took form.

“Mommy! Mommy-Mommy!”

Sylvia’s knees buckled. That voice! God, that voice! It was Jeffy! The lights flickered again as she forced herself forward, through the door, and into the room.

By the glow of his Donald Duck night-light she could see Jeffy crouched against the wall in the corner of his bed.

“Mommy!” he said, rising to his knees and holding his arms out to her. “Mommy!”

Sylvia staggered forward, heart pounding, mouth dry. This couldn’t be true! This kind of thing only happens in fairy tales!

Yet there he was, this beautiful little boy, looking at her, seeing her, calling for her. Half-blinded by tears, she ran forward and gathered him up against her. His arms went around her neck and squeezed.

It was true! He was really cured!

“Oh, Jeffy! Jeffy! Jeffy!”

“Mommy,” he said in a clear, high voice. “That man hurt me!”

“Man? What—?” Oh, God! Alan! She frantically looked around the room.

And then she saw him, crumpled on the floor like a pile of wet rags in the shadows by the foot of the bed.

And he wasn’t moving. God in heaven, he wasn’t even breathing!

AUGUST

52

Jeffy

Jeffy felt a warm inner glow at the sight of Dr. Bulmer. It was always the same whenever he saw him. He didn’t know exactly why; he just knew that he loved the man, almost as much as Mommy.

Jeffy stood beside his mother now as Mr. Ba pushed Dr. Bulmer’s wheelchair through the front door and into the house. It had been a month since the doctor had been carried out of Jeffy’s room and rushed to the hospital. He still didn’t look too good, but he looked better than he had that night.

Jeffy would never forget that night. It was as if his life had begun then. He could remember very little before it. But that night…the world had become a glorious new place that night, opening up like one of the morning flowers in the garden when the sun shone on it.

Life before then had been like a dream; half-remembered, disjointed scenes from that time flashed sporadically in his new wakeful state. Everything now seemed new and not-new, as if he had been here before, seen and done so many things before, and forgotten them. Seeing them again was like a gentle jog to his memory, causing a burst of recognition in which pieces out of nowhere seemed to fall into place.

Mommy said that everything good that had happened to him since that night was because of Dr. Bulmer. Maybe that was why he got such a good feeling whenever he saw the doctor.

Mommy took over the job of pushing the wheelchair and started talking to Dr. Bulmer. She always talked to him. Jeffy had noticed that on the times when he had visited the doctor in the hospital. Mommy talked and talked, even though the doctor hardly ever answered her back. She pushed him into the room that the men had been working on for the past few weeks.

“Remember this place, Alan?” she said. “We spent some time here, you and I.”

“I…I think so,” he said in his flat voice.

“Used to be the library. Now it’s your room. You’re going to stay here until your legs are strong enough to get you up and down the stairs. We’re going to have doctors and physical therapists and speech therapists coming and going in and out of here like there’s no tomorrow. You’re getting better every day. Two weeks ago you couldn’t even speak; now you’re talking. And you’re going to keep on getting better. And Jeffy and I are going to help you. You’re going to be the same person you used to be.” Mommy’s voice got sort of choked-sounding for a second. “I swear it. No matter how long it takes, I swear it!”

“How was I?” he said.

“You were the greatest. Still are, in my book.”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. For a moment Jeffy was afraid she was going to cry again. She didn’t cry as much now as she used to, but she still did it a lot. Jeffy didn’t like to see her cry.

“Jeffy,” she said, turning to him. He saw that she wasn’t going to cry. Not now, anyway. “Why don’t you take Mess and Phemus out in the yard for a while. They’ve been cooped up in the house all morning. But stay away from the dock. The tide’s in and I don’t want you getting wet.”

“Goody!” He felt like running around himself. He scooped Mess up from her sunny spot on the window seat, then slapped his hand against his thigh. Phemus came running from the back room. And then they were out into the yard and the warm August air.

As Mess stalked off into the bushes, Jeffy found a stick and began to toss it for Phemus to chase. On the third throw, it caught in the branches of one of the peach trees—the one Mommy called The New Tree, the one with the really big peaches. With Phemus barking and running in circles around him, Jeffy tried to climb up to retrieve it. He succeeded only in scraping his legs and shaking loose a few of the riper peaches.

They looked good. As he bent to pick one up, Mess strolled out of the bushes and approached him. She was carrying something in her mouth…something that moved. Mess deposited the gift in front of Jeffy and walked off.

It was a bird. Jeffy looked down with horrid fascination at its bloody, mangled wing as it struggled in vain to right itself.

His heart went out to the poor creature. As he reached out, it cheeped weakly and flapped its good wing to get away.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

Maybe he could keep it and feed it and fix its wing. Then the bird would be his very own pet. As he gathered the wounded creature into his hands, he felt a sudden thrill run up his arms.

It felt so good!

And then the bird was squawking and fluttering its suddenly perfect wings. It wriggled free of his grasp and took to the air. It soared, circling once over his head, then it flew off into the trees.

Jeffy didn’t understand what had happened, but he felt good.

Somehow the bird’s wing had been made all better. Had he done that? He didn’t know. He’d have to try it again sometime. Maybe he could even make Dr. Bulmer all better. That would make Mommy happy. Sure. Maybe he’d try that someday. Right now he was more interested in the peach that lay before him on the grass. He picked it up and took a big bite.

Delicious!

Afterword

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed them below in chronological order. (NB: Year Zero is the end of civilization as we know it; Year Zero Minus One is the year preceding it, etc.)

The Past:

“Demonstrong” (prehistory)

Black Wind (1926–1945)

The Keep (1941)

Reborn (February-March 1968)

“Day-Tay-Vao” (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories (1983)

Year Zero Minus Three:

Sibs (February)

“Faces” (early summer)

The Tomb (summer)

“The Barrens” (ends in September)[*]

“The Wringer”

“A Day in the Life” (October)[*]

“The Long Way Home”

Legacies (December)

Year Zero Minus Two:

Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)

All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)

Hosts (June)

The Haunted Air (August)

Gateways (September)

Crisscross (November)

Infernal (December)

Year Zero Minus One:

Harbingers (January)

Bloodline (April)

The Touch (ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)

“Tenants”[*]

yet-to-be-written Repairman Jack novels

Year Zero:

“Pelts”[*]

Reprisal (ends in February)

the last Repairman Jack novel (will end in April)

Nightworld (starts in May)

Reborn, The Touch, and Reprisal will be back in print before too long. I’m planning a total of sixteen or seventeen Repairman Jack novels (not counting the young adult titles), ending the Secret History with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld.

Foreword

I’d originally intended to use a much shorter version of “Dat-tay-vao” as either a flashback or a prologue in The Touch, but no matter how I tried to work it in, it simply wouldn’t fit. Used early on, it gave away too much of the mystery of what would be happening to Alan Bulmer in the body of the novel; inserted later, it seemed redundant. So I scrapped it.

After the novel was finished, I returned to it and fleshed it out to make it a stand-alone story—a prequel to The Touch. It appeared in the March 1987 issue of Amazing Stories. The story takes place exactly nineteen years before its publication…right about the time of Reborn, another novel in the Secret History of the World (see the Afterword). The events in Reborn trigger the Dat-tay-vao’s migration to the United States, where it plays an important part in the Secret History, as you will see when the revised Nightworld is published down the road.

This is the first time the story and novel have appeared in the same volume. I wanted them together so that readers introduced to the Secret History via my young adult novels like Jack: Secret Histories could see the character they know as Weird Walt at the beginning and end of his devastating involvement with the Dat-tay-vao.

F. PAUL WILSON

DAT-TAY-VAO

1

Patsy cupped his hands gently over his belly to keep his intestines where they belonged. Weak, wet, and helpless, he lay on his back in the alley and looked up at the stars in the crystal sky, unable to move, afraid to call out. The one time he’d yelled loud enough to be heard all the way to the street, loops of bowel had squirmed against his hands, feeling like a pile of Mom’s slippery-slick homemade sausage all gray from boiling and coated with her tomato sauce. Visions of his insides surging from the slit in his abdomen like spring snakes from a novelty can of nuts had kept him from yelling again.

No one had come.

He knew he was dying. Good as dead, in fact. He could feel the blood oozing out of the vertical gash in his belly, seeping around his fingers and trailing down his forearms to the ground. Wet from neck to knees. Probably lying in a pool of blood…his very own homemade marinara sauce.

Help was maybe fifty feet away and he couldn’t call for it. Even if he could stand the sight of his guts jumping out of him, he no longer had the strength to yell. Yet help was out there…the night sounds of Quang Ngai street life…so near…

Nothing ever goes right for me. Nothing. Ever.

It had been such a sweet deal. Six keys of Cambodian brown. He could’ve got that home to Flatbush no sweat and then he’d have been set up real good. Uncle Tony would’ve known what to do with the stuff and Patsy would’ve been made. And he’d never be called Fatman again. Only the grunts over here called him Fatman. He’d be Pasquale to the old boys, and Pat to the younger guys.

And Uncle Tony would’ve called him Kid, like he always did.

Yeah. Would have. If Uncle Tony could see him now, he’d call him Shit-for-Brains. He could hear him now:

Six keys for ten G’s? Whatsamatta witchoo? Din’t I always tell you if it seems too good to be true, it usually is? Ay! Gabidose! Din’t you smell no rat?

Nope. No rat smell. Because I didn’t want to smell a rat. Too eager for the deal. Too anxious for the quick score. Too damn stupid as usual to see how that sleazeball Hung was playing me like a hooked fish.

No Cambodian brown.

No deal.

Just a long, sharp K-bar.

The stars above went fuzzy and swam around, then came into focus again.

The pain had been awful at first, but that was gone now. Except for the cold, it was almost like getting smashed and crashed on scotch and grass and just drifting off. Almost pleasant. Except for the cold. And the fear.

Footsteps…coming from the left. He managed to turn his head a few degrees. A lone figure approached, silhouetted against the light from the street. A slow, unsteady, almost staggering walk. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Hung? Come to finish him off?

But no. This guy was too skinny to be Hung.

The figure came up and squatted flat-footed on his haunches next to Patsy. In the dim glow of starlight and streetlight he saw a wrinkled face and a silvery goatee. The gook babbled something in Vietnamese.

God, it was Ho Chi Minh himself come to rob him.

Too late. The money’s gone. All gone.

No. Wasn’t Ho. Couldn’t be. This was just an old papa-san in the usual black pajamas. They all looked the same, especially the old ones. The only thing different about this one was the big scar across his right eye. Looked as if the lids had been fused closed over the socket.

The old man reached down to where Patsy guarded his intestines and pushed his hands away. Patsy tried to scream in protest but heard only a sigh, tried to put his hands back up on his belly but they’d weakened to limp rubber and wouldn’t move.

The old man smiled as he singsonged in gooktalk and pressed his hands against the open wound in Patsy’s belly. Patsy screamed then, a hoarse, breathy sound torn from him by the searing pain that shot in all directions from where the old gook’s hands lay. The stars really swam around this time, fading as they moved, but they didn’t go out.

By the time his vision cleared, the old gook was up and turned around and weaving back toward the street. The pain, too, was sidling away.

Patsy tried again to lift his hands up to his belly, and this time they moved. They seemed stronger. He wiggled his fingers through the wetness of his blood, feeling for the edges of the wound, afraid of finding loops of bowel waiting for him.

He missed the slit on the first pass. And missed it on the second. How could that happen? It had been at least a foot long and had gaped open a good three or four inches, right there to the left of his belly button. He tried again, carefully this time…

…and found a thin little ridge of flesh.

But no opening.

He raised his head—he hadn’t been able to do that before—and looked down at his belly. His shirt and pants were a bloody mess, but he couldn’t see any guts sticking out. And he couldn’t see any wound, either. Just a dark wet mound of flesh.

If he wasn’t so goddamn fat he could see down there! He rolled onto his side—God, he was stronger!—and pushed himself up to his knees to where he could slump his butt onto his heels, all the time keeping at least one hand tight over his belly. But nothing came out, or even pushed against his hand. He pulled his shirt open.

The wound was closed, replaced by a thin, purplish vertical line.

Patsy felt woozy again. What’s going on here?

He was in a coma—that had to be it. He was dreaming this.

But everything was so real—the rough ground beneath his knees, the congealing red wetness of the blood on his shirt, the sounds from the street, even the smell of the garbage around him. All so real…

Bracing himself against the wall, he inched his way up to his feet. His knees were wobbly and for a moment he thought they’d give out on him. But they held and now he was standing.

He was afraid to look down, afraid he’d see himself still on the ground. Finally, he took a quick glance. Nothing there but two clotted puddles of blood, one on each side of where he’d been lying.

He tore off the rest of the ruined shirt and began walking—very carefully at first—toward the street. Any moment now he would wake up or die, and this craziness would stop. No doubt about that. But until then he was going to play out this little fantasy to the end.

2

By the time he made it to his bunk—after giving the barracks guards and a few wandering night owls a story about an attempted robbery and a fight—Patsy had begun to believe that he was really awake and walking around.

It was so easy to say it had all been a dream, or maybe hallucinations brought on by acid slipped into his after-dinner coffee by some wiseass. He managed to convince himself of that scenario a good half-dozen times. And then he would look down at the scar on his belly, and at the blood on his pants…

Patsy sat on his rack in a daze.

It really happened! He just touched me and closed me up!

A hushed voice in the dark snapped him out of it.

“Hey! Fatman! Got any weed?”

It sounded like Donner from two bunks over, a steady customer.

“Not tonight, Hank.”

“What? Fatman’s never out of stock!”

“He is tonight.”

“You shittin’ me?”

“Good night, Hank.”

Actually, he had a bunch of bags stashed in his mattress, but Patsy didn’t feel like dealing tonight. His mind was too numb to make change. He couldn’t even mourn the loss of all his cash—every red cent he’d saved up from almost a year’s worth of chickenshit deals with guys like Donner. All he could think about, all he could see, was that old one-eyed gook leaning over him, smiling, babbling, and touching him.

He’d talk to Tram tomorrow. Tram knew everything that went on in this goddamn country. Maybe he’d heard something about the old gook. Maybe he could be persuaded to look for him.

One way or another, Patsy was going to find that old gook. He had plans for him. Big plans.

3

Somehow he managed to make it through breakfast without perking the powdered eggs and scrambling the coffee.

It hadn’t been easy. He’d been late getting to the mess-hall kitchen. He’d got up on time but had stood in the shower staring at that purple line up and down his belly for he didn’t know how long, remembering the cut of Hung’s knife, the feel of his intestines in his hands.

Did it really happen?

He knew it had. Accepting it and living with it was going to be the problem.

Finally he’d pulled on his fatigues and hustled over to the kitchen. Rising long before sunup was the only bad thing about being an army cook. The guys up front might call him a pogue but it sure beat hell out of being a stupid grunt in the field. Anything was better than getting shot at. Only gavones got sent into the field. Smart guys got mess assignments in nice safe towns like Quang Ngai.

At least smart guys with an Uncle Tony did.

Patsy smiled as he scraped hardened scrambled egg off the griddle. He’d always liked to cook. Good thing, too. Because in a way, the cooking he’d done for Christmas last year had kept him out of the fight this year.

As always, Uncle Tony had come for Christmas dinner. At the table Pop edged around to the big question: what to do about Patsy and the draft. To everyone’s surprise, he’d passed his induction physical…

…another example of how nothing ever went right for him. Patsy had learned that a weight of 225 pounds would keep a guy his height out on medical deferment. Since he wasn’t too many pounds short of that, he gorged on everything in sight for weeks. It would’ve been fun if he hadn’t been so desperate. But he made the weight: On the morning of his induction physical the bathroom scale read 229.

But the scale they used downtown at the Federal Building read 224.

He was in and set to go to boot camp after the first of the year.

Pop finally came to the point: Could Uncle Tony maybe…?

Patsy could still hear the disdain in Uncle Tony’s voice as he spoke around a mouthful of bread.

“You some kinda peacenik or somethin’?”

No, no, Pop had said, and went on to explain how he was afraid that Patsy, being so fat and so clumsy and all, would get killed in boot camp or step on a mine his first day in the field. You know how he is.

Uncle Tony knew. Everybody knew Patsy’s fugazi reputation. Uncle Tony had said nothing as he poured the thick red gravy over his lasagna, gravy Patsy had spent all morning cooking. He took a bite and pointed his fork at Patsy.

“Y’gotta do your duty, kid. I fought in the big one. You gotta fight in this here little one.” He swallowed. “Say, you made this gravy, dincha? It’s good. It’s real good. And it gives me an idea of how we can keep you alive so you can go on making this stuff every Christmas.”

So Uncle Tony pulled some strings and Patsy wound up an army cook.

He finished with the cleanup and headed downtown to the central market area, looking for Tram. He smelled the market before he got to it—the odors of live hens, thit heo, and roasting dog meat mingled in the air.

He found Tram in his usual spot by his cousin’s vegetable stand, wearing his old ARVN fatigue jacket. He’d removed his right foot at the ankle and was polishing its shoe.

“Nice shine, yes, Fatman?” he said as he looked up and saw Patsy.

“Beautiful.” He knew Tram liked to shock passersby with his plastic lower leg and foot. Patsy should have been used to the gag by now, but every time he saw that foot he thought of having his leg blown off….

“I want to find someone.”

“American or gook?” He crossed his right lower leg over his left and snapped his foot back into place at the ankle. Patsy couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable about a guy who called his own kind gooks.

“Gook.”

“What name?”

“Uh, that’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Tram squinted up at him. “How I supposed to find somebody without a name?”

“Old papa-san. Looks like Uncle Ho.”

Tram laughed. “All you guys think old gooks look like Ho!”

“And he has a scar across his eye”—Patsy put his index finger over his right eye—“that seals it closed like this.”

4

Tram froze for a heartbeat, then snapped his eyes back down to his prosthetic foot. He composed his expression while he calmed his whirling mind.

Trinh…Trinh was in town last night! And Fatman saw him!

He tried to change the subject. Keeping his eyes down, he said, “I am glad to see you still walking around this morning. Did Hung not show up last night? I warned you—he number ten bad gook.”

After waiting and hearing no reply, Tram looked up and saw that Fatman’s eyes had changed. They looked glazed.

“Yes,” Fatman finally said, shaking himself. “You warned me.” He cleared his throat. “But about the guy I asked you about—”

“Why you want find this old gook?”

“I want to help him.”

“How?”

“I want to do something for him.”

“You want do something for old gook?”

Fatman’s gaze wandered away as he spoke. “You might say I owe him a favor.”

Tram’s first thought was that Fatman was lying. He doubted this young American knew the meaning of returning a favor.

“Can you find him for me?” Fatman said.

Tram thought about that. And as he did, he saw Hung saunter out of a side street into the central market. He watched Hung’s jaw drop when he spotted Fatman, watched his amber skin pale to the color of boiled bean curd as he spun and hurriedly stumbled away.

Tram knew in that instant that Hung had betrayed Fatman last night in a most vicious manner, and that Trinh had happened by and saved Fatman with the Dat-tay-vao.

It was all clear now.

On impulse, Tram said, “He lives in my cousin’s village. I can take you to him.”

“Great,” Fatman said, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll get us a jeep!”

“No jeep,” Tram said. “We walk.”

“Walk?” Fatman’s face lost much of its enthusiasm. “Is it far?”

“Not far. Just a few klicks on the way to Mo Due. A fishing village. We leave now.”

“Now? But—”

“Could be he not there if we wait.”

This wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t want to give Fatman too much time to think. Tram watched reluctance and eagerness battle their way back and forth across the American’s face. Finally…

“All right. Let’s go. Long as it’s not too far.”

“If not too far for man with one foot, not too far for man with two.”

5

As Tram led Fatman south toward the tiny fishing village where Trinh had been living for the past year, he wondered why he’d agreed to bring the two of them together. His instincts were against it, yet he’d agreed to lead the American to Trinh.

Why?

Why was a word too often on his mind, it seemed. Especially where Americans were concerned. Why did they send so many of their young men over here? Most of them were either too frightened or too disinterested to make good soldiers. And the few who were eager for the fight hadn’t the experience to make them truly valuable. They did not last long.

He wanted to shout across the sea: Send us seasoned soldiers, not your children!

But who would listen?

And did age really matter? After all, hadn’t he been even younger than these American boys in the fight against the French at Dien Bien Phu fifteen years ago? But he and his fellow Vietminh had had a special advantage on their side. They had all burned with a fiery zeal to drive the French from their land.

Tram had been a communist then. He smiled at the thought as he limped along on the artificial foot, a replacement for the real one he’d lost to a Cong booby trap last year. Communist…he had been young at Dien Bien Phu and the constant talk from his fellow Vietminh about the glories of class war and revolution had drawn him into their ideological camp. But after the fighting was over, after the partition, what he saw of the birth pangs of the glorious new social order almost made him long for French rule again.

He’d come south then and had remained here ever since. He’d willingly fought for the South until the finger-charge booby trap had caught him at the knee; after that he found that his verve for any sort of fight had departed with his leg.

He glanced at Fatman, sweating so profusely as he walked beside him along the twisting jungle trail. He’d come to like the boy, but he could not say why. Fatman was greedy, cowardly, and selfish, and he cared for no one other than himself. Yet Tram had found himself responding to the boy’s vulnerability. Something tragic behind the bluff and bravado. With Tram’s aid, Fatman had gone from the butt of many of the jokes around the American barracks to their favored supplier of marijuana. Tram could not deny that he’d profited well by helping him gain that position. He’d needed the money to supplement his meager pension from the ARVN, but that had not been his only motivation. He’d felt a need to help the boy.

And he was a boy, no mistake about that. Young enough to be Tram’s son. But Tram knew he could never raise such a son as this.

So many of the Americans he’d met here were like Fatman. No values, no traditions, no heritage. Empty. Hollow creatures who had grown up with nothing expected of them. And now, despite all the money and all the speeches, they knew in their hearts that they were not expected to win this war.

What sort of parents provided nothing for their children to believe in, and then sent them halfway around the world to fight for a country they had never heard of?

And that last was certainly a humbling experience—to learn that until a few years ago most of these boys had been blithely unaware of the existence of the land that had been the center of Tram’s life since he’d been a teenager.

“How much farther now?” Fatman said.

Tram could tell from the American’s expression that he was uneasy being so far from town. Perhaps now was the time to ask.

“Where did Hung stab you?” he said.

Fatman staggered as if Tram had struck him a blow. He stopped and gaped at Tram with a gray face.

“How…?”

“There is little that goes on in Quang Ngai that I do not know,” he said, unable to resist an opportunity to enhance his stature. “Now, show me where.”

Tram withheld a gasp as Fatman pulled up his sweat-soaked shirt to reveal the purple seam running up and down to the left of his navel. Hung had gut cut him, not only to cause an agonizing death, but to show his contempt.

“I warned you…”

Fatman pulled down his shirt. “I know, I know. But after Hung left me in the alley, this old guy came along and touched me and sealed it up like magic. Can he do that all the time?”

“Not all the time. He has lived in the village for one year. He can do it some of the time every day. He will do it many more years.”

Fatman’s voice was a breathy whisper. “Years! But how? Is it some drug he takes? He looked like he was drunk.”

“Oh, no. Dat-tay-vao not work if you drunk.”

“What won’t work?”

“Dat-tay-vao…Trinh has the touch that heals.”

“Heals what? Just knife wounds and stuff?”

“Anything.”

Fatman’s eyes bulged. “You’ve got to get me to him!” He glanced quickly at Tram. “So I can thank him…reward him.”

“He requires no reward.”

“I’ve got to find him. How far to go?”

“Not much.” He could smell the sea now. “We turn here.”

As he guided Fatman left into thicker brush that clawed at their faces and snagged their clothes, he wondered again if he’d done the right thing by bringing him here. But it was too late to turn back.

Besides, Fatman had been touched by the Dat-tay-vao. Surely that worked some healing changes on the spirit as well as the body. Perhaps the young American truly wanted to pay his respects to Trinh.

6

He will do it many more years!

The words echoed in Patsy’s ears and once again he began counting the millions he’d make off the old gook. God, it was going to be so great! And so easy! Uncle Tony’s contacts would help get the guy into the States where Patsy would set him up in a “clinic.” Then he would begin to cure the incurable.

And oh, God, the prices he’d charge.

How much to cure someone of cancer? Who could say what price was too high? He could ask anything—anything!

But Patsy wasn’t going to be greedy. He’d be fair. He wouldn’t strip the patients bare. He’d just ask for half—half of everything they owned.

He almost laughed out loud. This was going to be so sweet! All he had to do was—

Just ahead of him, Tram shouted something in Vietnamese. Patsy didn’t recognize the word, but he knew a curse when he heard one. Tram started running. They had broken free of the suffocating jungle atop a small sandy rise. Out ahead, the sun rippled off a calm sea. A breeze off the water brought blessed relief from the heat. Below lay a miserable ville—a jumble of huts made of odd bits of wood, sheet metal, palm fronds, and mud.

One of the huts was burning. Frantic villagers were hurling sand and water at it.

Patsy followed Tram’s headlong downhill run at a cautious walk. He didn’t like this. He was far from town and doubted he could find his way back; he was surrounded by gooks and something bad was going down.

He didn’t like this at all.

As he approached, the burning hut collapsed in a shower of sparks. To the side, a cluster of black pajama-clad women stood around a supine figure. Tram had pushed his way through to the center of the babbling group and now knelt beside the figure. Patsy followed him in.

“Aw, shit!”

He recognized the guy on the ground. Wasn’t easy. He’d been burned bad and somebody had busted caps all over him, but his face was fairly undamaged and the scarred eye left no doubt that it was the same old gook who’d healed him up last night. His good eye was closed and he looked dead, but his chest still moved with shallow respirations. Patsy’s stomach lurched at the sight of all the blood and charred flesh. What was keeping him alive?

Suddenly weak and dizzy, Patsy dropped to his knees beside Tram. His millions…all those sweet dreams of millions and millions of easy dollars were fading away.

Nothing ever goes right for me!

“I share your grief,” Tram said, looking at him with sorrowful dark eyes.

“Yeah. What happened?”

Tram glanced around at the frightened, grieving villagers. “They say the Cong bring one of their sick officers here and demand that Trinh heal him. Trinh couldn’t. He try to explain that the time not right yet but they grow angry and tie him up and shoot him and set his hut on fire.”

“Can’t he heal himself?”

Tram shook his head slowly, sadly. “No. Dat-tay-vao does not help the one who has it. Only others.”

Patsy wanted to cry. All his plans…it wasn’t fair!

“Those shitbums!”

“Worse than shitbums,” Tram said. “These Charlie say they come back soon and destroy whole village.”

Patsy’s anger and self-pity vanished in a cold blast of fear. He peered at the trees and bushes, feeling naked with a thousand eyes watching him.

…they come back soon…

His knees suddenly felt stronger.

“Let’s get back to town.” He began to rise to his feet, but Tram held him back.

“Wait. He looking at you.”

Sure enough, the old gook’s good eye was open and staring directly into his. Slowly, with obvious effort, he raised his charred right hand toward Patsy. His voice rasped something.

Tram translated: “He say, ‘You the one.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Patsy didn’t have time for this dramatic bullshit. He wanted out of here. But he also wanted to stay tight with Tram because Tram was the only one who could lead him back to Quang Ngai.

“I don’t know. Maybe he mean that you the one he fix last night.”

Patsy was aware of Tram and the villagers watching him, as if they expected something of him. Then he realized what it was: He was supposed to be grateful, show respect to the old gook. Fine. If it was what Tram wanted him to do, he’d do it. Anything to get them on their way out of here. He took a deep breath and gripped the hand, wincing at the feel of the fire crisped skin—

Electricity shot up his arm.

His whole body spasmed with the searing bolt. He felt himself flopping around like a fish on a hook, and then he was falling. The air went out of him in a rush as his back slammed against the ground. It was a moment before he could open his eyes, and when he did he saw Tram and the villagers staring down at him with gaping mouths and wide, astonished eyes. He glanced at the old gook.

“What the hell did he do to me?”

The old gook was staring back, but it was a glassy, unfocused, sightless stare. He was dead.

The villagers must have noticed this, too, because some of the women began to weep.

Patsy staggered to his feet.

“What happened?”

“Don’t know,” Tram said with a puzzled shake of his head. “Why you fall? He not strong enough push you down.”

Patsy opened his mouth to explain, then closed it. Nothing he could say would make sense.

He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

He felt like hell and just wanted to be gone. It wasn’t only the threat of Charlie returning; he was tired and discouraged and so bitterly disappointed he could have sat down on the ground right then and there and cried like a wimp.

“Okay. But first I help bury Trinh. You help, too.”

“What? You kidding me? Forget it!”

Tram said nothing, but the look he gave Patsy said it all: It called him fat, lazy, and ungrateful.

Screw you! Patsy thought.

Who cared what Tram or anybody else in this stinking sewer of a country thought. It held nothing for him anymore. All his money was gone, and his one chance for the brass ring lay dead and fried on the ground before him.

7

As he helped dig a grave for Trinh, Tram glanced over at Fatman where he sat in the elephant grass staring morosely out to sea. Tram could sense that he was not grief-stricken over Trinh’s fate. He was unhappy for himself.

So…he had been right about Fatman from the first: The American had come here with something in mind other than paying his respects to Trinh. Tram didn’t know what it was, but he was sure Fatman had not had the best interests of Trinh or the village at heart.

He sighed. He was sick of foreigners. When would the wars end? Wars could be measured in languages here. He knew numerous Vietnamese dialects, Pidgin, French, and now English. If the North won, would he then have to learn Russian? Perhaps he would have been better off if the booby trap had taken his life instead of just his leg. Then, like Trinh, the endless wars would be over for him.

He looked down into the empty hole where Trinh’s body soon would lie. Were they burying the Dat-tay-vao with him? Or would it rise and find its way to another? So strange and mysterious, the Dat-tay-vao…so many conflicting tales. Some said it came here with the Buddha himself, some said it had always been here. Some said it was as capricious as the wind in the choice of its instruments, while others said it followed a definite plan.

Who was to say truly? The Dat-tay-vao was a rule unto itself, full of mysteries not meant to be plumbed.

As he turned back to his digging, Tram’s attention was caught by a dark blot in the water’s glare. He squinted to make it out, then heard the chatter of one machine gun, then others, saw villagers begin to run and fall, felt sand kick up around him.

A Cong gunboat!

He ran for the tree where Fatman half sat, half crouched with a slack, terrified expression. He was almost there when something hit him in the chest and right shoulder with the force of a sledgehammer, and then he was flying through the air, spinning, screaming with pain.

He landed with his face in the sand and rolled. He couldn’t breathe! Panic swept over him. Every time he tried to take a breath, he heard a sucking sound from the wound in his chest wall, but no air reached his lungs. His chest felt ready to explode. Black clouds encroached on his dimming vision.

Suddenly, Fatman was leaning over him, shouting through the typhoon roaring in his ears.

“Tram! Tram! Jesus God get up! You gotta get me outta here! Stop bleeding f’Christsake and get me out of here!”

Tram’s vision clouded to total darkness and the roaring grew until it drowned out the voice.

8

Patsy dug his fingers into his scalp.

How was he going to get back to town? Tram was dying, turning blue right here in front of him, and he didn’t know enough Vietnamese to use with anyone else and didn’t know the way back to Quang Ngai and the whole area was lousy with Charlie.

What am I gonna do?

As suddenly as they started, the AKs stopped. The cries of the wounded and the terrified filled the air in their place.

Now was the time to get out.

Patsy looked at Tram’s mottled, dusky face. If he could stopper up that sucking chest wound, maybe Tram could hang on, and maybe tell him the way back to town. He slapped the heel of his hand over it and pressed.

Tram’s body arched in seeming agony. Patsy felt something, too—electric ecstasy shot up his arm and spread through his body like subliminal fire. He fell back, confused, weak, dizzy.

What the hell—?

He heard raspy breathing and looked up. Air was gushing in and out of Tram’s wide-open mouth in hungry gasps; his eyes opened and his color began to lighten.

Tram’s chest wasn’t sucking anymore. As Patsy leaned forward to check the wound, he felt something in his hand and looked. A bloody lead slug sat in his palm. He looked at the chest where he’d laid that hand and what he saw made the walls of his stomach ripple and compress as if looking for something to throw up.

Tram’s wound wasn’t there anymore! Only a purplish blotch remained.

Tram raised his head and looked down at where the bullet had torn into him.

“The Dat-tay-vao! You have it now! Trinh passed it on to you! You have the Dat-tay-vao!”

I do? he thought, staring at the bullet rolling in his palm. Holy shit, I do!

He wouldn’t have to get some gook back to the States to make his mint—all he had to do was get himself home in one piece.

Which made it all the more important to get the hell out of this village. Now.

“Let’s go!”

“Fatman, you can’t go. Not now. You must help. They—”

Patsy threw himself flat as something exploded in the jungle a hundred yards behind them, hurling a brown and green geyser of dirt and underbrush high into the air.

Mortar!

Another explosion followed close on the heels of the first, but this one was down by the waterline south of the village.

Tram was pointing out to sea.

“Look! They firing from boat.” He laughed. “Can’t aim mortar from boat!”

Patsy stayed hunkered down with his arms wrapped tight around his head, quaking with terror as the ground jittered with each of the next three explosions. Then they stopped.

“See?” Tram said, sitting boldly in the clearing and looking out to sea. “Even they know it foolish! They leaving. They only use for terror. Cong very good at terror.”

No argument there, Patsy thought as he climbed once more to his feet.

“Get me out of here now, Tram. You owe me!”

Tram’s eyes caught Patsy’s and pinned him to the spot like an insect on a board. “Look at them, Fatman.”

Patsy tore his gaze away and looked at the ville. He saw the villagers—the maimed and bleeding ones and their friends and families—looking back at him. Waiting. They said nothing, but their eyes…

He ripped his gaze loose. “Those Cong’ll be back!”

“They need you, Fatman,” Tram said. “You are only one who can help them now.”

Patsy looked again, unwillingly. Their eyes…calling him. He could almost feel their hurt, their need.

“No way!”

He turned and began walking toward the brush. He’d find his own way back if Tram wouldn’t lead him. Better than waiting around here to get caught and tortured by Charlie. It might take him all day, but—

“Fatman!” Tram shouted. “For once in your life!”

That stung. Patsy turned and looked at the villagers once more, feeling their need like a taut rope around his chest, pulling him toward them. He ground his teeth. It was idiotic to stay, but…

One more. Just one, to see if I still have it.

He could spare a couple of minutes for that, then be on his way. At least that way he’d be sure what had happened with Tram wasn’t some sort of crazy freak accident.

Just one.

As he stepped toward the villagers, he heard their voices begin to murmur excitedly. He didn’t know what they were saying but felt their grateful welcome like a warm current through the draw of their need.

He stopped at the nearest wounded villager, a woman holding a bloody, unconscious child in her arms. His stomach lurched as he saw the wound—a slug had nearly torn the kid’s arm off at the shoulder. Blood oozed steadily between the fingers of the hand the woman kept clenched over the wound. Swallowing the revulsion that welled up in him, he slipped his hands under the mother’s to touch the wound—

—and his knees almost buckled with the ecstasy that shot through him.

The child whimpered and opened his eyes. The mother removed her hand from the wound.

Make that former wound. It was gone, just like Tram’s.

She cried out with joy and fell to her knees beside Patsy, clutching his leg as she wept.

Patsy swayed. He had it! No doubt about it—he had the goddamn Dat-tay-vao! And it felt so good! Not just the pleasure it caused, but how that little gook kid was looking up at him now with his bottomless black eyes and flashing him a shy smile. He felt high, like he’d been smoking some of his best merchandise.

One more. Just one more.

He disengaged his leg from the mother and moved over to where an old woman writhed in agony on the ground, clutching her abdomen.

Belly wound…I know the feeling, mama-san.

He knelt and wormed his hand under hers. That burst of pleasure surged again as she stiffened and two slugs popped into his hand. Her breathing eased and she looked up at him with gratitude beaming from her eyes.

Another!

On it went. Patsy could have stopped at any time, but found he didn’t want to. The villagers seemed to have no doubt that he would stay and heal them all. They knew he could do it and expected him to do it. It was so new, such a unique feeling, he didn’t want it to end. Ever. He felt a sense of belonging he’d never known before. He felt protective of the villagers. But it went beyond them, beyond this little ville, seemed to take in the whole world.

Finally, it was over.

Patsy stood in the clearing before the huts, looking for another wounded body. He checked his watch—he’d been at it only thirty minutes and there were no more villagers left to heal. They all clustered around him at a respectful distance, watching silently. He gave himself up to the euphoria enveloping him, blending with the sound of the waves, the wind in the trees, the cries of the gulls. He hadn’t realized what a beautiful place this was. If only—

A new sound intruded—the drone of a boat engine. Patsy looked out at the water and saw the Cong gunboat returning. Fear knifed through the pleasurable haze as the villagers scattered for the trees. Were the Cong going to land?

No. Patsy saw a couple of the crew crouched on the deck, heard the familiar choonk! of a mortar shell shooting out of its tube. An explosion quickly followed somewhere back in the jungle. Tram had been right. No way they could get any accuracy with a mortar on the rocking deck of a gunboat. Just terror tactics.

Damn those bastards! Why’d they have to come back and wreck his mood? Just when he’d been feeling good for the first time since leaving home. Matter of fact, he’d been feeling better than he could ever remember, home or anywhere else. For once, everything seemed right.

For once, something was going Patsy’s way, and the Cong had to ruin it.

Two more wild mortar shots, then he heard gunfire start from the south and saw three new gunboats roaring up toward the first. But these were flying the old red, white, and blue. Patsy laughed and raised his fist.

“Get ’em!”

The Cong let one more shell go choonk! before pouring on the gas and slewing away.

Safe!

Then he heard a whine from above and the world exploded under him.

9

…a voice from far away…Tram’s…

“…chopper coming, Fatman…get you away soon…hear it?…almost here…”

Patsy opened his eyes and saw the sky, then saw Tram’s face poke into view. He looked sick.

“Fatman! You hear me?”

“How bad?” Patsy asked.

“You be okay.”

Patsy turned his head and saw a ring of weeping villagers who were looking everywhere and anywhere but at him. He realized he couldn’t feel anything below his neck. He tried to lift his head for a look at himself but didn’t have the strength.

“I wanna see.”

“You rest,” Tram said.

“Get my head up, dammit!”

With obvious reluctance, Tram gently lifted his head. As Patsy looked down at what was left of him, he heard a high, keening wail. His vision swam, mercifully blotting out sight of the bloody ruin that had once been the lower half of his body. He realized that the wail was his own voice.

Tram lowered his head and the wail stopped.

I shouldn’t even be alive!

Then he knew. He was waiting for someone. Not just anyone would do. A certain someone.

A hazy peace came. He drifted into it and stayed there until the chopping thrum of a slick brought him out; then he heard an American voice.

“I thought you said he was alive!”

Tram’s voice: “He is.”

Patsy opened his eyes and saw the shocked face of an American soldier.

“Who are you?” Patsy asked.

“Walt Erskine. Medic. I’m gonna—”

“You’re the one,” Patsy said. Somehow, he bent his arm at the elbow and lifted his hand. “Shake.”

The medic looked confused. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

He grabbed Patsy’s hand and Patsy felt the searing electric charge.

Erskine jerked back and fell on his ass, clutching his hand. “What the hell?”

The peace closed in on Patsy again. He’d held on as long as he could. Now he could embrace it. One final thought arced through his mind like a lone meteorite in a starless sky. The Dat-tay-vao was going to America after all.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE TOUCH

Copyright © 1986, 2004 by F. Paul Wilson

This revised edition was originally published by Borderlands Press.

“Dat-tay-vao” copyright © 2009 by F. Paul Wilson

All rights reserved.

A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com

Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 978-0-7653-2164-0

* available in The Barrens and Others

PRAISE FOR THE ADVERSARY CYCLE

The Keep

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

The Adversary Cycle*

The Keep

The Tomb

The Touch

Reprisal

Nightworld

Repairman Jack Novels*

The Tomb

Legacies

Conspiracies

All the Rage

Hosts

The Haunted Air

Gateways

Crisscross

Infernal

Harbingers

Bloodline

By the Sword

Ground Zero

Young Adult*

Jack: Secret Histories

Jack: Secret Circles

Other Novels

Healer

Wheels Within Wheels

An Enemy of the State

Black Wind*

Dydeetown World

The Tery

Sibs

The Select

Implant

Deep as the Marrow

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Christmas Thingy

The Fifth Harmonic

Sims

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft and Others

The Barrens and Others*

Aftershock & Others*

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis: Terminal

REBORN

F. Paul Wilson

For William Sloane,
the early brewer of science with the supernatural

Contents

Prologue

One
1
2
3
4

Two
1
2
3
4
5
6

Three
1
2
3
4
5
6

Four

Five
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Six
1
2
3
4

Seven
1
2
3

Eight
1
2
3
4

Nine
1
2
3
4
5

Ten
1
2
3
4
5
6

Eleven

Twelve
1
2

Thirteen
1
2
3
4

Fourteen
1
2
3

Fifteen

1

Sixteen
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Seventeen

Eighteen
1
2
3
4
5
6

Nineteen
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Twenty
1
2
3
4
5

Twenty-one

Twenty-two
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Twenty-three
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

Twenty-four
1
2
3
4
5

Epilogue

Prologue

Sunday, February 11, 1968

He was calling himself Mr. Veilleur these days—Gaston Veilleur—and tonight he found it difficult to sleep. A remote uneasiness made him restless, a vague malaise nettled his mind, stirring up old memories and ancient nightmares. But he refused to give up the chase. He measured his breathing and soon found the elusive prey within his grasp. But just as he was slipping off, something dragged him back to full wakefulness.

Light. From somewhere down the hall. He lifted his head to see. The glow was coming from the linen closet. Blue-white radiance was streaming out along the edges of the closed door.

Moving carefully so as not to awaken his wife, Mr. Veilleur slipped out of bed and padded down the hall. His joints creaked in protest at the change in position. Old injuries, old wounds, reminders of each hung on, sounding little echoes from the past. He knew he was developing arthritis. No surprise there. His body looked sixty years old and had decided to begin acting accordingly.

He hesitated a moment with his hand on the knob of the closet door, then yanked it open. The very air within seemed to glow; it flowed and swirled and eddied, like burning liquid. But cold. He felt a chill as it splashed over him.

The source—what was causing this? The light seemed most intense in the rear corner of the bottom shelf, under the blankets. He reached down and pulled them away.

Mr. Veilleur bit back a cry of pain and threw an arm across his eyes as the naked brilliance lanced into his brain.

Then the glow began to fade.

When his eyes could see again, when he dared to look again, he found the source of the glow. Tucked back among the towels and sheets and blankets was what appeared to be a huge iron cross. He smiled. She'd saved it. After all these years she'd still hung on to it.

The cross still pulsed with a cold blue radiance as he lifted it. He gripped the lower section of the upright with two hands and hefted it with an easy familiarity. Not a cross—a sword hilt. Once it had been gold and silver. After serving its purpose, it had changed. Now it was iron. Glowing iron.

Why? What did this mean?

Suddenly the glow faded away completely, leaving him staring at the dull gray surface of the metal. And then the metal itself began to change. He felt its surface grow coarse, saw tiny cracks appear, and then it began to crumble. In seconds it was reduced to a coarse powder that sifted and ran through his fingers like grains of sand.

Something has happened. Something has gone wrong! But what?

Slightly unnerved, Mr. Veilleur stood empty-handed in the dark and realized how quiet the world had become. All except for the sound of a jet passing high overhead.

Roderick Hanley twisted in his seat as he tried to stretch his cramped muscles and aching back. It had been a long flight from L. A., and even the extra width in first class was snug on his big frame.

"We'll be landing shortly, Dr. Hanley," the stewardess said, leaning close to him. "Can I get you anything before we close the bar?"

Hanley winked at her. "You could, but it's not stocked in the bar."

Her laugh seemed genuine. "Seriously, though…"

"How about another gimlet?"

"Let's see." She touched a fingertip to her chin. " 'Four-to-one vodka to lime with a dash of Cointreau,' right?"

"Perfect."

She touched his shoulder. "Be right back."

Pushing seventy and I can still charm them.

He smoothed back his silvery hair and squared his shoulders inside the custom-made British tweed shooting jacket. He often wondered if it was the aura of money he exuded or the burly, weathered good looks that belied his years. He was proud of both, never underestimating the power of the former and long since giving up any false modesty about the latter.

Being a Nobel prizewinner had never hurt, either.

He accepted the drink from her and took a healthy gulp, hoping the ethanol would calm his jangled nerves. The flight had seemed interminable. But at last they were approaching Idlewild. No, it was called Kennedy Airport now, wasn't it? He hadn't been able to get used to the name change. But no matter what the place was called, they'd be safely down on terra firma shortly.

And not a moment too soon.

Commercial flights were a pain. Like being trapped at a cocktail party in your own house. If you didn't like the company, you couldn't just up and leave. He much preferred the comfort and convenience of his private Learjet, where he could call all the shots. But yesterday morning he had learned that the plane would be grounded for three days, possibly five, waiting for a part. Another five days in California among those Los Angeleans, who were all starting to look like hippies or Hindus or both, was more than he could tolerate, so he had bitten the bullet and bought a ticket on this Boeing behemoth.

For once—just this once—he and Ed were traveling together.

He glanced at his traveling companion, dozing peacefully beside him. Edward Derr, M.D., two years younger but looking older, was used to this sort of travel. Hanley nudged him once, then again. Derr's eyes fluttered open.

"Wh-what's wrong?" he said, straightening up in his seat.

"Landing soon. Want something before we touch down?"

Derr rubbed a hand over his craggy face. "No." He closed his eyes again. "Just wake me when it's over."

"How the hell can you sleep in these seats?"

"Practice."

Thirty years of regular attendance together at biological and genetic research conferences all over the world, and never once had they traveled on the same plane. Until today.

It would not do to have the pair of them die together.

There were records and journals in the Long Island house that were not yet ready for the light of day. He couldn't imagine any time in the near future when the world would be ready for them. Sometimes he wondered why he didn't simply burn them and have done with the whole affair. Sentimental reasons, he guessed. Or ego. Or both. Whatever the reason, he couldn't seem to bring himself to part with them.

A shame, really. He and Derr had made biological history, and they couldn't tell anybody. That had been part of the pact they had made that day in the first week of 1942. That and the promise that when one of them died, the other would immediately destroy the sensitive records.

After more than a quarter century of living with that pact, he should have been accustomed to it. But no. He had been in a state of constant anxiety since taking off from Los Angeles. But at last the trip was over. All they had to do was land. They'd made it.

Suddenly came a violent jolt, a scream of agonized metal, and the 707 tilted a crazy angle. Someone behind them in coach screamed something about a wing tearing off, and then the plane plummeted, spinning wildly.

The thought of his own death was no more than a fleeting presence in Hanley's mind. The knowledge that there would be no one left to destroy the records crowded out everything else.

"The boy!" he cried, clutching Derr's arm. "They'll find out about the boy! He'll find out about himself !"

And then the plane came apart around him.

One

Tuesday, February 20, 1968

1

A form was taking shape out of the darkness, shadows were merging, coalescing into an unholy shape. And it moved. In utter silence the night became flesh and glided toward her.

Jim Stevens leaned back in his chair and stared at the paper in the typewriter. This wasn't going the way he wanted. He knew what he wanted to say but the words weren't capturing it. It was almost as if he needed new words, a new language, to express himself.

He was tempted to pull one of those Hollywood scenes. Rip the paper out of the platen, ball it up, and toss it at the wastebasket. But in four straight years of writing every day, Jim had learned never to throw anything away. Somewhere in the mishmash of all the unpublished words he had committed to paper might lurk a scene, an image, a turn of phrase that could prove valuable later on.

No shortage of unpublished material, unfortunately. Hundreds of pages. Two novels' worth neatly stacked in their cardboard boxes on the top shelf of the closet. He had submitted them everywhere, to every publishing house in New York that did fiction, but no one was interested.

Not that he was completely unpublished. He glanced over to where "The Tree," a modern ghost story, sat alone on the otherwise bare ego-shelf in the bookcase. Doubleday had acquired that two years ago and had published it last summer with the publicity budget accorded most first novels: zero. What few reviews it received had been as indifferent as its sales, and it sank without a trace. None of the paperback houses had picked it up.

The manuscript of a fourth novel sat at the far left corner of his desk, the Doubleday rejection letter resting atop it. He had hoped the astonishing success of Rosemary's Baby would open doors for this one, but no dice.

Jim reached over and picked up the letter. It was from Tim Bradford, his editor on "The Tree." Although he knew it by heart, he read it again.

Dear Jim,

Sorry, but I'm going to have to pass on Angelica. I like its style and I like the characters. But there's no market for the subject matter. No one will be interested in a modern-day succubus. I'll repeat what I said over lunch last year: You've got talent, and you've got a good, maybe great, future ahead of you as a novelist if you'll just drop this horror stuff. There's no future in horror fiction. If you've got to do weird stuff, try sci fi. I know you're thinking of how Rosemary's Baby is still on the best-seller list, but it doesn't matter. The Levin book is an aberration. Horror is a dead end, killed by the A-bomb and Sputnik and other realities that are scary enough…

Maybe he's right, Jim thought, flipping the letter onto the desk and shaking off echoes of the crushing disappointment that had accompanied its arrival in the mail on Saturday.

But what was he to do? This "weird stuff" was all he wanted to write. He'd read science fiction as a kid and had liked it, but he didn't want to write it. Hell, he wanted to scare people! He remembered the ripples of fear and jolts of shock he'd received from writers like Bloch and Bradbury and Matheson and Lovecraft when he'd read them in the fifties and early sixties. He wanted to leave his own readers gasping, to do to them what the masters had done to him.

He was determined to keep at it. There was an audience for his writing, he was sure of it. All it took was a publisher with the guts to go find it. Until then he'd live with the rejection. He had known it was an integral part of a writer's life when he started; what he hadn't known was that it could hurt so much.

He closed his research books on Satanism and witchcraft and got up from the desk. Time for a break. Maybe a shave and a shower would help. He got some of his best ideas in the shower.

As he rose he heard the mail slot clank and detoured toward the front door. He turned on the hi-fi on his way through the living room. The Rolling Stones Now! was on the turntable; "Down the Road Apiece" began to cook through the room. The furniture was all leftovers from when Carol's folks had owned the place: austere sofas, slim-legged chairs, asymmetrical tables, lots of plastic—the "modern look" from the fifties. When they got some money, he promised himself to buy furniture designed for human beings. Or maybe a stereo instead. But all his records were mono. So maybe the furniture would be first.

He scooped the mail off the floor. Not much there except for his paycheck from the Monroe Express—a fair sum this week because the paper had finally paid him for his series of feature articles on the "God Is Dead" controversy.

Great. He could buy Carol dinner tonight.

Finally to the bathroom. "Hello, Wolfman," he said to the mirror.

With his dark brown hair hanging over his thick eyebrows, his bushy muttonchop sideburns reaching almost to his jawline, and tufts of wiry hair springing from the collar of his undershirt, all framing a stubble that would have taken the average guy three days to grow, his old nickname from the Monroe High football team seemed as apt as ever. Of course, the hair on his palms had been the real clincher. Wolfman Stevens—the team's beast of burden, viciously ramming through the opponent's defensive line in play after play. Except for a few unfortunate accidents—to others—his football years had been good ones. Great ones.

He was adopting the new long-haired look. It hid his ears, which had always stuck out a little farther than he liked.

As he lathered up the heavy stubble on his face, he wished someone would invent a cream or something that would stop beard growth for a week or more. He'd pay just about anything for a product like that. Anything so he wouldn't have to go through this torturous ritual every day, sometimes twice a day.

He scraped the Gillette Blue Blade in various directions along his face and neck until they were reasonably smooth, then gave his palms a quick once-over. As he was reaching for the hot-water knob in the shower, he heard a familiar voice from the direction of the living room.

"Jimmy? Are you here, Jimmy?"

The thick Georgia accent made it sound like "Jimmeh? Are you heah, Jimmeh?"

"Yeah, Ma. I'm here."

"Just stopped by to make a delivery."

Jim met her in the kitchen where he found her placing a fresh apple pie on the counter.

"What's that awful music?" she said. "Dear me, it boggles the ears."

"The Stones, Ma."

"You'll be thirty in four years. Aren't you just a little old for that sort of thing?"

"Nah! Brian Jones and I are the same age. And I'm younger than Watts and Wyman."

"Who are they?"

"Never mind."

He ducked into the living room and turned off the hi-fi. When he returned to the kitchen, she had taken off her heavy cloth coat and laid it across the back of one of the dinette chairs. She was wearing a red sweater and gray wool slacks. Emma Stevens was a short, trim, shapely woman in her late forties. Despite the faint touches of gray in her brown hair, she could still draw stares from much younger men. She wore a bit more makeup and tended to wear clothes that were a bit tighter than Jim liked to see on the woman he called Mother, but at heart he knew she was a homebody who seemed happiest when cleaning her house and baking. She was a bundle of energy who volunteered for all the charitable functions in town, no matter whether the beneficiary was Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow or the Monroe High School band.

"I had extra apples left over after I made Dad's pie, so I made one for you and Carol. Apple was always your favorite."

"Still is, Ma." He bent to kiss her on the cheek. "Thanks."

"I brought some Paladec too. For Carol. She's looking a bit poorly lately. Some vitamins every day will make her feel better."

"Carol's just fine, Ma."

"She doesn't look it. Looks peaked. I don't know what to contribute it to, do you?"

" 'Attribute it to,' Ma. At."

"At? I don't know what to contribute it at? That doesn't sound right."

Jim bit his lip. "Well, at least we both agree on that."

"So!" she said, brushing imaginary crumbs off her hands and looking around the kitchen. Jim knew she was inspecting the countertops and the floors to see if Carol was still measuring up to the standards of spotlessness Ma had adhered to all of Jim's life. "How are things?"

"Fine, Ma. How about you and Dad?"

"Fine. Dad's at work."

"So's Carol. She's at work too."

"Were you writing when I came in?"

"Uh-huh."

It wasn't exactly the truth, but what the hell. Ma didn't consider freelance writing Real Work, anyway. When Jim rode the night desk part-time on the Monroe Express, that was Real Work, because he got paid for it. He might sit there for hours, doing nothing more than twiddling his thumbs as he waited for something newsworthy to happen in the Incorporated Village of Monroe, Long Island, but Ma considered that Real Work. Hunching over a typewriter and dragging sentences kicking and squealing from his brain to put on paper was something else.

Jim waited patiently. Finally she said it.

"Any news?"

"No, Ma. There's no 'news.' Why do you keep bugging me about that?"

"Because it's a mother's parenteral obligation—"

" 'Parental,' Ma. 'Parental.' "

"That's what I said, parenteral obligation to keep checking as to if and when she's going to become a grandmother."

"Believe me, Ma. When we know, you'll know. I promise."

"Okay." She smiled. "But remember, if Carol should drop by someday and say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm three months' pregnant,' I'll never forgive you."

"Sure you will." He kissed her forehead. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got to—"

The doorbell rang.

"Are you expecting company?" his mother said.

"No. Not even you."

Jim went to the front door and found the mailman standing on the front step holding a letter.

"Special delivery, Jim. Almost forgot it."

Jim's heart began to race as he signed the return receipt. "Thanks, Carl." Maybe they'd had a change of heart at Doubleday.

"Special delivery?" Ma was saying as Jim closed the door. "Who would—?"

His heart sank as he read the return address.

"It's from some law firm. In the city."

He tore it open and read the brief message. Twice. It still didn't make sense.

"Well?" Ma said, her fingers visibly twitching to get at the letter, her curiosity giving the word a second syllable: Way-elll.

"I don't get it," Jim said. He handed her the letter. "It says I'm supposed to be present at the reading of Dr. Hanley's will next week. I'm listed as one of his heirs."

This was crazy. Dr. Roderick Hanley was one of the richest men in Monroe. Or had been until he died in that air crash last Sunday. He'd been a local celebrity of sorts. Moved here to the Village of Monroe—then truly little more than a village— shortly after World War II and lived in one of the big mansions along the waterfront. A world-renowned geneticist who had made a fortune from analytical lab procedures he had developed and patented; a Nobel prizewinner for his work in genetics.

Jim knew all about Hanley because he had been assigned the guy's obit for the Monroe Express. The doc's death had been big news in Monroe. Jim's research had revealed that the Hanley estate was worth something like ten million dollars.

But Jim had never even met the man. Why would he name him in his will?

Unless…

In a dizzying flash of insight it all suddenly became very clear to Jim.

"God, Ma, you don't think—"

One look at her stricken face told him she had already come to the same conclusion.

"Aw, Ma, don't—"

"I have to go see your father… uh, Jonah," she said quickly, handing the letter back to him and turning away. She picked up her coat and slipped into it as she headed for the door.

"Hey, Ma, you know it doesn't matter. You know it won't change a thing."

She stopped at the door, her eyes glistening. She looked upset… and frightened.

"That's what you've always said. Now we'll find out for sure, won't we?"

"Ma—" He took a step toward her.

"I'll talk to you later, Jimmy."

And then she was out the door and hurrying down the walk toward her car. Jim stood at the storm door and watched her until his rapid breaths fogged up the glass. He hated to see her upset.

When she was gone, he turned away and read the letter again.

No doubt about it. He was an heir to the Hanley estate. Wonder bloomed in him. Dr. Roderick Hanley—genius. His hand shook as it held the letter. The money that might be coming his way meant nothing compared to what the letter didn't—couldn't—say.

He rushed to the phone to call Carol. She'd be as excited as he was. After all these years, after all the searching—he had to tell her now!

2

"When am I going home?"

Carol Stevens looked at the old man who had spoken: Calvin Dodd, seventy-two-year-old Caucasian male. Transient cerebral ischemia.

He looked a lot better than he had a week ago when he had been admitted through the emergency room. He had sported a seven-week growth of beard then, and had been dressed in a frayed, food-encrusted bathrobe that smelled of old urine. Now he lay in a clean bed and wore a starched hospital gown; he was clean-shaven—by the nurses—and smelled of Keri Lotion.

She didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

"You'll be out of here as soon as we can get you out, Mr. Dodd, I promise you."

That didn't answer the old fellow's question, but at least it wasn't a lie.

"What's the holdup?"

"We're trying to find some help for you."

Just then Bobby from Food Service strolled in and picked up Mr. Dodd's breakfast tray. He gave Carol the up-and-down with his eyes and winked.

"Lookin' good!" he said with a smile. He was all of twenty and desperately trying to grow sideburns. He came on to anything in a skirt, even an "older woman," as he had once referred to her.

Carol laughed and jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the door. "Beat it, Bobby."

"Like your hair," he said, and was gone.

Carol smoothed her long, sandy-blond hair. She had been wearing it in a gentle flip for a couple of years but had been letting it grow lately. She had the slim figure and oval face to carry off the long, straight look but wondered if it was worth the trouble. It was such a bother at times to keep it smooth and tangle-free.

Mr. Dodd was pulling at the nylon-mesh vest that enclosed his chest and was strapped to the bed frame. "If you really want to help me, you can get this thing offa me."

"Sorry, Mr. Dodd. The posey is your doctor's orders. He's afraid you'll get out of bed and fall again."

"I never fell! Who tol' you that crock?"

According to his chart, Mr. Dodd had crawled over his bed's siderails three times and tried to walk. Each time he had fallen after one or two steps. But Carol didn't correct him. In her brief time here at Monroe Community Hospital she had learned not to argue with patients, especially the older ones. In Mr. Dodd's case she was sure he truly did not remember falling.

"Anyway, I don't have the authority to discontinue your restraints."

"And where's my family?" he said, already on to another subject. "Haven't you been lettin' 'em up to see me?"

Carol's heart broke for the old man. "I… I'll check on that for you, okay?"

She turned and started for the door.

"You'd think at least one of my girls'd come an' see me more than once or twice in the whole time I been here."

"I'm sure they'll be in soon. I'll stop by tomorrow."

Carol stepped into the hall and sagged against the wall. She hadn't expected a bed of roses when she had taken the position in the hospital's Social Services department, but in no way had she been prepared for the daily heartaches she'd encountered.

She wondered if she was cut out for this sort of work. One thing they'd never taught her in all the courses she had taken toward her degree in social work was how to distance yourself emotionally from the client. She was either going to have to learn how to do that, and do it automatically, or risk becoming a basket case.

She'd learn. It was a good job, and there weren't many like it around. Decent pay and good benefits. She and Jim didn't need much to live on—after all, she had inherited the house from her parents, and it was free and clear—but until his writing career clicked, she would have to bring home the bacon, as it were. But sometimes…

A passing nurse gave her a questioning look. Carol put on a smile and straightened up.

She was just tired, that was all. She hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights… restless… vaguely remembered dreams. Bad dreams.

I can handle it.

She headed for the tiny Social Services office on the first floor.

Kay Allen was there. A beefy brunette in her forties who chain-smoked unashamedly, Kay was head of the department, a veteran of nearly twenty years at Monroe Community Hospital. As Carol entered, she looked up from the clutter of case reports on her desk.

"What can we do about Mr. Dodd?" Carol asked.

"The dump job on Three North?"

Carol winced. "Must you, Kay?"

"That's what he is, ain't he?" Kay said around the fresh cigarette she was lighting. "His family found him on the floor in his apartment, called an ambulance, dumped him here, then went home."

"I know, but there's got to be a better way to put it. He's a sick old man."

"Not as sick as he was."

True. Dr. Betz had stabilized him as much as possible, so now he was Social Services' problem. Another limbo case: not sick enough for a hospital but not well enough to live alone. He'd never be well enough to live alone. He couldn't go back to his apartment, and his daughters wouldn't take him into either of their homes. The hospital couldn't very well kick him out on the street, so they were stuck with him.

"Let's call a spade a spade, Carol. Mr. Dodd was dumped on us."

Carol didn't want to admit to the truth of that. At least not verbally. That would seem like taking her first step down the road to where Kay was. Hard and cynical. Yet she sensed that Kay's hard shell was just that—a shell, a protective chitinous carapace, the inevitable result of dealing with a steady stream of Mr. Dodds year after year.

"I'll never get used to daughters abandoning their father like that," Carol said. "They don't even visit him."

She understood their reasons for staying away, though: guilt. The daughters lived in small houses where there was no room for Pop. They'd have to baby-sit him all the time in case he passed out again. They didn't have the heart to tell him that he couldn't stay with them, so they avoided him. She saw it all too often. But understanding it didn't make it any easier to accept.

God, if I had my parents around, I'd never neglect them, she thought.

Did you have to lose your folks to really appreciate them?

Maybe. But that was beside the point. It was left to Kay and Carol to find a nursing-home bed for Mr. Dodd. The problem was he couldn't afford one, so they had to get him on welfare first and wait for one of the limited number of welfare beds to open up somewhere.

It was a merry-go-round: the paperwork; the persistent assaults against the bureaucracy. Medicare was only three years old, and already it was a mass of red tape. Meanwhile Mr. Dodd was occupying a hospital bed that could be used by someone with an acute illness who really needed it.

"I wish I could take him home. He just needs someone to look after him."

Kay laughed. "Carol, honey, you're a riot!" She held out a handful of papers. "Here. Since you're in a nurturing mood, see about arranging transport for this one."

Carol's heart wrenched when she saw that the patient was a child. "Where's he going?"

"Sloan-Kettering. He's got leukemia."

"Oh."

Steeling herself, Carol headed for the Pediatrics wing.

Twenty minutes later she was sitting on the edge of Danny Jacobi's bed, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she spoke to his mother.

I wonder if he knows he's dying?

He was squatting on the floor shooting suction-tipped darts at a mechanical dinosaur named King Zor. Danny was seven years old, towheaded, and painfully thin. His two top front teeth were missing and the new ones hadn't moved in yet, so he tended to lisp. Dark circles hung under blue eyes sunk deep in his deathly pale face; large, equally dark bruises ran along his arms and skinny little legs.

He hadn't been beaten, she knew. It was the leukemia. His white blood cells were multiplying like mad in his bone marrow, crowding out the red cells along with the platelets that helped the blood to clot. The slightest bump, even squatting on the floor like he was now, caused bruising.

"Can't they give him the treatments here?" Mrs. Jacobi was saying. "Sloan-Kettering is in the city."

"Dr. Martin thinks his best chance is there."

Mrs. Jacobi glanced at her son. "Whatever's best for Danny," she said.

Carol showed her where to sign for the medical transport and the direct admission to Sloan-Kettering, then they sat together and watched the boy play, moving from the adventure of an imaginary dinosaur hunt to a Mickey Mouse jigsaw puzzle.

Carol wondered which was worse: never to have had a child; or to have a child and lose him to something so vicious and insidious and so damn capricious as leukemia. She wondered only briefly, for she knew in her heart what her answer would be. Better to have the child. Oh, definitely better.

She prayed that she could have one. And soon.

She and Jim wanted a family. She just hoped she could fulfill her part in the process.

Her mother had had fertility problems. It had taken her a long time to conceive Carol, and although she had tried for years after Carol was born, there never had been a second. It seemed like pure luck that Carol was conceived.

According to Dr. Gallen, Carol was following in her mother's footsteps. Her periods had been irregular all her life, and although she and Jim had been following his directions— charting her basal body temperature and such—for almost a year now, nothing had happened.

Maybe nothing would ever happen. That was the dread that followed her like a shadow.

Please let us have one of our own, God. Just one. We won't be greedy. After that we'll adopt kids who need a home. But just give us one of our own.

Danny had the puzzle all together except for part of Mickey's left ear. He looked up at them.

"Piethe mithing," he said, pointing to the gap.

I know the feeling, Carol thought.

"Mrs. Stevens?" said Danny's mother, breaking in on Carol's reverie. "I think that nurse over there wants you."

Carol looked up to see the charge nurse holding up a telephone receiver and alternately pointing to it and Carol.

It was Jim, and he sounded excited.

"Carol! I've got great news! We're rich!"

"Jim, what are you talking about?"

"I've found my real father! Come home and I'll tell you all about it!"

Real father?

"Jim, I can't. What's this all—?"

"Forget work. Come home! We've got things to do! Come on!"

And then the line went dead. He wasn't giving her a chance to argue. And then some of his words cut through her confusion.

I've found my real father!

Why didn't that thrill her? She knew of the desperate searches Jim had made to uncover his biological parents, all to no avail. She should have felt happy for him.

Instead she felt a faint trickle of dread down her spine.

3

As Carol drove home, her thoughts bounced between the past, the present, and the future. She thought of how excited Jim must be. He had been searching for his natural parents for so long. What had happened at home today? How had he found out? It made her think of her own parents, dead now almost ten years. She wondered for the millionth time how they would have felt about their only daughter marrying Jim Stevens. She knew they had never cared much for Jonah and Emma Stevens, although they hadn't known them well. Her folks would have much preferred Billy Ryan, she was sure, but he had wound up entering the priesthood.

Who'd have ever thought Carol Nevins, Miss Mary Catholic School herself, would wind up married to the Wolfman, the football crazy? Not Carol.

Oh, but he had been something to see back then. Only occasionally did he carry the ball. Mostly he cleared the way for those who did. And he seemed to relish the job, leaving a trail of battered and broken defensive players in his wake, some seriously hurt.

But there was a gentle side to Jim, too. That was the Jim she had loved since that dreadful time in 1959 when both her parents had been killed on a rainy, foggy night in a head-on crash with a semitrailer on the Expressway. In an instant of smashing glass and screaming steel she had become an orphan. The grief had been crushing, numbing in its intensity, but the terror of being an only child and suddenly alone in the world had made it even worse.

Jim had saved her. Until that time he had been a high-school friend, a football hero she had dated occasionally. Nothing serious. She hadn't been going with anyone special then. She and Bill Ryan had drifted apart a few months before. There had been lots of sparks between Bill and her, but his shyness and reticence had dampened any fires before they got started. When her whole world seemed to be collapsing around her, Jim had been there for her. Plenty of friends had expressed their sympathy and tried to comfort her, and her Aunt Grace, her father's only sister, had taken a leave of absence from her nursing job in the city to stay with her, but only Jim seemed to understand, to feel what she was feeling.

That was when Carol got the first inkling that this was the man she wanted to marry. That wouldn't happen for a while, however. Not until after four years of college together at the brand-new State University at Stony Brook. And it wasn't until their junior year, as they lay in bed together in a motel room, that he told her he was adopted. He had held off for years, thinking it would make a difference. She remembered being amazed. What did she care who his forebears were? None of them lay curled against her in bed that night.

Graduation flashed before her—Stony Brook Class of 1964—Jim with his journalism degree, Carol's in social work, starting careers, growing closer, until finally the wedding in 1966, a small affair, with Jim squeezed into a tux and suffering through a nuptial Mass. An uncommon man doing such a common thing, an irreligious man taking vows before a priest just to make Carol and her Aunt Grace happy, an antiritualistic man partaking in one of the most primitive of rituals.

"It's okay," he had said to her before the ceremony. "It's all the years that follow the voodoo that really matter."

She never forgot those words. The laconic blend of cynicism and sincerity typified everything she loved about Jim Stevens.

She pulled into the driveway and stared at their home. She had grown up in this house. A tiny ranch on a tiny lot—white, asbestos-shingle siding with black shutters and trim. She didn't like the way it looked in winter with the trees and the rosebushes bare, the rhododendrons drooping from the cold.

Spring, spring, you can't come too soon for me.

But it was warm inside and Jim was fairly bouncing off the walls. He was like a kid at Christmas. Dressed in an oxford shirt, straight-legged jeans, smelling of Old Spice, his hair still wet from the shower, he hugged her and whirled her around as she stepped in the door.

"Can you believe it?" he cried. "Old Doc Hanley fathered me! You're married to a guy with Nobel Prize genes in him!"

"Slow down, Jim," she said. "Just cool it a little. What are you talking about?"

He put her down, and in a rush he told her about the letter and the "obvious" conclusion he had drawn.

"You sure you're not getting carried away?" she said, taking off her coat.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to be a wet blanket," she said, smoothing down his wet hair, "but no one's calling you Young Mr. Hanley yet, are they?"

His smile faded. "And no one ever will. I'll be James Jonah Stevens until the day I die. I don't know what Hanley's reasons were for dumping me in an orphanage, and I don't care how rich or famous he was. Jonah and Emma Stevens took me in and raised me. As far as I'm concerned, they are my parents."

Then why did you search so long and hard for your biological parents? Carol wanted to say. For years it had been an obsession with Jim. Now he seemed to be saying that it really didn't matter.

"Fine, Jim. But I just don't want you to get your hopes up again and then get hurt. You had a lot of false leads before when you were looking, and it always got you down when they didn't pan out."

She remembered many days, through their college years and afterward, spent combing through the tangle of old records at the St. Francis Home for Boys. Jim had finally given up the search after their marriage. She had thought he'd put the question of his natural parents' identities behind him for good.

And now this.

"But this is different, don't you see? This came to me, I didn't go after it. Look at the whole picture, Carol. I was a foundling, less than two weeks old when the Jebbies literally found me on the steps of the orphanage. All the scene needed was a snowstorm howling around me to make it a perfect cliché. No trace of my biological parents. Now, twenty-six years later, a man I never knew, never even met in my entire life, names me in his will. A famous man. One who may not have wanted his name touched by scandal back in the forties, which is a long ways away in time and temper from the hippies and free love we've got today." He stopped and stared at her a moment. "Got the picture?"

She nodded.

"Good. Now tell me, hon, given those facts, what is the first explanation that comes to your mind when you try to figure out why the rich old man names a foundling in his will?"

Carol shrugged. "Okay. Score one for you."

He smiled brightly. "So! I'm not crazy!"

His smile always warmed her. "No, you're not."

The phone rang.

"That's probably for me," Jim said. "I called that law firm earlier, and they said they'd get back to me."

"About what?"

He gave her a sheepish look. "About who my real… uh, biological father is."

She listened to his end of the conversation and sensed his frustration when he couldn't get any information out of the lawyer on the other end. Finally he hung up and turned to her.

"I know what you're going to say," he told her. "Why is this so damn important to me? What does it really matter?"

Her sympathy for him was mixed with confusion. She wanted to say, You're you. Who you came from doesn't change that.

"It wouldn't be the first time I've asked," she said.

"Yeah, well, I wish I could drop it, but I can't."

"You let it eat at you."

"How do I explain it? It's like having amnesia and being alone on a ship drifting over the Marianas trench; you drop anchor but it never hits bottom, so you go on drifting and drifting. You believe that if you knew where you came from, maybe you could get some idea where you were going. But you look behind you and it's all empty sea. You feel cut off from your past. It's a form of social and genetic amnesia."

"Jim, I understand. I felt that way when my folks were killed."

"It's not the same. That was tragic. They were gone, but at least you had known them. And even if they had died the day after you were born, it would still be different. Because you could go back and look at pictures of them, talk to people who knew them. They would exist for you, consciously and subconsciously. You'd have roots you could trace back to England or France or wherever. You'd feel part of a flow, part of a process; you'd have a history behind you, pushing you toward someplace far ahead."

"But, Jim," she said, "I never think of those things. Nobody does."

"That's because you've got them. You take them for granted. You don't think about your right hand much, do you? But if you'd been born without one, you'd find yourself wishing for a right hand every day."

Carol moved close and slipped her arms around him. As he hugged her, she felt the tension that had been rising begin to recede. Jim could do that. Make her feel whole, complete.

"I'll be your right hand," she said softly.

"You always have been," he whispered back. "But I've got a feeling that this is it. Soon I'm going to know for sure."

"I guess you won't need me anymore then," she said, putting on an exaggerated pout.

"That'll be the day! I'll always need you."

She broke away. "You'd better. Otherwise I'm sending you back to St. Francis!"

"Christ!" he said. "The orphanage! Why didn't I think of that! Maybe we won't have to wait till the reading. Maybe we can find a connection there now!"

"Oh, Jim, we've been through those records a thousand times at least!"

"Yeah, but we never looked for any mention of Dr. Roderick Hanley, did we?"

"No, but—"

"Come on!" He handed her her coat and went to the front closet for his own. "We're going to Queens!"

4

Emma Stevens waited impatiently inside the employee entrance to the slaughterhouse. It was a small, chilly foyer, silent but for the ticking of the time clock. She rubbed her hands together, one over the other in a continuous circular motion. It helped to generate warmth, but she felt she would have been doing the same even if it were July. The anxiety jittering through her seemed to have given her hands a life of their own. What was taking Jonah so long? She had sent word that she was here. She hadn't wanted to disturb him at work but had been unable to restrain herself any longer. She had to talk about this. Jonah was the only one who would understand. Why wasn't he coming out?

Emma glanced at her watch and saw that it had been only a couple of minutes. She took a deep breath.

Calm yourself, Emma.

She stared out through the small, chicken-wired window in the outer door. The employee parking lot looked almost deserted compared to how it had been before the layoffs. And now there was talk of the slaughterhouse closing down for good by the end of the year. What were they going to do then?

Finally she could wait no longer. She pushed through the door, went down the short hall, then through the door that opened into the slaughterhouse proper. She stood transfixed as a freshly skinned side of beef—steaming in the cold, dripping red—sped by her, wobbling and twisting on its chain as it rolled along the overhead track. Another followed not far behind. The smell of blood, some old and clotted, some still warm from the throat, filled the air. And faintly, in the background, the uneasy lowing of the cows waiting their turn in the pens outside.

Suddenly Emma looked up and Jonah was there, dressed in a big rubber apron, gray overalls, black rubber gloves, and snow boots, all splattered with blood and hair and bits of gore. He stared down at her. He had just turned fifty but he had the lean, tautly muscular frame of a much younger man. Clear blue eye and rock-hard features. Even after thirty years of marriage, the sight of him still excited her. Except for the black felt patch over his left eye, he could have been an older version of that American actor they had seen last year in one of those Italian-made Westerns.

"What is it, Emma?" His voice was as rough-hewn as his face, his Southern accent thicker than hers.

She felt a flash of annoyance. " 'Hello, Emma,' " she said sarcastically. " 'It's so good to see you. Is anything wrong?' I'm fine, thank you, Jonah."

"I've only got a few minutes, Emma."

She realized how he must be fearing for his job, and her annoyance faded. Luckily it was hard to find anyone who wanted to take over Jonah's duties in the slaughterhouse, otherwise he might have been out of work for months now like so many others.

"Sorry. It's just that I thought this was too important to wait. Jimmy heard from some lawyers today. He's named in the will of that Dr. Hanley who died in that plane crash last week."

Jonah stepped to a nearby window and stared through the grimy glass for what seemed like a long time. Finally he turned and gave her one of his small, rare smiles.

"He's comin'."

"Who? Who's coming?"

"The One."

Emma suddenly felt weak. Was Jonah going to start talking crazy again? He was a strange one, Jonah. Even after all these years Emma really didn't understand him. But she loved him.

"What are you saying?"

"I've sensed it for more than a week now, but it was so faint, I wasn't sure. Now I am."

Over the years Emma had learned to rely on Jonah's premonitions. He seemed to have an extra sense about things. It was uncanny at times. Sometimes he even seemed to see things with that dead left eye of his. The most memorable instance was back in 1942 when he had sensed that the baby they were to adopt had arrived in the St. Francis orphanage.

It came back to her in a flash. A windy January morning only a month or so after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The sun had been blinding, pouring from the sky and reflecting off pavements wet with melting snow. Jonah had been frantic. He'd had another of his visions during the night then too. It was the one he had been waiting for, the moment he said they had been preparing for by moving to New York City.

Queens! The vision had showed him where he had to go in Queens. They had to be there first thing in the morning.

How Jonah trusted those visions! He guided his life by them—both their lives. Years earlier a vision had prompted him to move them both from Missouri to New York City, to start new lives there, pretending to be Catholics. Emma hadn't understood any of that—rarely understood much of what Jonah was about—but she had gone along, as always. He was her man; she was his woman. If he wanted her to forsake her Baptist faith, well, fine. She'd never practiced it anyway.

But why become Catholic?

Jonah had never shown the least bit of interest in any religion since she had met him, but he had insisted that they register in a Catholic parish, go to church every Sunday, and make sure they were well known to the priest.

She found out why on that January day in 1942. When they pulled up to the St. Francis Home for Boys, Jonah told her the child they had been waiting for lay within. And when they went inside to apply to adopt an infant boy, they stated they were lifelong Roman Catholics.

No one could prove different.

The child he wanted had been left there the day before. Jonah had carefully inspected the infant boy, especially his hands. He seemed satisfied that he was the one he had been waiting for.

They suffered through the home inspections, the background checks, and all that rigmarole, but it paid off. Finally they were the proud parents of the child they named James. That boy was the best thing that ever happened to Emma Stevens. Better even than Jonah, though she loved her husband dearly.

And so she trusted those visions as much as Jonah. Because she never would have had Jim without them.

"So the famous Dr. Hanley was his father," Jonah said, mostly to himself. "Interesting." Then he turned to Emma. "It's a sign. It has begun. Our time is coming. The One is beginning to accrue wealth and power to his name. It's a sign, Emma. A good sign."

Emma wanted to hug him but refrained because of the gore that covered him. A good sign—that was what he had said. As long as it was good for Jimmy. A welter of varying emotions swirled around her. She began to cry.

"What's wrong?" Jonah said.

Emma shook her head. "I don't know. After all these years of wondering when… or if… to finally have him know who his real parents are…" She sobbed again. "I don't want to lose him."

Jonah removed a glove and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"I know how you feel. It won't be too long now. Our reward is coming."

There he went again, talking in circles.

She clutched his hand with both of hers and prayed that nothing would take her Jimmy away from her.

Two

1

"Father Bill! Father Bill!"

Father William Ryan, Society of Jesus, recognized the voice. It was Kevin Flaherty, St. Francis's six-year-old town crier and tattletale. He looked up from reading his daily office to see the little redheaded fellow running down the hall at top speed.

"They're fighting again, Father Bill!"

"Who?"

"Nicky and Freddy! And Freddy says he's going to kill Nicky this time!"

"Just tell them I said to stop fighting immediately or it will mean the Bat for both of them."

"There's blood, Father!"

Bill sighed and snapped his Breviary closed. He'd have to deal with this personally. Freddy had two years and about forty pounds on Nicky, with a bully's temperament to boot. It sounded like Nicky's mouth had brought him a pack of trouble again.

As he strode from his office, he picked up the dreaded red whiffle bat from its place in the corner by the door. Kevin ran ahead, Bill walked quickly after him, hurrying but trying his best not to appear so.

He found them in the hall outside the dormitory section, encircled by the rest of the boys in a shouting, jeering group. One of the onlookers glanced up and saw him approaching.

"It's Big Bad Bill! Beat it!"

The circle evaporated, leaving the two combatants wrestling on the floor. Freddy was atop Nicky, raising his fist for another blow at the younger boy's already bloody face. When they saw Father Bill, they suddenly forgot their differences and joined the others in flight, leaving Nicky's glasses behind on the floor.

"Nicholas! Frederick!" Bill shouted.

They skidded to a halt and turned.

"Yes, Father?" they said as one.

He pointed to a spot on the floor directly in front of him.

"Get over here! Now!"

They approached and stood before him, looking at their shoes. Bill lifted Nicky's chin. The ten-year-old's normally misshapen face was bruised and scraped. Blood was smeared over his left cheek and chin and still trickled slowly from his left nostril.

Bill felt the anger rise in him. It flared higher when he lifted Freddy's chin and saw that the older boy's round, freckled, blue-eyed face was unmarked. He had an urge to give Freddy a taste of his own medicine. Instead he forced himself to speak calmly through his tightly clenched teeth.

"What have I told you about bullying people?" he said to Freddy.

"He called me a dirty name!" Freddy said, his lower lip quivering in fear.

"He knocked my books out of my hand!" Nicky said.

Bill said, "Now wait a—"

"He called me a scrofulous!"

Bill was struck dumb for a second. Then he turned to face the smaller boy.

"You called him what?" he said, biting his cheek. It was all he could do to keep from laughing. This kid was too much! "Where did you hear that word?"

"I read it in a book once," Nicky said as he wiped the blood from his nose onto the sleeve of his white shirt.

Once. Nicky never forgot anything. Anything.

"Do you have any idea what it means?"

"Of course," he said offhandedly. "It's a tuberculous condition characterized by chronically swollen glands."

Bill nodded vaguely. "Right."

He had known little more than that it was some sort of disease, but he couldn't allow Nicky the slightest hint that he might be one up on him. The kid could be a terror if he sensed that.

Bill lifted the red whiffle bat and slapped it softly against his left palm.

"All right. You guys know what's next. Frederick, you call out the troops while Nicholas retrieves his glasses."

Freddy blanched and ran toward the dorm doors. Nicholas turned and picked up his thick, black-rimmed glasses.

"Aw, they broke again," Nicholas said, holding up the left earpiece.

Bill held out his hand. "Give it to me. We'll fix it later." He slipped them into the side pocket of his cassock. "For now, get over by the wall and wait for Freddy."

Nicky gave him a look, as if to say, You're not really going to do this to me, are you?

Speaking in a low voice, Bill said, "Don't expect special treatment, Nicholas. You know the rules, so you take your lumps just like everybody else."

Nicky shrugged and turned away.

Is this why I joined the Jesuits? Bill thought as he stood in the middle of the hall and fought to keep his personal frustration from turning into anger at the boys. Playing nursemaid to a bunch of wild kids was not the future he had envisioned for himself.

No way.

The writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., had directed him to the Society. Bill had already known he had a vocation for the priesthood, but he found de Chardin's work of such staggering intellectual scope that he knew he had to join the order that had produced such a mind—the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits were giants in both the religious and secular spheres, striving for—and achieving—excellence in all their endeavors. He had wanted to be a part of that tradition, and now he was.

Sort of.

The Society was changing as rapidly as the Church itself— and the world around them all. But he was cut off from most of that here.

Well, this wouldn't last forever. Repeating that thought over and over in his mind was the personal litany that got him through each day here at St. F.'s.

Prefect of Discipline—that was his title. What it really meant was that he played nursemaid and father figure to the residents of one of the last Catholic boys' orphanages in New York.

Me, a father figure! That was a laugh.

Bill looked up and saw the residents of St. Francis, two and a half dozen boys between the ages of six and thirteen, arrayed before him in the hall. Freddy had already taken his place next to Nicky near the window. All were silent.

Showtime.

This was an aspect of his position as prefect of discipline that Bill particularly disliked. Wielding the Bat. But it was a tradition at St. F.'s. There were rules of conduct here, and it was his job to enforce them. If he didn't, the place would quickly degenerate into anarchy.

As much as he would have liked to try it, he knew democracy wouldn't fly here. Although most of its residents were good kids, some of them had been through a child's version of hell and were pretty tough cases. Given free rein, they would turn the home into a little corner of hell. So there were rules that needed to be strictly and evenly enforced. And someone had to do the enforcing. Every boy knew where the lines were drawn, and each one knew that if he stepped over those lines he risked a date with the Bat. And in the rule against fighting was the understanding that no matter who had started it, both combatants would be punished.

"Okay, guys," he said to Freddy and Nicky. "You both know what to do. Drop trow and assume the position."

They both reddened and began loosening their belts. With excruciating slowness, they dropped their dark blue uniform trousers to the floor, turned, bent over, and grabbed their ankles.

A small brown stain became visible on the back of Freddy's jockey shorts as they stretched over his buttocks. Somebody said, "Hey, skid marks!" and the audience laughed.

Bill glared at them. "Did I hear someone say he wanted to join them over against the wall?"

Dead silence.

Bill approached Freddy and Nicky and readied the Bat for a swing, thinking how absurd it was to punish them this way for fighting.

Not exactly Gandhian, is it?

But not totally useless, either. If the rules weren't too restrictive, if the punishments weren't too harsh, Big Bad Bill and the Bat could push the boys closer to each other without crushing their spirit. He could help bond them, make them brothers of sorts, give them a sense of community, a feeling of unity. That was good. St. F.'s was the only family they had.

He started with Freddy. The Bat was hollow, made of lightweight vinyl. He swung it across the backs of the older boy's thighs once. The slap of the plastic against flesh echoed loudly in the hall.

It stung, Bill knew, but not much. In the hands of someone with a sadistic streak, this could be a painful punishment. But physical pain was not the object here. The embarrassment of dropping and bending before their assembled peers would probably be enough, but he had to use the Bat. It was the symbol of authority at St. F.'s and couldn't be allowed to gather dust when rules were broken.

He gave Freddy a total of four shots; the same for Nicky, although he backed off his swing a little on Nicky.

"All right," Bill said as the sound of the last slap echoed away. "Show's over. Everybody back to the dorm."

The kids broke and ran for their quarters with Freddy hurrying after them, buckling up as he ran. Nicky stayed behind.

"You going to fix my glasses, Father?"

"Oh, right." He'd forgotten about that.

Nicky looked stranger than usual without his specs. He had a misshapen head that bulged above his left ear. His records showed that his mother had been unwed and had tried to flush him down the toilet as a newborn, fracturing his tiny skull and nearly drowning him. Nicky had been a ward of the state and the Catholic Church ever since. Besides the misshapen skull, he had bad skin—his face was stippled with blackheads—and poor vision that required Coke-bottle lenses for correction.

But it was his intellect that truly set Nicky apart from the other kids. He tested in the genius range, and Bill had detected an increasingly scornful attitude toward lesser minds. That was what got him into fights and added to the already difficult task of finding him a home—he was far brighter than many of the prospective adoptive parents who applied to St. F.'s.

But despite the fact that Nicky acted like an insufferable, pint-sized intellectual, Bill could not deny his fondness for him. Maybe it was a sense of kinship»—Nicky's intellect set him apart from the other boys just as Bill's calling had set him apart from his own generation. At least once a week they played chess. Bill managed to win most of the games, but he knew that was due only to his greater experience. In another year he'd be lucky to play a draw against Nicky.

Back in his office, Bill took out a small tool kit and set about trying to repair the eyeglasses. Nicky wandered away, poking into the corners of the tiny room. Bill had noticed during his time at St. F's that although Nicky seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about the world and how things worked, he had no interest whatsoever in actually making things work.

"How about a game?" Nicky said from over by the chessboard.

"That's 'How about a game, Father,' and I'm a little busy right now, as you can see."

"Spot me a knight and I'll whip you in twenty minutes!" Bill gave him a look. "… Father," Nicky finally added. It was a game Nicky played, trying to see how far he could push their familiarity. As much as Bill liked the boy, he had to keep a certain amount of distance. St. F.'s was a way station. He couldn't allow the boys to feel that leaving here was leaving home. They had to feel they were going to their home.

"Not a chance, kid. We play on Saturdays. And besides, you need to be spotted a piece like Cassius Clay needs to be spotted a right to the jaw."

"He calls himself Muhammad Ali now."

"Whatever. Just keep quiet while I try to fix this."

Bill concentrated on rethreading the screw that held the earpiece to the front of the frame. He just about had it in place when he heard Nicky say:

"So. I see Loyola turned you down."

Bill looked up and saw Nicky holding a sheet of paper. He recognized it as Loyola College stationery. Anger flared.

"Put that down! That's my personal correspondence!"

"Sorry."

Bill had requests in to the Provincial for transfer to a college campus and had queried Fordham, Georgetown, B.C., and others about positions as instructor. He was qualified in history and philosophy. As soon as something opened up, he would be out of here and on his way to the academic life he had dreamed of through all those years in the seminary.

Serving God through man's intellect—that had been his personal motto since his second year in the seminary.

He had expected to find little at St. Francis for the intellect. Two interminable years here as prefect of discipline had confirmed it.

A mind-numbing job. He could feel his creative juices dripping away, evaporating. He was twenty-six years old and wasting what should have been the most productive years of his life. Momentous changes were taking place out there in the real world, especially on the college campuses. The whole society was in ferment, the very air alive with ideas, with change. He wanted to be part of that process, wanted to fight his way to the heart of it.

Stuck here as he was in this anachronism called St. Francis Home for Boys, he could only grasp the hem of what was going on. Last weekend he had managed to get away for two days. He and some friends from his seminary days had dressed in civvies and driven all night to campaign for Eugene McCarthy up in New Hampshire. The primary was only a few weeks away and it looked as if Senator Gene might give President Johnson a real run for his money.

God, the excitement up there! All the young hippie types shaving their beards and getting their hair cut short—"Get clean for Gene" was the slogan of the day—and canvassing neighborhoods door to door. The air had rippled and vibrated with a sense of purpose, with a feeling that history was being made. He had been depressed on Sunday night when they'd had to leave.

To return to this. This. St. Francis Home for Boys.

Bill firmly believed that there was something to be gained, some wisdom to be gleaned from any experience. Although he wasn't exactly sure what it was, he was certain he had derived whatever wisdom St. F.'s had to offer. From here on it was just more of the same. So now he wanted to get himself out of neutral and start moving forward.

All right, Lord. I've paid my dues. I'm through with this chapter. Let's turn the page and move on to the next, okay?

But he had to wait until he was given the green light. In addition to vows of poverty and celibacy, he had also taken a vow of obedience when he had become a Jesuit. He had to go where the Society of Jesus sent him. He just hoped the Society sent him away from here soon.

"You've got no business going through my papers."

Nicky shrugged. "Yeah, but it helps to know that we kids aren't the only ones around here who get rejected. Don't feel bad. Look at me. I'm a pro at being rejected."

"We'll find you a place."

"You can be honest with me, Father. I know you've been trying to bail out since you arrived. It's okay. You're no different from anyone else under a hundred years old who comes through here."

Bill was stung. He thought he had been pretty discreet.

"How do you know?"

" Ve haf verrry interrresting vays of learning zings ve vish to know," he said in a fair imitation of Arte Johnson's German soldier.

Bill had noted that Nicky never failed to be in the first row when the boys watched Laugh-in on Monday nights. He couldn't be sure if the attraction was the quick humor or the bodypainted girls in bikinis.

The phone rang.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Walters," Bill said when he recognized the voice.

Immediately he wished he hadn't spoken the man's name. Nicky's head snapped around. Bill could almost see his ears pricking up with interest. Mr. and Mrs. Walters were interested in adopting a boy, and Nicky had spent a few days with them this week.

The story Mr. Walters told was a familiar one: Yes, Nicky was a nice enough boy, but they just didn't think he'd fit in with their way of life. Now they were reconsidering the whole idea of adopting. Bill tried to reason with the man as best he could with Nicky listening to every word, but finally he was forced to allow the conversation to end. The Walters would call back when they had thought it over some more.

Nicky's smile was forced. "George and Ellen don't want me either, right?"

"Nicholas…"

"It's okay, Father. I told you. I'm a pro at rejection."

But Bill saw the boy's lips quivering and tears welling in his lower lids. It broke his heart to see this happen time after time. Not just with Nicky but with some of the other boys too.

"You intimidate people, Nicky."

There was a sob hiding within Nicky's voice. "I… I don't mean to. It just happens."

He threw an arm over Nicky's shoulder. The gesture felt awkward, stiff, nowhere near as warm as he would have wished. "Don't worry, kid. I'll find you a place."

Nicky pulled away, his expression shifting quickly from misery to anger.

"Oh, right! Sure you will! You don't care about us! All you care about is getting out of here!"

That hurt. Bill was speechless for a moment. Forget the disrespect. That didn't matter. What did matter was that the kid was speaking from the heart—and speaking the truth. Bill had been doing a half-assed job here. Not a bad job, but certainly not a good one.

That's because I don't belong here! I wasn't cut out for this type of thing!

Right. Granted. But at least he could give it his best shot. He owed the kids and the Society at least that much. But something about Nicky's extraordinary run of bad luck bothered Bill.

"Tell me, Nicky: Are you trying?"

"Of course I am!"

Bill wondered about that. Had Nicky been rejected so many times in the past that he was now deliberately sabotaging the trial visits? In effect, rejecting the prospective adoptive parents before they could reject him?

On impulse Bill said, "I'll make you a promise, Nicky. I'm going to see you adopted before I leave here."

The boy blinked. "You don't have to do that. I didn't mean what I—"

"But I've got to see you trying a little harder with people. You can't expect people to warm up to you if you go around acting like Clifton Webb playing Mr. Belvedere."

Nicky smiled. "But I like Mr. Belvedere!"

Bill knew that. Nicky had watched Sitting Pretty at least a dozen times. He scanned TV Guide every week to see if it was on. Lynn Belvedere was his hero.

"But that's not real life. No one wants to live with a ten-year-old who's got all the answers."

"But I'm usually right!"

"That's even worse. Adults like to be right once in a while, too, you know."

"Okay. I'll try."

Bill sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn't regret his promise to Nicky. But it seemed like a safe bet. He wasn't going anywhere. Every place he had contacted so far about an instructorship had turned him down. It looked like he was going to be at St. F.'s for some time to come.

The intercom buzzed. Sister Miriam's voice said:

"A young couple is here and they want some information from the old adoption records. Father Anthony is out and I'm not sure what to do."

Bill quickly tightened the earpiece screw on Nicky's glasses and scooted him out of the office.

"I'll be right down."

2

This is it, Jim thought as he and Carol stood in the foyer of St. Francis. This is where my history begins.

Entering the place never failed to raise a lump in his throat. He owed these priests and nuns a lot. They had taken him in when his real parents had no use for him, and had found him a home where he was wanted. He tended to be suspicious of altruism, but he felt he had certainly received a lot from St. F.'s while unable to offer a thing in return. That must be what the nuns in school had meant when they talked about "good works."

The drafty foyer was as drab as the rest of the building. The whole place was pretty forbidding, actually, with its worn granite exterior and flaking paint on the wood trim around the windows and doors. The molding and trim had been painted and repainted so many times that whatever detail had been carved into the original wood was now blunted into vague ripples and irregular ridges.

He shivered, not just with the February cold that was still trapped within the fabric of his corduroy jacket, but also with the anticipation that he was finally going to be able to move backward in time, beyond the day he was left here. In all his previous trips to St. F.'s, that day in January of 1942 had proven an impenetrable barrier, impervious to all his assaults. But he had found a key today. Maybe it would open the door.

"It's starting to become real to me," he said to Carol.

"What?"

"The Hanley thing."

"Not to me. I still can't believe it."

"It's going to take awhile, but this is going to open all the doors for me. I'm finally going to find out where I came from. I can feel it."

There was concern in Carol's eyes. "I hope it's worth the effort."

"Maybe I can really start to concentrate on what's ahead, if I can stop looking back and wondering what was there."

Carol only smiled and squeezed his hand in reply.

Maybe he could get a better grip on the novels if he could find the answers to all the whys that cluttered his mind.

Like why had he been dumped here?

If Dr. Roderick Hanley was his natural father, it stood to reason that the old boy may have felt that his reputation would be damaged by acknowledging a bastard child.

Fine. Jim could live with that.

But what about his mother? Why had she deserted him as a newborn? He was sure she had a good reason—she must have! He wouldn't hold anything against her. He just wanted to know.

Was that too much to ask?

And there were questions he had about himself that he'd never discussed with Carol, questions about certain dark areas of his psyche that he wanted answered.

Suddenly Carol was tugging at his sleeve.

"Jim, look! My God, look who it is!"

3

Carol could hardly believe her eyes. She had been struck by the young priest's good looks—the short collegiate cut of his thick brown hair, the clear blue eyes, the broad shoulders and trim body that even the dresslike cassock couldn't hide. And then she suddenly realized she knew him.

Billy Ryan from Monroe.

Seeing him now gave her a flash of heat reminiscent of the first time she had laid eyes on him in high school, standing by himself in a corner at the year's first Friday night CYO dance at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, an echo of the intense warmth that had propelled her across the floor at the start of the next ladies' choice—a slow tune, of course—to ask him to dance. She even remembered the song: the ethereal "Been So Long" by the Pastels. He turned out to be the shiest boy she had ever known.

And now he was staring right back at her.

"Carol? Carol Nevins?"

"Stevens now. Remember?" she said.

"Of course I do. Even if I couldn't make the wedding." He pumped Jim's hand. "And Jim! Is that you under all that hair? You really look like the Wolfman now. God, it's been so long!"

"Four years at least," Jim said, smiling.

Bill slapped his hand against Jim's belly. "Married life seems to be agreeing with you." He turned to her. "And you, too, Carol. You look great!"

Carol resisted an impulse to embrace him. It had been almost a decade since their last date. They had hugged and kissed a lot in the months after they had met at that CYO dance, but Billy Ryan was a priest now. Father Ryan. She wasn't sure how proper that would be, or how he'd react.

"What on earth are you two doing here?" he said.

As Jim gave him a quick run-down of his life story, Carol studied Bill. The even teeth, the quick smile, the sharp cut of his nose, the way his hair curled just a little at his temples, the way the unbuttoned top of his cassock hung open to reveal the white of the T-shirt underneath—God, he was still gorgeous!

What a waste!

Carol was startled by the thought. That wasn't like her. Bill was doing what was most important to him, living the life he had chosen, dedicating himself to God. Why should she put him down for that?

But she couldn't escape the realization that in a way it was indeed a shame that this big, virile man would never marry, would never father children. And she couldn't deny the stir his very presence caused deep within her.

"I'm proud of you," Carol blurted, a bit too loudly perhaps, at the end of Jim's monologue. "I mean, working here with these homeless kids. It must be very rewarding."

Bill turned his serene blue eyes on her, and Carol thought she saw them cloud for an instant.

"It… has its moments." He turned back to Jim. "So you were abandoned as a newborn right here in the foyer of St. Francis?"

Jim nodded. "Right. January fourteenth, to be exact. They estimated I was a little over a week old, so I was assigned January sixth as a birthday."

"I never knew any of this," Bill said, shaking his head. "Never even knew you were adopted."

"Well, it's not exactly the sort of thing you discuss in the locker room."

"I guess not."

As Carol idly wondered about what boys did talk about in locker rooms, Bill led them inside a small room with a desk and chairs. She knew from previous trips to St. Francis with Jim to search the adoption records that this was where they conducted initial interviews with prospective adoptive parents.

"So what can St. Francis do for you now?" Bill said.

Carol watched the intense animation in her husband's eyes as he filled Bill in on his invitation to the reading of the Hanley will and the conclusions he had drawn from that.

"So I guess what I need now is a chance to go through your old financial records and see if Dr. Hanley was ever a contributor to St. Francis."

"We don't allow anyone to go through those," Bill said.

Carol couldn't help noting the we—Bill was really part of something else now, something that excluded her and Jim and the rest of the world.

"It would mean a lot to me."

"I know. I'll make a quick search for you myself, if you'd like."

"I'd really appreciate that, Bill."

Bill smiled. "What are old friends for? What year was that again?"

"Forty-two. I arrived here January of Forty-two."

"I'll see what I can find. Sit down. This shouldn't take too long."

4

"Imagine… Bill Ryan," Jim heard Carol say when they were alone.

He gave her a sidelong glance and put on a lecherous stage whisper. "Still got the hots for him?"

Carol swatted him on the arm. Hard. It stung. She meant that one.

"That's not even funny! He's a priest!"

"Still a good-looking guy."

"You can say that again," Carol said with a wink, smiling.

"I'll pass. Once was enough, thank you."

Jim closed his eyes and listened to the old building around him. St. Francis Home for Boys. The last of its kind, as far as he knew. He'd been here many times since his teenage years but had no memories of the place as a child. Why should he? He'd spent only the first few weeks of his life here before Jonah and Emma Stevens adopted him. Quite a coincidence. Within hours of his being found on the doorstep, the Stevenses were there, looking to adopt a male infant. The U.S. had entered World War II about six weeks earlier, and already applications for adoption had fallen way off. The foundling found a home and became James Stevens before he was two months old.

Lucky.

Even luckier now that he was a rich man's heir.

What about all the other not-so-lucky ones? What about all the other homeless kids, parentless by fate or design, who had to spend years here, shuttled in and out of strange homes until they finally clicked somewhere or got old enough to move out into lives of their own? He ached for them.

What a rotten life.

Granted, a kid could do a lot worse. The nuns from Our Lady of Lourdes next door taught the kids in the parish school, changed their sheets, and did their laundry, while the priests provided father figures. It was a stable, structured environment with a roof overhead, a clean bed, and three squares a day. But it wasn't a home.

Somehow Jim had lucked out in 1942. He wondered how lucky he'd be at the reading of the will next week.

If I get a couple of those millions, I'll adopt every kid in St. F.'s, every one of the poor little bastards.

He couldn't resist a smile.

Yeah. Bastards. Like me.

"What are you grinning at?" Carol asked.

"Just thinking," he said. "Wondering how much I'll get from the Hanley estate. Maybe it'll be enough to allow us to get away for a while and do some serious work on starting some little feet to patter around the house."

Carol's face was troubled for an instant as she slipped her hand into his. "Maybe."

He knew how worried she was about her ability to conceive. They'd been over the territory hundreds of time. The fact that her mother had had fertility problems didn't mean Carol would follow. Every doctor she'd been to had told her she had no reason to worry. Yet he knew it haunted her.

And so it haunted him. Anything that bothered Carol bothered him more. He loved her so much it hurt at times. A cliché, he knew, but sometimes he'd stare at her as she read or worked in the kitchen, unaware of the scrutiny, and he'd feel an actual pain deep inside. All he wanted to do was someday be able to make her feel as fortunate to have him as he felt about having her.

Money wouldn't do it, but at least with this inheritance he could buy her everything, give her the kind of life she deserved. For himself, he had everything he needed, corny as that sounded. But Carol… money couldn't buy her what she needed and wanted most.

"And even if we don't get our own," he told her, "there's plenty of kids available right here."

She only nodded absently.

"Anyway," he said, "if that job at the hospital is getting you down, you'll be able to quit. No sweat."

She smiled crookedly. "Don't get your hopes up too high. With our luck there'll be a thousand other 'sons' of his waiting in line at the reading."

Jim laughed. That was the Irish in Carol: For every silver lining there had to be a cloud, invariably dark and rumbling.

"Nice of Bill to search the records for you," she said after a while. "Especially after we missed his ordination and all."

"You had appendicitis, for chrissake!"

"You know that and I know that, but does he? I mean, knowing the way you feel about religion, maybe he thinks we just made it up as an excuse not to come see him made a priest. Maybe he's hurt. After all, we haven't seen him in years."

"He knows better. It's just your Irish guilt projecting."

"Don't be silly!"

Jim smiled. "It's true. Even though you were hospitalized, you feel guilty as hell about missing his ordination."

"Swell choice of words, Jim."

5

Bill hurried back to the interview room, wondering why he was in such a rush. He didn't have anything to tell them. It had taken him only an hour or so, but he was sure he had found all there was to be found.

Was it Carol?

She looked good, didn't she? Her hair was longer, straighter, but her face was the same, that same sharp, upturned nose, thin lips, fine sandy hair, the same natural high coloring in her cheeks.

Was he in a hurry to see her again?

Not likely. She had been a teenage infatuation, a stage in his adolescence. That was all over and done with.

So why this sense of urgency to get back to where she was waiting?

As he entered the little room he pushed the question away. He'd think about it later.

"Sorry," he said, dropping into a chair. "Couldn't find a thing."

Jim slammed his fist against his thigh. "Damn! Are you sure?"

"I started the search somewhere around three years before your drop-off date and went through every year since. The name Hanley doesn't crop up a single time."

Jim obviously wasn't satisfied. Bill could guess what was on his mind. He was probably looking for a delicate way to question how thoroughly anyone could have combed through three decades of records in a little over an hour.

"That's an awful lot of years, Bill. I'm just wondering…"

Bill smiled. "A lot of years, yes, but not a lot of contributions, I'm afraid. And the name Hanley doesn't appear in any of our index files or on our mailing list." As he saw Jim's shoulders slump, he added, "But…"

"But what?"

"But just ten days after you were left here, St. F.'s received an anonymous contribution often thousand dollars. One whale of a sum in those days."

"It's nothing to sniff at these days, either, let me tell you!" Jim said, animated again. "Anonymous, huh? How unusual is that?"

"Are you kidding? Even today we occasionally get twenty-five or fifty, or rarely, a hundred bucks anonymously. But the rest of the time everyone wants a receipt for tax purposes. A five-figure donation that won't be written off is unheard of."

"Guilt money," Jim said.

He nodded. "Heavy guilt."

Bill glanced over at Carol. She was staring at him. Why was she looking at him that way? It made him uncomfortable.

At that moment a mailman stopped in the hall at the door. He held up an envelope. "Care to sign for this, Father? It's certified."

Bill took the envelope and dropped it on the table as he signed the receipt. When he turned back, Jim was on his feet, clutching the envelope in his hand.

"Look at the return address! Fletcher, Cornwall & Boothby! That's the same law firm that contacted me!" He shoved it toward Bill. "Open it!"

Propelled by the infectious urgency in Jim's voice, Bill tore open the envelope.

After skimming the astonishing contents, he handed the letter to Jim.

"They want St. F.'s to send someone to the reading of the Hanley will!"

Jim glanced at the letter and grinned.

"Same letter I got! I knew it! This clinches it! Let's celebrate! Dinner's on me! What do you say, Bill?"

Bill took back the letter and shook his head.

"Sorry. I can't get away just now. Maybe some other time."

Partly true. With Father Anthony out, he couldn't simply walk off and leave the boys without supervision. Of course, if he really worked at it, he could probably find somebody to cover for him, but in a strange way he was glad to get out of it. He was finding it difficult to keep his eyes off Carol. And every time he looked her way, she was looking back.

Like now. Carol was staring at him again.

She said, "A rain check, then. We'll owe you one."

"Sure. That'll be nice."

The good-byes were protracted, with much handshaking and promises of keeping in touch this time and getting together soon. Bill breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he finally closed the door behind them, figuring his insides would begin to quiet down now.

But they didn't.

6

Carol waited for Jim to start the car but he just sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

She shivered with the cold.

"If we're not going anywhere, Jim, how about just starting the car and getting the heater going?"

He shook himself and smiled. "Sorry. Just thinking."

He turned the ignition and the ten-year-old Nash Rambler shuddered to life. He steered it toward Queens Boulevard.

"Thinking what?"

"How pieces are starting to fit together. Won't be long before I know who I am."

Carol leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I know who you are. Why don't you ask me?"

"Okay. Who am I?"

"The man I love. A great guy, a talented writer, and the best lover on the East Coast." And she meant every word of it.

He kissed her too. "Thanks. But just the East Coast? What about the West Coast?"

"I've never been to the West Coast."

"Oh." He braked at a stop sign. "Well, where do we eat?"

"Can we really afford it?"

"Sure. I got paid for the God Is Dead series today. We're 'in Fat City, ' as our president is wont to say."

"About time they paid up."

That explained the dinner invitation. Jim was about as modern as could be, but he remained mired in the fifties when it came to spending her salary on luxuries.

"We can go that way"—he pointed east, toward home— "and catch some seafood at Memison's, or we can try someplace in the city." He pointed toward the setting sun.

Carol wasn't really hungry—hadn't been hungry for days, in fact. She couldn't think of any food that would appeal to her, but she knew that Jim was a pasta freak.

"Let's try Little Italy. I feel like Italian tonight."

"Funny… you don't look Italian."

"Corny. Drive," she said.

As they approached the ever-graceful Queensboro Bridge, an idea struck Carol.

"You know, it's a bit on the early side to eat, don't you think? So as long as we're heading into the city, let's stop at Aunt Grace's."

Jim groaned. "Anyplace but Grace's. I'll even hang around Saks with you."

"Come on. She's a sweetheart, and she's special to me."

Carol loved her spinster aunt who had acted as a sort of stand-in mother during Carol's college years, giving her a family to come "home" to over the holidays and to live with during summer break. Carol had always got along well with her. The same could not be said for Jim, however.

"Yeah, but that apartment of hers gives me the creeps."

"Nothing gives you the creeps. Besides, I don't feel right going into town with this much time to kill and not stopping in to say hello."

"Okay," he said as they crossed the East River and headed down the ramp into Manhattan. "To Gramercy Park we go. But promise me. As soon as she starts trying to save my soul, we leave."

"Promise."

Interlude on Central Park West—I

Mr. Veilleur wasn't sure what it was at first.

It came as he was half sitting, half reclining, half dozing on the living-room sofa while a news special on the effects of the Tet offensive in Vietnam filled the nineteen-inch screen of their brand-new color television. A feeling, a sensation, a prickling in his hindbrain. He couldn't identify it, but there was an ominous feel to it.

A warning?

As it grew stronger it seemed in some way familiar. Like something from the past, something he'd known before but had not encountered for many years.

A presence!

Suddenly alarmed, he shook himself awake and sat up.

No. It couldn't be.

He rose from the couch and went to the window where he stared out at the naked trees of Central Park below. The park was bathed in an orange glow from the setting sun except where it was blocked by the buildings rising along Central Park West. His own apartment building cut a thick swath of shadow into the light.

The feeling was growing, getting stronger, more defined, flowing from the east, from straight across town.

It can't be!

He saw his ghostly reflection in the window glass: a large-framed man with gray hair and a lined face. He looked sixtyish but at this moment he felt much older.

There was no doubting the feeling, yet how could it be? It wasn't possible!

"What is it, dear?" his wife said in her thickly accented English as she entered the room from the kitchen.

"It's him! He's alive! He's here!"

Three

1

Grace Nevins munched a Ry-Krisp as she dusted the largest of her Infant of Prague statues. It wasn't really an infant; actually, the twelve-inch porcelain figure looked more like a young boy wearing a golden crown and holding a globe before him. A cross jutted up from atop the globe. There were four such statues in the front room of her apartment, one at each point of the compass. All were still garbed in their Christmas raiments, but soon it would be changing time. Lent was fast approaching. Ash Wednesday was next week. That called for somber purple robes on each of the statues.

She moved on to the crucifixes. All told, she had twenty-two of them, and some of the more ornate ones were real dust collectors. After that she worked on the eight statues of the Blessed Mother, from the little six-inch one she had picked up in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to the three-foot marble beauty in its own miniature grotto in the corner opposite the door. There were six pictures of the Sacred Heart, each with a blessed palm frond behind the frame. The fronds were brittle and brown with age, each being almost a year old. That was all right. Their time was almost up, anyway. When Palm Sunday came again in early April, she'd get fresh fronds for all the pictures.

She was about to start on her praying hands and relics when the buzzer rang. Someone was down at the front entrance. When Grace recognized Carol's voice on the intercom, her heart gave a little extra beat of joy as she buzzed her in.

Always nice to see her only niece.

As she waited for Carol to climb the three flights of stairs, Grace became aware of a vague uneasiness within her, a gradually mounting tension, with no object, no identifiable cause. She tried to shake it off.

"Carol!" she said at the door when her niece arrived, reaching up to give her a kiss and a hug. "So good to see you!"

She was a good quarter of a century older and three inches shorter than her niece, but probably weighed twice as much. Sometimes Grace fretted about her weight, and had even gone so far as to join that new group, Weight Watchers, but then decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Who was she trying to impress? There was no man in her life, and certainly the Lord didn't care how much you weighed when you came to Final Judgment. She told herself, The color of your soul is more important than the size of your waist. It was far more important to watch the shape your soul was in. Say, that was a great idea for a religion discussion group—Soul Watchers. Catchy.

"How are you, Aunt Grace?" Carol said. "I hope you don't mind. We were in town and—"

" 'We'?"

"Yes. Jim came along."

Grace's enthusiasm for this surprise visit dropped a few notches at the sight of Jim's face peeking out from behind her niece, but nothing could dampen it completely.

Except perhaps the nameless uneasiness growing within her.

She pushed it down.

"Hiya, Aunt Grace," he said, putting his hand out.

Grace gave it a quick shake. "Hello, Jim. I'm surprised the… both of you came."

"Oh, Jim's the reason we're in town," Carol said brightly.

Grace ushered them into the apartment. As she took their coats she held her breath, waiting for Jim to make one of his comments about her religious articles. It took a moment, but then he started.

"Have you added to your collection, Aunt Grace?"

"A few items, yes."

"That's nice."

She waited for a skeptical remark, but he merely stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, smiling blandly.

This was not the usual Jim. Perhaps Carol had warned him to be on his best behavior. Carol was such a dear. Yes, that was probably it. Otherwise her husband would be behaving as he had the last time he was here, commenting on the Infant of Prague's taste in clothes or citing the fire hazards of keeping old, dried palm fronds around the apartment.

She took a deep breath. The tension was beginning to stifle her. She needed help. She went to her curved-glass china cabinet and took out her latest treasure: a tiny fragment of dark brown wood on a bed of satin in a clear plastic box. She prayed that holding it would ward off the strangling uneasiness but it did nothing. She handed it to Carol.

"Look. It's a relic. A fragment of the True Cross."

Carol nodded. "Very nice." Then she handed it to Jim.

Grace saw that Jim's face was bright red and that he was biting his upper lip. She saw Carol hurl him a warning look.

Finally he let out a sigh and nodded.

"Yes. Very nice."

"I know what you're thinking," Grace said as he handed it back to her. "That if all the wood that's been sold as splinters of the True Cross were assembled in one place, the amount of lumber would probably equal the Black Forest in Germany." She replaced the relic within the cabinet. "Many religious authorities are skeptical too. Perhaps they're right. But I like to compare it to one of Jesus' miracles. You remember the story of the Loaves and the Fishes, don't you?"

"Of course," Jim said.

"Same principle."

And that was enough on the subject. She offered them tea but they refused. After they all found seats she said,

"What brings you here to the city from the wilds of Long Island?"

Grace saw Carol glance questioningly at Jim.

He shrugged and said, "Tell her. It'll be public knowledge next week."

And so Grace listened distractedly as her niece told her about Dr. Roderick Hanley's death, Jim's invitation to the reading of his will, and why they had good reason to believe that Jim might be Hanley's son.

Grace was having difficulty concentrating on Carol's words. The tension—she could barely stand it. Its intensity had nothing to do with what Carol was saying. It was simply there! And it was growing stronger by the minute.

She didn't want Carol to know anything was wrong, but she had to get away, had to leave the room, even if for only a few minutes.

"How interesting," she said, rising from her seat. "Excuse me for a moment, won't you?"

It took every ounce of Grace's will to keep from running as she headed for the bathroom. She forced herself to latch the door gently, and then she leaned against the sink. The glaring white tile and porcelain of the confined, cell-like space only seemed to intensify the sensation. In the mirror her face was pale and beaded with sweat.

Grace clutched her Miraculous medal in one fist and her scapular medal in the other. She felt as if she were about to explode. She pressed her fists tightly over her mouth. She wanted to scream! Nothing like this had ever happened before. Was she going crazy?

She couldn't let Carol and Jim see her like this. She had to get them out of here. But how?

Suddenly she knew a way.

She forced herself to return to the front room.

"I'd love to discuss this some more, dear," she said, praying her voice wouldn't break, "but this is the time I set aside each day in the weeks before Lent to say the Rosary. Won't you join me? I'm doing the Fifth Glorious Mystery today."

Jim shot to his feet and looked at his watch.

"Whoa! Time to get to dinner!"

Carol was not far behind.

"We really must be going, Aunt Grace," Carol said. "Why don't you come to dinner with us? We're going down to Mulberry Street."

"Thank you, dear," she said as she pulled their coats from the closet, "but I've got choir practice tonight, and then I'm on the eleven-to-seven at Lenox Hill."

"Still nursing?" Carol said with a smile.

"Until the day I die." She pushed their coats at them, wanting to scream, Get out! Get out before I go crazy right here in front of you! "Sorry you have to run."

Carol seemed to hesitate. As she opened her mouth to speak, Grace quickly pulled her favorite Rosary beads—the clear crystal ones, blessed by the Holy Father himself—from the pocket of her housecoat.

"Yes," Carol said quickly. "So are we. I'll call you soon. We'll give you a rain check on dinner."

"That will be lovely."

Carol paused at the door. "Are you all right?"

"Yes-yes. Jesus is with me."

She kissed Carol, waved a quick good-bye to Jim, then sagged against the door after she had closed it behind them. What would happen now? Would she have a convulsion or go into some sort of" screaming fit? What was happening to her?

Whatever it was, she couldn't let anyone be here. She knew that was foolhardy from a medical standpoint, but what if she said some things she didn't want to, things she wanted no one else to hear? She couldn't risk that, no matter what the danger…

Wait…

The feeling… the dread, the tension. It was lessening. As mysteriously as it had come, it was leaving. By slow degrees it was oozing out of her.

Quickly, fervently, Grace began her Rosary.

2

"Do you think she's all right?" Carol asked Jim as they stepped out onto cold, wintry East Twentieth Street. "Her face looked kind of strained to me."

She dearly loved that pudgy little woman with her twinkling blue eyes and apple cheeks. Grace was the only family she had left.

Jim shrugged. "Maybe it was me. Or maybe living with that decor is affecting her."

"Oh, Jim."

"Really, Carol, even though she doesn't like me, I think Grace is a sweet old lady. However, she's a paradigm of religiosity, and maybe it's getting to her. Look at that place! It's loaded with guys nailed to crosses! Disembodied hands folded in prayer rising out of the counters. And not one—but six pictures of bleeding hearts on the wall."

"You know very well that's the Sacred Heart." She fought a smile away from her lips. She couldn't let Jim get rolling. Once he got started, there was no stopping him. "Now cut it out! Seriously, Jim. I'm worried about her. She didn't look well."

He looked at her more closely. "You really are worried, aren't you? Come to think of it, she did look ready to jump out of her skin. Maybe we should go back up."

"No. I don't think she wanted company today. Maybe I'll give her a call tomorrow to see how she's doing."

"Good idea. Maybe we should have insisted on taking her out for a drink at least."

"You know she doesn't drink."

"Yeah, but I do, and right now I could use a drink. Two drinks. Many drinks!"

"Don't overdo it tonight," she warned, sensing that he was in the mood for some serious celebrating.

"I won't."

"I mean it, Jim. One word about warts later on and we're on our way home."

"Warts?" he said, all shock and wounded dignity. "I never talk about warts!"

"You know you do—when you've had one too many."

"Well, maybe. But drinking has nothing to do with it."

"You never mention them when you're sober."

"The subject never comes up!"

"Let's eat," she sighed, hiding a smile.

3

Later, when she was calmer, Grace sat on the edge of her bed and thought about what Carol had told her about Jim being an heir to the Hanley estate.

She felt good now. The Rosary, a bowl of hot cream of mushroom soup, and it was as if nothing had happened. Within minutes of Carol and Jim's departure, she had felt fine.

An anxiety attack, that's what it had been. She had seen so many of them back in her days as an emergency-room nurse but had never imagined she would ever fall victim to one. A little phenobarbital, a little reassurance, and the patient, usually a thin young woman who smoked too much—I certainly don't fit that picture—would be sent on her way in much-improved condition.

But what could have triggered it?

Guilt?

Very likely. She had read articles in her nursing journals about guilt being at the root of most anxiety.

Well, I've certainly got plenty to be guilty about, haven't I?

But Grace didn't want to think about the past, nor even about her anxiety attack. She turned her thoughts to what Carol had said. Astonishing things, such as Jim being an orphan—Grace hadn't had the slightest notion about that—and about his being named in a will…

Dr. Roderick Hanley's will.

Grace vaguely remembered doing private duty for a Dr. Hanley, in the early days of World War II. She had cared for a newborn boy in a town house about twenty blocks uptown in Turtle Bay. It had been a live-in job. The child's mother, whoever she was, was nowhere to be seen. The doctor never mentioned her. It was as if she had never been.

Could that have been the same Dr. Hanley?

Could that infant have been Jim Stevens?

It didn't seem probable, but the timing was right. Jim would have been an infant at that time. Jim Stevens could very well have been that child.

Oh, I hope not, Grace thought.

Because there had been something wrong with that child, with that whole house. Grace hadn't been able to identify exactly what it was that had made her so uncomfortable there, but she remembered being grateful that the job lasted only a few days.

Shortly thereafter she changed her evil ways and returned to the Church.

She wished Carol would return to the Church. It saddened her to think of her only niece as a fallen away Catholic. She blamed that on Jim. Carol said he wasn't to blame. She said the Church just didn't seem "relevant" anymore. Everyone seemed to talk about "relevance" these days. But didn't she see that the Church, as God's instrument in the world, was above and beyond something as transient as "relevance"?

No, the relevance angle sounded like Jim talking. The man was an incurable skeptic. The Church taught that no one was beyond hope of redemption, but Grace was quite certain that Jim was testing the limits of that teaching. She hoped he hadn't permanently endangered Carol's soul."

But he seemed to make Carol happy—happier than she had ever been since her parents died. And there was much to be said for making another person happy.

Maybe there was hope for Jim yet. Grace vowed to pray for both their souls.

Grace worried about souls. Especially her own. She knew that before she returned to the Church in her late twenties, she had blackened her soul almost beyond repair. Since then she had worked at cleansing it by doing penance, doing good works, and seeking absolution.

Absolution was the hardest for her. She had received a plenary indulgence on a number of occasions from various visiting bishops, but she wondered if it had worked for her, wondered if it had really had the effect she'd prayed for: to wipe her soul clean of all her past sins. There were so many! She had committed the worst of sins in her younger days, terrible sins she was afraid to think about, hideous sins that so shamed her, she had never been able to speak them to a priest, even in the confessional. The lives she had taken! She was sure—knew—that if anyone in the Church learned of the things she had done in her youth, she certainly would be excommunicated.

And excommunication would kill her. The Church was her only source of peace now.

Grace glanced at the clock next to her bed—the dial was set into a pair of hands folded in prayer—and saw that she would be late for choir practice if she didn't hurry. She didn't want to miss that. She felt so good when she was praising the Lord in song.

4

"They outdid themselves with the garlic tonight," Jim said as he twirled his linguini in the thick golden clam sauce.

They had discovered Amalia's last year, a tiny restaurant on Hester Street, right off Mulberry, where the waiters were unperturbed by Jim's habit of eating his meat course before the pasta. Everyone at Amalia's ate together at long tables covered with red-and-white-checkered cloths. Tonight, though, they had a corner all to themselves.

"This is so good!" he said. "Sure you don't want to try even a bite?"

Carol shook her head. "You finish it."

His eyes were a little bloodshot and she could guess why. They had each had a cocktail before dinner, and wine with. Carol had only had one glass of Soave with what little she had eaten of her pasta, but now, as the meal drew to an end, they had an empty Soave plus a near empty Chianti.

"Hard to believe that I've finally found my father," he said. "And by next week I'll probably know who my mother is too. Is that great, or what?"

Carol reached over with her napkin and wiped a bit of the butter sauce off Jim's chin, thinking how she loved this grown man but loved equally the little lost boy inside him who was still looking for his Mommy and Daddy.

He took her hand and kissed her fingers.

"What was that for?" she asked, touched.

"For putting up with me."

"Don't be silly."

"No, I mean it. I know I get pretty wrapped up in myself when it comes to finding my parents. It's got to be a drag for you. So thanks for the support—as always."

"Whatever's important to you is important to me."

"That's easy to say. I mean, anybody can mouth the words, but you really mean it."

"That's because it is easy when you love someone."

"I'm not so sure. You've encouraged me to go on writing novels that no one wants to publish."

"It's only a matter of time." She never wanted him to stop writing, no matter how many rejections he got.

"Let's hope so. But the important thing is you never made me feel I should give it up or that you were impatient with me. You never once used it to put me down, even when we fight."

She winked at him. "It's an investment. I know you're going to be a rich and famous author before long and I want you to feel you owe it all to me."

"So there's a financial motive, ay? Well, I think I'd better— wait a minute!"

He suddenly dropped her hand and poked through the remains of clam sauce with his fork. He lifted a small, round piece of garlic and put it on her plate.

"Doesn't that look like a wart to you?"

"That's it!" she said, beating him to the Chianti bottle as he reached for it.

"What?" He looked baffled. "What'd I say?"

"Time for coffee."

His eyes lit. "With Sambucca?"

"Straight and black. Espresso, even!"

"Aaaawww!"

5

Grace was in good voice tonight. She listened to her voice mix with the deep chords from the organ as they reverberated through the vaulted spaces of St. Patrick's Cathedral. She was hitting the highs with a richness of tone that was exceptional even for her. "Ave Maria" was her favorite hymn. She had begged for the solo and had been granted it. Now she was doing it justice.

She was aware that the other members of the choir had remained in their seats behind her, listening. This added personal pride to her usual joy of praising the Lord in song, for it was common during a soloist's practice for the choral singers to step outside for a cigarette or retreat to a distant corner for quiet conversation. Not this time. They sat in rapt attention as she sang.

A meaty voice, her choir director had said. Grace liked that expression. She did have a full, rich, meaty voice. It went with her solid, meaty body. She had given over most of her spare time to singing for the last two decades of her fifty-three years, and all those years of practice were finally coming to fruition. Her "Ave Maria" would be the high point of the Easter Mass.

Grace lost herself in the rapture of the song, giving it her all… until she noticed that the organist had stopped his accompaniment. She glanced back and saw the horrified expressions on the faces of her fellow choir members.

And then she heard it, the one, high, clear voice ringing through the otherwise silent church, singing a simple, repetitive melody, almost a chant. A quarter note, followed by two eighths, then another quarter. She could pick out the melody in her head: Fa-re-fa-mi… fa-re-fa-mi…

Then she heard the words: "Satan is here… Satan is here…" Over and over.

Who was—?

And then Grace realized that it was her own voice singing so high and sweet, and she couldn't stop it. The rapture was still there but horror mingled with it as her voice sang on, faster and faster.

"Satan is here… Satan is here… Satan is here…"

6

It was warm in the car. As Jim dozed beside her, Carol blinked to stay awake as she guided the old Rambler up Third Avenue through the Fifties toward the Queensboro Bridge.

She wondered how Aunt Grace was doing. Right now she was probably at choir practice just a few blocks west of here in St. Pat's. She hadn't looked well. Carol hoped it was nothing serious. She loved that chubby little spinster.

She found the on ramp for the bridge and headed across the East River, looking for the signs that would direct them toward the Long Island Expressway. Behind them the city gleamed brightly in the crystalline night.

The car swerved as a particularly strong gust ripped across the span.

"You okay?" Jim said thickly, straightening up in the seat and looking at her.

"Sure," she said, keeping her eyes ahead. "I'm fine. Just a little tired is all."

She didn't say so, but she too was sleepy from the wine she had had with dinner.

"Me too. Want me to drive?"

"No thank you, Mr. Goodtime Charlie."

"Smart girl."

Jim did like to celebrate, and when he celebrated, Carol drove.

To help keep them awake, Carol turned on the radio. She wished they could get FM like some of the new cars. She liked the music on that new station, WNEW-FM. But she gladly settled for the WMCA Good Guys. The psychedelic bubble-gum sound of "Green Tambourine" filled the car.

"Some meal," Jim said.

"One of the best."

He slipped an arm around her shoulder and nuzzled her ear.

"Love you, Carol."

"Love you, too, hon."

He snuggled closer to her in the warmth of the car as the Lemon Pipers faded out and Paul McCartney began the vocal to "Hello Goodbye."

Interlude on Central Park West—II

"Are you going to stand at that window all night?"

"Just a moment longer, my dear," Mr. Veilleur told his wife.

The feeling was gone—or almost gone. He wasn't sure. He stared down at the dark blotch of the park below, its blackness cut by the illuminated ribbons of its traverses, mostly empty now on this wintry night. The same with the street directly below, and Columbus Circle off to the right.

The prickling alarm in the most primitive regions of his brain had finally quieted, but that gave him scant comfort. Its cause could be out there still, its aura attenuated by distance. It could be growing stronger beyond the limits of his perception.

Or maybe it was just a bad dream. Maybe he had fallen asleep in front of the TV and had had a nightmare that carried over briefly into consciousness.

Yes, that had to be it. A nightmare. That was what he had told his wife.

He couldn't be back. It was impossible.

But for a moment there…

No. A bad dream. Nothing more.

But what if I'm wrong?

He shuddered. If he was wrong, untold horrors lay ahead. Not only for him but for all those living and yet to be born. He turned to his wife and forced a smile. "What's on the boob tube tonight?"

Four

Saturday, February 24

You watch with glee as the Judean infants are torn from the arms of their screaming mothers. Those who protest in a more physical manner are brutally and efficiently subdued by the Roman soldiers in your command. The fathers who run to their families' aid are threatened with swords, and those who will not be cowed are hacked down. The cries of the parents and children alike are music to you, their pain and anguish an exquisite ambrosia.

Only infants of one month or younger may be taken, and only in and around this little town south of Jerusalem. You wish it could be all the children for miles around, but your limits have been set.

Finally all the helpless, squalling infants have been piled in a clearing in a nearby field. The soldiers hesitate in their duty. You scream at them to follow their orders. You pull a sword from the nearest and wade into the tangle of tiny arms and legs. You swing the short, broad blade back and forth in a scything motion, feeling it slice through smooth skin and soft bones as easily as a heated knife through ripe cheese. Tiny crimson geysers shoot up, spraying you. The spilling inside's steam in the cold air.

You laugh. You don't care if the soldiers hang back. You'll gladly finish the job yourself. And why not? It's your right, isn't it? After all, weren't you the one who told that doddering old fool, Herod, that the King of the Jews was rumored to have been born in this very area within the last week or two? Weren't you the one who convinced him that this was the only sure way to guarantee that his little corner of the world would pass on to his sons as he has planned?

Finally the blood lust grips the soldiers and they join you in the slaughter. You step back now, watching them do the work, for it is so much better when you allow others to sink to new depths.

You watch them slashing… slashing… slashing—

Carol awoke screaming.

"Carol! Carol!" Jim was saying, holding her. "What on earth's wrong?"

She lay there drenched in sweat, wanting to be sick.

"Oh, Jim, it was awful!"

"It was only a dream, only a dream," he whispered, trying to soothe her.

But the horror wouldn't go away. So real. So real! Almost as if she were right there. The Slaughter of the Innocents. She only vaguely remembered it as a passing reference in one of the Gospels. What had injected it into her subconscious tonight?

"You okay?" Jim said after a while.

"Yeah. Okay now," she said, lying. "Must have been the pepperoni pizza."

"Pepperoni never gave you nightmares before."

"It did this time."

"Here. Cuddle up and get warm."

She fit herself against him. That was better, but she couldn't forget—

… slashing… slashing…

"You're shaking. Next time we get plain—no pepperoni."

But it wasn't the pepperoni pizza. It was something else, but she didn't know what. She'd been having so many nightmares lately. Mostly they had been vague, formless, ill-remembered experiences, leaving her frightened and unsettled.

But this…

Jim was soon dozing again. But Carol lay awake the rest of the night, afraid to sleep.

Five

Monday, February 26

1

Jim checked out the paintings on the walls as they were led down a hall to the conference room. They were all country scenes, full of dark, muted greens and inhabited by dogs and horsemen.

"Somehow I don't think we'll be seeing any Peter Max on the walls here," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

Carol gave a warning squeeze to his hand that made him wince.

The Park Avenue offices of Fletcher, Cornwall & Boothby were staid and hushed, reeking of the Establishment with their high ceilings, solid oak paneling, and thick carpets the color of money. It was late afternoon and most of the staff looked as if they were readying to call it a day.

"There's Bill!" he heard Carol say as they entered the conference room.

Sure enough, Bill was already seated at the long mahogany table, his cassock fully buttoned to the throat this time, trim brown hair neatly combed, looking every bit like Father William Ryan, S.J., representing St. Francis Home for Boys at the reading of the will should look.

There was an elderly couple at one end of the table and a group of four lawyer types in quiet conversation at the other. One of the latter—a short, dark, intense fellow Jim gauged to be about thirty—broke away as soon as they entered. He approached with an outstretched hand.

"Mr. Stevens? I'm Joe Ketterle. We spoke on the phone last week."

"Right," Jim said, shaking his hand. "This is my wife, Carol."

"How do you do? Well, you're the last one. We're ready to get down to business. Please take a seat." He pulled two chairs from the table and eased Jim and Carol into them.

They sat next to Bill. Jim looked around the table again. Besides himself and one or two of the attorneys, there was no one in the room young enough to be another of Hanley's offspring.

"I don't see any potential brothers and sisters here," he whispered to Carol.

She nodded. "Looks like you're it."

Excitement expanded within him as an older attorney who introduced himself as Harold Boothby put on a pair of half-glasses and began the reading of the will. There was a lot of legalese, but finally they got down to the good stuff—the bequests. A cool million went to Hanley's longtime associate, Dr. Edward Derr. An attorney who seemed to be apart from the others made notes and said something about the bequest passing via Derr's will to his wife. Jim guessed he represented Mrs. Derr. The elderly couple—Hanley's longtime housekeeper and groundsman—each got a quarter million. The old woman broke into tears. St. Francis Home for Boys got a quarter million as well.

Bill seemed shocked at the amount. "Can we ever use it!" he said in a hoarse voice.

Jim's palms were slick with sweat. There's nobody left but me.

" 'And finally,' " Mr. Boothby intoned, " 'I leave the remainder of my estate, all property and financial assets, to James Jonah Stevens.' "

Jim's throat was suddenly dry. "Wha-what are we talking about when we talk about 'remainder'?"

"We haven't worked out the value of the estate to the penny as yet," Mr. Boothby said, gazing at Jim over the top of his reading glasses, "but we estimate your share to be worth something in the neighborhood of eight million dollars."

Jim felt as if all the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. Beside him he heard Carol give out a short, high-pitched cry, then clap a hand over her mouth. Bill was on his feet, slapping Jim on the shoulder.

"That's some neighborhood!" Bill cried.

The next few minutes were a blur of smiles and handshakes and congratulations. Jim wandered through them in a daze. He should have been jubilant, should have been dancing on the table, but he couldn't help feeling disappointed, cheated. Something was missing.

Eventually he and Carol were alone in the conference room with Joe Ketterle who was talking at breakneck speed.

"… so if you feel the need for any legal advice on how to manage your share of the estate, any advice at all, please don't hesitate to call me."

He pressed his card into Jim's hand. Jim suddenly realized why he had been receiving the red-carpet treatment: He was now a wealthy potential client.

"You're pretty familiar with the Hanley estate?" Jim said, staring down at the card.

"Very."

"Was there any mention at all in his papers about why he left so much of his estate to me?"

"No," Ketterle said with a shake of his head. "No reason given at all. You mean you don't know?"

Jim wanted out of here. He wanted a quiet place where he could huddle with Carol and the two of them could talk this whole thing out. Eight million dollars! Suddenly he was filthy rich and it scared the hell out of him. Life would never be the same and that was what was frightening him. He didn't want the money to change what he and Carol had together.

"Can I have a copy of the will?"

"Of course."

"Thanks. And the house—it's mine?"

"Yes." He handed Jim an envelope. "Here's a set of keys. We'll have to have you back here to sign some papers for legal transfer of ownership, of course, but—"

He took the envelope. "Great. We'll be in touch."

Jim pulled Carol out into the hall. He spotted Bill standing in the atrium by the elevators and was glad to see he hadn't left yet, but he cursed under his breath when he saw who was talking to him.

2

"Damn!"

Carol glanced at Jim. He seemed more tense now than he had before the reading of the will. She had expected him to return to his laconic, wisecracking self, but if anything, he had become grim.

Maybe he was in shock. God knew she was. Eight million dollars! It was an unimaginable sum. Her mind couldn't get a grip on it. What she did know for sure was that their lives were going to be changed by the inheritance. For the better, she prayed.

"What's wrong, Jim?"

He gestured ahead. "Look who's with Bill."

Carol recognized the tall, slovenly fellow with the long black hair and blotchy skin.

"Gerry Becker? What's he doing here?"

Before Jim could answer, Becker turned toward them and threw his arms wide.

"Jim Stevens! Heir to the Hanley fortune! Far out! Hold it right there!"

He raised the Nikon slung from his neck and flashed a photo of them as they approached. Carol had met Gerry Becker only twice before—both times at Monroe Express Christmas parties—and had disliked him immediately. He attached himself, talked into your face, backed you into a corner, and yakked on about himself—always about himself. People at the parties took turns scraping him off on each other. He was overweight but that didn't stop him from wearing fitted shirts. A roll of fat was squeezed above his three-inch-wide leather belt. Despite the fact that he was nudging thirty, he seemed to have bought the whole hippie look in a package—beard, long hair, fringed suede jacket, tie-dyed shirt, bell-bottoms, and an aversion to soap. All he needed was a couple of strands of love beads to complete the picture. Carol didn't mind the hippie look itself, so she could not put her finger on just why she disliked him, other than the fact that he epitomized what her mother used to call "skeevvy." She knew Jim liked him even less.

"Hi, Gerry," she said, trying to be polite.

Just then the elevator door opened next to Bill. Jim pulled her toward it and they crowded in behind him.

"Bye, Gerry," Jim said.

But they weren't quick enough. Becker darted between the doors before they slid closed.

"Hey, man. You weren't trying to duck an interview with me, were you, Stevens?"

"What are you doing here, Gerry?" '

"You kidding? Monroe's richest resident gets killed and one of my fellow journalists on the Express is named in the will—that's news, man!"

Up close, Carol could see large flakes of dandruff salted through Becker's oily hair. The skin along his hairline and his eyebrows was reddened, irritated, and flaky as well. She wondered when he had last brushed his teeth.

She slipped to the back of the elevator car.

"I was just talking to the good Father here," he said, nodding toward Bill, "telling him about my days at the Trib. He says his orphanage made out pretty well. How'd you do?"

Carol glanced at Bill, saw him smile and roll his eyes as if to say, Where'd you find this guy? She realized with a start that this was the first time he had looked directly at her since they had arrived. His gaze had been either avoiding her or sliding off her all morning.

"I did okay," Jim said in a guarded tone.

Becker pulled out a notepad. "Far out! How about some details?"

"Look, Gerry," Jim said. Carol could sense her husband's growing annoyance. "I don't want to discuss it now. In fact, this whole scene here is pretty intrusive."

Becker's face twisted into a grimace that managed at once to look nasty and offended.

"Oh, I get it, Stevens. Inherit a little money and first thing you do is turn your back on your friends?"

She felt Jim stiffen, so she laid a hand on his arm. As he hesitated, the elevator stopped at the ground floor and the doors opened. Stepping out into the lobby, Jim said,

"Not now, Gerry. Meet me tomorrow around noon at the Hanley mansion and I'll give you an exclusive."

"The Hanley mansion? That's cool. Why there?"

"I own it now."

Becker seemed too dazed to follow them as they fled the building.

"I think a celebration is in order," Carol said once they were outside and around a corner and were sure he wasn't going to catch up. The sun was low and Park Avenue was in deep, chilled shadows. She tugged Bill's sleeve. "And this time you're coming along. No excuses."

Bill seemed flustered. "I really can't. I should get back. And besides"—he opened his overcoat to expose his cassock— "you don't want a priest along to throw a wet blanket over wherever it is you plan to celebrate."

"Well, let's see," she said. "We're halfway between Xavier and Regis. Surely there's got to be a Jebbie at one of those two places who's your size and who'll lend you some civvies."

"Well, yeah. I know a guy at Xavier who's about my size, but—"

"Then it's settled." She looked at Jim. "Right?"

He smiled crookedly and pulled out the car keys. "Downtown it is. J. Carroll will take us."

"John Carroll?"

"No. J. Carroll. It's a car, not a Jesuit."

Bill's face took on a pained look. "It wouldn't happen to be a Nash, would it?"

"Of course."

"That's awful!" He grinned. "Okay. As long as you're sure I won't be in the way when you're accosted by other future Pulitzer prizewinning journalists like the last."

They all laughed as they headed for the garage, and for the first time, their newfound millions notwithstanding, Carol felt really good about the day.

3

Amalia's Clam House, Little Italy

"Remember Jerry Shauer?" Jim said as he twirled spaghetti onto his fork.

He was finally beginning to relax. The three of them had this end of the long table to themselves. A black couple was deep in whispered conversation at the other. The Chianti was good, and his spaghetti aglio et olio was al dente, just the way he liked it.

"Sure," Bill said around a mouthful of scungilli Fra Diavolo. Dressed in a borrowed crew-neck sweater and a pair of wide-wale cords, he now looked like a graduate student. "Our old quarterback."

"Right. Married Mary Ellen Kovach. They had a kid last year."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Named her April."

"That's nice," Bill said, then he almost choked. "Oh, no! April Shauer?" He looked to Carol for confirmation. "That's got to be a joke!"

Carol shook her head, then began to laugh. Soon they were all laughing. Jim wondered why it was so funny tonight. Maybe it was the wine. They broke up three times before order was restored.

This was like the old days. Jim thought about the Bill Ryan he used to know. The long-armed kid who had all the speed on their high-school football team, the Hawks from Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow—or "Perpetual Motion," as the guys called it. Bill had been a wide receiver; Jim had been an iron man, playing running back on offense and linebacker on defense. Bill dazzled their opponents with his speed and footwork while Jim frightened them with the crushing force of his blocking and the howling ferocity of his tackling. He couldn't repress a twinge of guilt, even after all these years, as he remembered the dark pleasure he had taken from ramming into members of the other team, hearing them grunt in pain as he butted them aside or hurled them to the turf. He hit them harder than he had to, hit them with everything he had. And he had hurt quite a few of them, some seriously. He was glad now that Stony Brook hadn't had a football team. Otherwise he might well have joined, and the carnage would have continued. As he matured, he had learned how to control his violent urges. Marriage to Carol had helped.

But he wondered: Had Dr. Hanley possessed a seething core of violence like his own? Had he managed to lock it away as Jim had?

He turned his thoughts back to Bill who had been a valued member of the team as well but had never really been one of the gang. When locker-room talk turned away from school and sports and got into who had been the latest to feel up Mary Jo Munsey, Bill faded away. Still, he had been somewhat of a regular guy. He could work miracles with carburetors and would go to parties and CYO dances and dance with the girls, had even dated Carol fairly steadily for a few years. But he had always seemed one step removed from the crowd, always slightly out of tune with everybody else. One of those guys who heard a different drummer.

Some of the guys would tease him for being such a square, but Jim could never get into that. He had always liked Bill. He had been able to discuss things with Bill that he could not even approach with the other guys. Heavy stuff. Ideas. They both were voracious readers and so they often discussed books. He still remembered the long arguments they'd had over Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged when it first came out. They rarely agreed on anything—that was what made the conversations so stimulating. Bill was always on the up side. Idealman, Jim had called him. And Bill had dubbed him Cynicalman in return.

Initially Jim had been stunned to learn that Bill Ryan had joined the Jesuit seminary after high school. "I thought you were going to be a mechanic!" he remembered telling him jokingly. But after thinking about it for a while, he had concluded that he should have seen it coming all along. He knew that Bill believed in God and Man, and in Virtue and Decency being their own rewards. Believed it then and believed it now, apparently. There was something refreshing about that in the God Is Dead age.

And now he was at St. F.'s.

Funny how things ran in circles.

"Good to see you laugh, old buddy," Bill said finally.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been pretty glum for a guy who's just become filthy rich."

"Sorry about that," Jim said, knowing it was true and regretting it. He hated being a wet blanket. "Yeah, Hanley attached a lot of money to my name in that will. Just wished he'd attached a couple of extra words along with the dough."

"Like 'my son'?" Bill said.

Jim nodded, glad that Bill was tuned into him. That old rapport, that static-free FM wavelength they used to groove on was still working.

"Yeah. Those would do just fine."

"I don't think anyone will doubt you're his son."

"But that's not enough. I need to know it all. What's my nationality? When do I salute or puddle up? Do I stand for the Marseillaise or weep at "Danny Boy"? Should I have a swastika hidden in the bedroom and do secret Sieg Heils every night, or should I be trying a few years in a kibbutz? If I came from Hanley, where the hell did he come from?"

"Judging from your dietary preferences," Carol said, "you must be part Italian."

Bill said, "At least you know who your father is. Was. Obviously he never forgot you."

"Yeah, but he could have legitimized me in print."

He felt Carol's hand slip over his. "You're legitimate to me," she said.

"I think you're pretty legit too," Bill said. "What else do you need?"

"Nothing." Jim couldn't help smiling. "Except maybe figuring out who Mom is."

Bill glanced heavenward. "Lord, teach this man to let things lie… at least for tonight!" Then he looked straight at Jim. "After that I'll do anything I can to help."

"Great! What say we blow this place and head for the Village. It's amateur night at the Wha?"

4

Café Wha?—Greenwich Village

Bill shook his head to clear his buzzing ears. The Wha? was a long, narrow room; the stage was set in the center of the left wall. A Lovin' Spoonful-type quartet that billed itself as Harold's Purple Crayon was carting its equipment off the stage to make room for the next act.

"Loud, but not bad," he said to Jim and Carol. "The harmony was pretty good. And I liked that washboard jug-band number."

"They're not going anywhere," Jim said, quaffing the rest of his bottle of Schaeffer. "Some Stones, some Spoonful, a little Beatles, a touch of the Byrds. I liked them, but they're not commercial. No definite sound. A mishmash. But better than that first group putting Kahlil Gibran to acid rock. Whoa!"

Bill couldn't help laughing. "Jim Stevens, World's Toughest Critic! Gibran's not so bad."

Carol touched his arm. "Let's get back to what you were saying before the band drowned us out. About going up to New Hampshire. Do you really think McCarthy's got a chance in the primary?"

"I think so."

He reached for his beer, not because he had to have a sip at that moment, but to remove his arm from contact with Carol's hand. It felt so nice there, so soft and warm, awakening feelings better left asleep. He glanced at her.

Carol Nevins Stevens: Girl, did I ever have it bad for you. Movies, holding hands, an arm over your shoulder or around your waist, good-night kissing. No further. Puppy love. Now you're a woman and your hair is longer and your figure fuller, but your smile is as dazzling and your eyes are as bright and as blue as ever.

Bill knew she was going to be a problem. Already was. For a couple of nights now, increasingly erotic thoughts of Carol had kept him awake way past his usual bedtime.

Through his years in the seminary he had struggled to condition himself into an automatic observance of his vow of chastity. To become, in a sense, asexual. It hadn't been as difficult as he had thought. At first he had taught himself to approach it as a form of daily Spannungsboden, a self-imposed delay between the desire for something and the act of reaching out for that something. Day after day, he would put off today's sexual desires until tomorrow. But tomorrow never came. The Spannungsboden was interminable.

Over the years it became easier. It had taken time, but now he could reflexively wrap up temptations or potentially troublesome urges and channel them off into oblivion before they could find purchase in his consciousness or his libido.

So why wasn't it working with Carol? Why hadn't he been able to keep her from wandering in and out of his mind since he had seen her last week?

Perhaps because Carol was from before. No woman could find a place in his feelings today, but Carol had lived in that private interior garden before he had erected the walls. He had thought his feelings for her long dead and gone, but apparently it wasn't so. There was still life in those old roots.

Isn't it all foolishness, this celibacy thing?

How many times had he heard that question—from others, from himself? A hostile someone had even quoted Marx to the effect that it was easy to become a saint if one did not want to be a man. Bill's answer was a shrug. Celibacy was part of the package, part of the commitment he had made to God—you give up power, wealth, sexual involvement, and other distractions in order to focus your energies on God. The self-denial tempers the faith.

Bill knew the depth of his faith. It infused his heart and soul and mind. He prided himself on being neither a heavenward-gazing ascetic nor an overgrown altar boy. Both his feet were planted firmly in the real world. His was a mature, intellectualized belief that cut through the fairy tales and myths and Bible stories. He had read the lives and works of the saints, and de Chardin, of course, but he had studied Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Sartre as well.

He had handled them with ease. But could he handle Carol?

"I don't trust McCarthy," Jim was saying.

Bill had to laugh. "The return of Cynicalman!"

"He was never gone," Carol said.

"Seriously, though," Jim said, leaning forward, "I just don't trust one-issue candidates. In fact, I don't trust candidates, period. The political process seems to corrupt everyone who gets involved. The people who'd make the best candidates lack sufficient bad taste to run for office."

"I believe Eugene McCarthy's an exception," Bill said. "And I believe he's got a damn good chance of winning in New Hampshire. The Tet offensive turned a lot of the country against the war."

Jim shook his head. "We should clean up our own yards and tend to our own neighborhoods first, then worry about the rest of the world. If we all did that, maybe there wouldn't be so much in the world to worry about. Want another beer?"

Bill said, "I'd love one."

"Okay. We'll see what the next band sounds like. If they're awful, I know a quieter place we can go."

5

Monroe

Emma Stevens was roughly yanked out of sleep by the sudden movement beside her. Jonah had bolted upright in bed.

"What's wrong?"

"I have to go out!"

His voice sounded strained, upset. And that frightened her. Jonah never made an abrupt movement, never showed alarm. Everything he did seemed calculated. He seemed to have nerves of insulated copper wire.

But he was tense now. She could see him sitting there in the dark, his hand cupped over his good right eye, staring into the night with his blind eye as if he were seeing something with it.

"You've had a vision?"

He nodded.

"What's it about?"

"You wouldn't understand!"

He leapt from the bed and began to pull on his clothes.

"Where are you going?"

"Out. I've got to hurry."

Emma threw the covers back. "I'll come with you."

"No!" The word cracked like a whip. "You'll only get in the way! Stay here and wait."

And then he hurried from the room.

Emma pulled the covers back over her and shivered. She could not remember the last time she had seen her husband hurry. Yes, she could. It had been back in the winter of 1942… rushing to the orphanage.

6

Jonah raced down Glen Cove Road toward the LIE.

Something terrible is going to happen!

He wasn't sure how exactly, but the One would soon be in deadly danger. Whether through pure earthly happenstance or through the machinations of the other side, he could not say. He had to hurry, or all his life until now would be made meaningless.

He pressed a hand over his right eye. Yes… there, to the west, a red glow of danger in his left eye.

All my life made meaningless…

It seemed as if he had been preparing for this, for what was happening these days, forever. But it hadn't been forever. Only since he was nine. It was then that he had learned that he was different from others.

He remembered that day in 1927 when the floodwater had come roaring through their town in what the history books would later call the Great Lower Mississippi Valley Flood Disaster. Up until then he had thought of himself—when he thought of himself at all—as just another normal everyday farm boy. He had burned alive his share of beetles, torn the wings off his share of butterflies, tortured and killed his share of kittens, and enjoyed it all. His folks had been upset with him, and maybe even a little scared of him, but wasn't that what childhood was all about—learning, testing? He assumed all kids experimented as he did, but he didn't know for sure, because he had no brothers and sisters—and no real friends:

The Great Flood changed all his perceptions and preconceptions.

Luckily for him, he had been out by the barn when the water hit. The yard had been a sea of mud after days of heavy rain. He heard a roar like a great train rolling on a downgrade, looked up, and across the field he saw the onrushing wall of dirty brown water, swirling madly with debris as it raced toward him.

He had been able to make it to the giant oak tree that stood in the center of the yard just in time. With the water surging and lapping at his heels, he scrambled up through the lower branches. The thick trunk swayed and groaned at the onslaught of the surging water, but its roots held.

He heard an explosive crack and turned toward the house. As he watched from his high perch he heard one sharp, high scream from his mother and nothing from his father as his home was flattened and broken into kindling by the wall of water. The barn collapsed and was swept away along with the livestock and the splintered remnants of his house.

He did not escape unscathed, however. A particularly powerful wave caught his legs and knocked them from the branch that supported him. As he fell, clutching frantically at another branch, a protruding twig pierced his left eye. The pain was a jab of lightning into his brain. He howled in agony but held on, finding new footing and pulling himself beyond the water's reach.

He reached a high branch and straddled it, cupping the socket of his bloodied, ruined eye, rocking back and forth and retching with the pain that throbbed like a white-hot coal.

The water rose higher but the tree held firm. As the day faded toward night, so the pain in his eye faded to a dull ache. The torrent slowed to a steady southward current.

Things, living and otherwise, began to float by: a child screaming in lonely terror as it clung to a rooftop, a woman wailing from a log, drowning cattle, bellowing and gurgling, a man leaping from some floating debris and swimming for Jonah's tree, only to miss it and be carried away out of sight.

Young Jonah, high and dry, watched them all with his good eye from the safety of his perch in the oak. By all rights he should have been terrified, should have been racked with grief and horror at the loss of his home and parents, should have been speechless and near catatonic with his own injury and the scope of the death and destruction around him.

But he was not. If anything, he was just the opposite. He found himself energized by the disaster. He clung to the branches and avidly watched as each corpse, each struggling survivor, passed by. And when dark had fallen completely, he hung on to the sounds of the night, each cry of misery and pain, each howl of terror, drawing strength from them.

The hurt and fear of others was like a balm to his own pain, draining it away. Never had he felt so strong, so alive!

He wanted more.

To his dismay, the waters receded too rapidly. Soon a boat came by and the soldiers upon it picked him from his branch like a stranded kitten. They took him to a church in the highlands that had been converted to a makeshift hospital where they patched his left eye and laid him down to rest.

But he couldn't rest! He had to be up and about, had to roam, had to drink in all the destruction, the loss, the death. He wandered the ruins along the edge of the slowly receding waters. He found children crying for their parents, for their brothers and sisters, grown-ups weeping for their mates, for their children. He found hundreds of dead animals—dogs, cats, cows, goats, chickens—and occasionally a dead person. If no one was in sight, he'd poke the dead folks with a stick to see if he could puncture their bloated remains.

The air was so heavy, so oppressive with misery, it was all he could do to keep from screeching with ecstatic laughter.

But he knew he had to keep quiet, had to look glum and lost like everyone else. Because he knew then that he was different from the people around him.

Different from everyone.

After that it took him years of trial and error, but he learned to hide his differentness from the world. Eventually he found legal, even productive ways to keep his hungers in check. And over the years he came to learn that he had traded one sort of sight in his left eye for another. It was that sight that had wrenched him from his sleep tonight.

His good eye blazing, he pushed the accelerator to the floor.

7

The Back Fence, Greenwich Village

Carol watched with relief as Jim returned from a quick trip to the rest room. She and Bill had had the table to themselves for a few moments and the atmosphere had become strained. Bill seemed so uptight when he was alone with her.

"How about another round?" Jim said.

Carol didn't want another drink—she had switched to Pepsi a while ago—and she didn't want Jim to have another, either. She wanted to say something, but not in front of Bill— anything not to sound like a nagging wife in front of Bill. So she held off.

Besides, he hadn't mentioned warts yet.

"One more," Bill said. "Then it's time to go."

They've both got hollow legs! she thought. Where were they putting it all?

"Carol?" Jim said, pointing at her glass.

She glanced down at the flat brown liquid that was nearing room temperature now, at the thin oily scum on its surface— Who's their dishwasher?—and decided to stick with what she had.

"I'm fine. And so are the two of you, I'd think."

"Nah!" Jim said with a laugh. "We're just getting started!"

He ordered two more beers, then turned back to Bill, pointing a finger at him.

"Quick! 'Theology is anthropology.' "

"Uh…" Bill squeezed his eyes shut. "Feuerbach, I think."

"Right. How about, 'We are proceeding toward a time of no religion at all.' "

"Bonhoeffer."

"I'm impressed!" Jim said.

"Do I detect a common thread in those quotes? Is the Village Atheist trying to make a point?"

Carol let her mind drift off. She might as well have been home in Monroe for all the attention they were paying her. It was quieter here in the Back Fence, at the corner of Bleecker and something. No live music, just records. "Boogaloo Down Broadway" was thumping softly in the background at the moment. The relative quiet had got Bill and Jim talking and they'd been going at it like two college freshmen debating the meaning of life, of everything!

Maybe it was a male thing. Male bonding—wasn't that what they called it?

Bill looked at her and smiled beatifically, obviously more comfortable with her now that Jim was here. He seemed to be at peace with himself. A man who knew himself, an idealist who was sure that he was doing exactly what he wanted with his life. She was certain there were ambitions and dissatisfactions bubbling under the surface there, but she detected none of the wild turmoil she knew to be raging within her husband, James the Skeptic, skewerer—was there such a word?—of Current Wisdom and Common Knowledge.

Oddly enough she found both extremes appealing.

She said, "I'm just glad to hear the two of you stop arguing for ten consecutive seconds."

"Didn't you know, Carol?" Bill said, poising the mouth of his Budweiser an inch from his lips. "Jim and I agreed long ago to disagree on everything."

"The hell we did!" Jim cried, and the two of them cracked up like schoolboys.

Jim suddenly stopped laughing. His face grew stern. "Wart's so funny about that?"

"Wart?" Carol said, immediately alert. "Did he say 'wart'?"

"Of course," Bill said. "Haven't you been listening? We've been talking about the wart in Vietnam all night."

"I'm thinking of going to business school," Jim said. "I wonder if Warton will accept me?"

"A good place to make love, not wart," Bill replied, nodding vigorously.

"That does it!" Carol said. Two of them! "No more for either of you. The bar is closed as far as you two are concerned. It's late and we're going home as soon as you finish those! And I'm driving!"

8

Carol clutched Jim's arm as they walked into the icy wind on their way to the car, which he had parked somewhere east of Washington Square. Suddenly he broke away and left her with Bill as he darted into an all-night deli. In a moment he was out again, carrying three oranges.

He began juggling them as he returned to the sidewalk. From there he led them along like a circus act, pausing under each streetlamp to show off in its cone of light, then moving on. He dropped them at least once between each lamp.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked, amazed that he could juggle.

"In the living room," Jim said as he somehow managed to keep the oranges aloft in the dark.

"When?"

"I practice while I'm writing."

"How can you do that?"

"Not all writing is done at the typewriter. A lot of it's done in the head before you start hitting the keys."

Carol was suddenly uneasy. She didn't remember it being so dark and deserted-looking along this stretch earlier in the evening. It had seemed safer then.

"You know something, Jim?" Bill said. "I've always wanted to juggle. In fact, I'd give my right arm to juggle like that."

Jim burst out laughing and the oranges went rolling into the street. Carol began to laugh too.

A strange, whiny voice cut her off.

"Hey, you laughin' a' me, man?"

She looked around and saw a half dozen or more figures huddled at the edge of a vacant lot to their left.

"No," Jim said, good-naturedly. He pointed at Bill. "I'm laughing at him. He's crazy."

"Yeah, man? Well, I don' tink so. I tink you wuz laughin a' me!"

Carol felt Bill grip her upper arm.

"Let's head for the car, Jim," he said.

"Right."

Jim fell in on her other side and the three of them started up the street. But they didn't get far before they were surrounded by the gang. If that's what they were. All were a little underdressed for the weather, Carol noted, all on the thin side, all smaller than Jim or Bill, the ex-football players. But there were six of them.

"Look," Jim said, "we don't want any trouble."

She heard a tremor in his voice. She knew someone else might mistake it for fear, but Carol recognized it as anger. Jim had good control over his temper, but when he lost it, he lost it.

"Yeah?" said that same whiny voice. "Well, maybe we do!"

Carol watched the speaker. His hair was long and matted; a wispy attempt at a beard dirtied his cheeks. He couldn't seem to stand still. His arms were jerking, his body twitching this way and that, his feet scuffing back and forth. She glanced around. They were all alike.

They're on speed!

Carol's mind suddenly flashed to an article she had read in Time about mainlining methamphetamine as the latest thing in the Village. She hadn't given it much thought then. Now she was facing the result.

"All right," Jim said, stepping away from her. "If you've got a problem with me, we'll talk about it. Just let them go on their way."

Carol opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by a sudden tightening of Bill's grip on her arm.

"No way," the lead speed freak said, smiling as he stepped forward and pointed at Carol. "She's what we want."

Carol felt her stomach constrict around the flat Pepsi. And then, as if watching in slow motion, she saw Jim smile back at the leader and kick him full-force in the groin. As the speed freak screamed in agony, all hell broke loose.

9

The effects of the night's beers had been evaporating steadily in the tension of his encounter with these punks. As he punted their grinning spokesman in the balls, Jim's head cleared completely. He had expected to get some of the old pleasure out of that kick, but it wasn't there. Concern for Carol overrode everything.

In the darkness he dimly saw the guy to his left pull something from his pocket. When it snapped out to a slim, silvery length of about three feet, he knew it was a car antenna, one hell of a wicked weapon with the knob pulled off the end. Had to get in close now—no hesitation or he'd whip that thing across his eyes.

Jim ducked and charged forward, driving his shoulder into the creep's solar plexus, ramming him up against the front of a building. It was almost like football. But these guys were playing for keeps.

Behind him, Carol screamed.

Jim called out to Bill, "Get her to the car!"

That was the all-important thing: get Carol to safety.

Then somebody or something slammed hard against the side of his head and he saw lights flash for an instant, but he held on to consciousness, drove a fist at the source, and heard somebody grunt. Somebody else jumped on his back and he went down on one knee. Screaming in the back of his mind was a white-hot mortal fear that he was going to get kicked to death here on this dark, nameless street, but he could barely hear it. He was pissed and he was pumped and he knew that despite how badly he'd let his body go since his football days in high school, he was in better shape than any of these shitheads and he was going to make some of them very sorry they'd messed with him.

He shook the guy off his back and rolled over just in time to see somebody start to swing a short length of heavy chain at his head.

10

Bill stood paralyzed for an instant at the sudden chaos around him. He and Carol seemed to have been forgotten for an instant as the gang converged on Jim. Carol screamed and started forward to help him but Bill grabbed her and steered her toward the street instead, toward the car.

He was torn between seeing her to safety and helping Jim. He didn't want to leave her side, but he knew Jim wouldn't last long in the center of that melee.

"Get to the car and get it running!" he told her, pushing her down the street. "I'll get Jim."

This is not what I'm about, he thought as he turned toward the fight. He was a man of God, a man of peace. He didn't fight in the streets. March in them, yes. But he didn't fight in them.

Then he saw the gleaming links of a doubled length of nickel-plated chain rise up over the squirming tangle of bodies. He charged. He grabbed the chain as it started to swing down, jerked its wielder around, and rammed a fist into his face.

God forgive me, but that felt good!

Then Jim was on his feet and they were back to back. There was an instant's respite in which he heard Jim's whisper.

"Carol's safe?"

"On her way."

I hope!

Then the gang charged again.

11

What am I going to do? Carol thought as she fumbled in her purse for her keys.

What was better, go for help or back the car up to the fight and shine J. Carroll's headlamps on the scene? Maybe the bright lights and her leaning on the horn would scatter the rats.

The purse was suddenly snatched from her hands.

"I'll take that, babe."

Carol cried out in fright and turned to see a scraggly-haired youth standing beside her. There was enough light at this end of the block to make out the leer on his face beneath his dirty wool cap. She reached for the purse.

"Give that back to me!"

He dropped the purse on the hood of the car and grabbed her. In one rough move he twisted her around, swung an arm across her throat, and pulled her back against him. Through the coat she felt his hands slide over her breasts.

"This is gonna be fun!" he said. "Gonna fuck you three ways from Sunday, babe, and you're gonna love it!"

Carol struggled frantically against him, trying to kick back at his shins and twist free, but he was strong despite his frail appearance. He started to pull her between two of the cars.

"Babe, when I'm through with you you're gonna beg for more. You're gonna—"

Carol heard a dull thunk!, felt her captor jerk, then stiffen, then release her. She broke away and glanced back in time to see him topple face first to the pavement. In the faint light she could see that the top of his skull was caved in, and blood was beginning to soak through the cap.

Over the tops of the parked cars she saw a tall, dark figure gliding away toward the fight.

12

Jim struggled for air. He was pinned on his side. Someone had the chain wrapped around his throat and was pulling it tight while somebody, else was kicking him in the gut.

He knew he was going to die. He didn't have it anymore. The old black ferocity from his football days that would have sent punks like these running for their mothers was gone. When he needed it most, it was gone.

Where was Bill? Was he down too? He just hoped Carol got away. Maybe she could flag a black-and-white and get some help. Maybe…

He twisted violently. If only he could get some air! One breath and he could hold on a little longer. Just a puff—

Suddenly the chain around his throat went slack. He gulped air and looked up. The one who had been kicking him paused and looked past Jim. Just then something blurred in from the left and caught the punk on the side of the head with enough force to lift him clear off his feet.

Something warm and wet and lumpy splattered Jim. He didn't have to look to know it was brain tissue.

He twisted around and saw two more of the gang sprawled on the sidewalk behind him. One lay still; a length of chain rattled softly in the twitching grasp of the other.

He heard a meaty thunk! and saw a tall, dark figure swing something against the head of one of the guys over Bill. The guy dropped into a boneless heap.

The last creep took off with the dark man chasing him.

Jim got up and staggered over to Bill.

"You okay?"

"My God!" Bill gasped. "What happened?"

"Jim!" Carol ran up and threw her arms around him. "Are you all right?"

"I think so. Bill? You there?"

Bill was on his feet, swaying. Jim couldn't make out his expression, but his voice shook as he spoke.

"I…I don't know. My stomach…"

He turned and staggered a few steps away, retching in the darkness. A moment later he returned.

"Sorry."

"It's okay, Bill. I may join you in a moment."

"Let's get moving before these guys come to and—"

"I think they're dead," Jim said.

He knelt and checked for a pulse in the throat of the nearest. He had no experience with this sort of thing, but he'd seen it done on TV. He found no pulse, but he did get a close look at the ruin of the guy's skull and his open, staring eyes.

He leapt to his feet.

"Let's get out of here!"

"Shouldn't we call the police?" Carol said.

"We will. From a pay phone somewhere. But I'm not hanging around to get blamed for this."

"But who did it? Who was that?"

Jim wasn't sure what it was, but there had been something disturbingly familiar about that dark figure.

"He helped me too," Carol said.

Jim felt spicules of ice run through his blood. "You?"

"One of them grabbed me by the car. If the guy with the club hadn't—"

Jim pulled her close against him. If anything ever happened to Carol, he knew he'd go mad.

"Maybe one of us has a guardian angel, Carol."

"That was no angel," Bill said.

Jim was not inclined to argue.

"Let's get to the car."

13

Carol had managed to hold it in while Jim drove the three of them around in aimless circles, hold it through the violent shakes that had started as soon as she slipped into the front seat, through the cold chills that tremored through her despite the heater going full blast. But when Bill got out to call 911 at a phone booth they found at Houston and the Bowery, leaving her alone in the car with Jim, it all came out. Loud, deep, racking sobs burst from the deepest part of her.

"It's okay," Jim said, hugging her tight. "We're safe now."

"But we could have been killed!"

"I know. I'll never forgive myself for endangering you like that."

"It wasn't your fault!"

"Next time we pay for a garage or a lot space near a main drag. No more penny-pinching where safety's concerned."

His arms around her seemed to absorb her fear. The sobs began to fade. She felt more herself by the time Bill returned to the backseat.

"Done," he said.

"You didn't mention names, did you?"

"I told you I wouldn't. But I don't like it."

"So you said. But just remember: If anyone asks why you look bruised, just say you slipped on the ice. I'll do the same."

They had argued about making a police report—Bill for, Jim against. Both were adamant, but Jim had finally put the problem into chilling focus.

"For all our sakes, Bill, you can't go to the police."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bill had said from the backseat.

"For all we know, they may be only a part of a bigger gang. If they are, what about their buddies?"

"What about them?"

"What if they blame us? What if they feel embarrassed and humiliated by half a dozen of their number being so easily laid to rest? What if they figure they've got to even the score to regain their honor? Our names and addresses will be on the police report. What if they retaliate against us?"

Bill had been silent as Carol shuddered at the thought.

Jim went on. "I don't know about you, but I don't want them breaking into my home to finish off what their friends started with Carol back there. You want them lobbing a Molotov cocktail into St. F.'s dorm some night?"

"Maybe you're right," Bill had said softly after a long pause. "But at least let me make an anonymous report. We can do that much, can't we?"

Jim had nodded. "Of course. As long as you don't mention any names."

Now the call had been made and they were moving again. Jim turned the car east on Fourteenth.

Bill said, "Somebody killed five people—"

"Five killers, you mean," Jim said. "Five guys who would have killed us and raped Carol if that somebody hadn't stepped in!"

"Probably six dead if he caught up with the last one."

"Be that as it may," Jim said, "I'm not sure I want to put him behind bars. I owe him."

"That was cold-blooded murder, Jim!" Bill said.

"Granted. But what could I add to an investigation? That he reminded me of my father?"

Carol gasped. That tall dark figure she had seen had resembled Jonah Stevens. But that was impossible.

"Oh, Jim," she said lightly, actually managing a smile. "Your dad's not exactly Mr. Warmth, but he's not a killer. And he certainly doesn't hang around the East Village!"

Bill said, "I don't remember your father too well, Jim, but you've got to be kidding. This guy was efficient—brutally efficient. I mean, he dispatched those guys one after the other. One swing apiece."

"Do you know what my father does for a living?"

"He's a butcher or something, isn't he?"

Carol heard Jim's voice drop into a monotone.

"He works at the slaughterhouse, but he's not a butcher. He does one thing all day long, and I guess he's pretty good at it. As each cow is led inside, it's his job to brain it with a sledgehammer before its throat is cut."

14

Emma heard Jonah's car pull into the driveway. She tried to suppress her excitement as she wondered what he'd be like this time. Sometimes he went out late at night and came back and just sat in the living room with the lights off, drinking beer. Other times…

She wondered where he went on these little jaunts. What did he do, what was he looking for? Like so many other things with Jonah, you learned not to ask. It got you nowhere.

At the moment she didn't particularly care what he had gone out for; she just hoped he'd found it. Because on certain nights he didn't sit up in the living room when he came home. Instead he came directly to the bedroom. And when that happened, he always wanted her. Wanted her badly.

And when that mood was upon him, he drove her to ecstasy beyond imagining.

Emma heard him enter through the kitchen from the garage.

"Is everything all right?"

"Fine, Emma. Just fine."

She felt her heart begin to race as she heard Jonah's footsteps bypass the living room and come down the hall, felt herself grow moist between her legs as he stepped into the room and began stripping off his clothes. She could hear his rapid breathing, sense his arousal like a throbbing heat in the room.

He slipped into bed and pressed himself against her back. He was stiff and hard, like oak, like iron. She turned toward him and felt his arms go around her, felt his hands slide down her flanks and lift her nightgown.

This was going to be one of those nights. Maybe the best ever.

Six

Ash Wednesday, February 28

1

"Remember, man, you are dust, and to dust you will return."

Grace dwelled on the priest's words as he dipped his thumb in the ashes of last year's palms and dabbed them on her forehead in the form of a tiny cross. She crossed herself and walked down the center aisle of St. John's toward the front entrance.

Outside, she jumped at the touch on her arm as she stood atop the stone steps.

"You're Grace Nevins, aren't you?"

She turned and saw a thin, intense-looking young man perhaps half her age. His face was very pale; his blond hair was so thin and wispy she could see his scalp right through it; his pallor was accentuated by the dark smudge of ash in the center of his forehead. His mouth seemed too large for his face, his nose seemed too small. Two of him could have fit inside the stadium coat he clutched around him. It was of good quality, but he was too thin for it.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Martin Spano. We've been looking for you."

Grace was immediately uneasy. Why should anyone be looking for her?

"You've found me."

"It wasn't easy. I waited outside every Mass at St. Pat's last Sunday. You weren't there. The Holy Spirit led me back downtown. This happens to be my parish."

"What do you want?"

"Brother Robert heard about what happened at choir practice at St. Patrick's last week."

Grace turned away and started down the steps.

"I don't want to talk about it!"

She had not been back to St. Patrick's since that awful night. She now attended Mass at St. John's instead. It was closer to her apartment. And besides, what was there to go back for? The choir director obviously could not trust her with the solo. She had pleaded with him that she didn't know what had come over her, that she hadn't meant to sing those horrid words, but that only seemed to bolster his decision: If she could not help it, how could she guarantee it wouldn't happen on Easter?

He was right, of course. She had rushed out of the cathedral in shame.

The young man followed her down the steps to Thirty-first Street.

"It wasn't easy to find you, Grace. You've got to listen to me. You're one of us!"

That stopped her.

"I don't even know who you are, Mr. Spano—"

"Martin, please."

"—so how can I be one of you?"

"Brother Robert says that what happened to you at choir practice is proof. You've felt the presence of the Evil One. You know that he is among us!"

Grace tensed. "Are you a Devil worshiper? I want nothing to do with—"

"No-no! I'm just the opposite! I'm one of the Chosen."

The Chosen? Hadn't she seen that title in bookstores on the cover of a best-seller?

"Chosen by whom?"

"By the Lord, of course. By the Holy Spirit. We have received the knowledge that the Antichrist is coming. We are to spread the warning among the nations of the earth. We are to expose the Evil One when he appears!"

This was crazy!

"I'm not interested."

Martin gently took her hand. "You're afraid. I myself was afraid when I first realized the responsibility God was placing on my shoulders. But it's a responsibility neither of us can shirk. Brother Robert will explain it to you."

"Who is this Brother Robert you keep talking about? I've never heard of him."

Martin's eyes glowed. "A wise and holy man. He wants to meet you. Come."

Something about the younger man's intensity frightened her.

"I… I don't know."

He gripped her arm insistently. "Please. It will only take a minute."

Grace wanted to run from this man, yet he was offering her answers to the questions that had plagued her since that awful night in St. Patrick's when she had begun singing about Satan instead of the Blessed Virgin. She had not had a good night's sleep since.

"All right. But only for a minute."

"Good! It's this way."

He led her up Fifth Avenue past the Art Deco splendor of the Empire State Building, then east on Thirty-seventh Street into the Murray Hill district with its procession of stately brown-stones in various states of repair. Halfway between Lexington and Park they stopped before a three-story brownstone.

"This is it," Martin said.

Brownstone steps ran up to the front door on the first floor. A shorter flight curved down to the right to the basement. A hand-printed sign on the basement door read CHAPTER HOUSE. A slim, leafless tree stood to the left. Naked vines clung to the stucco front.

"Which floor is your apartment?"

"All of them—this is my house."

It occurred to Grace then that if she was getting involved with a crazy man, at least he was a well-to-do crazy man.

He led her up to the heavy glass-and-oak front door and into the blessed warmth of the foyer, then down a narrow hall to a sitting room. Their footsteps echoed on the highly polished bare hardwood floor; the walls and ceilings were painted a stark, flat white. Grace followed him into a brightly lit sitting room—as stark and white and bare as the hallway except for some sparse ultramodern furniture and abstract paintings on the walls.

And a man standing at the window, looking out at the street.

She recognized him immediately as a Cistercian monk by his beige habit, wide leather belt, and long, brown, cowled scapular. The cowl was down. He stood bareheaded and tonsured, a striking anachronism amid the glass-and-chrome and abstractions, yet he appeared to be perfectly at home. His graying hair was on the long side, falling from the glistening bareness of his tonsure over the tops of his ears and trailing to the base of his neck. He was of average height but very lean. As he turned to face her Grace saw that he had a neat, full, dark beard, salted with gray. For all his leanness, he had a round, cherubic face. His eyes were deep brown and kind; the weathered skin around his eyes crinkled with his smile as he stepped toward her.

"Miss Nevins," he said. His voice was deep, chocolate-smooth, and French-accented. "How good of you to come. I'm Brother Robert."

He pronounced it Ro-bair.

"I can only stay a minute," Grace said.

"Of course. I simply wanted an opportunity to personally invite you into our little circle. And to impress upon you how special you are."

His eyes… so wise… so gentle and kind…

"Special? I don't understand."

"God chose you to announce the warning in His own house. You must be destined to play an important part in His plan to defeat the Antichrist."

Me? Why would God choose me?

"The Antichrist?"

"Yes. Your words in that song were a warning for all of us from the Lord. The Spirit touched you and made you aware— as He has Martin and myself and a few select others—that the devil has been made flesh and dwells among us."

Grace didn't think she knew any such thing.

"Why me?"

Brother Robert shrugged inside his robes. "Who would be so bold as to explain why the Lord moves in the ways He does?"

"Won't you come to the service tonight?" Martin said, his pale face eager.

Grace hesitated. Then, in a burst of revelation, she realized that this might be the chance she had been praying for, the chance to atone for her past, to make right all the sins of her youth. All those lives. Was God offering her salvation?

This would explain the horrid corruption of that lovely hymn, and the malaise she had felt lately. Satan had entered the world, and God had chosen her as a soldier in His army to battle him.

Yet still she hung back. She wasn't worthy!

"I…I don't know."

"If not tonight," Brother Robert said, "then Sunday afternoons, here, at three o'clock."

"Here?"

"Martin has given us the use of his basement for our prayer meetings."

"I'll try," Grace said, turning and heading down the hall. She had to get away, be by herself, think this over. She needed time. "Not tonight. Maybe Sunday. Not tonight."

"You can't stay away," she heard Martin say behind her. "You have been called. Like it or not, you are one of us now!"

2

Brother Robert went to the window and watched the plump little woman hurry down the sidewalk.

At his elbow, Martin said, "She's afraid."

"And well she should be," he replied.

"I'm not afraid. This is the Lord's fight, and I am ready to die for His cause!"

Brother Robert glanced at the younger man. Martin was a useful ally, dedicated and eager—sometimes too eager. His militancy could be a bit much at times.

"I'm going to my room to pray that she does not turn away from us."

"Will you be having lunch later?"

He shook his head. "I am fasting today."

"Then I will fast as well."

"As you wish."

Brother Robert went up to the second floor to the bare four walls and single window that served as his quarters. In the corner, straw had been spread on the floor and covered with a blanket. This was his bed. He lifted his habit and knelt bare-kneed on the uncooked rice he had sprinkled over the hardwood floor upon his arrival. He stared out the window at the cold blue of the sky. Before beginning his prayers, he thought about the abbey in Aiguebelle, and his cell there, and how he wished he could return. He missed the two a.m. rising for matins, the daily routine, the simple common labors, the time for meditation, the nearness to God, the silence.

No weakness of the flesh had drawn him away, but rather a weakness of the spirit. The discipline, the celibacy, the fasting—these had not been burdens. He had reveled in them. No, it was another appetite that had called to him, an insatiable lust—for knowledge. He had wanted to know, he had hungered for answers. The hunger had driven him to the farthest, darkest corners of the world, where he had learned too much.

It had finally brought him here, to this small group of Catholic Pentecostals who met in this brownstone. For some reason the people who gathered here had been touched by the Spirit and made aware that the Antichrist had slunk into the world like a thief in the night. These people—Grace Nevins as well—had been recruited, just as he had been recruited. He could not return to the abbey now. He had to stay with them and wait until the Spirit moved them all toward God's will, toward Armageddon.

He prayed they would be strong enough for the terrible tests that lay ahead.

3

"Oh, I can hardly wait!" Emma said.

Jim stood in his parents' small living room and smiled at his mother's childlike excitement over the prospect of a guided tour of the Hanley mansion.

"It's quite a place," he told her.

And it was. He had explored the old Victorian monstrosity with Carol yesterday. She was a longtime admirer of Victorian homes, and he had taken real pleasure in her delight over the place.

"Dad's not home yet?" he said.

"No." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost four. Maybe he was held up at the plant."

Jim nodded absently as memories of Monday night strobed across his mind. He and Carol had explained away their bruises with the story of a slip on the ice, each one pulling the other down. That had stopped other people's questions, but it hadn't stopped the questions roiling in Jim's mind.

Who had saved them two nights ago? And why?

He couldn't escape the insistent impression that it had been Jonah Stevens wielding that club or whatever it was. But that was absurd! How would he have known where they were, let alone that they were in trouble? How would he have arrived in time? It was a crazy thought.

And yet…

"So what have you and Dad been up to lately?" he asked. "Been to the city?"

She looked at him strangely. "Of course not. You know how your father hates to go out."

"Just been hanging around the house, huh?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Oh, I don't know. When we were downtown Monday night, I thought I saw Dad—or someone who looks an awful lot like him."

Jim thought he saw her stiffen, but he couldn't be sure.

"Why, that's silly, Jim. Your father was with me all night. By the way… what was this man doing?"

"Just walking by, Ma."

"Oh. Well, we stayed at home Monday night. Watched Felony Squad and Peyton Place." She sighed. "Just like most other Monday nights."

That should have settled it, but it didn't. The questions wouldn't let go. And that was when the idea hit him.

"Is the door to the garage unlocked?"

"I think so," she said. "Why?"

"I wonder if I could borrow a"—Jim's mind searched for something to borrow: what?—"a tape measure. I want to get the dimensions of some of the rooms in the mansion."

"Sure. Take a look. I'll wait out in the car with Carol."

"Great!"

As Emma went out the front door, Jim hurried through the kitchen to the door that opened into the garage. He searched along the wall where Jonah kept all his tools hung on nails and hooks. There were hammers and axes and even a rubber mallet, but they were too small. Their savior Monday night had wielded a longer, heavier weapon, using only one hand, and he had put some real power behind it. Jim picked up a tire iron and hefted it. This baby could have done it, but it still didn't look right.

What am I thinking?

His father—Jonah—had nothing to do with Monday night's madness. Sure, he was a strange guy; cool, aloof, impossible to get close to—hadn't Jim tried often enough through the years?—but he wasn't a crazed killer.

Actually, Jonah was more than remote. He was damn near unknowable. Maybe Ma had some idea of what bubbled beneath that impenetrable granite exterior, but Jim didn't have the faintest. He wasn't really sure he wanted to know, either. Because there was a damn good possibility he wouldn't like what he'd find there. Although he had never witnessed a single overt act, he sensed a core of cruelty within his adoptive father. The closest thing he had to evidence had surfaced during his sophomore year in high school after he had tackled Glen Cove's quarterback and broken his arm. Jonah had been barely interested in the sport until then. But when Jim had ashamedly confessed to him how good it had felt to hear that breaking bone, Jonah had metamorphosed into an avid listener, questioning him closely on the details of the incident.

Jonah never missed a game after that.

But what he lacked in everyday human warmth and compassion, he made up for in reliability. He had always been around. A hard worker, a good provider. He did not steer his adopted son in any particular direction, but he did not discourage him from anything, either. More like a guardian than a father. Jim could not say he loved the man, but he certainly felt indebted to him.

Jim was about to head back inside when he spotted the steel crowbar leaning in the corner. As soon as he lifted it and swung it, he knew this had been the weapon. Not this particular one, but something just like it. He was certain he wouldn't find anything, but he examined the leading edge of the crowbar's curve, anyway. He smiled to himself.

What will I do if I find dried blood and bits of scalp?

"Be kind of hard to measure a room with one of those," said a deep voice behind him.

Jim whirled, his heart thudding. The tall, lean figure silhouetted in the doorway looked almost exactly like the man who had helped them Monday night.

"Dad! Don't scare me like that!"

Jonah's half smile was humorless, and his eyes bored into Jim as he stepped down into the garage.

"What're you so jumpy about?"

"Nothing." Jim quickly set the crowbar back in the corner, hoping he didn't look as guilty as he felt. "Where do you hide your tape measure?"

Jonah reached into the toolbox and pulled out a Stanley fifty-footer. "Right where it's always been." He motioned toward the door. "We'd better go. The women are waiting."

"Sure."

Jim led the way to the front door, thinking of what a jerk he was for still feeling uneasy. His mother had told him Jonah had been home all night, and the crowbar was clean. What more did he want?

Nothing. Except that the crowbar had been too clean. Every other tool in the garage was layered with a fine winter's coat of dust… except the crowbar. Its hexagonal shaft had been dirt and oil free, as if someone had taken a Brillo pad to it within the last couple of days.

He decided not to think about it.

4

Carol sat in the front seat and watched the Hanley mansion peek over the high stone wall as Jim unlocked the wrought-iron front gate. Its pickets were eight feet high, with an ornate torsade along the bottom and wickedly pointed atop. Beyond the gate was the house, and it was beautiful. She had never dreamed that she would someday live in a place like this. As Jim got back in and pulled into the driveway, she saw the whole house in all its splendor and it took her breath away again, just as it had yesterday.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" Emma cried from the backseat.

Jonah sat next to Emma and said nothing, but then Carol never expected to hear much from Jonah. She drank in the sight of the big, three-storied mix of Italianate and Second Empire features nestled amid its pines and willows, the long Island Sound gleaming behind it.

The shingles were cream-colored, the wood trim and the mansard roof a deep brown. A square, five-story tower rose over the center of the front porch. There were ornate dormer windows on the third floor and bay windows on the sides, all leaded with fruit and flower designs. A fanlight window arched over the front door.

Carol led them up the three steps to the front porch. To the right was a wicker swing settee, hung on chains, and wicker chairs to the left. The slim glass sidelights on either side of the front door were etched with graceful cranes and delicately arched reeds.

Emma stood back on the driveway, staring.

"Come on, Ma," Jim said.

"Don't you worry about me. I'll be there, strangling along behind as usual."

Carol gave Jim a look.

"I won't say a word," he whispered.

Beyond the heavy oak front door was a narrow front hall cluttered with floor lamps and plants on pedestal tables. Carol had spent a good part of yesterday watering each thirsty vine and frond. On the right, the staircase ran up and toward the rear, its flowered runner held down by a series of brass rods fastened to the base of each riser. On the left was a combination mirror-hat rack-umbrella stand of intricately carved walnut.

"Take a look at the front parlor," she said, leading them to the right.

"Oh, my!" said Emma, stopping at the threshold. It's so… so…"

"Busy is the word, I think," Jim said.

"A true Victorian home is very busy," Carol said.

She had concluded from her explorations that Hanley had spared no effort or expense in returning the mansion to its former glory. And it was busy. The wallpaper was striped, the carpet was flowered, the lamps were tassled, each chair was layered with lace antimacassars, and each corner supported a plant on a multitiered whatnot. The bay window was a jungle of plants. The walls were festooned with paintings and old photos. On every available surface—littering the tops of the tables, the organ, and the mantle over the Carrara marble fireplace—were cards and boxes and knickknacks and souvenirs. A maid's nightmare.

"I declare, this place would wear my feather duster to the nub in no time!" Emma said.

"Let me show you the downstairs library, Dad," Jim said.

"Downstairs? You mean there's more than one?"

"Two. The upstairs one is a sort of science library. But the downstairs one is bigger."

"Who'd want more than one?" Jonah said, following Jim back into the hall.

"Wait till you see the stereo."

"And wait till you see the kitchen," Carol told Emma.

"Dear me, I hope it's not as, uh, authentic as the parlor," Emma said.

Carol laughed, leading her down the hall. "Not even close!"

The kitchen was large, with an electric double oven, a huge refrigerator, and a freezer. The floor here was partly tile, partly pine planking, and dominating its center was a massive six-foot rectangular oak table with paw feet.

Carol and Emma met up with Jim and Jonah in the living room which sported colorful stained-glass windows.

"Who'd ever thought our son would own this place ! " Emma said, clutching Jonah's arm. "And this is only the first floor!"

"That's what I'd like to talk to you two about," Jim said. "I want to share my inheritance with you."

Carol watched Emma's eyes widen.

"Oh, Jimmy—"

"No, I mean it," Jim said, cutting her off. "I can never repay you for the life you've given me, but I want to see you two live in comfort without worrying about layoffs and property taxes and things like that. I want to give you a million dollars."

As Emma began to cry, Carol put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She and Jim had discussed this last night. He had wanted her approval, and she had encouraged him. She only wished her own parents were alive to share some of the bounty.

Jim said, "Dad, you can quit your job and just take it easy, if you like."

Jonah stared at them both for a moment, then spoke in his slow, South-tinted voice.

"That's very generous, son, and it will sure be nice not having to worry about being laid off, but I believe I'll keep working. A man's got to work."

"At least you can get a more sedimentary job," Emma said.

"That's sedentary, Ma."

"That's what I said. One where he can sit down more and not work so hard."

"For the time being, I'll stick with what I'm doing at the plant," Jonah said firmly. "That is, if none of you objects."

Carol felt a twinge of resentment at the sarcasm in his voice, but that was quickly overcome by the revulsion of knowing what Jonah's job was, and realizing that he liked it too much even to think of quitting it.

Seven

Saturday, March 2

1

Nicky's bishop and queen were laying a trap for his king, but Bill thought he saw a way out. He moved his remaining knight onto a square that posed a potential threat to Nicky's queen.

"Your move."

"Don't rush me," the ten-year-old said. "This is going to take some thinking."

Five days since that ghastly incident on Monday night. A deep breath still gave Bill a stab of pain where he had been kicked in the ribs, but he was able to function, and the slip-on-the-ice story had been accepted by everyone. His body was slowly healing, but his mind, his soul—he wasn't sure they would ever recover.

carnage IN the village the Daily News had said. Six bodies—four clustered mid-block, and two more, one at each end of the block—all killed by a single crushing blow to the skull. The police were laying it off to a "hippie drug war" because of all the speed they had found on the victims.

Victims! The irony of it! We were almost their victims! And what they got was probably right in line with what they had planned for us!

Still, it didn't sit right. Even though he knew he could tell the police nothing that would help them solve the case, it felt wrong to be hiding his involvement. He firmly believed that everything in life should be open, honest, and aboveboard. An impossible ideal, he knew, one the world would laugh at, but one by which he struggled to live his life.

The ideal had to start somewhere.

But another nagging question tormented him: Who was their savior? And why? Some sort of vigilante? Someone who just liked to kill? Or both?

He shook off the questions. He was too tired to wrestle with them today. They'd never be answered, anyway. At least not by him. He wasn't getting his usual amount of sleep lately. Visions of Carol—teasing, vamping, dancing across his brain—were still keeping him too excited to sleep.

This had to stop!

With an effort Bill turned his mind back to his weekly chess game with Nicky.

"There's someone I think you should meet," Bill told him.

"Who's that?"

"A new applicant who wants to adopt a boy."

Nicky didn't look up. "What's the use?"

"I think this couple is right for you. Their name's Calder. The husband is an assistant professor at Columbia. The wife's a writer. They don't want an infant. They want a bright boy under twelve. I thought of you."

"Did you tell them my head looks like a grapefruit someone left sitting on one side too long?"

"Knock it off! I don't think they'll care."

At least they had said they didn't care when Bill spoke to them. They were a bright, young, stable couple. They had passed their interviews, reference checks, and home inspections. And they'd said they were more interested in what was inside their child's head than the shape of his skull.

"Save us both the trouble and match them up with someone else," Nicky said, and moved his queen. "Check."

Bill moved his king one square to the left.

"No way. You're it, kid. This is one couple who won't be put off by your Lynn Belvedere act."

Still Nicky did not look up. In a careless tone he said, "You really think these folks might be the ones?"

"Never know until you try each other out."

"Okay."

One word, but Bill detected a note of hope in his tone.

He watched Nicky picking at his face as he hung over the board, studying the pieces and their positions. Suddenly his hand darted out and brought in his bishop from half the board away. He looked up and grinned.

"Checkmate! Ha!"

"Damn!" Bill said. "I hope Professor Calder's good at this game. Someone needs to teach you some humility. And stop picking your face. You'll turn that blackhead into a full-blown pimple if you don't watch it."

"It's called a comedo," Nicky said. "The little white ones are called 'closed' and the black ones are called 'open.' The plural is comedones."

"Really."

"Yeah. That's Latin."

"I'm vaguely familiar with the language. But I never realized you were such an expert on blackheads."

"Comedones, if you please, Father. Why wouldn't I be an expert? I'm covered with them. Comedo ergo sum, you might say."

Bill's barking laugh was cut short by a shooting pain in his ribs. But inside was a warm glow. He loved this kid, and no question about it: Nicky was going to make a great addition to the Calder family.

2

"Oh, my God!"

It was Carol's voice. Jim rushed into the downstairs library.

"What's wrong?"

She was sitting in a dark green wing chair that dwarfed her. But then, Hanley's downstairs library, with its high ceiling and rows and stacks of books that seemed to go on endlessly, tended to dwarf everyone.

"Take a look at this!" she said, pointing to the open book on her lap.

Jim knelt beside her. The book was obviously a college yearbook. He stared at the black-and-white photo under Carol's fingertip. It showed a dark-haired fellow with an old-fashioned center-parted haircut, intense eyes, a square jaw, and slightly protruding ears. Below the picture was a name:

RODERICK C. HANLEY

It was the first time Jim had ever seen a photo of Hanley as a young man. Other than that…

"So?"

"You don't see it?"

"See what?"

"Trim your hair, lop off those big sideburns, and that's you!"

"Get off!"

Carol took out her wallet and pulled a photo from it. This one was in color, a miniature of one that hung in their bedroom: their wedding portrait. She put it next to the old Hanley photo.

Jim gaped. The resemblance was astonishing.

"We could be twins! I wonder if he played football?" And if he did, I wonder if he enjoyed breaking arms and legs on the other team?

"Doesn't mention it here."

"So he probably didn't."

"Well," Carol said, "we still don't know who your mother was, but from this it looks like you're all Hanley. If there was ever any doubt that you sprang from his loins, as it were, let them now be forever put to rest."

"Far out!" said a third voice.

Jim looked up to see Gerry Becker leaning over the wing on the other side of the chair. He bit his tongue. Becker had hung around the mansion all day yesterday and had showed up this morning shortly after Jim had arrived with Carol. He wanted to tell him to take a hike, but Gerry said he was doing a "feature" on Jim for the Express and needed lots of background. Jim liked the idea of a feature article. Maybe it would get picked up by the wire services. Maybe his mother would see it and get in touch with him. And maybe, too, the recognition factor might tip some fence-sitting publisher toward buying his new novel.

Who knew? Maybe it would work. But if it meant putting up with Becker on a daily basis, was it worth it? He had practically moved in with them.

"Two peas in a pod, all right," Becker said. "You know, when I was at the Trib—"

"I thought I left you upstairs," Jim said, trying to hide his exasperation.

"You did. But I came down to see what all the excitement was about." He pointed to the yearbook photo. "Hey, you know, if we could get a copy of your yearbook from… where was it?"

"Stony Brook, class of sixty-four."

"Right. Stony Brook. We could put them both side by side in the article. The effect would be groovy. Think you could find Jim's old yearbook, Carol?"

"I'll hunt around when I get home," Carol said.

"Make sure you do, okay? Because I'm going to make this a big article. Really big."

Jim saw her eyes flash at him, silently begging to get this pushy so-and-so out of here. He knew how much she disliked Becker.

"Come on, Gerry. Let's get back to the upstairs library."

"Right on. Don't forget, Carol. I'll check with you tomorrow, okay? Or maybe later on after you guys get home."

"I'll let you know when I find it, Gerry," she said with a smile that looked so forced it would have been far better had she not tried to smile at all.

3

Bitch! Gerry Becker thought as he followed Jim upstairs. Stevens's wife must think her shit don't stink! Where'd she get off with the high-and-mighty act? Nothing but a hick broad from a hick Long Island town whose husband suddenly got lucky. Big fucking deal! Gerry held it all in. He had to stay on Jim Stevens's good side until he got what he wanted for this story. Yeah, a feature on James Stevens, sudden heir to Dr. Roderick Hanley's fortune, including exclusive interviews with the famous scientist's unacknowledged son—that alone might be enough to ride the wires.

But Gerry had a feeling there might be more than just another rags-to-riches story here.

"All right," Stevens said as they reentered the upstairs library. "Let's pick up where we left off."

"Sure," Gerry said. Right.

Where they'd left off was nowhere. Stevens was looking for Mommy and Gerry was helping him. Not out of any deep feeling for Stevens but because it would add tremendous human-interest value to the feature.

But what Gerry was really looking for was juice. Hanley, for all his fame in the scientific community as an innovator with a commercial bent, had been pretty much of an enigma, always shunning interviews. A lifelong bachelor, always in the company of that M.D., Edward Derr. Gerry had a suspicion that maybe the guy was queer. Sure he fathered Stevens—after seeing those two pictures a moment ago, no one could doubt that—but maybe that had been just a momentary aberration. Or maybe he liked to swing both ways. Gerry's nose for news told him that there was some pretty weird shit hiding in Roderick Hanley's private life. All he needed was to find a couple of juicy bits and his feature would be hot stuff indeed.

And a hot feature on the wires would get him off a hick rag like the Monroe Express and back into the journalistic mainstream. Maybe the Daily News. Maybe even the Times!

Gerry had been in the mainstream once. Younger guys like Stevens—younger only by a few years but that was like a generation away these days—seemed satisfied to diddle around on a local rag and write the Great American Novel on the side. Not for Gerry. News was the only writing that mattered. He'd been on his way up at the Trib, living in a fourth-floor walk-up, but slowly inching ahead, doing what he wanted. Then the Trib had folded, just like the World Telegraph & Sun. Black days, those. Only the News, the Post, and the Times were left, and they were up to their eyeballs in guys more experienced than Gerry. For a while he had tried The Light, hoping for a shot at the top spot after its editor mysteriously disappeared, but it went to someone else. A weekly didn't prove to be his style, so he had hooked up with a small-time daily and waited for his chance.

His chance was now.

He slammed a notebook back into its slot. So much for that shelf. Nothing but notes and jottings and equations and abstracts of scientific articles pasted onto the pages. No love letters or dirty pictures—not a drop of juice.

Time to go to the next shelf. Boring as hell, but something was going to turn up, and Gerry intended to be here when it did.

He went to pull a volume from the next section of bookshelves but couldn't seem to budge it. When he took a closer look, he saw why. Suddenly excited, he squeezed his fingers in above the books, grabbed hold of the tops of their spines, and pulled.

The whole row of books pulled free in one piece.

Only they weren't books, just a facade of old spines glued to a board. He heard Stevens at his side.

"What've you got here, Gerry?"

At the rear of the shelf a dull gray metal surface reflected the light from the window.

"Looks like a safe to me, Jim. A big one."

But where was the combination?

Eight

The First Sunday in Lent, March 3

1

"You're welcome to stay for the service, Grace."

Grace smiled at Brother Robert and looked around the room. They were in the oblong basement of Martin's brownstone in Murray Hill. This room did not seem to belong to the rest of the house. It was so much warmer. Fluorescent lights, recessed into a beige suspended ceiling, glowed through multicolored panels, giving a stained-glass effect. There was wall-to-wall carpeting, and the walls were deeply stained tongue-and-groove knotty-pine. Rows of chairs were lined in a semicircle around a low platform at the far end. The walls were bare except for the crucifix at the far end; both it and the statue of the Blessed Virgin in the left corner were covered in purple drapes, just as they were in churches throughout the world during Lent. But this wasn't a church.

About two dozen or so people stood around chatting. Nothing special about them. The Chosen looked like people off the street of any middle-class neighborhood in the city. Some wore suits and dresses, some wore jeans; one woman who didn't have the legs for it sported a miniskirt. And they were all very friendly. They had greeted her with genuine warmth.

"Yes, do stay," Martin Spano said.

"I don't know, Marty—"

"Martin," said the pale young man grimly. "Please don't call me Marty. Nobody calls me Marty." Then he smiled quickly. "Well, what do you think of our little group?"

"They seem very nice."

"Believe me, they are."

He was called away by one of the Chosen, leaving her alone with Brother Robert.

"Are you going to have a Mass?" Grace asked.

"Oh, no," he said in his French accent. "Just some readings from the Bible, the Old and New Testaments. The Church doesn't really recognize groups such as these. They are clearly Catholic, but the monsignors and bishops and such think they are a little… you know how you Americans say… " He pointed his index finger at his left temple and moved it in a circular motion. "Loony Tunes."

"Oh, dear!" Grace said.

She was not at all sure she wanted to get involved in this sort of thing. During the past year or so she had heard of these groups. Catholic Pentecostals, they were called. Charismatics.

"I have not encountered this sort of thing anywhere else in the world, and I find it truly fascinating, truly extraordinary. In a way it is a return to Christianity's humble origins." He gestured to the room. "Believers gathering together in homes to pray and hear the word of God, to witness the presence of the Spirit. That's what Christianity should be about. They have accepted me as a leader of sorts, at least for the time being, but I am not here as a priest. I am here as another one of the Chosen. They don't pretend that what happens here is sacramental, or in any way a substitute for the sacraments. It is an adjunct to the sacraments."

"I don't see how the Church can object to that."

"It doesn't object, but neither does it approve. It will never say so, but I believe the Church is a little concerned about groups like this. Although they are few in number, they are growing. They go to Mass and to confession and receive Communion in the orthodox ways, as we all did earlier this morning. But every Sunday afternoon and every Wednesday night, when they gather in meetings like this, they are on their own, with nothing between them and the Spirit. Surprising things happen."

"How surprising?"

He touched her hand gently. "Stay and see."

Grace stayed.

She sat in the last row and listened to readings from the Gospel, from various books of the Old Testament—mostly the frightening ones from Ecclesiastes—and to a homily from Brother Robert. His voice was mesmerizing. He was fiery and moving as he exorted the Chosen, whom he called the Army of God, to be ever vigilant for signs as to the identity of the devil incarnate, the Antichrist.

While he was speaking, some people sat and listened quietly, but some called out Amens, others stood and held their arms aloft as they swayed back and forth in time to a music audible only to them. Grace was shocked. This was more like one of those Protestant revival meetings they put on television every so often.

Then they all began to pray. And they prayed holding hands. The woman in front of her turned and reached her hand back for Grace to take, but Grace shook her head and folded her hands in front of her. She didn't want to hold hands during prayer! What kind of praying was that?

And then it happened.

A woman in a tweed suit in the front row stood up, rigid and trembling, then fell down onto the floor and began to shake. The nurse in Grace brought her out of her own chair.

"She's having a seizure!" Grace cried.

As she started forward, hands held her back, voices told her, "No, wait. She's all right"… "She has the Spirit"… "The Spirit is upon her."

Sure enough, in a moment the woman lay still, then turned over and sat up. Her eyes were unfocused. Her tongue moved strangely as she opened her mouth and began to speak. The words that came out were like no human speech Grace had ever heard.

Suddenly, directly to Grace's right, someone else, a man in a plaid flannel shirt, sprang up rigidly from his chair. He didn't convulse but started talking in a foreign language, one that sounded exactly like the first woman's. After he had finished, he stared blankly ahead, his jaw continuing to vibrate up and down.

"Hear them?" said a voice in her ear.

She turned and it was Brother Robert, standing at her side.

"What's happening?"

"They're speaking in tongues. Just like the Apostles did on the first Pentecost Sunday." His brown eyes sparkled. "Isn't it fascinating?"

Another woman stood up and began to babble.

"Three!" Brother Robert cried. "The Spirit is strong with us tonight! And always the same tongue! I understand that in other groups they speak in many tongues. But since I have been here, the Chosen have spoken in only one tongue!"

Grace suddenly felt flushed and weak. This wasn't the safe, sane, staid Catholicism she knew, with its comfortable rituals and regimented responses. This was like one of those crazy holy-roller tent revivals. This was chaotic, frightening.

"I need some air!"

"Of course you do," Brother Robert said.

She let him take her elbow and lead her upstairs to the brownstone's front foyer where it was cool but protected from the drizzle and the March wind.

"That's better," she said, feeling her pulse begin to slow toward normal.

"These prayer meetings can be upsetting at first, I know," Brother Robert said. "I was not sure what to make of them myself when I first came here. But they prove that the Spirit is with us, on our side, urging us forward."

Grace didn't know about that, wasn't really sure of anything right now.

"Is that what He's doing?" she said. "Urging you?"

"Yes!" Brother Robert's eyes hardened. "This is war! Evil such as the world has never known is coming. Satan in human form, here not just to claim our lives but our very souls as well! War, Grace Nevins! And you are part of God's chosen army. The Spirit has called you! You cannot say no!"

Grace could say nothing at all at that moment. Brother Robert was frightening her.

"Look," he said in a softer tone, pointing through the door glass at the street outside. "Even now we are being watched. I have seen him here a number of times this week."

Grace looked and saw a gray-haired man of about sixty standing under a tree across the street, facing their way. As she stared at him, he turned and walked away.

2

The leafless trees offered no shelter as Mr. Veilleur walked west on Thirty-seventh Street through the rain, shaking his head, baffled at the turmoil he sensed in the world around him.

What was happening?

Not far away, to the east, he sensed a kernel of chaos, throbbing like an open, infected wound. All these years of peace, and now this. How? Why? What had triggered it?

Questions with no answers. At least none that he wanted to hear. For the news could only be bad. Worse than bad.

And yet here on East Thirty-seventh he detected a warm glow. He had sensed it faintly before, but today it had been unusually strong, calling to him in a familiar voice, drawing him here.

Something was going on in that brownstone, something playing counterpoint to the festering discord to the east. Those inside were receiving a warning. They were interpreting it in their own fashion, dressing it up in their personal myths, but at least they were responding.

That gave him some hope, but not much. The battle lines were being drawn again. For what? A skirmish, or an all-out assault? Hopefully a standard-bearer would emerge from the group clustered in the brownstone.

Not that it mattered much to him. He had served his time. Someone else could shoulder the burden this go-around. He was out of it. Out of it for good.

He stopped when he reached Lexington and raised his hand, searching for a taxi—a usually futile quest on a rainy day. But just then a battered yellow cab pulled up to the curb in front of him and discharged two elderly women. Mr. Veilleur held the door for them.

"Where y'goin', mac?" the cabbie said.

"Central Park West."

"Hopinski."

As he slipped into the backseat Mr. Veilleur mused that if he believed in omens, he would take this near miracle as a good one.

But he had long ago stopped believing in either.

3

"I know what this is about," said Catherine, the older, heavier sister. "And we can't take him in with us. At least I can't."

Carol sat before Mr. Dodd's two daughters in her office at Monroe Community Hospital. It had taken her a week and a half to get both of them together in one place. This was the only day they could all do it. Kay Allen, her supervisor, would send her for psychiatric evaluation if she found out she was in on a Sunday.

"Neither can I," said Maureen.

"He's very depressed about going to the nursing home," Carol said.

Mr. Dodd's welfare paperwork finally had gone through and she had found a bed for him at Sunny Vale in Glen Cove. He was due to be transported there on Thursday. She had seen a rapid deterioration in the old man since he had learned that he was now "on the dole," as he put it, and destined to spend his final days in a nursing home among strangers. He no longer cared about eating, shaving, or anything else.

"No more depressed than we are about sending him," said Catherine, her tone daring Carol to challenge her.

Carol sensed the guilt underlying the hostility, and empathized. The sisters saw themselves in a no-win situation.

"He can dress himself, feed himself, bathe himself, get himself up in the morning, and put himself to bed at night. He doesn't need a nursing home. He needs his meals cooked and his clothes washed and someone to keep him company. He needs a family," Carol said.

Catherine rose from her chair. "We've been over all of this before on the phone. Nothing has changed. My sister and I and both our husbands work. We can't leave Pop alone in the house all day. The doctor told us his memory is bad. He could start to boil some water for coffee or soup and forget about it, and then one of us would come home to a roaring fire where our house used to be."

"There are ways to overcome that," Carol said. "You can hire people to stay with him during the day—we can get him an allowance for a visiting homemaker for a while. Believe me, there are ways, and I can help you work things out if you'll give it a try." She decided to play her ace here. "Besides, it won't be forever. He's seventy-four. How many years does he have left? You can make them good ones. You can say good-bye to him."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Most people don't get a chance to say good-bye to their folks," Carol said. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat.

She thought of her own parents, as she always did in instances such as this, thought of all the things she wished she had said to them while they were alive, not the least of which was good-bye. It seemed she would live out her life with a feeling of something left forever undone. She had added sparing others that burden as an unwritten, unspoken addition to her job description.

"I mean," she went on, "one day they're here, the next day they're gone."

Maureen took out a tissue and blotted her eyes, then looked up at Catherine.

"Maybe we could—"

"Maureen!"

"I'm serious, Cathy. Let me talk to Donald. Let's think about it. There must be something we can do besides dumping him in a nursing home."

"You think about it, Mo. And you talk to Donald. I already know what Tom will say."

Carol figured this was as good a time as any to end the meeting. One of the sisters, at least, was having second thoughts.

They're weakening, Mr. Dodd! I'll have you back with your family yet!

After they were gone, she slumped into a chair. She'd have enjoyed this moment more if she felt better physically. It was those dreams. Night after night—the blood and violence, the pain and suffering. None as vivid as Monday's, but she kept waking up in cold sweats of fear, trembling and clutching Jim, unable to remember specific details, only their overall effect. Memories of the incident in Greenwich Village added to her malaise.

Her stomach was adding the coup de grace. Always sour. She'd be ravenously hungry one moment, but when she'd go to have something to eat, the sight and smell of it would nauseate her. If she didn't know better she'd almost think—

Good Lord! Am I pregnant?

She ran to the elevators. Both cars were down in the basement so she took the stairs up. At the second floor she hurried along the corridor to the lab.

"Maggie!" she said to the young woman at the lab desk, glad that someone she knew had pulled duty this weekend. Maggie had frizzy red hair and a face like a goose, but her smile was winning.

"Carol! Hi! What are you doing in on a Sunday?"

"I need a test!"

"What for?"

"Uh… pregnancy."

"You late?"

"I'm never on time, so how can I tell if I'm late?"

Maggie looked at her sideways. "Is this 'Oh-God-I-hope-I'm-not' or 'Please-God-say-I-am'?"

"Am! Am!"

"Well, it's only supposed to be done on doctor's order, but since it's Sunday, who's to know, right?" She handed Carol a plastic-wrapped cup. "Give us some pee-pee and we'll see-see."

Carol hesitated, fighting to keep her hopes from rising too far. She couldn't allow herself real hope. The test was a double-edged sword—too much hope and a negative would be crushing.

With her heart thumping in her throat she headed for the door marked women.

4

Frustrated almost to the wall-kicking stage because he hadn't been able to open the safe, Jim turned his attention to other matters. It was after five by the time he had lugged all of Hanley's personal journals down from the upstairs library and lined them up on a separate shelf in the downstairs one. They were gray, leather-bound affairs with dates on their spines. One for each year, beginning with 1920 and ending with 1967. He left a gap in the middle for the volumes they could not find.

"He must have had this year's with him when the plane went down," Jim said. "But where are the other four?"

"Beats me, man," Gerry Becker said, standing beside him. "We've combed every bookshelf in the place."

Jim nodded. He had pored through many of the journals. They contained summaries of Hanley's projects, his plans for the future, and day-by-day comments and observations on his personal life. They were a priceless peephole into his father's life.

But where were 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1942? The four most important years—the three years before and the year of his birth, the ones that might contain his mother's name—were missing.

Frustrating as all hell.

"Maybe they're in that safe," Jim said. He looked at Carol, sitting in the wing chair. "What do you think, hon?"

She was staring into space. Carol had been glum and withdrawn all night. Jim wondered what was bothering her.

"Carol?"

She shook herself. "What?"

"You all right?"

"Oh, yes. Fine, fine."

Jim didn't believe a word of it, but he couldn't get into it with Becker still hanging around. He was getting to be a fixture around here, and that was a real drag.

"Dig this," Becker said. He had been flipping through the 1943 volume. He shoved the book in front of" Jim. "Read the second para on the right."

Jim squinted as he deciphered Hanley's crabbed hand:

Ed and I had a bit of a laugh over Jazzy's pitiful attempt at blackmail. I told her she had seen the last penny she would ever see from me last year and to be on her way.

"Jazzy!" Jim said. "I saw a name like that in—where was it?—1949!" He pulled the volume out and flipped through it. Where had he seen it? "Here!"

He read aloud:

"Read in the paper today that Jazzy Cordeau is dead. Such a shame. What disparity between the woman she became and the woman she could have been. The world will never know."

Jim's mind raced. Jazzy Cordeau! French… New Orleans? Could she possibly be his mother? Jazzy Cordeau was the only female name he had found that was linked to the missing years.

He had to get into that safe!

"I think I'll be cuttin' out," Becker said. "I'm bushed."

"Yeah," Jim said, trying to hide his relief. "Same here. Look, why don't we give this a rest for a while? We've been beating this place to death."

Becker shrugged. "Fine with me. Maybe I'll check the morgues at a couple of papers for you, see if I can turn up anything. Buzz you in a couple of days."

"Great. I appreciate that. You know the way out."

When Jim heard the door slam, he turned to Carol and grinned. "Finally! He's gone!"

She nodded absently.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

Carol's face twisted as tears filled her eyes. She began to cry. Jim rushed over and pulled her into his arms. She felt so small and frail against him.

"I thought I was pregnant but I'm not!" she said, sobbing.

He held her tight and rocked her back and forth.

"Oh, Carol, Carol, don't take it so hard. We've got all the time in the world. We've got nothing better to do from now on than work on producing little feet to patter around this big old house."

"But what if it never happens?"

"It will."

He led her toward the front door. It killed him to see her so sad. All this newfound wealth didn't mean squat if Carol was unhappy.

He kissed her.

"Come on. Let's get back to our own bed in our own little place and do some homework."

She smiled through her tears.

That was better!

Nine

Monday, March 4

1

Brother Robert knelt on the cold, rice-littered floor by the window and silently chanted the Prime. When he was through, he remained kneeling. His window faced east and he looked out at the brightening sky.

The evil was growing stronger. Every day it cast a greater pall over his spirit. And it was from there, to the east, from somewhere on Long Island, that it seemed to emanate. Martin had driven him the length of the island but he had been unable to pinpoint its source. The closer he got, the more diffuse it became—until he had been engulfed in a cacophony of evil sensations.

A sign, Lord. Show me who it is. Show me Your enemy.

And then what? How would he fight Satan incarnate?

Will You teach me, Lord?

He prayed so. He had no battle plan, no strategy. He was not a plotter, not a general. He was a contemplative monk who had given up the world in order to be closer to his God.

Forgive the impertinence, Lord, but perhaps You made a mistake in choosing me to lead this flock. The burden is wide and my shoulders are so narrow.

Perhaps he hadn't given up enough of the world. He had fasted and prayed and worked in the fields around the monastery, but still he had wanted to know. The lust for knowledge had driven him to petition his abbot, and the Abbot General himself, for permission to search out and catalog other monastic orders. Not the Benedictines and similar well-established examples, but lesser, more obscure orders that might have something to offer the monastic life as a whole.

He had been given two years, but he had gone beyond that. His trek across the world had been endlessly fascinating. He had met with some of the Orphic brotherhood and a few Pythagoreans in Greece. He had found remnants of Therapeutae and Anchorites in the Mideast, and even a trio of Stylites, each sitting alone atop a stone pillar in the Gobi Desert. In the Far East he investigated many cenobitic Buddhist sects, and in Japan he met with the last two surviving members of an order of self-mutilating monks.

He should have stopped then. His compendium of monastic orders and their ways of life was the most complete on earth. But it was not enough; he went further. He had been tantalized by hints he had heard of dark secrets buried in ancient ruins, in forbidden books. He had searched them out. And he had found some of them. He had dug into the fabled ruins, had read some of the ancient, mythic tomes.

And he had been changed forever.

He no longer lusted for knowledge. All he wanted now was to retreat to his abbey, to hide himself away from the world and what he had learned.

But that was not to be. The changes within had led him here, to these Catholic Pentecostals. Secrets were unraveling, and he sensed that the Lord wanted him here when they were revealed.

But would he be able to rise to the challenge? Neither his boyhood on a farm in Remy, nor his adult life in a contemplative monastery had prepared him for anything like this.

2

"Do you still like the Jefferson Airplane?" Carol called from the big wing chair in the Hanley library. Already she had started thinking of it as her chair.

She felt better this morning—at least emotionally. Jim had made such tender love to her last night, whispering such wonderful things in her ear that she no longer felt like such a miserable failure as a woman for not being pregnant. She had brought Laura Nyro's first couple of albums along to the mansion today and now that wonderful voice and quirky lyrics were booming from the hidden speakers of Hanley's stereo, making the big house feel a little bit more like home.

Physically, though, she felt just as queasy, just as tired as she had every other morning recently. Another blood-soaked dream last night hadn't helped, either.

Something was wrong with her. She had decided this morning to make an appointment with Dr. Albert for a good general checkup. And if he didn't find anything, she'd go to a gynecologist and really go to work on getting her periods straightened out.

But for right now she was taking it easy. She had made herself comfortable with the Arts and Leisure section of yesterday's Sunday Times. She was only now getting around to it. Jim had made her call in sick because she'd been so tired this morning.

Actually he wanted her to quit her job. After all, they no longer needed the money, he said, so why should she drag herself off to the hospital every morning? Good, logical reasons, but Carol didn't want to quit. Not just yet. Not until she had kids to stay home for. Until then there were people at MCH who needed her. People like Mr. Dodd.

Kay had called from the hospital this morning to tell her that Maureen Dodd had agreed to take her father home. She was picking him up tomorrow. The news had made Carol's morning.

"Jefferson Airplane?" Jim said around a mouthful of food as he walked into the room. He had a well-bitten apple in one hand and one of Hanley's journals in the other. He had done little else but pore over those things since they'd arrived this morning. "Don't really care for much of their new stuff. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering. Korvette's has After Bathing at Baxter's on sale for two thirty-nine."

Jim swallowed and laughed. "On sale? Honey, we don't have to worry about sales ever again! If we want it, we'll buy it at list and pay the whole four seventy-nine! We'll buy a stereo and never buy mono records again! Don't you understand? We're rich!"

Carol thought about that a second. They were spending an awful lot of time here at the Hanley place but still slept and ate and made love in their own little house. Maybe she should stop referring to it as the Hanley place. Legally now it was the Stevens place.

"I don't feel rich," she said. "Do you?"

"No. But I'm going to start working on it. It's scary, though."

"How do you mean?" She knew she was scared, but Jim?

"The wealth. I don't want it to change us."

"It won't," she said.

"Oh, I know it won't change you. It's me. I don't want to stop writing, but what if the money makes me too comfortable? What if I stop being hungry? What if I mellow out?"

Carol had to smile. Every so often he would do this—break out of his tough-skeptic persona and become vulnerable. At times like these she loved him most.

"You? Mellow?"

"It could happen."

"Never!"

He returned her smile. "I hope you're right. But in the meantime, what say we hit Broadway this weekend?"

"A play?"

"Sure! Best seats in the house. Our penny-pinching days are over." A new cut began on the Nyro album. "Hear that? That's us. We're gettin' off the Poverty Train. You've got the section there. Pick a play, any play, and we'll go."

Carol thumbed to the front. She saw ads for I Never Sang for My Father, How Now Dow Jones, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, none of which much appealed to her. Then she came to a full-page ad quoting rave reviews for Neil Simon's latest.

"Let's see Plaza Suite."

"You got it. I'll call a ticket agent and see if he can dig us up a couple of good seats—price no object."

Carol hesitated. "Do you think we could make it a matinee?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Well, after last week…"

"Sure," Jim said with a reassuring smile. "We'll be out of the city by dark. We'll drive back here and have dinner at Memison's. How's that sound?"

"Absolutely wonderful!"

In a burst of warmth for Jim, she opened her arms and he fell into them. She wanted to make love to him right here and now in this big old chair. She kissed him, trailing her hand into the tangle of one of his sideburns. He pulled away for a second to place the journal he had been reading on the table beside the chair. That was when Carol noticed the writing along its bottom edge.

"What do those mean?" she said, pointing.

Jim picked up the book again. "Never noticed them."

He held it closer. A series of numbers and letters had been printed in a line:

33R—21L—47R—16L.

"My God, Carol!" he said, leaping from the seat. "That's a safe combination! And it's written on the bottom of the 1938 journal, the one right before the gap! Got to be to the safe upstairs!"

Carol was filled with a sudden foreboding. She grabbed at Jim's arm.

"Why don't we leave it locked?" Jim's expression was frankly puzzled. "Why?"

"Because if Hanley—your father—locked it away so securely, maybe it should stay that way. Maybe there's stuff in there he didn't want anyone to know, stuff he would have destroyed if he'd known he was going to die."

"Whatever's in that safe is the truth. And I've got to know the truth—about who my mother is, or was; and about my father's relationship with her."

"What difference does that make? It's not going to change who you are!"

"I need my past, Carol. I've got the Hanley half. Now I need the rest—my mother's side. This Jazzy Cordeau he mentions may be her. But no matter what Becker digs up on her, I'll only be guessing as to whether she's the one. But I've got a strong feeling that after we open that safe, I'll know."

Carol hugged him against her. "I just hope you don't regret it. I don't want you hurt."

"I can handle it. I don't know what Hanley's hiding. The truth may not be pretty, but it's got to come out of that safe." He smiled. "What's that they say, 'The truth will set you free'? That's the way I feel about what's in that safe. Besides, how bad can it be?"

He stood up and held out his hand to her.

"Come on. Let's open it together."

Carol felt her queasiness double as she rose and followed him upstairs.

3

It took Becker most of the early afternoon to track down anything on the Jasmine Cordeau murder. After all, as the cops told him time and again until he was sick of hearing it, the case was nearly twenty years old.

Yeah, so what? he wanted to shout.

But he kept his cool, kept smiling in their faces. After all, his press card could only take him so far, especially with his long hair and all. Longhairs tended to call cops pigs, and cops didn't take too kindly to that.

A desk cop took him to the basement and pointed to a jumble of filing cabinets and told him that if the file on that old murder was still around—and no one was saying it was—it would be in one of those.

Maybe.

More scut work.

Gerry had spent the morning in the New York Public Library's periodical section, spinning through an endless stream of microfilmed pages, scanning the obits and local news, determined to find Jazzy Cordeau.

Because Jazzy Cordeau was Jim Stevens's mother.

No doubt about it. Something deep inside Becker was as sure of that as he was sure of his own name. And that wasn't all. The journal's casual mention of her "pitiful attempt at blackmail" left little doubt that there was something ugly between Hanley and the Cordeau broad. Something juicy.

But what?

That was what made this search so intriguing, what had kept his burning eyes fixed on the screen all morning, fighting vertigo as the pages whirred by.

Finally he had found it, buried in the lower right-hand corner of the October 14 late edition, a single paragraph:

WOMAN STABBED IN MIDTOWN ALLEY

THE BODY OF A YOUNG WOMAN, WHO WAS LATER IDENTIFIED AS ONE JASMINE CORDEAU, WAS DISCOVERED IN AN ALLEY OFF FORTIETH STREET BETWEEN EIGHTH AND NINTH AVENUES EARLY THIS MORNING. SHE DIED OF MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS. HER PURSE WAS MISSING.

That was it! Jasmine—Jazzy—it had to be!

Excitement still quivered through him. Stabbed to death. Why had she been killed? To shut her up? To put an end to another "pitiful attempt at blackmail?"

He rubbed his sweaty hands together as he approached the filing cabinets. Despite the drudgery ahead, the thrill of the hunt began to work its spell on him. This was going to be good!. There was something really rotten here. Even twenty years later he could still catch a whiff of the stink.

After two hours of bending and kneeling and pulling and sifting until his hands were filthy and his back was killing him, Becker found a single sheet on Jazzy Cordeau. And that was by accident. It was folded between two other files, as if it had dropped there by accident.

He held it up to the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling and cursed after he read it. This was no damn good! It was a summary face sheet from the coroner's report, saying Jasmine Cordeau had died from a deep laceration to the left carotid artery and multiple stab wounds to the anterior chest causing lacerations to the anterior wall of the myocardium.

So? She'd had her throat cut and was stabbed in the heart. That didn't tell him anything new, other than the fact that someone seemed to have wanted Jim Stevens's mother dead real bad. Who? That was what he wanted to know. Who was Jazzy Cordeau, and who had killed her?

He took the face sheet up to the Records Department. The sergeant there wasn't too surprised that the file couldn't be found. He took one look at the sheet and grunted.

"When'd y'say dis happened?"

"October 14, 1949. On West Fortieth."

"Kelly might be able to help yiz. Used to walk dat beat."

"And where do I find this Kelly?" Becker said.

"Dat's Sergeant Kelly. Right here. He's on d'next shift. Be here'n a coupla minutes."

Becker took a seat and wondered what kind of cop was walking a beat twenty years ago and was now only a sergeant in the Records Department. When the balding, overweight Kelly finally strolled in, Becker got a pretty good idea why: The whole department was suddenly redolent of cheap Scotch.

He gave the shifts a chance to change, gave Sergeant Kelly a chance to settle in, then approached him. He showed him his press card and the coroner's face sheet.

"I was told you might be able to help me find the rest of this file."

"You was, was you?" Kelly said, eyeing him briefly, then glancing at the sheet. He started, then laughed. "Jasmine Cordeau? It's an old one you've got here! I knew that one well! What's the likes of you doing looking up the likes of Jazzy?"

Becker decided a piece of the truth might appeal to this old rummy. "A friend of mine, an orphan, has reason to believe she might be his mother."

"You don't say? Jazzy a mother? It don't seem likely. She was one of the top whores in midtown in her day."

"Whore?" Becker felt the blood start to race through his vessels. Stevens's mother had been a prostitute! What a story! "You're sure?"

" 'Course I'm sure! Had a record a mile long!"

This was too good to be true. And getting better by the minute.

"Did they ever find her killer?"

Kelly shook his head. "Nah! Some John did a hit-and-run on her. Cut her up and took her roll."

Something didn't fit here.

"If she was such a high-priced piece, what was she doing in an alley off Fortieth?"

"She started off high-priced, but she got on the H and began the slide. At the end she was doing b-j's in alleys. Shame. She was a beautiful woman in her prime."

"What happened to her file?"

"You wanna see it?" Kelly said, rising from behind his desk. "C'mon, I'll show you."

It was back down to the musty old cellar, but this time to a secluded corner where Kelly pulled a dust cloth off a relatively new file cabinet.

"My personal files," he said. "Any case I had anything to do with, any victim or perpetrator I knew, I keep the files here."

"Far out!" What a stroke of luck! "How come?"

"For my book. Yeah, I'm gonna write me a book about walking a beat in midtown. Think it'll sell?"

"Depends on how it's written," Becker said, sensing which way the conversation was going and dreading it.

"Say, you're a writer, right? Maybe you could help me."

"Sure. That's cool. Sounds real interesting," Becker said as sincerely as he could. "But do you have that Cordeau file?"

"Sure."

Kelly unlocked his private cabinet, flipped through the top drawer—Becker noticed a half-empty fifth of Scotch at the rear—then pulled out a manila folder. He opened it and started paging through the contents. It was all Becker could do to keep from snatching it away.

"Is it all there?"

"Looks like it. I just wanted to see if I still have that eight-by-ten glossy she had done when she was a dancer, before she found out there was more money in hooking. Yep. Here it is." He handed Becker the photo. "Wasn't she a piece?"

For a moment Becker stared at the picture in mute shock. And then he couldn't help himself—despite the crushing disappointment, he began to laugh.

4

Jim's palms were sweaty and his fingers trembled. It took him three tries at the combination before the tumblers clanked within the safe door.

Why am I making such a big deal of this?

He yanked the lever to the right and pulled the door open. He saw three shelves inside—two of them empty, the third nearly so.

"Looks like a crash dieter's refrigerator," he said.

He emptied the third shelf and brought everything to a nearby table. The entire contents of the safe consisted of four yearly journals, uniform with the others he had found, a small black-bound volume, and an oversize green book. The only other item was an unsealed legal-size manila envelope. Jim picked this up and found a few hundred dollars in tens and twenties within.

"Mad money," he said.

Carol had opened the big green book.

"Look at this."

Jim leaned over her shoulder. Inside the front cover was a faded black-and-white photo of a shirtless Hanley holding an infant, tiny enough to be a newborn, in his arms. It was dated Jan. 6, 1942.

"I'll bet that's me!" Jim said. "I must be that newborn!"

"Look at how hairy he is," Carol said. "Remind you of anyone?"

Jim smiled. "I wonder if he had hairy palms?"

Wonder filled him as he looked into Roderick Hanley's smiling face. A proud father if there ever was one. He turned the page and saw another photo of a brick-fronted garden apartment. He recognized it immediately.

"That's Harbor Terrace Gardens! We lived there till I was seven!"

There followed a few blurry, long-range photos of an unrecognizable child playing in front of the apartment complex, then a shocker. A class photo with an inscription in Hanley's now familiar hand: Kindergarten, 1947.

"That's my class! That's me at the end of the second row!"

Each page had a different class picture, even an occasional portrait shot.

Carol said, "Where did he get these? Do you think Jonah and Emma—?"

"No. I'm sure they didn't know anything about Hanley. It would be easy enough for him to go to the photographer and buy prints, don't you think?"

"Sure. I guess so." Carol sounded uneasy.

Jim looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"Well, don't you feel kind of creepy knowing he was secretly watching you all the time?"

"Not at all. Makes me feel good in a way. I mean, it tells me that although he'd let go of me physically, he hadn't let go emotionally. Don't you see? He lived most of his life in a Manhattan town house through 1942. Then he suddenly sold it and moved to Monroe. Now I know why—to watch me grow up."

Thinking about it gave Jim a warm feeling inside. He didn't raise me, but he never forgot about me, never completely abandoned me. He was always there, watching over me.

"Here we go," Carol said with a little laugh that sounded forced. "The Football Years."

There followed page after page of newspaper clippings. Anyplace his name was mentioned, even if it was simply a list of the players who had seen action in a game, Hanley had cut it out, underlined Jim's name, and pasted it into the scrapbook.

Jim was struck now by the irony of those football games. Jonah and Emma were in the stands for every game. In his mind's eye he saw himself turning on the bench and waving to his parents—all three of them—for right behind them sat Dr. Hanley, enthusiastically cheering Our Lady's Hawks—and one running back in particular—to victory.

Weird. And touching, in a way.

He wondered how Hanley had reacted to the injuries his son inflicted on the field. Did he cringe at the pain he saw, or did he hunger for more?

After football came photos cut from the Stony Brook yearbooks, and later on, even Monroe Express articles with the James Stevens byline.

"He was really some sort of completist, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. From reading his journals I feel I know him. He definitely wasn't the kind of guy to do anything halfway."

The doorbell rang.

Who the hell—?

Jim went to the window and looked down toward the front driveway. He recognized the rusty Beetle.

"Oh, no! It's Becker!"

"He's kind of late, isn't he?"

Then Jim remembered what Becker had been looking into and decided he'd better talk to him.

"Maybe he's learned something about Jazzy Cordeau."

He hurried downstairs with Carol close behind and pulled open the door as the bell rang a third time. Becker stood there on the front porch, grinning.

"What's up, Gerry?" Jim said.

Becker kept grinning as he stepped into the front hall.

"Still think Jazzy Cordeau might be your mother?"

"What did you find out?"

"This and that."

Jim felt his fists clench and his muscles tighten. He had wanted to be the one to uncover her identity before anybody else—especially before Gerry Becker! And now Becker was playing cute.

"What?"

"She was a hooker."

Jim heard Carol gasp beside him. His anger grew, fueled by Becker's taunting tone.

"Very funny."

"No. It's true. I have it on reliable authority—first from a Sergeant Kelly, N.Y.P.D., and later from an old pal of his who used to work vice—that she was midtown's finest piece of ass in the late thirties and on through the war. Except for a period of time right before the war when she dropped out of sight for almost a year. Some people say that in her final years, when she was shooting smack like I drink Pepsi, she talked about having a baby someplace, but no one ever saw the kid. The timing's right. Think that kid might be you, Stevens?"

Anger had ballooned into barely suppressed rage. Jim could see how much Becker was enjoying this. He forced himself to speak calmly.

"That's all you've got?"

"Nope. Got a picture of her when she was a stripper." He pulled a photo out of a manila envelope and handed it to Jim. "What do you say? Think this could be Mama?"

Jim stared at the photo of a shapely young woman in a rhinestone G-string. She was beautiful, but there was no way in the world she could be his mother. Because she was black—very black.

Becker guffawed. "Had you going there, didn't I? I really thought I'd tracked her down, and turns out she's as black as the ace of spades! Is that a riot or what?"

Something exploded in Jim. He shifted the photo to his left hand, cocked his right arm, and belted Becker in the face. His arms windmilling for balance, Becker stumbled backward out the door and landed flat on his back on the front porch. Blood began to drip from his nose as he looked up at Jim in shock.

"What—?"

"That's for being a malicious bastard!" Jim said through his clenched teeth.

"Can't you take a joke?"

"Not funny, jerk! Now get the hell out of here and don't come back!"

He slammed the door closed and turned to see Carol's shocked expression.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's okay," she said, slipping her arms around him. "That was a really rotten thing to do to you. But did you have to—"

"Hit him?" Jim shook his head. "No, I suppose not." He hadn't even enjoyed it. Maybe that was a good sign. "You know what they say."

"I know. 'Violence is the first resort of the mentally inferior party.' "

"I'd have to beg an exception to that rule."

"Granted," Carol said.

"I'd also like to beg a drink."

"Also granted."

Jim looked again at the photo of Jazzy Cordeau's slim, sensuous black body and seductive smile.

"Sheesh! Make it a double!"

5

"I'm back!"

Carol carried the bag of Cokes, fries, and burgers into the library and found Jim just where she had left him, slumped in the wing chair, engrossed in one of the newfound Hanley journals.

"Yoo hoo," she said. "I'm home. And don't get too comfortable there. That's my chair."

Jim looked up but didn't smile. His expression was troubled, and his eyes had a faraway look.

"Something wrong?" Carol said.

"Hmm?" he said, straightening up. "Oh, no. No, everything's fine. I'm just having a little trouble with some of this scientific stuff, is all."

He wasn't much company during dinner—if indeed the cooling, soggy cheeseburgers from Wetson's deserved to be called dinner—and she noticed that he poured his glass of Scotch into his Coke before he drank it. He initiated no conversation, which was highly unusual for him. Jim always had something to talk about—a wild idea or a diatribe about some aspect of the current political and social scene. But he was definitely preoccupied tonight, answering her attempts at conversation in monosyllables.

As soon as he gobbled down his third and last burger, he stood up and drained his Coke.

"Look, I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to get back to those new journals."

"Sure. Go ahead. Come across any good stuff yet?"

His expression was bleak as he turned away toward the library.

"No. No good stuff."

Carol finished her second cheeseburger and swept all the wrappers and fries bags back into the sack. Then she wandered into the library. Jim didn't look up from his hunched posture over the journal. Carol wandered along the shelves, looking for something to read. There were lots of classics, from Aeschylus to Wyss, but she wasn't in the mood for anything long or heavy. She stopped by the wing chair where Jim sat and noticed a small black journal on the table next to him. She remembered seeing it in the safe when they'd opened it earlier.

She picked it up and opened the cover. A title was block-printed in capitals on the first page:

PROJECT GENESIS

"What's this about?" she asked.

Jim's head snapped up.

"What?"

His eyes widened when he saw the journal in her hand, and he snatched it away.

"Give me that!"

"Jim!" Carol cried, shocked.

"I'm sorry," he said, obviously flustered. "I… I'm just trying to put all the pieces together and I… I can't if… the pieces start wandering away. You know? Sorry I snapped. Really."

She noticed that as he was speaking he closed the journal he had been reading and slipped the black one under it. She had never seen him so distracted, so tentative, and it made her uneasy.

"Jim, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Carol," he said, rising from the chair.

"I don't buy that. Something in those journals is upsetting you. Tell me. Share it."

"No, no, I'm not upset. It's just heavy going, that's all. When I get it straight in my head, I'll lay it out for you. Right now… I've got to concentrate. I'll take these upstairs and you take the chair and read or watch TV."

"Jim, please!"

He turned and headed for the stairs.

"It's okay, Carol. Just give me a little time alone with this stuff."

She noticed that he grabbed the Scotch decanter on his way out of the room.

Time crawled.

Carol tried to occupy herself but it wasn't easy. The disquiet over Jim's obsession with these journals and his past gnawed at her, making it impossible to read, or even to involve herself in the new color TV in the corner of the library. She spent most of the night spinning the dial. The Avengers seemed vapid, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres were more annoying than usual, and even The Jonathan Winters Show couldn't wring a smile from her.

By eleven o'clock she couldn't take any more. She went upstairs to the science library to pull Jim away from those damn journals.

The door was locked.

Alarmed now, she pounded on it.

"Jim! Are you all right?"

She heard papers shuffling within, then Jim opened the door —but only part way. He stood in the opening, blocking her from entering. His eyes had a haunted look.

"What is it?" he mumbled.

She could smell the Scotch on his breath.

"It's late," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "Let's call it a night."

He shook his head. "Can't. Gotta keep after this."

"Come back in the morning when you're fresh. You might get a whole new—"

"No! I can't leave this now! Not yet! You go home. Take the car and leave me here. I'll come home later."

"You're going to walk home? You can't be serious! You'll freeze!"

"It's only a mile or so. The exercise will do me good."

"Jim, this is crazy! What's wrong? Why can't you tell me what's—"

"Please!" he said. "Just go home and leave me here. I don't want to discuss it any more right now."

With that he closed the door in her face. She heard the lock click.

"Fine," Carol said.

She went downstairs, grabbed her coat, and drove home in J. Carroll. Somewhere along the way her anger gave way to hurt. And fear.

Jim had looked frightened.

Ten

Tuesday, March 5

1

You hear the cries from behind the walls of the sick houses as you trod Strasbourg's misty, filth-encrusted streets. Two months ago when you arrived from Genoa, the streets at this hour were clogged with people. Now you can number your fellow travelers on one hand. Unlike you, they hurry along with nosegays pressed to their faces to protect themselves from the disease and to fend off the odor of corruption that hangs over the town like a shroud.

Fear. Fear keeps the small surviving remnant of the populace indoors, hiding behind their shuttered windows and barred doors, peeping through the cracks; fear of catching the pestilence, for they know not whence or why it has come; fear that the world is coming to an end.

And perhaps it is. Twenty million dead in the last four years, bishop and beggar, prince and peasant alike, for the pestilence cuts across all classes. There are not enough peasants to till the fields, not enough knights to force the remainder to work. The whole fabric of Europe's social order is unraveling around you.

Fear. The very air is saturated with fear, laced with grief and tinged with the death throes of a ravaging disease. They blame God, they blame the alignment of the planets, they blame the Jews.

Fear. You breathe deeply, sucking it in like a bracing tonic.

You find the house you are seeking and push your way inside. There are seven people within, two adults and five children, but no one resists your entry. Instead the survivors plead for your aid. Two more have died since you stopped by last night. Now only the father and one of the daughters remain alive, each with draining, egg-size swellings in their groins and armpits. Their eyes are feverish, their cheeks hollow, their lips and tongues swollen and cracked as they hoarsely beseech you for a sip of water.

You hover over them a moment, drinking their misery, then tear yourself away and proceed to the back room. You lift the wicker trap you baited with cheese last night and feel the squealing weight within.

Rats. A pair of them. Good! Your supply of sickly rodents is sufficient now. You can move on.

And you must move on. The pestilence is beginning to taper off, its spread is slowing. You can't allow that. This is too good. You must make this ecstasy last.

You start back toward the street. Your horse and loaded cart await you at the stable. You really must be on your way to Nürnburg where they say there is no plague.

You'll remedy that.

But you tarry in the front room over the father and daughter. Their agonies are so exquisite. You draw up a chair to sit and watch them…

Carol awoke, cold and trembling. Another sickening nightmare. It was getting so she was afraid to go to sleep. She reached for Jim and experienced a moment of panic when she realized he wasn't beside her.

Last night she had waited up in bed alone until late, trying to distract her thoughts with Fletcher Knebel's new best-seller, but even Vanished couldn't keep her awake. She had fallen asleep before Jim came home.

Had he come home?

She went looking for him. It didn't take long to search the two-bedroom ranch—he wasn't here. Anxious now, she phoned the mansion, and with each unanswered ring the tension grew inside her. Finally Jim answered. He sounded groggy, his voice hoarse, his words garbled.

"How're you feeling?" she said, trying to sound bright and cheery.

"Terrible."

"Probably hung over. You were hitting the Scotch pretty heavily last night."

"Or not heavily enough."

"Did you finally get everything straightened out with those new journals?"

"I think so. If I can believe them. It ain't pretty."

"What's wrong? Did they tell you who your mother was?"

"Yeah. Nobody."

"Come on, Jim! It's me: Carol. Don't keep me in the dark. This isn't like you."

"Like me? Hon, are you sure you know what's like me? I'm not even sure I know what's like me."

"I know that I love you."

"I love you too. And I'm sorry about the way I acted last night."

"Then why didn't you come home?"

"Too bushed to make the walk. I stayed up with the journals all night."

"Okay. I'll pick you up and we'll have breakfast somewhere, and you can tell me all about this."

"Later. We'll talk later. Go to work. Let me go through these things one more time, and I'll explain everything—if that's possible—when you get back this afternoon. Okay?"

"I can't wait until then!"

"Please don't come out here now. I've still got a few more things to work out in my head."

"What is it, Jim?"

"It's weird, Carol. Really weird. I'll see you later."

Carol hung up and sat there by the phone, baffled and worried by Jim's mood. When there were problems, he tended to withdraw, think them out, then return with a solution. But he was so down. She couldn't remember him ever getting this low before.

She shook herself and stood up. Whatever it was, they could handle it together. She'd work through the day and they'd settle everything tonight. She headed for the shower. Mr. Dodd was due to go home with his daughters today.

At least something will go right this morning, Carol thought.

She called Jim again at around ten-fifteen, on her coffee break, using the booth in the hospital lobby so she could have a little more privacy than afforded by the Social Services office. But Jim was still uncommunicative, and if anything he sounded even more strung out. She wondered if Bill could help. Maybe he'd talk to Bill.

As she pulled another dime from her wallet she saw Catherine and Maureen, Mr. Dodd's daughters, come in through the main entrance. She dialed hurriedly.

2

Professor Albert Calder and his wife, Jane, struck Bill as a stuffy couple, the kind of people who consider themselves the intellectual superiors of most of the human race. But that was fine. Especially if they were going to adopt Nicky. They would need to be superior to keep pace with that boy.

So far Bill had overseen two meetings of the prospective parents and child here in St. F.'s, and both had gone well. The Calders were impressed with Nicky's quick mind, and Nicky had felt free to pull his child-genius routines without fear of alienating the adults. The Calders' references showed they were a stable, childless couple with a decent income and, although not terribly active in their parish, at least regular attendees at Mass.

It appeared to be a match made in heaven.

The next step was a weekend stay. The Calders were in his office now to make those arrangements.

"Okay, Father. Then it's all set," Professor Calder said. "We'll pick him up Friday afternoon after school."

He was in his mid-thirties, with thick, horn-rimmed glasses, a neat Vandyke goatee, and dark hair prematurely salted with gray, which he was letting grow over his ears. There were suede elbow patches on his tweed jacket. Here was a man who reveled in being a college professor.

Jane Calder was a short, plump redhead with a generous smile.

"We can't wait to have him over," she said.

"I know Nicky's looking forward to it too."

The intercom buzzed, and Sister Miriam's voice said, "Personal call on two, Father."

"Tell them to hold."

Professor Calder stood up and gave him a crisp handshake.

"Father Ryan, it's been a pleasure."

"That's mutual, I can assure you, Professor." He shook hands with Mrs. Calder and ushered them into the hall. They knew their way out.

Bill's spirits were high. He had a feeling in his gut that this was it for Nicky—out of St. F.'s and into a home that could nurture his mind, body, and spirit. He felt good about the imminent adoption. This was what it was all about.

On top of that, he had had a call from the Maryland Provincial yesterday to clarify a few items on his curriculum vitae. That could mean that either Loyola or Georgetown were interested in him. Either way he'd be in or near the nation's capital, right in the thick of things.

Nicky, old pal, we're both getting out of here!

He picked up the phone. "Father Ryan."

"Bill, it's Carol. Carol Stevens. I need your help."

Involuntarily he flushed with pleasure at the sound of her voice, even though it sounded tight, tense.

"Something wrong?"

"It's Jim. He's been looking through Dr. Hanley's old journals, hunting for the identity of his mother. I think he's found something that's really upset him."

"What?"

"He won't tell me a thing about it. I'm worried, Bill. He sounds like he's about to explode. We're supposed to talk the whole thing out tonight, but that seems a long time away. I was wondering if maybe you could—"

"I'll call him right now," Bill said.

The relief in her voice poured through the phone. "Will you? Oh, thank you! I hate to impose but—"

"Carol, this is what friends are for. Don't give it a second thought."

After jotting down the number and saying good-bye, Bill sat there a moment with his hand on the receiver, thinking.

Carol again. There didn't seem to be any escape from her. Just when he thought he was getting a handle on his obsession with her, she says a few words to him over the phone and he's on fire again. This had to stop. He had to beat this.

But first he had to see about Jim.

He lifted the phone and hesitated. As a priest he did his share of counseling in the confessional. But those were strangers, and they had initiated the encounter by coming to him.

This was different. Jim was an old friend, and from the sound of it, Jim didn't want to talk about whatever it was that was upsetting him.

Jim… upset. That was hard to imagine. Jim Stevens was usually pretty unflappable.

Except about his roots.

Bill had realized from their conversations during last week's night on the town that Jim's roots were an obsession with him, and thus a vulnerable area of his psyche.

Listen to me: Bill Ryan, S.J., parlor psychoanalyst!

But he had made a point of studying a lot of psychology in the seminary. He had come to see the interplay between the human mind and human emotion as the wellspring of faith. To speak to man's faith, you had to understand its mechanisms. And how better to understand faith than to study the human psyche?

What could Jim have learned to disturb him so?

He felt an unaccountable burst of sorrow for his old friend. Had the diehard, stonewall rationalist come upon something that he didn't want to accept? How sad.

He dialed the number Carol had given him. When he heard Jim's gruff voice on the other end, he put on his best hale-fellow voice.

"Jimbo! It's Bill Ryan. How's it goin'?"

"Just great." The flat tone made no attempt to hide the lie behind his words.

"Getting used to being a rich member of the establishment?"

"Working on it."

"So what's new?"

"Not much."

This was getting nowhere. Bill decided to come straight to the point.

"Find out anything new about your natural parents?"

"What makes you say that?" The words sounded as if they'd been ripped out of Jim—the first sign of emotion he'd shown since he'd picked up the phone.

Bingo.

"Just wondering. When we were out to dinner last week, you seemed satisfied that Hanley was your father and said you were going to comb the mansion for the identity of your mother."

Jim's voice was thick. "Yeah, well, maybe I didn't know as much as I thought I knew."

What's that supposed to mean?

"I'm sorry, Jim. I don't get it."

But Jim had leapt off the subject.

"Just a minute," he said. "Did Carol put you up to this?"

"Well, she's worried, Jim. She—"

"It's okay, Bill. I know she's worried. I haven't been playing fair with her. But I'll straighten things out today… I think."

"Can I help?"

"Bill, I don't think anyone can help."

A terrible, crushing sadness flowed across the line.

"Hey, surely—"

"Gotta go, Bill. Thanks. Bye."

And then the line went dead.

Bill sat there and knew with pitying certainty that his old friend had discovered the roots he had quested after for so long, and was being torn apart by what he had found.

3

Gerry Becker drove along Shore Drive to the Hanley mansion. He found the spike-topped wrought-iron gates closed and no car in the driveway. But that didn't mean Stevens wasn't there. He parked at the curb but remained behind the wheel for a while, staring at the huge place as the afternoon sun warmed the inside of the car and Big Dan Ingram yakked between the records on WABC.

He sat a little longer, basking in the clear March sky's preview of spring until Big Dan started playing "Daydream Believer." The Monkees. Perfect. Four jerks grabbed off the street get fame and fortune handed to them. Just like Jim Stevens. What a bummer!

He figured he should stop putting it off and get on with what he had come to do.

It was crow-eating time.

He pushed the gates open, walked up the drive, stepped up on the front porch, rang the bell, and held his breath.

He hated doing this. After all, the jerk had slugged him in the nose yesterday. So maybe it hadn't been in the best of taste to present the fruit of his whole day's research in that particular way. That didn't give Stevens the right to belt him. Did he think he could get away with that sort of shit because he was rich now?

But he had to stay on Stevens's good side. He wasn't going to let this story and the chance of a wire service pickup go blooey over one misunderstanding. If he had to eat a little crow today to ensure his exclusive on the story, well then, pass the mustard.

But after all this was over and the story was in print under his byline, he'd tell Jim Stevens to fuck off.

The heavy oak door swung open and Stevens stood there, staring at him.

"What the hell do you want?" Jim said.

His tone was hostile but his eyes showed something else. Becker wasn't sure what it was.

"I came to apologize."

"It's already forgotten."

"No, really. That was a stupid thing for me to do. Incredibly bad taste."

"Don't give it a second thought." His tone had gone flat, utterly emotionless.

Hey, this was going better than he had ever hoped. This was easy and damn near painless! He wished he could come in out of the cold, but Stevens kept the door almost closed and made no move to invite him inside.

"That's cool. Really big of you, Jim. So, have you turned up anything new we can put into the article?"

That strange look returned to Stevens's eyes. He said, "Don't give the article a second thought, either, Gerry."

Becker went numb. "I don't get it."

"It means I don't want you around anymore."

"We had a deal!"

"You've got your story."

"I've only got half of it!"

"You've got all you're going to get. Forget the rest."

"We were going to find out who your mother was! The story's not complete without it!"

At mention of his mother that strange look in Stevens's eyes deepened.

"Sorry about that. You'll have to go with what you've got. Or better yet, drop the whole thing."

"Not on your life, you son of a bitch! This is my ticket off the Express! You're not robbing me of it!"

"Good-bye, Gerry."

He slammed the door shut.' Furious, Becker gave it a kick, then hurried back through the gate to his Beetle, so angry that he could barely keep from screaming. And then he recognized Stevens's strange look for what it was.

He's afraid of me!

Becker took an immediate liking to the notion. He could not remember another time in his life when someone had been afraid of him. It gave him a good feeling, powerful.

There could only be one reason for Stevens's reaction: He had discovered something in his past he didn't want made public. That had to be it.

Gerry Becker promised himself that one way or another, he was going to ferret out that something.

4

"Jim?"

No answer.

The house seemed empty. Carol had sensed that the moment she stepped through the door, yet she had called out, anyway.

So quiet. Dust motes glowed and swirled in the late-afternoon sun slanting through the front windows. Carol looked around for a note. When she didn't find one, she went directly to the phone to call the Hanley mansion.

She was angry. She'd had just about all she could take now. This should have been a great day. She'd sent a very happy and grateful Mr. Dodd home with his daughters today—he was going to stay with Maureen, Catherine taking him on weekends—and she would have been high as a kite if not for Jim's secretive, erratic behavior.

She was about to dial when she heard a rustle from the study. A single step, a craning of her neck, and she saw him in profile as he sat on the convertible sofa.

He was staring off into space. He looked so lost, so utterly miserable that she wanted to cry for him. As she started forward she saw his eyes close and his head sag back against the cushion. His breathing became slow and rhythmic, the tension eased from his face. He was asleep.

Carol watched him for a few minutes. She didn't have the heart to awaken him. For the moment, at least, he had escaped whatever demons were pursuing him.

And then she saw the source of those demons—the journals from the safe, lying on the cushion next to him. Her first impulse was to grab them and find out for herself what could upset him so, but she hesitated. What if he woke up and found her sneaking out of the room with them? What would he think then about her respect for his privacy?

But damn it, this affected her too!

She tiptoed over to the sofa and gently slid the books off the cushion. There was a bad moment as she was lifting the pile away from him when the smaller black one almost slid out of her hands and onto Jim's lap, but she steadied it and slipped from the room without waking him.

She took them to the bedroom and, with trembling fingers, began flipping through one of the gray journals.

5

Gerry Becker pulled into the curb across the street and about fifty feet up from the Stevens place. Earlier he had followed Jim on his walk back from the mansion, resisting the urge to gun the engine and run him down. That would end this whole shitty deal. He could close his exclusive article with an obituary.

But that would leave too many unanswered questions.

So he had driven around for a while after Stevens's wife had come home, and now that it was good and dark, he was back. He had decided to sit here in the cold and watch the house until it looked like everyone was tucked in for the night. Then he'd be back at the crack of dawn with a thermos of coffee, watching, cruising, not letting Stevens out of his sight, waiting for a slip, waiting for him to give something away.

He lit a joint, wrapped himself in the wool blanket he had brought along, and watched the lit windows. He knew his chance would come if he hung around long enough. And he was sure it would be worth the wait.

6

It had been hours and Jim was still sound asleep. Probably his first sleep since Monday morning. A good thing, too, because Carol wasn't getting anywhere. She shook her head in frustration as she pored over another of the gray journals. There was too much here. And with no idea of what she was looking for, she could spend all night deciphering the crabbed handwriting without learning a thing.

She opened up the black journal to the middle and gasped at the salutation on the first page of text. Instinctively she knew she had found what she sought.

She began to read.

Eleven

January 6, 1963

Dear Jim—

It's your 21st birthday. I'm going to spend the next few days writing this letter to you. It's a letter I pray you never get to read.

But if you have this in your hands, it means that something has gone dreadfully wrong.

I'm sorry about that.

You were never supposed to learn about yourself. You were supposed to lead a normal, happy, productive life, and then maybe—maybe—after I was long gone and after you had died a natural death, what you are about to learn would be made public.

But if you are indeed reading this, it means I'm dead and so is Derr, and that all my plans have gone awry.

That's why I'm writing this. To set the record straight. In the locked-away journals you will find the same story unfolding on a day-to-day basis in far greater detail but with little or no perspective. (Backthen, if T d had the perspective I have now, I can't imagine that I would have gone so far.) This letter will give you the whole story in a nutshell.

What you are about to read will strain your credulity to the breaking point. If you do not choose to believe it, that is fine with me. Take these journals and this letter and burn them now without reading any further. Your secret will be safe. But since I know you better than anyone, I'm sure you will never settle for that. I know you will search and dig and chase and harry until you have all the answers.

That, after all, is just what I would do.

It started for me in 1939.

I'm sure the government had been mulling the idea for a few years before that. You didn't have to be Jewish to be uneasy about Hitler's saber rattling during the thirties, and his endless harangues about a Thousand-year Reich led by a purebred Aryan Master Race. They were upsetting to a lot of people in this country, myself included. The topic of eugenics (a term that has fallen out of usage these days but which refers to the improvement of the human race through selective breeding) was much on my mind then and, I imagine, the subject of not a few conversations at State Department cocktail parties.

Somewhere along the way the idea of researching the possibility of breeding a perfect (or, at the very least, superior) American soldier began to brew. It probably never would have amounted to anything if I hadn't written a letter to President Roosevelt on the subject in the summer of 1939, and if Hitler had stayed within his own borders.

I don't want to toot my own horn too much here, Jim, but I was quite a fellow in my heyday. I was born in 1901, so that meant I was not yet forty at the time, but I'd already made a fortune (and this was in the Great Depression, mind you) off my patented diagnostic procedures for commercial labs. I also had caused quite a stir among the biologists of the time with my papers on genetic manipulation through selective breeding and my private experiments on the in vitro fertilization of primate ova.

Oh, I was a cocky bastard back then. And why not? The world was my oyster. I'd never been poor, but by hard work and intuition I'd become independently wealthy while other people all around me were falling into financial ruin. It was a time when one man's mind could arm itself with all (and I do mean all,) the available knowledge in a field such as genetics and forge across the frontiers into virgin territory.

I had money, fame, and notoriety, and I lived the life of the rich bachelor to the hilt. So when I became concerned enough about Hitler cleaning Germany's genetic house (so to speak) on a national scale, I didn't contact any intermediaries. I wrote directly to the president. I told him that America could probably develop a genetically superior soldier without pogroms and detention camps. All it took was sufficient funds, commitment, and the right man to head the project: Roderick C. Hanley, Ph.D.

Little did I know that Albert Einstein was simultaneously writing a similar letter to Roosevelt regarding the development of an atom bomb.

As I said above, it all would have come to naught if Hitler had behaved. But his attack on Poland in September of that year spurred Roosevelt into initiating two secret research projects. The atomic project was code—named "Manhattan" and given over to Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, and Bohr. The eugenics project was assigned to yours truly and a very bright young M.D. named Edward Derr. Our project was called "Genesis."

I did not receive much in the way of funding, but that didn't matter. When the government appropriations fell short, I supplemented them with my own funds. I wasn't in this for the money. I had more than I could spend. I was in it for the doing!

It is so very important to me that you understand that part of my persona, Jim. This was new ground, virgin territory, terra incognita, like Roald Amundsen leaving the first human footprints in the snow at the South Pole. I wanted to be first. Some might call it the pioneer spirit, some might call it monomania. Call it what you will, I wanted to do what no man had done before.

Once I get started on a project, there is no stopping me. The Genesis Project was no exception. I even infected Derr with my mania. We worked like automatons, sometimes going days without sleep, weeks without stopping. The government wasn't pushing us. Pearl Harbor was still two years away. There was no time limit. We created our own pressure.

You see, in a way, we were trying to reinvent the wheel. Early on we looked at natural selection, which is the way Nature came up with the fittest species for an ecological niche, and tried to transpose that onto a fighting man. We quickly developed theories and possible solutions to the problem of breeding the supersoldier, all of which would take generations to prove.

So we discarded them.

I was dissatisfied with the very idea of breeding, anyway. At root no doubt in that dissatisfaction was my impatient nature. I wanted results now, not generations hence. But even more so, the capriciousness of genetic mixing seemed an unscalable barrier.

Let me give you a few basics.

Each human cell is diploid, which means it has 46 chromosomes. The combination and arrangement of genes on these chromosomes makes up the genotype, which in turn determines the phenotype, the physical expression of those genes; that is, the bodily characteristics of each individual person: sex, skin color, body type, even personality to some extent. If the presence of one gene was all that was required to make a supersoldier, there would be no problem— eugenics would give us a high success rate.

Unfortunately that is not the case. A supersoldier phenotype can only result from a highly specific and extraordinarily complex genotype, providing such characteristics as a large-framed skeleton, strong musculature, agile limbs, quick reflexes, high threshold of pain, an obedient, aggressive personality, and so on.

Here's where the whole breeding approach falls apart. You see, we mammals reproduce by joining a female gamete (an ovum) with a male gamete (a spermatozoon). Each gamete is haploid, meaning it has only 23 chromosomes (half the normal complement). When they join together, they form a brand-new 46-chromosome (diploid) person. The stumbling block for us would-be breeders is that when a diploid cell breaks up into two haploid gametes, we have no way of controlling which genes go into which gamete. The process is random. So anything is possible. This is a wonderful means of providing the human race with nearly endless variety within the parameters of our species, thereby allowing us to adapt to various environments and situations. But it is pure hell to someone trying to produce the same genotype and phenotype over and over.

So to give you an example, let's take Attila the Hun and mate him with Joan of Arc. We could get a strong, brave, ferocious, idealistic supersoldier. Or we could get a 98-pound anemic accountant. Attila and Joan, no matter how strong and brave and aggressive they each may be, have recessive anemic accountant genes hiding on their chromosomes. If we take from each a haploid gamete rich in recessive anemic accountant genes and pair them, we will get an anemic accountant. The pairing of any two random gametes from each could result in anything between the two extremes. The odds can be skewed in your favor by rigorous investigations of the family trees, but it's still a crapshoot. And since humans don't breed like mice or rabbits, it would take lots of luck and many generations to breed a supersoldier army.

What was needed was a way to move a desirable genotype intact (the word intact cannot be overemphasized here) from generation to generation. In other words, we had to find a way of creating identical twins (or triplets or quints, or what have you) a generation removed from the original.

We needed to produce a series of beings genetically identical to their parent. (Note the singular, please.)

Clones, if you will.

We had to learn how to clone a human being.

Now, when you remove yourself from the fray and sit back and consider it without emotion, that is a pretty frightening concept. But Derr and I were in the thick of the fray. We were filled with the passion and fervor of discovery. Nothing frightened us. Questions of ethics or responsibility were far from our minds.

The only question that mattered was: How?

A tissue culture was out. A human body is a complex system of many different tissues. We could not culture out individual organs and patch them together like a modern Frankenstein. What we needed was a way to induce a human ovary to form an egg with a nucleus that was diploid instead of haploid. The result would be cloning by parthenogenesis, and only females would result, but it would be a start.

Then a chance remark by Derr set us on the right track. He said, "Too bad we can't just get hold of some ova and plop the genotype we want into them."

It was one of those rare moments of shared epiphany. You look at each other with wide eyes, then leap up and jump around and begin shouting ideas back and forth like a couple of madmen. That was Derr and I.

Looking back now, I think that perhaps we truly were mad.

But it was a glorious madness. I can't describe the excitement we felt. And even now I wouldn't trade those times for anything. We shared a feeling of masterfulness. I'm not sure there is such a word, but if it doesn't exist, it should. We felt that we were on the verge of something epochal, that just beyond our questing fingertips lay the secret of mastering Creation.

And it was just the two of us. That was the most enthralling part of it. Only Derr and I had the Big Picture. We had technicians for the scut work, of course, but the duties of each were narrowly circumscribed. My three-floor town house was partially converted into two labs. Some worked in the third-floor lab, others worked in the basement lab. Only we knew where the sum of all the scut work was headed. The whole would truly be greater than the sum of its parts.

We started small. We looked for an aquatic, oviparous reptile with good-size eggs. We settled for an amphibian. That was Derr's idea. He had trained in Europe where frogs are frequently used for research. We obtained a supply of green frogs and some special pure-white albino frogs. We were ready to begin.

After much trial and error we perfected a microscopic technique of removing the haploid nucleus from the egg of a green frog and replacing it with a diploid nucleus removed from a body cell of a white frog. All the genetic information from the albino frog now resided in the egg cell from the green. The egg cell, in a sense, had been fertilized. After many failures and botch-ups, we eventually got it right. Soon we were awash in white tadpoles.

This was ground-breaking work that would have set the scientific community (and no doubt the religious and philosophical communities as well) on its ear. Think of it: We were reproducing without recourse to the sexual process! This was a mammoth achievement!

But we could not publish. Everything we were doing in Project Genesis was classified top secret. In a very real sense the government owned our work. I won't say it made no difference to us. It most certainly did. But we felt we could wait. We could not publish now, but someday we would. At that moment we were, quite frankly, much too busy even to consider wasting the time it would take to document our work for publication.

After perfecting our microtechnique we moved on to mammals. I won't bore you with the details of each species we tried—it's all recounted on a day-by-day basis in the gray journals—but suffice it to say that after a seemingly endless run of daily grinding work, we felt we were ready to tackle the human ovum.

Our first problem, naturally, was where to get the raw material. One does not simply send out to a laboratory supply house and order a gross of human ova. We were entering a very sensitive area. We would have had to tread softly even if we were on our own, but with the extra burden of security from the government, we felt hamstrung.

I then came up with the bright idea of letting the government help us out. I told our contact in the War Department that we needed human ovaries. Colonel Laughlin was one of the few in the entire government who knew of the existence of Project Genesis. He paused only a moment, then said, "How many?"

It wasn't long before we began receiving regular shipments of human ovaries in iced saline solution. Some were cancerous, but many were merely cystic and provided us with a small supply of viable normal ova. These we nurtured in a nutrient solution while we practiced our microtechniques.

We came to learn that the human ovum would not tolerate too much manipulation. The double trauma of removing the original nucleus and inserting another was apparently more than the cell membrane could stand. We ruptured one test ovum after another. So we devised a method of using ultraviolet light to inactivate the original genetic material within the ovum. We could then leave the old haploid nucleus where it was and insert the new nucleus right next to it in the cytoplasm.

Finally it came time to find the human diploid nuclei to transplant into the ova. This was going to be a problem. Along the way, as Derr and I progressed through a number of mammals toward human tissue, we had learned that we could not use just any nucleus from any cell in a mammal's body. Once a mammalian cell becomes fully differentiated (i.e., becomes a functioning part of the skin or the liver or any other organ), its nucleus loses its capacity to regenerate an entire organism. We had to go to the wellspring of the gamete, the diploid cell that divides into two haploid gametes: the primary spermatocyte. And to obtain those we would have to burrow into a healthy, functioning human testicle.

I volunteered myself.

Call it part of the madness that was upon us. Call it pragmatism as well. Colonel Laughlin sent us what testicular specimens he could, but none of them were suitable. Undamaged, undiseased testicles were difficult to come by.

Besides, I had a number of reasons for wanting my own genotype thrust into the ovum. The first might be called ego. I admit that without apology. This whole project was my idea. I wanted to see my work result in a new generation of Roderick Hanleys. The second was more practical: I had to be certain of the race of the donor genotype. Do not rear up on your egalitarian steed at this, I had my reasons, and soon you will understand them.

Through Colonel Laughlin we arranged for an army urologist to do a wedge resection on my left testicle under local anesthesia. (He tied off an annoying varicocele while he was there, so it was not a totally frivolous procedure from the surgeon's viewpoint.) Derr took the section and culled out the primary spermatocytes. With these living and thriving in their nutrient bath, we were ready to begin the next phase.

It was time to find an incubator—a woman who would host the manipulated ovum and bear the resultant child.

Derr and I had decided on a number of characteristics: She had to be young, healthy, and single, with a clockwork menstrual cycle. And she had to be Negro. As I alluded above, this final criterion was not prompted by a racist bias. It was based on solid, scientific reasoning. Our plan was to insert a diploid nucleus from one of my primary spermatocytes into a human ovum and, in turn, insert that ovum into the uterus of a human female. We had to be sure that the resultant child (if all went as hoped) had actually arisen from the manipulated cell.

My genotype is lily white. My parents came from the British Isles late in the last century and I doubt very much that anyone in my family tree had ever even seen a Negro, much less had sexual relations with one. Therefore, if after nine months our host mother gave birth to a male who exhibited the slightest hint of Negroid features, we could be quite sure that the child did not carry my genotype. (A female child would obviously not be ours, either.)

Although not exactly parallel, we were doing on human terms what we had done with the frogs when we started: inserting the genotype from an albino into an egg from a green frog. Just as a white hatchling was proof of our success with the frogs, a lily-white infant boy from a Negro womb would confirm our success with a human genotype. (Yes, I'm sure you can come up with a very rare exception, but we had to be satisfied with this level of control.)

Once we had proven we could do it, we would report our success to the government. The War Department could then begin its search for the man who would provide the genotype for the American supersoldier.

Finding the woman: That was left to me. And with good reason. Once Project Genesis started, I lived a virtually celibate life. There was no room in my life for sex, only the project, the project! Ah, but before that I was quite the ladies' man, the bon vivant, the Man About Town. I had many friends, high and low, who knew that no matter where or when they threw a party, Rod Hanley could be counted on to appear. I was known in the poshest night spots and the sleaziest dives. And I knew men who could supply women who would do just about anything for a price.

That is how we began our relationship with the amazing Jasmine Cordeau. I don't have any photographs of her, but if you could see her, you'd know what I mean. She was a stunning Negress. Her skin was as black as the night, and her figure was something every red-blooded male dreams of. Fresh from the bayous outside New Orleans, she migrated to New York and became a popular ecdysiast—stripteaser seems much too common a term for what she did on the stages of the uptown after-hours clubs I once frequented. But as the Great Depression steadily deepened despite two terms of grandiose promises from FDR, she had to turn to prostitution to make ends meet.

For a while, Derr and I gave her a respite from that.

I knew her "manager," who was acting as her procurer at the time. After a gynecological exam certified her free from venereal disease, I persuaded him to let us take and keep her for up to two years. He would be paid one thousand dollars per month for that period, no questions asked. He eagerly agreed. (If $12,000 a year seems like a princely sum now, please realize that it was worth much much more at the start of 1941.)

All we had to do was convince Jazzy, as she called herself. We met with her and explained what we wanted: She was to allow herself to become impregnated by us and to bear the resultant fetus to term. During the period in question she was to live with us in comfort and class, but under no circumstances could she leave my town house unless accompanied by either Derr or myself.

Jazzy was understandably reluctant at first. She was used to the fast life and, for obvious reasons, did not want to be pregnant. She was a stripper by profession and her body was her meal ticket. She was rightfully protective of it; she didn't want to get fat, and she didn't want stretch marks.

She didn't want to be a prostitute, either, but with the Depression hanging on as it was, she had no alternative. "A gal's gotta eat," she would say. We promised her she'd eat very well, that we would help her take good care of her body during the pregnancy, and that if she bore us the baby we planned, she would receive a bonus of $10,000.

She agreed.

We sent the technicians packing with a month's pay so that we would have the town house to ourselves.

We were ready to begin.

The procedure was relatively straightforward and simple. Derr and I would "fertilize" an inactivated ovum (see above) by extracting a diploid nucleus from one of my primary spermatocytes and inserting it into the ovum. When we had three successful transfers, we would save them until Jazzy entered the ovulatory phase of her menstrual cycle. Then she would get on the examining table and assume the lithotomy position. We would then insert a fine rubber tube through the os of her cervix and inject a solution containing the three "fertilized" ova into her uterus.

After that it was out of our hands. All we could do was hope that the one of the ova would find its way to the endometrium—the lining of the uterus—and attach itself. There was, of course, the theoretical threat of all three ova implanting and Jazzy bearing triplets, but neither Derr nor I was concerned about that. We knew we would be extremely lucky if just one implanted.

We first inseminated her in mid-December 1940. She menstruated on New Year's Day. We tried again in mid-January, but her period arrived right on schedule at the end of the month. And so it went, through the winter and into the spring. Each month we would hold our collective breaths as her period came due, and each month we would be disappointed by the cramps and menstrual flow.

She was due for a period in late April. By May 1st, she was late. I stopped believing in God when I was 8, but I remember saying silent prayers during that time. May 2nd and 3rd, still no show. Around midnight on May 3rd, however, she gave us a bad scare. She had been feeling tired and so she had gone to bed early. Suddenly the town house was shaken by her shrill, horrified screaming. We ran to her, and when we found her doubled up in her bed, clutching her. abdomen, we feared the worst—a miscarriage. But physically she was fine. The commotion proved to be the result of a particularly frightening nightmare. It must have been a lollapalooza because the poor thing's tremors were shaking the whole bed. It took us a long while, but finally we quieted her down and got her off to sleep again.

Four days late became a week late became two weeks late. Jazzy complained of breast tenderness and morning sickness. A pregnancy test was positive. Jazzy had not been out of the house for a minute, and neither of us had had sexual relations with her.

We had done it!

What a celebration we had! Champagne, caviar, and the three of us dancing to the radio like fools. Derr and I were acting like it was New Year's Eve because, in a way, we knew it was an eve of sorts—the eve of a new epoch for mankind. We were taking the first step toward eliminating the random factors from reproduction, toward allowing humanity a say in Creation, toward remaking humanity in our own design, in our own image.

I won't say we felt like gods, Jim, but we sure as hell felt like godlings.

The months crawled by. Jazzy grew restive, moody, became prone to temper tantrums and maniacal outbursts. We noticed personality changes. She didn't like being pregnant, and hated what was happening to her body. She threatened countless times to sneak out and have an abortion, so we kept a close watch on her; we pampered and cajoled her, telling her to hang on, that it was only until January, and after that she'd have a fat wad of money and would be free to go wherever she wanted.

I remember how, on certain nights when Jazzy was calm and would permit us, Derr and I would kneel at the sides of her bed as she lay there with her swelling abdomen exposed, and we would take turns with the fetalscope (which is like a regular stethoscope except that the cup is attached to a metal band that goes around the examiner's head, allowing him to listen via bone conduction as well as through the conventional earpieces), pressing it against her abdomen to count the faint, rapid beats of the tiny heart within.

And we would place our hands over her silky skin and feel the kicks and turns beneath it and laugh with wonder.

She had about a month to go when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor. It wasn't long afterward that we heard from Colonel Laughlin. He said that with the United States now officially at war with the Axis, strict priorities were being set for the allocation of all research funds. He informed us that if Project Genesis was to "remain viable" (he was so pleased with his little play on words) we would have to come up with something more than albino frogs; we would have to show real progress toward a supersoldier, or at least demonstrate something of military value.

(I learned later that almost all the available research money was being funneled into the Manhattan Project, and that Genesis never had a chance, anyway. Just as well.)

Without going into detail (I had learned through the years never to promise more than you are sure you can deliver; promise less, then deliver the knockout!), I told him that a major experiment was coming to fruition and that we should have the results in four to six weeks. He said that was stretching the time limit, but that he could keep the project open until the middle of January but no longer.

That was fine with us. Jazzy was due around the first of the year.

You can't imagine our excitement, the agony of the suspense as her due date approached. We were sure we were going to be successful. Even if the child were stillborn, as long as it was male and lily white, we would consider the experiment a complete success. And what outcome could there be other than complete success? We had implanted the altered diploid ovum ourselves, she had had no opportunity to become pregnant by any other means, the viable fetus inside her uterus could be nothing other than my clone, and yet…

And yet we still had our doubts. No one had ever done this before, or even attempted to do it. The idea that we might be the first in history to take such a momentous step was mind-numbing. We were looking immortality in the eye. Our names would be known the world over. Every history book written from this day forward would include our names, because what we were doing would shape history from this point on.

Something had to go wrong.

Neither of us were pessimists by nature, but we had the feeling that it was all going too smoothly. We kept waiting for a catastrophe. And it was the waiting that was killing me. Derr, at least, had his preceptorship in the obstetrical section at Flower Fifth Avenue to keep him busy. But while he was brushing up on the latest delivery techniques, I was home alone, baby-sitting Jazzy.

Finally, around dinnertime on January 5, she went into labor. Her membranes ruptured spontaneously. With a gush of warm fluid we were on our way.

There was little drama about the delivery itself. The contractions became longer and closer together, just as they should. Jasmine Cordeau had a generous pelvic structure; the child was in a normal cephalic presentation; as labor progressed at a steady pace toward delivery, we anticipated no problems. The only question hanging over us was: What will she deliver?

Finally, amid cries and moans, Derr delivered a head, and then an entire male infant. (Male! We were part of the way there!) He cut the cord, got him crying with a whack on the rump, then handed him to me for cleaning up. As I gently wiped the blood and membranes from his shivering, squalling body, my heart was thudding so hard and fast I feared it would break through my ribs. I examined him closely. His skin was red and mottled, as with all newborns, but he was Caucasian, as Caucasian as Derr or myself.

Myself.

I was holding myself! You were that infant, Jim, but you are me. I wasn't a new father holding a combination of himself and his wife. This child was all me! It was me!

I wrapped him up in the flannel blanket we had for him. He was a hairy little thing, hairy like me. Even had little tufts of hair on his palms. I wondered if I'd had hairy palms at birth. I thought of asking my mother, and then realized she was his mother too!

I held him (you, Jim) against me and I felt an enormous surge of emotion. Until that moment you had been just another experiment; a momentous one, I'll grant, but just an experiment, the culmination of the long process we had begun with frogs and run through rats and pigs. You were an experimental subject, a thing, an it. First an embryo, then a fetus, but never a person.

All that changed as I cradled your red, squalling little body in my arms. I looked into your face and the enormity of what we had done hit me full force. Suddenly you were a person, a human being with a whole life ahead of you. In a flash I saw what you could expect in the years to come as the world's first human clone. A childhood under the microscope and in the spotlight; a tortured adolescence as a freak, the butt of jokes, the object of bigotry, scorn, ridicule, and possibly the object of hatred by some of the world's more fanatical religious groups.

And after a youth filled with that sort of trauma, what sort of man would you turn out to be? What sort of tortured soul would you possess? I saw you hating me. I saw you wishing you had never been born. I saw you killing yourself.

I knew right then that I could not allow any of that to happen.

After Derr had delivered the placenta, I asked Jazzy if she wanted to hold you, but she wanted no part of you. She seemed afraid of you. After he gave Jazzy something for pain, I handed you to Derr. As he held your squirming little body he looked at me. There was wonder, joy, and triumph in his eyes. But there was a cloud there too. I remember our conversation as if it were yesterday.

"We've done it," he said.

"I know. But now that we have him, what do we do with him?"

He shook his head and said, "I don't know. I don't think the world is ready for him."

"Neither do I," I said.

We fed you a sugar-and-water solution, bundled you up in your bassinet, and talked long into the night. For the first time since we had begun Project Genesis, I think we had some perspective on what we had been striving for, and what we had achieved. We had been pulp-magazine mad scientists up to now. Your cries were a dose of sanity. But we still weren't agreed on where we should go from there. I wanted to tell Laughlin that we had failed utterly and urge him to scrap the whole project. Derr thought that was too precipitous. He thought I was exaggerating the public response to a human clone.

Our argument grew heated, and Derr stormed up to the second floor to check on Jazzy. Lucky he did. Because of our argument, tragedy was narrowly avoided.

He was only gone a moment when I heard him calling Jazzy's name. I went to the bottom of the stairs and asked what was wrong. Derr told me that she wasn't in her room. He was going to check the bathroom. I went upstairs to check on you, and that's where I found her. She was leaning over your bassinet. My first thought was that Jazzy's maternal instincts had finally fought their way to the surface. Then I noticed that she had a pillow in her hands and was pressing it down over your face.

With a shout I leapt forward and yanked her away. To my immense relief you immediately began to howl. I knew then that you were unharmed, but I had to fight to keep Jazzy off you. She was like a wild animal, eyes wide, foaming at the mouth, screaming in her Cajun-accented voice.

"Kill it! Kill it! It is a vile and hateful thing! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!"

Derr came in and helped me pull her away, then sedated her. As we locked her bedroom door I saw the look in Derr's eyes and knew that Jazzy's outburst was causing him to reconsider his position.

Her behavior was all the more shocking because, as far as we knew, Jazzy had no idea of what we had implanted in her uterus. I had been sure she thought us a couple of strange ducks, perhaps even a pair of pansies, who had impregnated her by artificial insemination (although I doubt very much those words were in her vocabulary). There was no explaining her bizarre, violent reaction to you, but the incident had united Derr with me in my opposition to letting the War Department know what we had accomplished.

We rented a hotel room for Jazzy and paid her her bonus. Derr visited her daily for the rest of the week, until she was completely recovered from the delivery. As soon as she was out of the house, I hired a nurse to take care of you.

After long deliberation we decided it would be best for you if we put you up for adoption. So we left you at the St. Francis Home for Boys in Queens. You know the rest of the story. You were adopted almost immediately by Jonah and Emma Stevens and taken to Long Island. We reported utter failure to Colonel Laughlin, turned in a set of phony experimental records, and were informed that Project Genesis was closed for good.

That should have been that.

But Jim, I could not let you go. You were on my mind constantly. I had to know how you were, how you were developing. You became such an obsession with me that in 1943I sold the Manhattan town house and moved to Monroe where I bought this old mansion. I lurked around the apartment house where the Stevenses first lived; when Emma took you shopping with her, I'd tag along behind and do some shopping myself, always watching you to see how you were doing, assuring myself that they were treating you right—that they were treating me right.

And I must confess to some scientific interest. (Don't be offended. Once a scientist, always a scientist.) I had a chance to satisfy my curiosity about the nature-or-nurture question: Which shaped us more, environment or heredity? I had been raised in an intellectual environment; although endowed with the physique for it, I never had much interest in sports. Although genetically identical to me, you were raised in a household where I doubt you ever saw anyone crack a book. As a result, you became a star football player. I thought that answered the question, but you also did extremely well academically in high school, were editor of the school paper, were accepted into college, and now I understand you are majoring in journalism. I recall my own intense interest in writing as a student.

The result of my years of observing my clone? Confusion. I have more questions now than when I began.

Does this sound cool and clinical? I hope not. But more than that, I hope you never read these pages. Derr and I have made a pact. We are the only two who know the combination to the safe where these records are hidden. We will never travel together. When one of us dies, the other will put these records into the hands of a law firm we have dealt with for many years. That firm will be instructed to keep the very existence of these records a secret until the day you die. After that, they will be published. You will be beyond hurting then. Who knows? Perhaps cloning will be commonplace by that time. If it is, all the better: Derr and I will smile in our graves, knowing that the scientific world will have to recognize us as the first.

I know all this is a shock of unimaginable proportions. But I'm sure you can handle it. Just remember: You were never supposed to know. And, having watched you all these years, I know you are wise enough not to make your origin public. On the other hand, I beg you not to destroy these records. Derr and I deserve our recognition someday. We are in no hurry. If you are reading this, it means we are both dead. So we can wait. We have time.

Please do not hate me, Jim. That would be akin to hating yourself. We are one. We are the same. I am you and you are me. And neither of us can change that.

Your older twin,

Roderick C. Hanley, Ph.D.

Twelve

1

It's a hoax!

Carol sat at the kitchen table, drenched in sweat, gaping at the last page of the letter. She flipped back through the journal's curling pages.

It has to be a hoax!

But in the deepest recesses of her heart and mind she knew that Hanley himself had written the letter—she knew his handwriting well enough by now—and that what he said was true. The detailed experimental records, the cache of photos, the yearbooks, the scrapbooks, all the contents of the safe supported his fantastic claims. But more than anything else, it was Hanley's reputation that weighed so heavily on the side of truth—if any man could have accomplished what was described in this letter, it was the Nobel prizewinning Dr. Roderick Hanley.

Jim was a clone! A clone! Roderick Hanley's clone!

God, this is a nightmare!

For Jim, not for her. The shock of it was numbing, frightening, but Carol forced herself to step back from it. And when she did, she saw that it really didn't matter to her, for it didn't change how she felt about Jim.

So he was a clone. So what?

He was still the man she had married, the man she loved. So what if he had Hanley's genes? She hadn't married a bunch of chromosomes; she had married a man. Jim was still that man. The letter changed nothing for her.

But oh, how it had changed things for Jim.

Poor Jim. So eager and full of hope as he had searched for his roots, only to find that he didn't have any. He had always been insecure about where he had come from—no wonder he had been acting so strange the past twenty-four hours.

It's not fair!

Carol was suddenly angry. How had this come to be? Jim never should have learned about this! Hanley had been right in his intent to keep Jim's origin a secret from him. What had gone wrong? The letter said—

Then she remembered: Hanley and Derr had been killed together in that plane crash.

What a strange twist of fate. He'd said they never traveled together. Yet they had been together that night. Which left no one alive to put the Project Genesis files into the hands of the lawyer he had mentioned. So they had been left behind for Jim to find.

Fate could be cruel.

But Carol's anger was not solely for fate. She was furious with Hanley and Derr. She looked down at the last page of the letter in the journal, still in her hands. One line caught her eye.

"I beg you not to destroy these records."

Why not? They should have been destroyed the day Hanley and Derr gave up Jim for adoption. If they had really cared about the child they had created, they never would have risked these records falling into the wrong hands. But no, they had kept all the damning evidence squirreled away.

"Derr and I deserve our recognition someday…"

That was the key. Vanity. Ego. Glory-seeking bastards…

Carol pressed her palms over her eyes. Maybe she was being too hard on them. They were pioneers. They had done something unique. Was it so bad to want the history books to chronicle that?

She realized suddenly that she couldn't hate them. Without them, there would be no Jim.

But poor Jim. What was she going to do about Jim? How was she going to get him back on his emotional feet again?

And suddenly she knew. She'd do what Hanley and Derr should have done in 1942—destroy this junk.

Jim would be furious, she knew, and justifiably so. After all, these records were a part of his legacy from Hanley. They belonged to him and she had no right to dispose of them.

But I have a right to protect my husband—even from himself.

And right now this letter and these journals were tearing him apart. They would destroy Jim if she didn't destroy them first. The longer they were around, the worse it would get. They'd be like a cancer, eating away at him day by day, hour by hour, until there was nothing left of him. Look at how he had been acting since last night! If this went on much longer, he'd be a wreck.

She looked around her. But how? If only the house had a fireplace. She'd set a match to the papers and watch them go up in smoke. That was the only safe way to go—incinerate the evidence.

Incinerate. Tomorrow was garbage day, the can out at the curb waiting for the pickup. First thing tomorrow the truck would come by, dump the can, and haul the load out to the county incinerator. That was it. Throw this stuff in the garbage where it belonged!

She got a brown grocery bag from the kitchen, dumped the journals and the letter inside, then tied it with string. Wrapping her coat around her, she hurried outside to the curb. But as she lifted the lid of the garbage can, Carol hesitated.

What if the wrapper got torn and one of the sanit men just happened to see the journals and read them? As remote as it was, the possibility chilled her.

And beyond that, this just didn't feel right. There were Jim's. As much as they were damaging him, he had a right to them.

What if she simply told him that she had thrown them away? Wouldn't that be just as good?

But she'd have to have a damn good hiding place to make that plan work. Where… ?

The crawl space! It was perfect! Nothing down there but pipes, footings, cinder blocks, and dirt. No one had been in there since the plumber they'd hired two years ago to fix a pipe. And Jim would never search there because he wouldn't be searching—he'd believe they'd gone up in smoke at the county incinerator.

Carol was excited now as she hurried around to the side of the house to the access door. Thank God that Monroe had such a high water table that crawl spaces were the rule rather than cellars. She squatted and reached between a pair of rhododendrons, searching for the handle on the hinged wooden board over the crawl space opening. The opening was small, about a yard wide and only half that in height. She grabbed the handle, lifted the board, quickly dropped the bundle inside, then eased the door back into place.

There, she thought, straightening and brushing off her hands. No one will read those now except the bugs.

The beauty part of this plan was that after Jim had blown his top and fumed over the loss of the records, he could get on with the task of accepting his origin and putting it behind him where it belonged. The journals would no longer be staring him in the face every day, gnawing at him, focusing his anxieties and insecurities. And when he had finally stabilized again—and Carol knew he would with her support—and put it all in proper perspective, maybe then, in a couple of years, she would return the journals to him. By that time they would be old news, and he would be better able to deal with them.

She hurried back to the front door to get out of the cold. Tomorrow was going to be rough after she told him her lie, but once the storm was over, it would be a new beginning.

Everything was going to be all right now.

2

Gerry Becker watched Carol disappear into the house.

What the hell was that all about?

First she comes out with a package, very furtively, then she goes around to the side of the house, kneels in the bushes, then comes out without the package.

Crazy.

But something crazy might be just what Gerry was waiting for. Stevens's wife was obviously hiding something. From whom? Her husband? The IRS? Who?

Gerry waited a few more minutes and saw the lights go out. He smiled. He'd give those two in the house a chance to settle into a nice deep sleep, then he'd go looking. He was good at finding things.

It wouldn't be long now.

Thirteen

Wednesday, March 6

1

Jim awoke stiff, sore, and nauseated, feeling like Charlie Watts had been using the back of his head for a bass drum. He hadn't slept a wink Monday night. He'd tried—he'd curled up on the couch under a blanket and hoped he'd doze off so he could wake up later and find that all this had been a bad dream. But sleep hadn't come. And so he'd lain there in the dark, tense and rigid, his mind racing and his stomach twisted into a tight, heavy knot until dawn had crept in and Carol had called. Only exhaustion and a few shots of JD had let him sleep last night. But he didn't feel the least bit rested.

This was no good. He was going to have to get a grip. He loathed self-pity and could sense that he was turning into some sort of woeful basket case.

But he had a right to be a basket case, dammit! He'd gone searching for the identity of his parents and discovered that he didn't have any. Worse, his own identity was in question now.

I'm not really me—I'm a piece of somebody else!

The knowledge was a weight in his chest, pressing down on his stomach. Why? Why me? Why couldn't he have had a mother and a father like everybody else? Was that asking for so much?

This was all so damn unreal!

He squinted in the bright morning sun pouring through the window. The clock read a little after eight. Almost reflexively he reached for the journals.

They weren't there!

He could have sworn he'd left them right here by his side on the couch. He jumped up and lifted the cushions. He looked under the couch, even unfolded the hidden mattress. Gone!

His heart thudding in his throat, Jim hurried down the short hall and across the living room toward the master bedroom. The smell of fresh coffee stopped him.

"Carol?"

"In here, Jim."

What was Carol doing home? She wasn't off today. Then it struck him: She must have taken the journals! She must have read them! No!

He rushed into the kitchen.

"Carol, the books! Where are they?"

She put down her coffee cup and slipped her arms around his neck. Her long, sandy hair trailed over the shoulders of her robe. She looked beautiful.

"I love you, Jim."

Normally this would have stirred his desire, but there was room in his mind for only one thing.

"The journals—did you take them?"

She nodded. "And I read them."

Jim felt as if the floor were giving way beneath him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Carol. I didn't know, really I didn't. I never would have married you if I'd known."

"Known what? That you were cloned from Hanley?"

Her eyes were so soft, so loving, her voice gentle and soothing. How could she be so calm?

"Yes! I swear I didn't know!"

"What difference does it make, Jim?"

"What difference? How can you say that? I'm a freak! A scientific experiment!"

"No you're not. You're Jim Stevens. The man I married. The man I love."

"No! I'm a piece of Roderick Hanley!"

"You're Jim Stevens—Hanley's twin."

"I wish! He took a piece of himself and stuck it in that whore and grew me out like a goddamn cutting from one of our forsythia bushes. You know—snip it off, stick it in the ground, water it enough, and you've got a new bush."

"Don't talk like—"

"Or maybe I'm not a cutting. I'm more like a tumor. That's what I am—a fucking tumor!"

"Stop it!" she cried, showing strong emotion for the first time. "I won't have you talking about yourself like that!"

"Why not? Everybody else will!"

"No they won't. I'm the only other person who knows, and I don't feel that way."

"But you're different."

"Well, I'm it. Because nobody else will ever know unless you tell them. And even then, they won't believe you."

She said it with a tone of such finality that Jim was afraid to ask the next question.

"The journals! Where are they?"

"Where they belong—in the garbage."

"Oh, no!"

He spun and headed for the front door.

"Don't bother," he heard Carol say behind him. "The truck came by at six-thirty."

Suddenly he was angry. More than angry. He was enraged.

"You had no right! No goddamn right! Those journals were mine!"

"I'm not going to argue that with you. They were yours but I threw them out anyway. If they haven't been fed into the incinerator yet, they soon will be."

She was so cool, so composed, so utterly remorseless. Her attitude of fait accompli infuriated him.

"How could you?"

"You gave me no choice, Jim. You were letting those journals eat you alive. So I got rid of them. You were going to let what they said ruin your life. I couldn't stand by and watch that happen. But now it's over and done. They're gone, and so you're going to have to take what you learned from them and pick up the pieces and go on from here. You've got to admit that's going to be easier if you don't have those journals staring you in the face all the time, if you don't keep going back to them time after time, looking for some sort of flaw that will prove them wrong."

She was right. The cool logic of her words was worming its way past his anger, damping it but not dousing it. After all, they had been his journals. His legacy.

"Okay," he said. "They're gone. Okay… okay…"

He kept repeating the word, walking around the kitchen in small circles. His thoughts were all jumbled up with his emotions. He couldn't separate them. If this had been someone else's problem, he was sure he would be calm and cool and completely rational.

But this is me!

"I did it for you, Jim," Carol said.

He looked at her eyes and saw the love there.

"I know, Carol. I know." But what did he really know? What could he be sure of now? "I just… I need to sort this out. I need to take a walk."

"You're not going back to that mansion, are you?"

"No. Just a little walk. I won't even leave the yard. I'm not running away. I just need to be by myself a bit. I won't be long. I just…"

He opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the backyard. The air was cold outside, but he barely noticed. Besides, he couldn't bring himself to go back inside to get a jacket. Not just yet. As he strode around the side of the house, he noticed that the cover on the crawl space entry had fallen out. He fitted it back into place and kept on walking.

2

As the door closed, Carol slumped against the stove and held back the tears. That performance had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

But it's going to work. It has to!

She hadn't slept a wink last night. Hour after hour she had lain awake planning how to handle this confrontation. Should she cry, beg his forgiveness for throwing the journals out, and make a thousand promises to make it up to him? Or should she simply apologize, admit she was wrong, and leave the rest up to him—put the ball in his court, so to speak?

Her heart had pulled for the easy way, urging her, in fact, to run out to the crawl space and bring those damn books back inside. She hadn't wanted the confrontation she knew the morning would bring. But she had to face it. This was too important to back away from.

She had chosen the second. And it hadn't been easy. The hurt and betrayal she had seen in his eyes had required every ounce of her will to keep her from blurting out where the books were hidden. But she had held on, resisting the urge to take him in her arms and coo to him and whisper that everything was going to be fine. Instead she had kept pushing him, almost goading him, to take the control of his life back into his own hands.

Would it work? She hoped so. She prayed she hadn't made the wrong choice.

3

Carol was sitting in the living room a short while later, waiting with her nails digging into her palms, when she heard the back door open. It was Jim. He came out of the kitchen and stood there looking all around the room, anywhere but directly at her. Finally, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, he walked over to where she sat and plopped down next to her on the couch. She noticed how badly he needed a shave. He didn't say anything for a while, just stared straight ahead.

Carol watched his troubled profile, aching to touch him, to throw her arms around him, but holding back, waiting for him to make the first move.

Finally, when the tension within her had reached the screaming level, he spoke.

"You shouldn't have thrown out those journals," he said, still staring straight ahead.

"I had to," Carol said as softly as she could. "I had no right, but I had to."

After a pause he said, "I thought about what you did. I think it was the right thing to do, and pretty damn brave."

She put her hand on his arm and ran it down to his hand; his fingers grabbed hers when she reached them.

"But neither of us can erase what we learned from them. That's there to stay, like a brand. It's—" His voice broke and he swallowed. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? I spent all those years trying to figure out who I am, now I've got to figure out what I am."

Carol saw a tear slide down his cheek, and her heart broke for him. She drew his head down onto her shoulder.

"You're my Jim. That's the who and what of you. That's all you have to be as far as I'm concerned."

He began to sob. She had never seen him cry, and she held him close, aching with the wonder of it. Finally he straightened and pulled away.

"Sorry," he said, sniffing and wiping his eyes. "I don't know what started that."

"It's okay, really."

"It's just that it's such a shock. I'm kind of torn up inside. Don't know which way to turn. Didn't mean to go wimpy on you."

"Don't be silly! You've been through hell these past few days. You've earned it."

"Did you really mean that… what you said about it not mattering? I mean, it matters a hell of a lot to me, so why doesn't it matter to you?"

"It doesn't change a thing. What we had before we have now—if you'll allow it."

His eyes searched her face. "You really mean that, don't you?"

"Of course! If I didn't, those journals would still be here and I'd be gone instead."

He smiled for the first time. "Yeah. I guess you're right." He grasped her hand. "Carol, if I can believe that, hold on to that, I think I can make it. The more I think about it, the more I see you were right to get rid of the evidence."

"Thank God!" she said and really meant it. "I thought you'd never forgive me!"

"Neither did I. But now I see that I've got to go on just as before. I can't let this thing own me. Only you and I know about it. I can live with that. I can adjust to being a… to being what I am."

Carol decided then that it would be a long, long time before she told him where the journals were hidden.

"Just go on being the same Jim Stevens I married," she said. "That's what's really important."

He smiled again. "You sure you don't want any changes? This is probably your only chance to put in your order."

"Just one, maybe."

"Name it."

"Next time something upsets you, don't keep it to yourself like you did this time. Share the load. We're partners in this. There shouldn't be any secrets between us."

He slipped his arms around her and squeezed, almost crushing her. Carol wanted to laugh and wanted to cry. He was back—her old Jim was back.

4

Grace sat in the last row in the basement of the Murray Hill brownstone and listened to Brother Robert's homily. Wednesday evening seemed an unorthodox time for a prayer service, but she found herself intrigued by these people who called themselves the Chosen. Especially Brother Robert. There was a magnetic quality about his ascetic appearance, such an air of wisdom about him, yet he was not distant. He exuded a love of God and humanity. And his speaking voice—strong, clear, wonderful, almost mesmerizing. He had been speaking for nearly an hour now, yet it seemed like no more than ten minutes.

Suddenly he stumbled over a word and stopped. He stood at the lectern and stared. For an awful moment Grace thought he was staring at her, then realized that his gaze was directed past her. She turned and saw a gray-haired stranger standing at the rear of the room.

Martin immediately rose from his chair near the front and approached the man.

"This is not a public meeting," he said indignantly.

The stranger seemed a bit confused, a little unsure of himself.

"I will go if you wish," he said. "But surely you would allow me to listen."

Grace suddenly recognized him. He was the man who had been standing across the street from this old brownstone last Sunday, watching them. What did he want?

She watched Martin. He seemed undecided as to what to do. They both turned and looked at Brother Robert.

Grace remembered how on Sunday the monk had inferred that the man was some sort of enemy, even though he obviously didn't know him.

"Martin," Brother Robert said, "we cannot deny someone the right to listen to the word of God. Please be seated, friend."

Grace stiffened as the man seated himself at the end of the last row, her row, just two chairs to her right. She kept her eyes straight ahead and listened to Brother Robert as he resumed his homily. But the monk was clearly distracted. He stumbled over some sentences, rushed through others, and was not nearly as effective as he had been before he was interrupted.

Grace risked a glance at the newcomer.

Close up like this, she realized how big a man he was, his large frame made even bulkier by a heavy tan double-breasted raincoat. There was the slightest hint of swarthiness in his complexion and the faintest of red highlights in his silvery hair. High cheekbones, a long straight nose, and no hint of jowls despite his years. He sat straight and tall with his big, scarred hands resting in fists on his thighs. A gold band encircled his left ring finger. And all around him, an aura of faded power.

He must have sensed her scrutiny, for he turned her way and gave her a faint smile that narrowed his blue eyes. Then he returned his attention to Brother Robert.

Grace felt the tension ease out of her. That smile… it had been as much to reassure her as himself. This was not a man to fear.

The service ended with Brother Robert's plea:

"Give us a sign, Lord. Reveal the Antichrist to us so that we may confront him with Your holy power."

Then all twenty or so of the gathered Chosen stood and said the Apostles' Creed and a Hail Mary while they held hands. The newcomer neither stood nor prayed. As before, Grace kept her hands to herself while she prayed with them.

Suddenly she felt a tingling in her face. She turned toward the stranger and began to speak to him. To her horror the words were not her own. The language was alien to her.

The stranger started in his seat, his eyes wide as he stared at her. She tried to stop herself, but her voice went on, uttering those strange, incomprehensible syllables.

"Stop that!" he said. "You don't know what you're saying!"

Members of the Chosen were turning to look at her. Brother Robert hurried up, beaming.

"The Spirit is with you, Grace! Don't fight it! Give praise to the Lord!"

"She's not praising anything!" the stranger said.

"You understand the tongue she's speaking?" Brother Robert said, his eyes wide.

Before he could answer, the words stopped and Grace's voice was once more her own. The stranger remained seated as the worshipers drifted out, staring at him as they passed. Soon only Grace, Brother Robert, Martin, and the newcomer remained in the room. Brother Robert approached his chair and stood over him.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Veilleur," said the gray-haired man. "And you?"

"Brother Robert from the Monastery at Aiguebelle." Neither offered to shake hands. "You understand the tongue? What was she saying?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Don't be so sure of that," Brother Robert said.

Martin stepped forward. "Why did you come here? Why have you been lurking outside, watching us?"

Veilleur's face was troubled. "I don't know. I sense something here. I seemed to be drawn to this group."

Grace tried to place his faint accent. It sounded vaguely British, and yet not like any she had ever heard.

"You are not one of us," Martin said with a certainty that brooked no argument.

"Quite true. But who is this 'us' you refer to? Why do you come together here?"

Brother Robert said, "We come to praise the Lord and to prepare ourselves to do battle with His enemy. The Antichrist is among us. We await a sign."

"The Antichrist?"

"Yes. The Evil One has taken on flesh."

Mr. Veilleur stared at Brother Robert, then at Grace, who felt the weight of his gaze like a blow.

"So… you know."

Brother Robert nodded. "Satan has come to try to claim this world for his own."

"I don't know about Satan. But something is coming. What I don't understand is why you people have been touched."

Martin stiffened. "What do you mean, 'touched'? We are as sane as anyone else—saner, in fact!"

"I meant sensitized, alerted, made aware. Why you people in particular?"

"Why not?"

"Because you make a pitiful defense force."

"And I suppose you think you should lead us?" Martin said.

Mr. Veilleur's smile was sour as he shook his head. "No, I want no part of this. I'm out of it. In fact, I thought it was all over."

"It's never over," said Brother Robert.

"Perhaps you're right. I suppose I should have known that. But I'd hoped it might be."

"What are you talking about?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Brother Robert's eyes narrowed as he spoke in a low voice. "I have traveled far. I have looked into places good men were never meant to see. I have read the forbidden books—"

"Is that proper for a man of the cloth?" Veilleur said.

" 'Know thine enemy' is a wise saying. God may work in the world in many guises, but so does the devil. I have exposed myself to hideous evils and have turned away from them, never having the slightest temptation to release myself to what they offered."

Veilleur appeared to be studying Brother Robert. He nodded respectfully. "But one cannot tread those coals and emerge unscorched."

"True. The experiences have left me… sensitized, as you say. It is as if I've developed an extra sense, something like a sense of smell for the devil's work. And the stench of him is heavy here."

"Not here, exactly," Mr. Veilleur said. "Farther to the east."

Brother Robert stared at him. "You too?"

"As your friend here said"—he nodded toward Martin—"I am not one of you."

"I know that," Brother Robert said. "And yet… you are."

"Was. I was, but no longer."

As Mr. Veilleur stood, Grace stepped back. He seemed to tower over the three of them.

"Please tell me," Grace said. "What language was I speaking?"

"The Old Tongue."

"I've never heard of such a thing," Martin said.

"No one has spoken it for thousands of years."

"I don't believe you!" Martin said.

"Hush, Martin," Brother Robert said gently. "I believe him."

Grace looked into Brother Robert's eyes and for the first time sensed the enormity of the events taking shape around her. It made her weak. She turned to Mr. Veilleur. His eyes had a faraway look. He spoke, more to himself than to them.

"I don't know where he's been hiding these years, but now it seems he's found a way back."

"Satan has never been away," Brother Robert said. "But now he has taken human form for an all-out assault on humanity."

"Satan?" the man said. "Did I mention Satan?" He shrugged. "Never mind. The fact remains that you're going to need help."

"What kind of help?" Grace said.

"I don't know. Once there was someone, but he's gone. Now…"He paused and looked from Grace to Brother Robert to Martin. "Perhaps someone in your group is the key."

"Who?" Brother Robert said. "How can we tell?"

Mr. Veilleur turned and headed for the door. "I haven't the foggiest. But he'll have to be someone special. Someone very special."

And then he was gone, leaving Grace staring at Brother Robert and wondering who it might be.

Fourteen

Friday, March 8

1

"What's that song you're whistling, Father?"

Bill looked up and saw Nicky standing on the far side of his desk, all dressed and ready to spend the weekend with the Calders.

"A real oldie called 'It's a Great Day.' "

"What's so great about it?"

"Everything, Nicko. Everything. The sun's out, the work week is almost over, spring is only two weeks away. A great day from morning till night."

He felt almost giddy and had to rein in his feelings before they ran away with him. He couldn't share the details with Nicky just yet, but he had a feeling that come Sunday night they'd both have reason to celebrate.

Bill reached over his desk and straightened Nicky's tie. It was too red and too narrow to be fashionable, and it hung down below his tightly cinched belt, but it was the cleanest of the three red ties available. The collar of the white shirt was too big for his scrawny neck, and the sleeves of the blue blazer were too short for his gangly arms. The same was true of the gray slacks, which showed too much white sock below the cuffs.

All in all, a sight to give a Brooks Brothers salesman a case of the vapors, but it was the best they could do out of that motley collection of hand-me-downs and better-quality donated clothing they called the dress-up closet. But then again, Bill didn't want the kids going out on their home visits looking too well dressed. Nicky's attire screamed, Give this boy a home! And that was probably all to the good.

He was clean, that was the important thing. His dark hair had been washed and combed up in the front, which was a mixed blessing in a way—although it camouflaged some of the more misshapen aspects of his skull, it exposed more blackheads on his forehead. He had play clothes and some clean underwear in the battered canvas satchel on the floor beside him.

"Nervous?" Bill said.

"Nah. I've been to lots of these."

"No, sweat, ay? Just a cool cat taking off for the weekend."

"Okay." Nicky's smile was slow and shy. "Maybe a little nervous."

"Just be yourself."

His eyes lit. "Really?"

"On second thought…"

They both smiled at their private joke.

The intercom buzzed. "The Calders are here," said Sister Miriam's voice from the front office.

"We're on our way."

He took Nicky's satchel and placed an arm on his shoulder as he led him down to the first floor.

"This is it, kid. Strut your best stuff for these people and you'll be in Fat City."

Bill felt Nicky's arm go around his back and hug him.

2

Bill waved good-bye to Nicky as the Calders drove away with him in the backseat of their new Dodge, then hurried back to his office and pulled the letter from under the desk blotter. It had arrived this morning from the Maryland Provincial and he must have read it and reread it a dozen times since then. Loyola High School in Baltimore had a spot for him! He would have preferred Loyola College, but at least this was a step in the right direction. He could report there on June 1, and come September he could begin as an instructor in the religion department… if he still wished to trade his current post for that of high-school teacher.

Wished? He was dying to get out of his current post!

And what a great location they were offering him! Just forty-five minutes down the Baltimore-Washington Expressway and he'd be in the capital, right in the heart of the action. There was always something going on in D.C., such as the new civil-rights bill before the Senate right now.

And it would put him far away from Carol. A few hundred miles would serve to cool his night thoughts. Maybe then he could get some sleep.

He kissed the letter and slipped it back under the blotter.

Nicky's going to find himself a home, and I'm going to rejoin the human race.

He began humming "Everything's Coming Up Roses."

3

The ground was thawed and the weekend was promising to be a warm one, so Jonah decided to get an early start on the garden. Come Friday afternoon most weeks he was bushed by the time he got home from the plant. But lately he had been full of life, bursting with energy, and the vegetable garden was as good a place as any to work some of it off. Maybe he'd be able to bring in some lettuce this year.

The first thing he was going to do, though, was set up a decent perimeter fence to keep the rabbits out. He would have loved to set up coils of razor wire to shred the greedy little rodents as they hopped into the garden, but the neighbors would raise a fuss when the same thing happened to their wild little bastards as they took their usual headlong shortcut through his backyard.

So he'd have to settle for chicken wire.

He planned to set up a two-by-four post at each corner of the garden, then string the mesh between it. Three feet would be more than high enough.

He began digging the hole for the first corner post. About eighteen inches would do it. Jonah liked the slicing sound the spade made as he jammed it into the soft earth, loved to feel the countless rootlets part beneath the blade as he drove it deeper into the ground with his foot. There was something delicious in disrupting the delicate balance below. Years of interplay; of give-and-take between the soil, the nutrients, the bacteria, the insects, and the vegetation—all altered forever with the thrust of a shovel.

When he had dug down about a foot, the dirt began to turn red.

Strange. He hadn't known there was any clay around here. And then he saw that it wasn't clay but a red liquid seeping up through the soil. He lowered himself to his hands and knees for a closer look. He sniffed.

Blood.

Jonah's pulse suddenly picked up as a shudder of elation raced through him. This wasn't a hallucination. This was the real thing. Another in a long line of signs he had been gifted with throughout his life.

Breathless, he watched the thick red fluid well up in the hole until it reached the rim, then ooze off into the garden in a thin, slow rivulet. Jonah would have liked to have let it fill the garden, to watch it cool and clot as dusk fell, but there were no secrets in these tiny, crowded backyards around here. It wouldn't do at all to have the neighbors wondering what had happened in the Stevenses' yard.

Reluctantly he began shoveling the earth back into the hole, stoppering the crimson flow. When the sod was back in place, he stepped back, reined in his excitement, and stood there thinking.

Blood flowing in his backyard. How else could he interpret that but as a harbinger of death, the death of someone close to his home? It was also a sign that events were gathering speed, and that he should not waste his time tilling the earth.

Fifteen

Saturday, March 9

1

Bill was reading his daily office in his room when the phone rang, startling him. Only a handful of people had his private number, and when they called, it was usually with bad news. So he was especially worried when he recognized Jim's voice.

"Jim! Is something wrong?" he said in a rush, remembering Carol's anxious call on Tuesday and Jim's vaguely hostile reception of his offer of help. Was Carol all right?

"No. Everything's fine, Bill. Really fine. I just wanted to apologize for acting so weird when you called me the other day."

"It's okay," Bill said, feeling his muscles uncoil. "We all get uptight now and again."

It was good to hear Jim sounding like his old self.

"Yeah, well, the will, the inheritance, the mansion, everything sort of combined to do a number on my head. Got me all bent out of shape. But I've got everything back in perspective now and I feel a whole lot better."

During the small talk that followed, Bill noticed that Jim danced away from anything that had to do with Hanley or the inheritance or who his mother might be. He gathered from Jim's too casual air and uncharacteristic use of jargon that he hadn't climbed completely out of the pressure cooker yet. He was dying to ask if he had learned anything about his mother but remembered how coolly that subject had been received on Tuesday, so he kept mum.

After hanging up, Bill sat by the window thinking how sad and ironic it was that just as he was reestablishing contact with an old friend, he was preparing to move a couple of hundred miles away.

And he was moving away. Old friend or not, Bill wasn't going to let anyone keep him here at St. F.'s. Nothing was going to delay his departure now that the Provincial had found a teaching spot for him.

He sat a while longer at the window, feeling unaccountably blue. What was wrong? Certainly he wasn't going to miss this place:

Then he realized that this was the time he usually played chess with Nicky. It seemed empty without him here scratching his misshapen head and picking his blackheads. But that was soon to be a part of the past. Nicky would be adopted by the Calders and Bill would be on his way to Baltimore.

He was about to return to his breviary when he noticed a late-model blue Dodge pull up to the curb in front of St. F.'s. It looked familiar. Just like—

Oh hell!

Nicky got out of the car and ran up the front steps, disappearing from view. Professor Calder got out of the driver's seat and followed him at a much slower pace. Bill quickly shrugged into his cassock and hurried downstairs.

Professor Calder was already on his way out when Bill arrived.

"What—?"

The professor waved him off. "It's not going to work," he said over his shoulder.

"Why not? What happened?"

"Nothing. He's just not right."

And then he was out the door and gone.

Bill was stunned. He stared at the slowly closing door in mute confusion, then turned to Nicky who was leaning against the far wall, looking at his shoes.

"What did you do this time?"

"Nothing."

"Bull! Let's hear it!"

"I caught him cheating at chess!"

"Oh, come on, Nicky! Give me a break!"

"It's true! Everything was going great until we started playing chess. I was winning with that bishop's gambit you showed me. He sent me out to the kitchen for another cup of hot chocolate, and when I came back, he had moved his queen's knight one square to the left."

"And you accused him of cheating?"

"Not right away. I just told him that the knight wasn't where it was when I'd left the room. He got all huffy and said, 'I'm sure you're mistaken, young man.' "

"Then what?"

"Then I called him a cheat!"

"Damn it, Nicky!" Bill felt his anger shooting straight to the boiling point, but he kept a lid on it. "Did it ever occur to you that you could be mistaken?"

"You know I don't make mistakes like that!" Nicky said, tears starting in his eyes.

That did it. Bill picked up Nicky's duffel bag and shoved it into the boy's arms. His jaw ached as he spoke through his teeth.

"Get out of the good clothes, put them back in the dress-up closet, then go to your room and stay there. Don't show your face till dinner."

"But he cheated!" Nicky said, his lips quivering.

"So what! Are you so damn perfect you can't overlook that?"

Nicky turned and ran toward the dormitory.

Bill watched him go. Then, for lack of anything better to do, he headed for his office. Once there, he lifted the blotter, pulled out the letter from Loyola High School, and sat there staring at it.

Damn, damn, damn!

He felt like a heel for yelling at Nicky like that. If there was one thing you could say about that kid, it was that he didn't lie. Another thing you could say was that his memory was damn near perfect—eidetic, in fact. He could picture entire pages of a book in his mind and read the text back verbatim. So Bill knew that if Nicky was concentrating on a chess game, he would have the position of every piece etched in his mind.

Which meant that Professor Calder had cheated.

So… the prof was a pompous toad whose ego wouldn't allow him to be defeated in chess by a bright ten-year-old kid, and Nicky was stupid for not letting the guy have his petty, tainted victory. And Bill had promised to stay on at St. Francis until Nicky was adopted.

What a screwed-up mess!

In spite of himself, he had to admire Nicky's intellectual honesty in calling Professor Calder out. Maybe he didn't want to be adopted by a phony and a cheat, but for chrissake, everybody made compromises in life! Nicky could have looked the other way!

His frustration finally reached the overflow point. With an angry growl Bill balled up the letter from Loyola High and bounced it off the far wall of his office.

I'm never getting out of here!

Which might not be an exaggeration, he realized. If he turned down this post, who knew when he'd get another offer of a teaching job?

There was only one thing to do: Take the job.

He scouted the floor of his office, found the letter, and flattened it out on the desk. He knew he had made a promise to Nicky, but he couldn't be bound by it if Nicky wasn't going to hold up his end. Maybe Nicky didn't want to leave St. F.'s. Okay, that was fine. But Bill Ryan wasn't going to rot here in Queens when there was so much to be done out there in the real world.

He began composing the letters he would have to write.

Sixteen

Sunday, March 10

1

You walk through the moaning forest outside Targoviste and revel in its beauty. Its splendid trees straddle the road that leads to the south, the road on which the Turks will approach. A young forest, only a few days old, yet numbering twenty thousand trees. When you grip the trunk of one of its saplings, the tips of your thumb and middle finger meet on the far side.

The wind does not sigh through the boughs of this forest. It screams.

Twenty thousand saplings, all freshly planted. Never have you experienced such a concentrated dose of agony. It is making you lightheaded, giddy. You lift your gaze to the upper levels of this forest where dear Vlad's impaled enemies—real and imagined, men and women and children, dead and dying, Romanians, Turks, Germans, Bulgarians, and Hungarians— all await Muhammad II.

It is a still forest, this. Although cries of pain fill the air, there is little or no motion among the boughs. For each victim has learned of the agony beyond bearing that attends the slightest movement. In their subjective time the nightmare started an eternity ago, when a long, sharp—but not too sharp—stake was driven deep into an anus or a vagina or down a throat, or simply poked through the abdominal wall, after which the hapless man, woman, or child was hoisted into the air upon that stake, which was then planted along the side of this road.

In the fortunate ones, the point of the stake quickly found a vital organ or artery, and death rescued them. You curse their limp, silent, blissful death. But in so many others, the stake moves more slowly, in short hops, remorselessly forging a path of torture through the innards as the weight of the body pulls it relentlessly downward. Sometimes there is a respite of sorts, as when the point lodges against a bone and its progress is halted. Then every movement, even the slightest shudder of pain, must be avoided. And a breeze is the most dreaded thing of all.

You hear soft whimpering from just above your right shoulder. The pain-mad eyes of a young girl look down at you pleadingly. Evidently the stake within her has run up against something that will not let it pass. The eyes beg for help. You smile. Yes, you will help. You grasp the stake and shake it violently. You are rewarded by hoarse, mindless screeching as her body suddenly slips three inches lower. Blood rushes down the stake and runs over your hand.

You lick your fingers…

Carol awoke and ran to the bathroom, retching uncontrollably. These dreams! Tonight's was the worst, the sickest, the most real of all! What was wrong with her? Please, God! These dreams… when were they going to stop?

2

She was feeling better now, but the lingering memory of the dream had left her queasy. They'd run out of milk, so she'd gone down to Stan's Market for a quart, but now the waxed container sweated unnoticed in one hand along with the five-dollar bill and the box of Entenmann's doughnuts in the other as she stood at the counter and stared at a headline on one of the tabloids. She felt her mouth go dry as she read the words that filled The Light's entire front page.

WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTIST LEAVES ESTATE TO SELF!

Oh, my God, it can't be!

She dropped everything on the counter and snatched up the tabloid, praying it was just an awful coincidence, just another crackpot tale to go along with The Light's usual UFO, eye-injury, and freak-show contents.

"Story on page three" read the small print in the lower right corner. Her hands trembled as she opened the paper.

Please don't let it be!

But her prayer went unanswered. She almost screamed when she saw the byline, "by Gerald Becker."

"Everybody's reading that," said the redheaded, gum-cracking lady behind the counter. "Wished I had twice as many, the way they're selling."

Carol barely heard her. She saw the name Hanley in the first line and the word clone in the second, and then she was crushing the paper against her chest as her feet carried her toward the door.

"Hey!" said the woman. "Y'forgot—!"

Carol managed to say, "Keep the change!" and then she was out the door and running for the car. She had to get home, had to get to Jim with this before someone else did.

As she raced through downtown Monroe, one word kept echoing in her head.

How? How had Becker found out? How?

After pulling into the driveway she ran around to the other side of the house and pushed the rhodos aside. The access cover to the crawl space was still closed. She pulled it open and stared in horror at the sandy emptiness. There was a flattened spot on the sand where she had left the journals, but the journals were gone!

She rushed inside and found Jim sitting in the easy chair. His pale face and stricken expression were like a knife ripping into her chest.

"Somebody left this on the front step," he said, holding up a copy of The Light.

"Oh, Jim—"

"How, Carol?" he said, looking at her with eyes that were so full of hurt she wanted to cry.

"Jim, I didn't!"

"Then how did Becker get hold of this stuff? He's got passages in his article that are practically word for word out of Hanley's letter to me. How could that be if the journals were incinerated as you said?"

The phone rang, startling her. It sat at Jim's elbow but he ignored it. As she started toward it he said, "Leave it. It's just some reporter from one of the New York dailies wanting to know if the story is true."

"Oh." This was awful and getting worse.

"You haven't answered my question, Carol. How?"

"Because I didn't really throw them away!"

Jim rose slowly from the chair.

"What?"

"I—I only told you that so you wouldn't go looking for them. Actually I hid them in the crawl space until—"

He took two steps toward her. "You mean, you lied to me about throwing them out?"

"Yes. You see—"

He came closer, his eyes angry now, almost wild. And that damn phone kept ringing and ringing.

"You lied then, but you're telling the truth now?"

"Yes."

His expression had become so fierce it frightened her.

"How do I know you're not lying now?"

"Because I wouldn't!"

"But you already did!" He thrust the headlines of The Light to within inches of her nose and shouted, "Will the real Carol Nevins Stevens please stand up and tell me why she did this to me?"

Carol couldn't hold it in any longer. She began to cry.

"But I didn't, Jim! This isn't fair!"

The phone stopped ringing.

"Well, we agree on that, at least," he said in a softer voice. He pointed to the paper. "I know you didn't intend this, but you've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do."

She told him everything—from reading the journals to hiding them in the crawl space to confronting him the next morning with her fabricated story.

"I wish now they had been burned."

"So do I! Oh, you don't know how I wish that! But they were yours. It just didn't seem right."

"Yeah. Mine." He sighed. "I think I'll go over to the mansion for a while."

"No!" she cried as he turned and headed for the door. "Don't run away from this. We can handle it together!"

"I'm sure we can. I'm not running away from anything. I've just got to be alone for a while. Just a few hours. I've got to figure out how I'm going to handle this"—he tapped his forehead—"up here. Then we'll face the world together—if you're still with me."

"You know I am."

His face was a tight mask. "Okay. I'll see you later."

And then he was out and moving down the front walk. As she watched him go, Carol felt as if a noose were tightening around her throat.

This was all her fault. God, how had she gotten them into this? And how were they ever going to get out?

Behind her, the phone began ringing again.

3

Bill sat in his office and sipped a second cup of coffee while flipping through the Sunday Times. This was his favorite part of the week. The boys were all at breakfast and it was quiet. He had said early Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes and now had some time to himself. It was especially pleasurable today because "The Week in Review" section was full of news of the coming New Hampshire primary, just two days away, and how McCarthy was gaining on President Johnson. Not that anyone thought he could actually defeat the incumbent, but if he could make a decent showing, it could possibly influence the rest of the campaign and maybe the Democratic Party's stand on the war when convention time came around.

Bill sighed and stared out the window. More than ever, he wished he could be in New Hampshire for the next seventy-two hours. That wasn't to be. And he wasn't going to get near any of the other primaries if he didn't get on the stick and write those letters to the New York and Maryland Provincials.

He rolled a piece of paper into the old gray Olympia portable his folks had given him as a high-school graduation gift and began banging away. He was halfway through the first letter when he was interrupted by a timid knock on his office door.

"Father Ryan?"

It was Sister Miriam.

"Yes, Sister? Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure." She held a folded newspaper in her hand and seemed unusually reticent. "Wasn't that friend of yours who was here a few weeks ago—the one who wanted to go through the records—wasn't his name Stevens?"

"Sure. Jim Stevens."

"Isn't he the one who inherited the Hanley estate?"

"That's him. Why do you ask?"

"Now, mind you, Father, I'm not the sort to buy this kind of trash on a regular basis," she said, unfolding the tabloid and extending it toward him, "but this paper has some very strange things to say about your friend and Dr. Hanley."

Bill took the paper and frowned when he saw the logo, The Light, and its notorious left ear, "The News That Hides From the Light of Day Can't Escape The Light." Sister Miriam was an exemplary member of the Sisters of Charity, but she had an addiction to gossip magazines and tabloids. The Light was just about the cheesiest member of the latter category.

"Jim Stevens is in here?" he said, opening to page three.

"I think that's who they're talking about."

He scanned the first paragraph and saw Jim's name, Roderick Hanley's, and Monroe, Long Island, mentioned. It looked like a long article.

"Can I give this back to you later, Sister?"

"Of course," she said in a conspiratorial tone, no doubt thinking she had won a convert. Then she left him alone with The Light.

Fifteen minutes later Bill had finished the article and was up and pacing his office, feeling rocky.

Bullshit! All bullshit! Has to be!

But the paper had to have a damn near unimpeachable source to dare print something this far out. Otherwise Jim would sue it for every cent it had. And then there was the matter of Carol's call last week, about Jim being so upset as he traced his mother's identity. Of course he would have been upset—if this article was true, it meant he didn't even have a mother. Or a father, either, for that matter!

What am I saying?

Of course it wasn't true! How could it be true? This was the stuff of science fiction!

But then again, Jim had been terribly upset on Tuesday.

Good Lord! He wondered if Jim had seen the article yet. Bill didn't want to be the one to tell him about it, but he wanted to be available if Jim needed a friend. And he was going to need a friend or two when the big papers and television got hold of this.

And what about Carol? She was probably hurting as much as Jim.

He dialed Jim's number but the line was busy. After three more futile tries he knew he had to get out to Monroe. Something told him he was going to be needed there.

4

The Sunday meeting was late getting started. Brother Robert wasn't here yet, and if he didn't show soon someone would be asked to start it in his place. Grace hoped no one asked her to speak. She wouldn't know what to say. She glanced around the room at the small, chatting groups. There seemed to be an air of expectation among the Chosen. Martin was paler than usual, and seemed especially tense. She felt it herself and could see it in the eyes of the others. Only the strange Mr. Veilleur seemed immune to it. He was sitting by himself in the last row, in the same spot as Wednesday, staring off into space.

Suddenly Brother Robert burst in, his eyes bright and feverish, his face flushed. He was waving a newspaper.

"This is it!" he cried, waving the tabloid in the air. "The sign we have been waiting for! It has come!"

He rushed by her to the front. The aura of peace and tranquillity that usually enveloped him was gone. His movements were abrupt as he squared himself behind the lectern. His usually soft brown eyes glinted in the fluorescent light. He radiated nervous energy as he began making the sign of the cross without waiting for the Chosen to be seated.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, bless this gathering.

"Friends! We've all been touched by the Spirit in a special way. We've been privileged to be made aware of the incarnation of the Evil One, the Father of Lies, the Antichrist, who would undo all the work of the Son of God and his followers and his Church, who would plunge the world into eternal darkness. We have sensed his presence, but we haven't known in what guise he would come."

Brother Robert held up the front page of the newspaper. Grace recognized The Light.

"Now we know!

"The story revealed in these pages is a fantastic one, an incredible one, one I'm sure will be dismissed as deranged confabulation because of the very nature of the story itself, and because of its trashy source. But let me tell you, friends, the story is true!

"How do I know? Because the Spirit was with me this morning as I passed a corner newsstand. The Spirit drew my attention to these headlines, urged me to pick up the paper and read it. And as I read the article inside I knew that each word was true!"

Brother Robert rolled up the paper and began slapping it against his left palm as he went on.

" 'God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.' " He allowed his Son, Jesus, to be born into the family of a poor carpenter. He allowed a prostitute, Mary Magdalen, to comfort His Son as He carried the Cross to his destiny. And He has chosen a humble, much-maligned tabloid to reveal to His Chosen the identity of the Antichrist.

"The Light tells of the story of a scientist who, with the typical arrogance of all scientists who think man's puny mind capable of unraveling the mysteries of God's nature, decided to play God. This man perverted God's scheme for the reproduction of humankind and, in an arrogant attempt to usurp the power of God, caused a vile abomination to be born. This scientist took a piece of his own flesh, and from it grew another human being! He called this thing a 'clone'—an exact replica of himself. Yes! He played God by creating another being in his own earthly image!"

Grace gasped. How could such a thing be possible? She glanced over to where Mr. Veilleur sat. She noticed that for the first time since his arrival he seemed interested in what was being said. Very interested. He was leaning forward in his seat, his eyes intent on Brother Robert.

" 'But what does this have to do with the Antichrist?' you say. Let the Spirit flow into your mind as I did, and you will see that the creature resulting from this blasphemous experiment is not a man! Oh, he may look like a man, he may act like a man, and he may speak like a man, but he is a hollow thing with no soul! No soul! For how can he have a soul? He is not a new human being, born of man and woman, and therefore the possessor of a new soul. No! He is a mere collection of cells donated by a scientist playing God! And as such, he is a perfect vessel for Satan! The Evil One has entered his soulless body and is ready to begin subverting the salvation brought to us by Jesus Christ!"

The Chosen broke out in cries of astonishment and concern. Grace kept to herself. She wrapped her arms around her against the chill that was slowly seeping through her body.

"Consider carefully," Brother Robert went on. "The Spirit has made us aware of the Antichrist during the past month. We have felt its loathsome presence. According to this article, it was four weeks ago today that this scientist died in a plane crash."

A month ago today? In a plane crash? That had a familiar ring to it. Grace's chill deepened.

"When his will was read, it was discovered that the scientist had left his entire fortune—many millions of dollars—to a young stranger who looks exactly like he looked in his younger days. A record of the scientist's blasphemous experiments was found among his papers. They tell the whole hideous story."

Grace was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the scenario Brother Robert was outlining. It sounded too much like…

"And doesn't it strike you as strange, and so very convenient for the Heir—for that is what I call him—the Heir to Evil. Wasn't it convenient for the Heir that his creator died just as we were becoming aware of the menace of the Antichrist? Wasn't it convenient that this soulless creature suddenly became wealthy beyond one's wildest dreams? That suddenly he possessed financial power that could soon be parlayed into greater wealth and influence, influence that could be brought to bear on mankind?

"Am I the only one who sees something more than mere chance at work here?"

There was a chorus of nos from the Chosen. Grace glanced at Mr. Veilleur and found him looking her way. His expression was grave.

"I fear your Brother Robert may be right," he said to Grace in a low voice. "Righter than he knows."

Brother Robert went on. "Who knows what plans the Evil One has to destroy the work of the Son of God and His followers? I'm sure none of our most deranged nightmares can touch the hem of the foulness he has in store for us.

"But there is another hand at work here. One that has singled us out as leaders in the fight against this abomination. Soon the world will know him as the clone of a dead scientist. But we know that he is more—much more. We know him as the Antichrist, and it is our task to stop him!"

"But how?" said Martin from the front row.

"Expose him!" Brother Robert cried, rapping the lectern with the rolled tabloid. "Let the world know who he is! Forewarned is forearmed! The truth and the power of the Son of God, the True Christ, will be our weapon against him!"

"But how?" another voice said.

"We'll confront him where he lives! We'll put on a demonstration. The Negroes in your country demonstrate for civil rights, the ones called Hippies demonstrate for peace. The Chosen shall demonstrate for Christ. The story in The Light will bring him much publicity—perhaps the Antichrist wants that. We, however, will guarantee that he gets exactly the type of publicity he does not want. Wherever he goes, some of us will be there with signs exposing him as a spawn of blasphemy, a vehicle for Satan. Whenever the TV cameras and newspaper photographers capture him on film, our message—God's message—will be visible in the background."

"Amen!" Martin cried. It was echoed by another, and another. Members of the Chosen began to rise to their feet.

Even Grace could feel herself getting caught up in the fire. The frissons of unease were burned away by the passion of Brother Robert's conviction as he strode back and forth across the front of the room, brandishing the rolled tabloid like a sword.

"Some people will laugh at us, but many more will not. And when the Antichrist tries to exert his influence over the world, our message will be remembered, and a question will linger, even in the hearts of nonbelievers. We can foil his plans, friends! With the help of the Spirit we can defeat him! We can! And we'll start now! Today!"

They were all on their feet—all except for Mr. Veilleur— and cheering, praising the Lord, many speaking in tongues.

"Where do we find him?" Martin cried when the room began to quiet.

"Not far from here," Brother Robert said. "Which is why I believe we were chosen by the Spirit. He lives a short way out on Long Island, near Glen Cove. A place called Monroe."

Suddenly all Grace's previous creeping anxieties crashed back in on her with the force of a blow.

Monroe! No, it can't be Monroe!

"What's his name?" Martin called out.

Grace wanted to shut the answer from her ears, did not want to hear the name she already knew.

"James Stevens," Brother Robert said. "A creature who calls himself James Stevens is the Antichrist!"

No! It can't be! Not Carol's husband!

The room spun once around Grace, then went black.

5

Carol had talked to a couple of the reporters who had called—the Times and the Post, specifically. Then she took the phone off the hook. She was now able to paint a pretty clear picture of how the story had leaked out. Both had told her that Gerry Becker had approached their papers, and the News as well, with the story. None of them was interested. They'd thought he was a kook and that the journals he claimed belonged to Hanley were fakes.

That weasel Becker had stolen the journals from the crawl space! That was the only explanation. Carol couldn't imagine how he had found them there, and it really didn't matter now. Eventually she hoped Jim charged Becker with theft and breaking and entering, but right now all that interested her was Jim's state of mind. He had looked ready to crack this morning—and the worst was yet to come.

Carol wandered through the house, raging at herself. She had made some terrible errors. In fact, most of this awful mess was her fault. If she hadn't been so damn indecisive, none of this would have happened. She simply should have thrown the journals out as she had originally planned. Or better yet, taken them out into the backyard, poured gasoline on them, and set them afire. That would have put them out of the reach of both Jim and Gerry Becker.

If only—

She heard a frantic knocking on the door and hurried to it, praying it was Jim but knowing it wasn't.

It was Jim's mother. Her face was drawn and white. She held a folded newspaper in her hand.

"Where's Jimmy?" Emma Stevens asked.

"He's not here. He's—"

"Have you seen this?" she said, her voice cracking and her lips quivering as she held up the paper. "Ann Guthrie showed it to me. How can they say such things? How can they print such lies and get away with it? It's so unfair! Where is he?"

"Over at the mansion."

"Oh, that damn mansion! I wished he'd never inherited it or anything else from that man! I knew it would come to no good! The whole thing makes me nauseous to my stomach!"

Carol was wondering where else you could be nauseated when there was another knock on the door. She was shocked to see Bill Ryan standing on the other side of the glass.

"Carol!" he said as she let him in. "I read that article on Jim. I tried to call but couldn't get through, so I came out. Is there anything I can do?"

Without thinking, Carol threw her arms around him.

"God, am I glad to see you!"

She felt Bill stiffen and quickly released him. His face was scarlet. Had she embarrassed him?

"A priest?" she heard Emma say behind her.

"Hi, Mrs. Stevens," Bill said in a husky voice. He smiled disarmingly as he stepped around Carol and extended his hand. "Remember me? I'm Bill Ryan. Jim and I were friends in high school."

"Oh, yes, yes! The fellow who went on to become a priest. How are you?"

"I'm concerned about Jim and this science fiction that's being printed about him."

"Oh, I know!" Emma said. "Isn't it terrible? Why would they pick on Jim like that? Do you think it's because he inherited that money?"

Carol felt Bill's eyes lock onto hers. "It is science fiction, isn't it, Carol?" he said. 'Isn't it?"

Carol didn't know what to say, couldn't speak. She wanted to tell Bill and Emma. She knew Jim would need their support. But they couldn't help if they didn't know the truth. She tore her eyes away from his.

"My God!" Bill whispered. "It's true!"

Unable to deny it, Carol nodded her head.

Emma's hand was over her mouth. "How can that be? He was a normal boy, just like all the other kids!"

"Of course!" Carol said. "Because that's exactly what he was: a normal boy! And he's now a normal man. He simply has the same genes as Hanley, that's all. He's like Hanley's identical twin! But he won't see it that way. He's over at the mansion now, brooding and probably hitting the Scotch. He thinks he's a freak. He calls himself a 'tumor'!"

Bill's expression was grim. "You don't think he'd do anything stupid, do you?"

Carol gathered that by stupid, Bill meant suicidal. The idea shocked her. She had never considered the possibility. Still couldn't.

"No, he'd never do that. But this has cut him pretty deep."

"Why don't we go over there," Bill said. "I'll drive."

6

Grace sat in the backseat of Martin's Ford Torino sedan, trying to organize her jumbled thoughts and emotions as the car headed east on the Long Island Expressway.

Jim Stevens—her niece's husband—the Antichrist? It seemed too ridiculous even to consider! Despite his atheistic declarations and antireligious attitudes, Grace had sensed all along that deep down he was a decent man. Perhaps he didn't go to church or even believe in God, but he had always treated Carol well. How could he be the Antichrist?

And yet…

What about the sickening dread and terror she had felt the last time he had been to her apartment? And hadn't it been later that very night at choir practice that she had sung about Satan being here when she should have been singing "Ave Maria"?

Maybe it wasn't so farfetched. Maybe Satan had just been in the process of usurping Jim's soulless body on that day, and she had sensed it somehow.

But why had she been able to sense it, while Carol obviously didn't? Was she, as Martin had told her over and over, part of the Lord's plan to combat the Antichrist? Was her participation in the Chosen necessary for her salvation?

She prayed this would bring her the absolution she craved for the terrible sins of her past. That was the only reason she had agreed to accompany the Chosen to Monroe.

She wished Brother Robert had come along with them. She needed his strength of spirit, his support. But Brother Robert had stayed behind in Manhattan. He had not thought it proper for a member of a contemplative order such as his to make a public show of himself, so he had put Martin in charge. Grace respected his wish, but still she missed his presence.

"I believe there's something to this," said Mr. Veilleur at her side in the backseat, tapping the copy of The Light in his lap.

Somehow he had finagled his way into Martin's car, along with Grace and two others. They were the lead vehicle in a caravan of sorts heading for Monroe. One member had a Volkswagen van, and those of the Chosen with the slightest artistic bent were making signs and placards in its rear as they traveled.

"You think it's true?" she said.

"Of course it's true!" Martin said from the driver's seat. "The Spirit is guiding us, pointing us along the Path!"

"I believe the cloning part is true," Mr. Veilleur said to her, ignoring Martin. "As for this Satan-Antichrist business"—he shrugged—"I've told you what I think of that. But this cloning… I've never heard of such a thing, or even dreamed it might be possible. Such a man might well provide a gateway. But why now? What is so special about now, this time, that it should be chosen?"

"I don't know," Grace said.

Mr. Veilleur half turned toward her, his blue eyes intent.

"You say you know this man?"

Grace nodded. "For about ten years, yes."

"When was he born?"

Grace couldn't see how that mattered, but she tried to remember. She knew Jim's birthday was in January. Carol always complained that it fell so soon after Christmas, when she had already exhausted all her gift ideas, and he was the same age as Carol, so that would make it…

"January 1942. The sixth, I believe."

"The Epiphany!" The car swerved slightly as Martin shouted from the front. "Little Christmas!"

"Is that important?" Grace said.

"I don't know," Martin replied in a softer, more thoughtful voice. "It must be, but I don't know why."

"January sixth," Mr. Veilleur said, frowning. "That would mean that he was conceived—or began incubation, as it were—somewhere in late April or… early… May of 1941…"

His voice trailed off as his eyes widened briefly, then narrowed.

"Is that date significant?" she asked.

"Someone… something… died then. Or so I'd thought."

His face settled into fierce, grim lines.

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head brusquely once. "Nothing." Then once more. "Everything."

Grace glanced out the window and saw the sign for the Glen Cove exit. The dread began to grow in her. Monroe was less than ten miles north of here.

7

Jim gently pulled Carol aside in the hall just outside the library.

"Why did you bring them here?"

He was annoyed at her for leading Bill and, of all people, Ma, out to the mansion. He knew she meant well, but he didn't feel like seeing anybody today. He didn't know when he would ever feel like having company again.

"It's just a way of showing we love you," she said, running a fingertip along his jawline, sending a chill down his body. "Of saying that none of this matters."

Jim had to admit he was warmed by the thought, but he still felt somehow… ashamed. He knew he had done nothing wrong. Being the clone of a Nobel prizewinner was not like having it become public knowledge that you had the syph or the like, yet he could not deny that he felt embarrassed—and, yes, diminished—by the truth.

And a bit paranoid too. Had Bill's handshake been just a bit less firm than he remembered in the past? Had Ma pulled away just a little too quickly when she had hugged him on arriving today? Or was he just looking for things? Was he expecting everyone else to treat him differently because of how differently he now saw himself?

He watched Carol go off toward the kitchen to make coffee, then he took a deep breath and headed for the library. He couldn't hide forever. Maybe the couple-three belts of Jack Daniel's he'd had earlier would help him handle this. As he entered, he heard the conversation between Bill and Ma die out.

Ma… he didn't have a real Ma, did he?

Was she looking at him strangely? He felt like telling her that he wasn't about to sprout another head, but that would blow this whole cool, calm, collected, life-is-going-on-as-usual scene. Instead he put on a smile.

"So," he said, as casually as he could, "what's new?"

8

"Aren't you coming?" Martin said through the open side window of the car.

"Grace shook her head. "No… I can't. She's my niece."

"That may be true," Martin said, "but this is the Lord's war. You've got to stand up and be counted sooner or later."

The authority Brother Martin had given him seemed to have gone to his head.

"I'm with the Lord," she said, "but I can't picket my niece's home. I just can't."

Grace shut her eyes to block out the sight of the placard-carrying Chosen walking toward the little white cottage that had been her brother Henry's home before he and Ellen had been killed. Too many lunches and dinners and afternoon cups of tea with Ellen, plus half a dozen years of living there and making a home for her dear, orphaned Carol while she commuted to college at Stony Brook. Too many memories there to allow her to parade in front of it and call Carol's husband the Antichrist, even if it was true.

But looking at that familiar little cottage sitting there in the light of day, she wondered how such a thing could possibly be true.

"Where are the reporters?" Martin said, his eyes flicking up and down the street. "I called all five local TV stations, the big papers, and the local rag… what's it called?"

"The Express, " Grace said.

"Right. You'd think someone would have sent a crew out here to cover this!"

"It's Sunday, after all," Mr. Veilleur said. "You're probably far ahead of them. You moved pretty fast."

"Yes, we did, didn't we?" he said with a note of satisfaction. "But we can't wait forever, and it'll probably be better if we're on line and marching when they arrive. Are you sure, Grace?"

"I can't. Please don't ask me any more."

"How about you?" Martin said, opening the door next to Mr. Veilleur. "Time for you to earn your keep."

Mr. Veilleur smiled. "Don't make me laugh."

Martin's expression turned fierce.

"Listen, you! Either get out and walk that picket line or get out and start walking back to the city. I'm not having any deadweight around here!"

Grace didn't have time to express her shock at Martin's rudeness. In a blur of motion Mr. Veilleur's big hand darted out, took hold of Martin's tie, and dragged his head and shoulders into the car.

"I will not be spoken to that way," he said in a low voice.

Grace could not see Mr. Veilleur's eyes, but Martin could. She saw his face blanch.

"Okay, okay," he said quickly. "Have it your way."

Neither Grace nor Mr. Veilleur said anything as they watched Martin hurry over to the cottage. The Chosen were lined up on the walk before the house. She watched Martin pass through them and stride to the front door. He knocked a few times but there was no answer. She saw him try the knob. The door swung open. Grace almost cried out as she saw Martin go inside with a group of the others trailing behind. They shouldn't be in there! Not in Henry's old house!

It took maybe fifteen minutes but seemed like hours before Martin reappeared, hurrying toward the car. His face was flushed, his eyes feverish as he slipped back in behind the wheel.

"No one's home, but I think we found the proof we need!"

"Proof?" Mr. Veilleur said.

"Yes! Books on Satanism, the occult! He's obviously been studying them!"

Mr. Veilleur's smile was wry. "If he's this Antichrist you talk about—the Devil himself or his offspring—one would think he'd already be intimately familiar with all there is to know about Satanism."

Martin only paused for a beat. "Yes, well, whatever… it establishes a link between this James Stevens and the Devil."

"Where are the books?" Mr. Veilleur asked.

"I told them to destroy them." He turned to Grace. "Now, do you know how to get to this mansion he inherited?"

"Of course," she said. "It's on the waterfront. Everybody in town knows the Hanley mansion. Why?"

"Because if he's not here, he's probably holed up there."

"Maybe he left town," Grace said hopefully.

"No," Martin said slowly. "He's here. I can feel the evil in the air. Can't you?"

Grace had to admit that there was a sense of wrongness about Monroe, a vague feeling that some sort of cancer was growing in its heart. But she hated to admit it.

Finally she said, "Yes, I think so."

Martin started the car. "Which way?"

"Down here and to the left until you get to Shore Drive," Grace said, pointing the way.

As the car shifted into gear, Grace glanced out the rear window. The other cars, filled with the Chosen, were falling into line behind them. She looked past them and gasped. Smoke was pouring from one of the cottage windows.

"The house!" she cried. "It's burning!"

Martin glanced in his rearview mirror. "The idiots! I told them to burn the books outside!"

"Stop! We've got to put it out!"

"No time for that now! We're going to beard the Devil in his den!"

9

Carol heard the wail of the siren on the downtown volunteer firehouse. Since she had been a little girl, the sound never failed to disturb her. It meant that somewhere, at that very moment, flames were eating someone'? home, maybe devouring someone's life. She glanced out the parlor window, southeastward, toward their own little house. She was startled to see a pillar of smoke rising from that direction. It looked as if it were coming from their neighborhood. She wondered with a pang of fear if it was someone they knew, someone who needed their help.

And then she lowered her gaze and saw the cars pulling up outside the mansion's front gate. Her first thought was, Reporters! But then she saw the placards and picket signs and knew something else was going on.

"Oh, no!" she said. "Who on earth are they?" Bill joined her at the window.

"They look like protesters. But what are they protesting?" Carol strained to read the words on the signs but could make out only the larger ones.

"Something about God and Satan."

"Oh, great!" Bill said. "Just what Jim needs!" Carol glanced back toward the library where Jim sat with Emma. The presence of people he loved and trusted seemed to have had a bolstering effect. The tension had been oozing out of him since their arrival.

"What can they want?"

"Who knows? Probably a mob of religious nuts who think he's some sort of Frankenstein monster. I'm going out there. Don't say anything to Jim until I get back."

"What can you do?"

"Chase them off, I hope." Bill shrugged and pointed to his cassock and clerical collar. "Maybe this will have some influence on them."

"Be careful," she said.

As she watched him step out the front door she felt a sudden rush of dread and knew that something awful was going to happen today.

10

As Bill strode the fifty yards or so to the front gate, he began to make out the messages on the signs. There were quotations from scripture about the Antichrist and Armageddon and the end of the world. Others were original, and he found these the most disturbing:

A MAN WITH NO SOUL IS A HOME FOR THE DEVIL! and GET THEE OUT, DEMON! and the worst, JAMES STEVENS—ANTICHRIST!

Bill would have found them laughable were it not for the fact that they were talking about his friend. He had caught the hunted look in Jim's eyes a while ago, the look of a man who felt like a freak, who wasn't completely sure to whom he could turn or trust. Harassment by a bunch of religious nut cases might push him over the edge.

They were just getting their picket line organized when they spotted him. He heard cries of "Look! There's a priest!" and "A priest! A priest!"

When he reached the open gate, a slim, pale young man stepped forward to meet him.

"What's the meaning of this?" Bill asked, straining to appear calm and concerned.

"Have you been sent here to exorcise him, Father?" the man said.

"What in God's name are you talking about?"

"In God's name, yes, very apt, very apt. I'm Martin Spano. The Spirit has sent us here to expose this abomination for who he is."

"And just who do you think he is?"

"Why, the Antichrist, of course."

He seemed shocked that Bill did not know. Bill felt his control begin to slip.

"That's ridiculous! Where did you get such an idea?"

"He's a clone, Father! A group of cells taken from one man and grown into the shape of another in a blasphemous attempt to play God! But he is not a man! He is a mere cutting! He is born not of man and woman, and as such he has no soul. He is a tool of Satan, an avenue for the Antichrist to enter into this world!"

Bill was impressed with the force of the man's conviction and momentarily taken aback by the outré logic of his words. If you bought all that Revelations mumbo jumbo, you could probably be convinced that this fellow was on to something here.

"I assure you," Bill said in his loudest voice, addressing the crowd as well as their young leader, "that you have nothing to fear from Mr. Stevens. I've known him most of my life, and he is not—I repeat, not—the Antichrist!"

This seemed to slow the crowd, but not as much as Bill would have liked. A couple of them lowered their signs, but the rest stood and waited.

Their leader was taking no chances, however. He turned to them and held up his arms.

"Wait a minute!" he cried. "lust wait!" Then he turned back to Bill. "What is your name, Father?"

"Father William Ryan."

"Of what order, may I ask?"

"The Society of Jesus."

"Ah!" he said, his face lighting as if he had just had a revelation. "A Jesuit! One of the intellectuals of the Church! One of those modern priestly rationalists who would put the human mind above faith! A follower of the Black Pope!"

"That's not true at all!" Bill said. "You're making—"

"Obviously the Spirit has bypassed your unreceptive heart and settled in ours! We have been called, and it is our mission to spread the word of Truth about this man so that no matter where he goes he will be shunned and cast out by the faithful, and his words of sedition against Jesus Christ and his Church will fall on deaf ears! But the Evil One obviously has your ear already, so we will not listen to you!"

A woman beside Spano suddenly dropped her sign and raised her hands. She began babbling in an alien-sounding tongue that resembled nothing Bill had ever heard before.

"Do you hear?" Spano cried. "Even now the Spirit is with us, telling us not to be swayed by this fallen priest! We stay to spread the warning about the Antichrist within! Let us join hands and pray!"

As they clustered together, grasping hands and saying the Our Father, Bill realized there was no way he could reason with this bunch. Their Pentecostal fervor frightened him. No telling what they would do if they got onto the grounds. So while they were praying, he stepped over to the iron gate and swung it across the driveway. As the gate struck the stop on the brick column to his left, the lock clanked closed automatically.

Spano glared at him as he looked up from their prayer.

"You can't lock out the word of God, Father Ryan!"

"I know," Bill said pointedly. "But I haven't heard any of it here."

Restless and uneasy, he stood and watched the group as it murmured its prayers, remembering someone's comment about the intelligence of a crowd being inversely proportional to its size. He hoped no one did anything stupid. At least the gate barred them from the grounds. That gave him a little comfort. Since reason seemed a useless tool here, Bill turned his back on them and returned to the house.

11

"So I'm the Antichrist, am I?" Jim said after Bill had related his conversation with the kooks outside. He had spotted the crowd out front and had watched Bill talk to them. When Bill returned, he had met him at the door. "I love it!"

"Jim, please!" said Carol, at his left by the window. "This isn't funny."

"Of course it is! It's a gas!"

He could tell by their expressions that no one agreed with him, least of all Ma. She looked angry and afraid. Jim had to admit to a certain discomfiture himself. He knew he wasn't the Antichrist. Hell, he'd stopped believing in that sort of dreck back in his days at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion! That didn't mean he liked other people believing he was the devil or whatever.

But that bit about not having a soul… that was kind of creepy. It showed some pretty original thinking on the part of those nuts out there. Jim wasn't sure he believed in souls, anyway. As far as he could see, you were born, you did your best at what you had to do for as many years as you could, and then you died. That was it. No soul, no heaven, no hell, no limbo, no purgatory.

But what if there really was such a thing as a soul?

And what if he didn't have one?

Despite all his innate skepticism, despite his contempt for religion and mysticism and spiritualism and all the other isms that people used throughout the ages to insulate themselves from the cold, hard realities of existence, he knew deep inside that if such a thing as a soul existed, he wanted one.

"I've a good mind to call the cops," his mother said. "Have Sergeant Hall come out and tell them all to get lost! That'll end this fiascal!"

"Fiasco, Ma," he said. "But stay put. I'll scare them off."

He was besieged by protests from all sides but he ignored them and hurried out the door. This might be fun.

Behind him, he heard Carol say, "I'm calling the police!"

12

"Who's this coming now?" said Mr. Veilleur from beside her in the backseat of Martin's car.

Grace gasped as she recognized the figure approaching the gate from within. "That's Jim!"

"The clone? The one they think is this Antichrist?"

"Yes! Walking right up to them!"

"Pretty courageous for someone who's supposed to be the 'spawn of the Devil,' don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think," she said, remembering the smoke rising from Henry's old house, and now this. She felt utterly miserable.

"You're not alone," Mr. Veilleur said in a gentle voice. "Neither does anyone else."

13

"Hi, folks!" Jim said, strolling up to the gate with his hands in his pockets, looking as casual as he could. "What's up?"

"Who are you?" said the skinny guy who had been talking to Bill earlier. Spano was the name, if Jim correctly remembered what Bill had said.

"Oh, you know me, don't you, pal? I'm Jim Stevens, alias the Antichrist."

There were cries of astonishment from the group. Some of them even scuttled away and hid behind others. It was all Jim could do to keep a straight face. Even their leader took a step back. His voice shook as he spoke.

"You… you admit it?"

"Sure. I came into the world to really mess it up for you Christian types. You know, spread sin and fear and war and disease and bring on Armageddon. That sort of stuff. But to tell you the truth, I can't find a place to begin."

"He's mocking us! He's trying to confuse us, trying to make a joke out of this!"

"A joke? Just look back on the last twelve months, Hatchet Face." Jim was surprised how clearly his mind was working despite the drinks he'd had earlier. "We've had a six-day war in the Middle East that upset the whole balance of power there, a military junta in Greece, martial law in Thailand, more fighting in Cyprus, Palestine, and especially Vietnam, thousands upon thousands of homeless, hungry refugees in Somalia and Jordan and good ol' Vietnam. And over in the Soviet Union they're celebrating fifty years of their revolution which has so far cost the Russian and East European populace something in excess of thirty million lives. Here at home we've got race riots in East Harlem, Roxbury, Newark, Detroit, and lots of other places. The blacks hate the whites, the whites hate the blacks, the shorthairs hate the longhairs, the longhairs hate anybody with a steady job, the Arabs hate the Jews, and the Klan hates everybody. Ever-growing numbers of people are spending their lives stoned on grass or else they're nuking their psyches with LSD. And on top of all that they kicked my dear friend, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell out of Congress! Sheesh! What's left for me to do?"

Spano's mouth worked spasmodically. "I… I…"

"Devil of a predicament, isn't it?" Jim said.

"Do not let yourselves be swayed by the Father of Lies!" Spano cried.

"Right on," Jim said.

He wondered if Hanley had envisioned this sort of scene. Maybe that was why he had kept the whole experiment under wraps. Apparently the scientist's instincts had been on target. Jim had spent days hating Roderick Hanley, but now he was having a slow change of heart.

Besides, I wouldn't be alive without him.

Maybe he hadn't been such a bad guy, after all.

"The Antichrist tries to tell us that the evil in the world is not the devil's work!"

Antichrist! There it was again, and Jim was suddenly angry. As his anger grew, the fears and self-doubt of the past week began to melt away. Who was this pasty-faced twerp to tell him who he was? He would decide who he was! And he was Jim Stevens. So what if he was genetically the same as Roderick Hanley, Ph.D., Nobel laureate? It didn't matter. He wasn't Roderick Hanley—he was someone else. He was his own man and no one—not these religious nut cases or anyone else—was going to hang a sign on him.

He smiled. Carol had been right all along: Being a clone really didn't matter. As long as Carol stuck by him, he could handle anything. So easy! Why hadn't he seen it himself?

"Pray!" Spano was saying to his followers. "Close your ears to his lies!"

Jim was suddenly tired of the game.

"Get lost," he said. "You're all pretty pathetic. Take off before the cops get here."

"No!" Spano cried. "We want the police! We want the world to know your name so that Christians everywhere can be warned of who you really are!"

"Scram!" Jim shouted.

He was really angry now. He pulled on the gate but it was locked. With a sudden burst of energy, he climbed up the iron pickets to the top of the brick gatepost.

14

"Oh, God! What's he doing!" Carol cried at Bill's shoulder as they watched Jim reach the top of the gatepost column.

Bill had been watching the scene from the front door with Carol and Jim's mother. His palms had grown slick with sweat.

"He's going to get killed!" Emma said.

"Bill!" Carol said, her grip tightening on his arm. "Get him down from there! Please!"

"I'll try."

He hurried down the driveway. This whole affair was getting out of hand. The best thing was to get Jim back inside and let the police handle it. But he sensed that getting Jim to change course once he was on a roll like this was not going to be easy. A nameless fear quickened his pace, but he sensed that he was already too late.

15

Jim sat on the concrete ball atop the column and looked down on the small, uneasy crowd.

"Come on, folks!" he said, making a shooing motion with his hands. "Get packing! This isn't funny anymore!"

They recoiled at the sight of his hands.

"Look!" someone cried. "His palms! The Mark of the Beast!"

"It's proof!" Spano shouted. "Proof that Satan dwells within!"

They oohed and aahed and muttered together as they clustered below him. Jim looked at his fuzzy palms.

The Mark of the Beast? What the hell did that mean?

Whatever it was, it seemed to frighten them, and maybe that would scare them off.

"Yes!" he said, rising up, straddling the concrete ball with his ankles and spreading his hands out in front of him. "The Mark of the Beast! And if you don't leave now, all your future children and grandchildren will be born as frogs and crawly things!"

And then his right foot slipped.

For an awful, gut-wrenching moment he thought he was going to fall, then his foot found the edge of the capstone again. He thought he was okay, then realized he'd lost his balance.

He was falling.

He saw the iron spikes atop the gate rising toward him and thought as clearly as he had ever thought—

I'm going to die!

He tried to twist to the side, but it was too late. He managed to swing his head off to the right, but the spikes caught him in the groin, stomach, and chest. There was an instant of blinding agony as the points speared his heart with a tearing, thudding impact, ripping through to his spine and beyond.

Not yet! Oh, please, not yet! I'm not ready to go!

He opened his mouth to scream, but he had no air left in his lungs.

Abruptly the pain was gone as his ruptured spinal cord stopped sending impulses to his brain. A strange, ethereal peace enveloped him. He felt strangely detached from the cries of horror rising all around him.

Suddenly Carol's face swam into view, looking up at him with wide, horror-filled eyes. She seemed to be saying his name, but he couldn't hear her. Sound had slipped away. He wanted to tell her he loved her and ask her to forgive him for being such a jerk, but then vision slipped away as well, with thought racing close behind.

16

Carol had seen Jim begin to lose balance and was already running for the gate when he tilted forward and fell onto the spikes. A voice she barely recognized as her own was screaming.

"No—no—NOOOO!"

Time seemed to slow as she saw the black iron spikes drive into his chest and burst from his back in a spray of red, saw him writhe and twitch, then go limp as bright scarlet blood gushed from his mouth.

Her legs wanted to collapse under her and her heart wanted her to follow them to the ground and curl her body up into a ball and hide from what she saw. But she had to reach him, had to get him off there.

Bill was running ahead of her but she passed him and slammed into the gate below Jim, looking up at him, screaming his name over and over in a vain attempt to awaken a spark of life in those glazed, staring blue eyes. She thought she saw his mouth work, trying to say something, then his lips went slack and there was nothing there, nothing at all, and then something warm and wet was on her fingers and she looked and saw his blood running down the fence rail she was gripping and spreading over her hand just like in one of her dreams and her screams became formless wails of horror and loss as Bill dragged her away.

17

Grace stared in mute shock at Jim's body impaled on the gate above the scattering forms of the Chosen. This couldn't be happening! She felt her gorge rise at the sight of the blood. He was dead! Dead in an instant! Poor Jim—no one deserved a death like that!

And Carol! When she saw Carol and heard her screams of anguish, she reached for the door handle. Mr. Veilleur restrained her.

"You can't help him now," he said in a sad, gentle voice.

"But Carol—"

"Do you want her to find out that you came here with her husband's tormentors?"

She didn't want that—she couldn't bear that!

Suddenly Martin hurled himself into the driver's seat as another of the Chosen slid in on the passenger side. Without a second's hesitation, he started the car and threw it into gear.

"Why are you running?" Mr. Veilleur asked.

"Shut up!" Martin said. "Just shut up! That wasn't our fault! He'd been drinking, you could smell it on him, and he shouldn't have climbed up there! It wasn't our fault, but it could easily be made to look that way, so we've got to get out of here before someone has us arrested!"

As they pulled away from the shoulder, Grace saw a man standing in the bayberry bushes along the side of the road. She recognized Jonah Stevens. She looked back through the rear window and saw him staring at her. His adopted son had just died horribly but he showed no grief, no horror, no anger. All she saw as she looked into his eyes for that instant was worry—surprise and worry. But that couldn't be. It had to be a trick of the light.

"I sense the hand of God here," Martin was saying from the front seat. "The Spirit moved us here to bring this about. The Antichrist is dead. He no longer threatens the work of the Spirit. We didn't know this was going to happen, but I believe this was why we were chosen."

"This isn't the work of the God I praise," Grace said defiantly. "And what will Brother Robert say?"

Martin threw her a quick, unsettled glance over his shoulder but said nothing.

Beside her, Mr. Veilleur only shook his head and sighed as he stared out the window.

18

"It's all my fault!" Brother Robert said, tugging at his beard. His face was drawn and his shoulders slumped inside his woolen habit. "I should have gone with you!"

"I don't think it would have changed anything," Martin said. Martin was subdued, no longer the gung-ho commander.

Grace sat beside him in the barely furnished living room of the brownstone. The rest of the Chosen had gone their separate ways as soon as they had reached the city. The strangely silent Mr. Veilleur had asked to be let off on the Manhattan side of the Queensboro Bridge. Grace had stayed with Martin, hoping to see Brother Robert, hoping to tap into the holy man's reservoir of tranquility.

What she really wanted was for someone to tell her that this whole day had never happened. But there was no hope of that. And no comfort to be gained from Brother Robert—his tranquility was gone.

"Don't be so sure of that, Martin," he said, his eyes flashing. "You allowed the people in your charge to become a rabble."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are," Brother Robert said in a softer voice. "And the final responsibility rests with me. I should have been there. A house is in flames and a man is dead, and it's all my fault."

"A man?" Martin said. "You said he was the Antichrist."

"I believe now I was wrong."

"Please," Grace said. "I don't understand! Why do you think you were wrong?"

"Because it isn't over," Brother Robert said in a flat voice. "If you'll let yourselves feel the sense of wrongness that drew you to the Chosen, you'll see that it's not gone. In fact, it's stronger now than it was when you left here for Monroe."

Grace sat statue still and opened herself to the feeling.

It's still here!

"God forgive us!" she cried. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep. He was right. Carol's husband was dead, and nothing had changed.

It wasn't over!

Seventeen

Wednesday, March 13

Bill stood in Tall Oaks Cemetery and said a silent requiem over Jim's coffin. Carol had insisted on a nonreligious ceremony— she'd told him she would have preferred a requiem Mass but said that would have made a mockery of the way Jim felt about religion. Bill had to respect that, but the idea of sending his old friend into the afterlife without a prayer or two was untenable.

So he stood silently in the morning sunlight among the family and friends clustered around the flower-decked grave. Most of the friends were Carol's, from the hospital. Jim had never been a gregarious sort. He did not make friends easily, and it showed here. He had probably never even met half of the people ringing his coffin.

Bill shut out the happy chirping of the birds and the sobs of the mourners and recited the prayers from memory. Then he added a personal coda.

Although he was an unbeliever, Lord, he was a good man. If he was guilty of any sin, it was pride—pride in the supreme ability of the mind You gave him to accomplish anything, to solve all the mysteries of being. As You forgave the doubter, Thomas, who had to put his fingers into Your wounds before he would believe, please so forgive this good and honest man who might have returned to Your fold had he been allowed enough time.

Bill felt his throat constrict. Enough time… was there ever enough time?

Carol stood on the far side of the grave, flanked by Jonah and Emma Stevens, watching as each mourner stepped up and dropped a flower on the coffin. Bill had nothing but admiration for the way she had handled herself through the nightmare of the past few days. Disturbingly he found himself drawn more strongly to her than ever. He had taken a brief emergency leave from St. Francis to stay at his folks' place here in Monroe and help out in any way he could. Carol had been staying with her in-laws. Her own place was nothing but a burned-out shell after the fire set by the protesters on Sunday, and she hadn't wanted to stay at the mansion.

She had lost her husband and her home in one afternoon, yet she had been hanging tough through it all. The Stevenses had helped, Bill knew, acting as a buffer between Carol and the world. Jonah was being especially protective. Even Bill had a rough time getting by him to see her. As for reporters, they may as well have been trying to crack Gibraltar with their heads. As a result the papers had been full of wild speculation about what had happened on Sunday.

Full, that is, until this morning.

The results of yesterday's New Hampshire primary had pushed Jim's death out of the news, thankfully. The headlines and most of the front page of this morning's Times were devoted to Senator Eugene McCarthy's stunning upset of President Johnson. It was all anyone on TV could talk about.

It would have been all Bill could talk and think about were it not for Jim's death. Gene McCarthy had succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of his supporters, Bill among them, but it just didn't seem important today. Looking down at Jim's coffin, Bill couldn't imagine what could ever seem important compared to the untimely, senseless death of a friend.

Carol began to sob. She had held up this far, but now, with Jim poised over the hole that was going to hold him for the rest of time, Bill could see that her control was starting to crack. He wanted to go to her, throw his arms around her and cry with her.

But now Emma was doing just that. Jonah merely stood there, his face impassive, his hand gripping Carol's elbow.

Movement off to his right caught Bill's eye. He recognized Carol's Aunt Grace approaching. She had been conspicuous by her absence at the wake the past two days. She stopped at a distance now, lowered her head, and folded her hands in prayer. Her waddling approach and her whole demeanor were so tentative, as if she feared being recognized.

Bill wondered why until he heard Emma's voice shatter the silence.

"There she is!" she cried. "She was with them! She came with the ones who killed my Jimmy! Why, Grace Nevins? Why did you want to hurt my boy?"

The plump little woman raised her face toward Carol and her accuser. She shook her head. Bill bit his lip as he saw the guilt and remorse in her expression. But why should she feel guilty? He had talked to the crowd. He hadn't seen her there. He was sure he would have recognized her.

"She wasn't there—" he began, but Emma cut him off.

"Yes, she was! Jonah saw her in one of the cars!" Her face contorted into a mask of rage as her voice rose to a shrill peak. "You were there! You did this!"

Bill watched Carol's confused, teary eyes flicking back and forth between the two women.

"Please…" she said.

But Emma was not to be checked. She pointed a shaking finger at Grace.

"You won't get away with it, Grace Nevins! I'll see you pay for this!" She started toward Grace but Jonah restrained her with his free hand as she screeched, "Now get away from my boy's grave! Get away before I kill you myself here and now!"

Sobbing openly, Grace turned and hurried away.

After a moment of stunned silence, the embarrassed mourners began to offer their final condolences to Carol and the Stevenses, then drifted away.

Bill waited until the end, hoping to have a few private words with Carol, but Jonah and Emma ushered her away before he could reach her. There was something almost possessive about Jonah's protective attitude toward his daughter-in-law, and that disturbed Bill.

Eighteen

Thursday, March 14

1

Carol closed the front door of the mansion behind her and stood in the cool dimness. She didn't want to be here. Even now she didn't know how she had brought herself to drive past the iron spikes on the front gate. But she had no place else to go. Her own home was a blackened shell, and she couldn't stay with Jonah and Emma any longer. She couldn't stand Emma's constant hovering, her mad swings between rage and grief, and she couldn't bear another evening with Jonah sitting there staring at her. She had thanked them and had left first thing this morning.

She had tried to call Aunt Grace last night to find out if what Emma had said was true. Had she been outside the mansion with those nuts? But Grace wasn't answering her phone.

" She had been almost tempted to call Bill and ask if she could stay with his parents but then realized that what she wanted more than anything else was to be alone.

The empty mansion echoed hollowly around her.

This is it, Jim, she thought. You're gone, our house and our bed are gone, all the old photos, all your unsold novels—gone. There's nothing left of you but this old house, and that's not much, 'cause you hardly had any time here at all.

Her eyes filled. She still couldn't believe he was gone, that he wouldn't come bounding down the stairs over there with another of those damn journals in his hand. But he was gone—her one and only Jim was gone!

Her throat tightened. Why'd you have to die, Jim? She almost hated him for being so stupid . .'t> climbing up that gatepost! Why?

How was she going to do it without him? Jim had pulled her through her parents' deaths when she had thought the world was caving in on her, and he had been her rock, her safe place ever since. But who was going to pull her through his death?

She could almost hear his voice:

You're on your own now, Carol. Don't let me down. Don't go to pieces on me. You can do it!

She felt the sobs begin to quake in her chest. She had thought herself all cried out.

She was wrong.

2

"I'm sorry about your friend. Father Bill."

"Thank you, Nicky," Bill said.

He looked at the boy standing on the far side of his desk. There seemed to be genuine sympathy in his eyes. Bill realized with a pang that most of the boys here at St. F.'s were all too familiar with what it was like to lose someone.

It was Bill's first day back and he had three days' worth of adoption applications, reference checks, and assorted mail piled on his desk, and more coming. Outside it was rainy but warm, more like May than March.

"Aren't you going to be late for class?" he asked the boy.

"I'll make it on time. Was he a good friend?"

"He was an old friend who used to be my best friend. We were just getting to know each other again."

A lump formed in his throat at the thought of Jim. He had walled up the grief since the horrors of Sunday, refusing to shed a tear for his old friend. Jim would mock him out if he knew Bill had cried over him.

And what would Jim say about his dreams of Carol, more carnal than ever, now that she was alone in the world.

"Is it true what the papers said—"

"I'd really rather not discuss it now, Nicky. It's all a little too fresh."

The boy nodded sagely, like someone many times his age, then began his habitual wandering around the office. He stopped at the typewriter.

"So," he said after a moment, "when are you leaving?"

The question startled Bill. He glanced up and saw the half-written letter to the Provincial still in his typewriter. God! The teaching job in Baltimore! He'd forgotten all about it.

"How many times have I told you not to read my mail?"

"I'm sorry! It's just that it was sitting there in plain view. I just looked at it for a second!"

Bill fought the guilt rising within him.

"Look, Nicky, I know we had a deal—"

"That's okay, Father," the boy said quickly with a smile that was heartbreakingly weak. "You'll make a great teacher. Especially down there near Washington. I know you like all that political stuff. And don't worry about me. I like it here. This is home to me. I'm a hopeless case, anyway." „

"I've told you not to talk that way about yourself!"

"We've got to face facts, Father. You wait around for me to get adopted and you'll be in a wheelchair from old age! The deal's off. I screwed up my end of it, anyway. Wouldn't be fair to hold you to yours."

Bill stared at the boy as he turned away and continued his casual meander around the office. And as he watched him he heard Jim's voice echoing back from sometime during that night of beer and bad music and near death in the Village.

We should clean up our own yards and tend to our own neighborhoods first, then worry about the rest of the world. If we all did that, maybe there wouldn't be so much in the world to worry about.

Bill suddenly knew what he had to do.

"Give me that letter, will you, Nicky? Right. The one in the typewriter. And the one from the Provincial beside it."

Nicky handed them to him, then said, "I'd better get to school."

"Not so fast."

Bill neatly folded the letters in thirds and then began tearing them up.

Nicky's jaw dropped. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping a promise."

"But I told you—"

"Not just my promise to you but one I made to myself a long time ago." The one that brought me to the seminary in the first place. "Like it or not, I'm staying."

Bill felt lightheaded, almost giddy. As if a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. All doubts, all conflicts were gone. This was where he belonged. This was where he could make a real day-to-day difference.

"But I'll never get adopted!"

"We'll see about that. But you're not my only concern. I'm here for the duration. I'm not leaving St. Francis until this whole place is empty!"

He saw tears spring into Nicky's eyes and run down his cheeks. Nicky never cried. The sight of those tears tripped something inside him and he felt his own eyes fill. All the grief he had dammed up since Sunday was breaking free. He tried to shore up the barriers but it was too late. He opened his mouth to tell Nicky to run along but only a sob escaped, and then his head was down and cradled in his arms on the desk and he was crying.

"Why'd he have to die like that?" he heard his own voice say between the sobs.

He felt a small hand pat his back, then heard Nicky's teary voice saying, "I'll be your friend, Father Bill. I'm going to be around a long time. I'll be your friend."

3

The traffic light shifted to red, and Jonah Stevens braked to a stop on Park Avenue South at Sixteenth Street. It was late on a weekday night but traffic was still heavy. It never seemed to stop in this city.

For days he had been in a state of anxious depression, fearing that thirty years of fitting himself into the straitjacket life of a regular member of the smugly comfortable community of Monroe had come to naught. The adopted boy—the Vessel—was dead. The suddenness of it had caught him unawares. The Vessel had been Jonah's responsibility. If the Vessel had died before completing his purpose…

But the One still was. He sensed that. And now tonight, a vision… a crimson vision.

He was nearing his destination. Carol's aunt's apartment was not far from here. She lived in the area called Gramercy Park. That was where the vision was sending him.

He cupped his hand over his good right eye to see if there was anything perking in the left under the patch.

Nothing.

The vision had come a number of times during the day. He had seen Grace Nevins's head being crushed by a steel ripping bar. He had seen his own hand wielding that bar. The vision was assigning him a task.

Grace Nevins was to die.

Tonight.

Jonah wondered why. Not that he minded a bit. He had as much feeling for that fat biddy as he did for anyone else. He was just curious as to why her specifically.

Revenge? She hadn't had any direct involvement in Jim's death, so that didn't make sense. Why? Did she pose a future threat to the One? That had to be it. And the threat must be in the near future. That would explain the sense of urgency that had accompanied the vision.

He drummed his bony fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change. He had made good time in from Long Island, but still the sense of urgency plagued him.

Outside the car, the city sang to him. Its daily bumps and bruises, its long-term festering sores of agony and despair were contrapuntal melodies undulating through his head. Around him he heard the harmonies of the filth, the disease, the pain, the anguish, the misery of the people packed together here, humming from the alleys, cooing from the shabby apartments above the stores, shouting from the subway tunnels below the pavement. To his left, Union Square seemed to glow and seethe with the lyrics of a thousand tiny deaths as its drugged denizens destroyed themselves by slow degrees.

He wished he could stop and savor it, but there was work to be done. He reached over and patted the hexagonal shaft of the three-foot curved ripping bar that rested on the seat beside him.

Work.

At last the green. He pressed the accelerator and eased ahead.

4

Grace stepped into her apartment and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. She moved it up and down twice more, and still no light. The bulb had gone again. Seemed she had just replaced it a couple of weeks ago. Or had it been longer? She couldn't remember. Her mind had been jumbled by the horrors of Sunday. That awful scene with Emma at the funeral yesterday had only made matters worse.

She had been spending most of her free time in church, praying for understanding and guidance. Martin had called her last night, asking her why she had missed the regular Wednesday prayer meeting. She had told him she was through with the Chosen, omitting the fact that it had been very hard to stay away last night.

Something continued to draw her to that group.

She began feeling her way into the darkened apartment. She had only a few minutes to grab a bite to eat and then catch the bus to the hospital for her shift.

Suddenly she froze. Someone else was in her apartment!

Her eyes weren't accustomed to the dark yet. She sensed rather than saw movement—rapid movement—to her right. Instinctively she ducked, and in that instant the front of the étagère imploded above her from the force of the blow aimed her way.

Panic gripped her heart like a cold, mailed fist. A robber! Or worse yet, a rapist! Trying to kill her!

As fragments of shattered glass rained down on her back, she scrabbled away on her hands and knees. Behind her, something heavy thudded on the rug with crushing force.

He must have a bat! A heavy bat! To break every bone in her body!

She scurried under the dining-room table. Something hit it hard—hard enough to crack the mahogany top. With a burst of fear-fueled strength, Grace reared up under the far edge of the table, taking it with her. She tilted it, then tipped it over toward her attacker.

Then she ran screaming for the door. A hand grabbed at her collar, catching the cord of her scapular and the chain of her miraculous medal. She felt them cut into her throat for an instant, then they broke, freeing her to reach the door.

She fumbled with the knob, got it open, and fairly leapt out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. She didn't stop screaming then, especially when something thudded heavily against the inside of the door, cracking its outer skin. She continued to howl, stumbling to the other two doors on her floor, pounding on them for help. But when no one answered, Grace ran down the stairs as fast as she dared, almost tripping and falling twice on the way.

She reached the street and ran for the corner phone to dial 911.

5

"He sure was thorough, Mrs. Nevins," the young patrolman said. "Looks like he smashed almost everything you own."

Grace didn't correct him about the "Mrs." Instead she stared in horror at the shambles of her little apartment. Every inch of floor, every counter and tabletop was littered with debris. All of her statues—the Infants of Prague and the Virgin Marys and all the others—were smashed beyond recognition. Her relics had been ground into dust. Her Bibles and other holy books had been torn to shreds. Everything…

She paused. No. That wasn't quite right. Most of her dishes were intact in the china cabinet. The phone had been torn out and smashed, but the screen of her TV was unmarred. And the vase in the corner by the front door was on its side but intact.

"Not everything," she said to the policeman.

"Ma'am?"

"He only broke my religious articles. Nothing else."

He looked around. "Chee! You're right! Ain't that the weirdest thing?"

Grace could only shudder in fear.

6

Emma waited in bed. It was early, but Jonah had gone out on another of his unexplained nocturnal jaunts. Now he was back. She heard the garage door slide down, heard him enter through the kitchen. Her excitement grew.

She hoped this would be like that Monday night a couple of weeks ago when he had come in late and had done her again and again through most of the night. She needed a night like that now, needed something to blot out the thoughts of poor Jimmy and his terrible, senseless death. They hadn't seen too much of their adopted son since his marriage, but just knowing that he was down the block and around the corner had been enough. Now he was gone. Forever.

And where was Jonah? What was taking him so long?

Then she heard the refrigerator door open, heard the ker-shoosh of a beer can being opened.

Emma bit a trembling lip. Oh, no. The beer meant he wouldn't be excited, wouldn't be in the mood. He'd sit there in the living room in the dark and sip beer for hours.

She turned over and buried her face in her pillow to muffle the sobs she could no longer control.

Nineteen

Friday, March 15

1

"Honey, you're not looking well at all," Kay Allen said. "I mean like physically, y'know? Y'eatin'?"

Carol glanced across the desk at her supervisor. There was real concern in Kay's eyes. Hospital social work might have given her a tough skin in regard to patients' problems, but she seemed genuinely worried about Carol.

"I'm feeling worse than I look," Carol told her.

The sickening nightmares kept her in a state of constant nausea. The dreams, combined with the depression and the constant dull ache of loss, had left her without an appetite. She was pale, she knew, and she had lost weight.

She had come here for lack of anyplace better to go. Everywhere but the hospital reminded her of Jim. Everyone she met seemed so uncomfortable. No one made eye contact, and some even crossed the street to avoid her. She knew they felt for her and knew there were no words to express what they were feeling. Still, it made her wish she could run off to a deserted island somewhere. It wouldn't much increase her present sense of isolation. Aunt Grace was still unreachable. Emma only made her feel worse. She felt completely alone in the world.

"Maybe you should have Doc Alberts check you over."

"I think I need a shrink more."

In an uncharacteristic show of affection, Kay reached across the desk and grasped her hand.

"Oh, honey, I'd need a shrink, too, if I'd been through what you have!"

Carol was touched by Kay's empathy and felt herself fill up. But she was not going to cry here.

"So," she said, lightening her voice, "what's new here?"

Kay released her hand.

"Not much. It's still a funny farm. Oh, your old friend Mr. Dodd is back."

"Oh, no. Why?"

"Had a full-blown stroke this time. One of his rusty pipes finally clogged and ruptured all the way. They don't think he's gonna make it."

Wasn't there any good news left in the world?

"Maybe I'll stop up and see him."

"You're still on leave of absence, honey. Besides, he won't know you're there. He's been gorked out since he hit the emergency room four days ago."

"I think I'll just look in on him, anyway. A social call."

"Suit yourself, honey."

Carol walked the long route to the elevators. She wasn't in any hurry. The only other place to go was back to the mansion, and she wasn't looking forward to that. In the back of her mind was the idea of coming back to work next week. She certainly didn't need the money—all of Jim's inherited millions passed directly to her—but she needed the distraction, needed to fill the hours. Maybe if she got involved again in patient problems, she could get a better grip on her own.

Mr. Dodd was in a semiprivate on the third floor. Neither he nor his roommate were conscious. The shades were drawn. Despite the warm spell and her sweater and bell-bottom jeans, Carol felt a chill in the room.

She stepped toward the bed. In the dim light she could see an IV running into his arm; a green nasal oxygen tube snaked from his upper lip to the tank that stood like a steely sentinel next to his headboard. His eyes were closed, his face was slack, and his mouth hung open. He could have been sleeping, but as soon as Carol heard his breathing she knew he was in serious trouble.

His respirations would follow a cycle, starting off shallow, then getting progressively deeper until he seemed to be filling and refilling his lungs to maximum capacity, then gradually becoming shallower and shallower again. Until they stopped. That was the scary part. There would be a period when there was no breathing at all. It never lasted more than thirty seconds, but it seemed to take forever before the cycle started all over again.

She'd heard it before. Cheyne-Stokes respiration—that was what one of the internists had told her last year when she had first witnessed it. It was common in comas, especially when brought on by a massive stroke.

Poor Mr. Dodd. Back only a week after his discharge. She hoped his last days were happy and peaceful in Maureen's home. She was sure both daughters were glad now that they had listened to her. Otherwise, if they'd put him in a nursing home only to have this happen, they'd probably never forgive themselves.

She adjusted the covers over him, then gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

That was when it happened.

With no warning Mr. Dodd reared up in his bed. His eyes were wide. The left side of his face was slack, but the right was a half mask of horror as he began screaming hoarsely through his toothless, lopsided mouth.

"Get away! Get away from me! Oh, God, save me, get away, get away, get awaaaaay!"

Startled and frightened, Carol stumbled away from the bed just as his nurse came charging in.

"What happened? What did you do?"

"N-nothing," Carol said. "I only touched his hand."

Mr. Dodd was now pointing at her. His eyes were still wide but his sightless gaze was directed straight ahead. His trembling finger, however, pointed directly at Carol.

"Get away! Get awaaaay!"

"You'd better leave," the nurse said.

Carol needed no persuasion. She turned and fled the room. Mr. Dodd's voice followed her all the way to the elevator.

"GET AWAAAAAAAY!"

The elevator doors finally closed off the sound. Unnerved, she stood trembling as the car began its descent.

I only touched his hand.

As she walked out into the sunny employee parking lot, she decided that maybe today she could bring herself to return to Tall Oaks. She had wanted to visit the grave site yesterday but hadn't had the courage to brave it in the rain. Now she felt she needed to be near Jim, just to sit by his grave and talk to him, even if he couldn't answer.

Oh, Jim. How am I going to get by without you?

2

There was an unseasonably warm breeze blowing across the bare knolls of Tall Oaks. They didn't allow gaudy headstones here. Only quiet granite plaques laid flat in the ground. A lot like Arlington National Cemetery in a way. Carol liked the style. If she didn't look too closely, she could almost convince herself that she was trodding the back lawn of a huge, provincial estate.

Jim's grave was easy to find, and would continue to be so until they cleared away the flowers. About twenty yards to the right of his was another flower-decked plot where someone else had been buried the same day as Jim.

Carol paused involuntarily in her approach, then forced herself forward. She had to get used to this, because she intended to come here often. She was not going to forget Jim. If he couldn't live on in this world, she would see to it that he stayed alive in her memory and in her heart.

When she reached the grave, she stared down in shock. What she saw filled her with a creeping terror that sent her running for the car. She wanted to scream, but there was no one to hear her.

There was someone she could call, though. She knew of only one person she could turn to about this.

3

"Look! You see it? It's dead! All of it! Like it's been dead for weeks!"

The afternoon sun was warm on Bill's back as he stared down at Jim's grave. He removed the windbreaker he had thrown over his short-sleeved tunic and collar; he shut out Carol's agitated voice for a moment as he tried to think. She had called him in a state of panic this morning about Jim's grave. He hadn't been able to get a really clear story out of her but had soothed her with the promise that he would come out to Monroe as soon as he could get away from St. F.'s.

The rectangle of grass over Jim's grave was all a dull, dead brown.

Bill resisted an urge to say So what? and tried to tune in to Carol's emotions as she huddled behind him, shielding herself from the grave, as if afraid it would bite her.

"Why is it dead, Bill?" she was saying. "Just give me a good, sane reason why it's dead here on this grave and nowhere else and I promise you I'll never bother you again."

"Maybe they didn't put the sod back right and it dried out," he said.

"Dried out? It poured all day yesterday!"

"Well then, maybe they didn't cut it thick enough and killed the roots. There's a special art to cutting sod properly, you know."

"Okay, fine. But do you really think that they cut it all wrong over Jim's grave and all right on that one over there? They were both buried the same day!"

"Maybe—"

"Christ, Bill! Even if they cut the grass and sprinkled the clippings over his grave, it would still be green now!"

Bill stared at the dead brown blades curling up from the dirt and had to admit Carol was right. This grass was dead! It was as if the life had been sucked right out of it. But how? And why? Why just here in this neat rectangle? Unless someone had poured an herbicide on it. But that didn't make sense. Who would want to do something like that?

And the most disturbing part of the dead patch was the way it didn't quite reach the edges of the replaced sod. The dead grass was confined to a neat, narrow rectangle exactly the size of Jim's coffin lying six feet below. Carol hadn't mentioned it. Maybe she hadn't noticed. Bill wasn't about to point it out to her.

He turned and looked at her, saw her tortured, frightened eyes, and wanted desperately to help her. But how?

"Carol, what do you want me to say?"

Her control began to crack. Her face screwed up and tears began to slide down her cheeks.

"I want you to tell me that he wasn't possessed by the devil and that there's a good reason for the grass over his grave to be dead!" She leaned against him and began to sob. "That's all I want! That's not so much, is it?"

Hesitantly Bill put his arms around her and gently patted her back. It seemed such a wholly inadequate gesture, but it was the best he could do, the most he dared do.

For contact with Carol was sending intensely pleasurable but unwanted sensations racing up and down his body. All those hidden feelings and desires that plagued him in his bed at night were awakening here in the day and beginning to move. He hugged her a moment longer, then, with difficulty, put a little space between them.

"No, it's not much at all to ask," he said, giving her a stern look. "But I'm surprised you have to ask it."

"I know, I know," she said, and lowered her eyes. "But after all the things those awful people said on Sunday, and then to come up here and see this, I… I just cracked a little."

"It is weird," he said, glancing back at the dead grass, "but I'm sure there's a good explanation that doesn't have anything to do with the devil."

"Good. Tell me what it is."

"Let's head back to the car," he said.

He kept a protective arm around her shoulder as he guided her back down the hill toward the drive. He couldn't bring himself to break physical contact with her. Not yet, anyway.

He finally let go when he opened the door for her on the passenger side.

"What do you think?" she said as he started the car.

She was so hungry for an explanation—he wished he had one for her.

"I don't know. I'm not a horticulturist. But surely you of all people know that Jim wasn't possessed by the devil or any of that nonsense. We know he was an atheist, but the idea of Satan was as unacceptable to him as the idea of God."

"But what about the hair on his palms? You heard them out there when they said it. They called it 'the Mark of the Beast.' They said it's a sign that Satan dwells within."

"Jim was a hairy guy. A hairy palm means he was born with hair follicles in an unusual spot, and that's all it means. Nothing more. Probably genetic. If he was really a clone of that Hanley fellow, then I bet Hanley had hairy palms as well."

"Well," Carol said slowly, "Hanley did look pretty hairy in those old photos."

"What'd I tell you? Really, Carol, all that Satan garbage is just that—garbage."

In the ensuing silence he glanced over and saw her shocked expression.

"Bill!" she said. "You're a priest!"

He sighed. "I know I'm a priest. I've spent the last decade studying theology—studying it intensely—and believe me, Carol, no one in the Catholic intellectual community believes in Satan."

She smiled. Sadly.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

" 'Catholic intellectuals,' " she said. "I can hear Jim now."

Bill's throat tightened. "So can I. He'd say, 'That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.' "

"Oh, God, Bill!" she said, sobbing. "I miss him so!"

"I know you do, Carol," he said, feeling her pain, sharing a part of it. "So keep him alive inside you. Hold on to those memories."

4

With an effort Carol pulled herself together.

"But what you said before, about not believing in Satan— you sounded almost like Jim!"

"Well, Jim and I rarely disagreed on ethics or morals, just on their philosophical basis. And we'd both agree that there's no such being as Satan. Frankly I don't know of a single Jesuit who believes in Satan. There's God and there's us. There's no single being who embodies evil skulking through the world trying to get us to commit sins. That's a myth, a folk tale that's useful in helping people grasp the problem of evil. The evil in the world comes from us." He jabbed a finger against his breastbone. "From in here."

"And hell?"

"Hell? Do you think there's a place somewhere, a room or a cavern where all the sinners go to be tormented by demons? Think about it, Carol."

She thought about it, and it did seem kind of farfetched.

"It's all personification," he said. "It's a way of giving people a handle on some complex problems. It's especially useful with children—they have an easier time with theological concepts if we dress them up in myths. When we tell the kids, 'Resist the devil,' we're really telling them to hold out against the worst that's in them."

"Lots of adults believe in those myths as well—I mean, really cling to them."

Bill shrugged. "A lot of adults never grow up when it comes to religion. They could never accept that Satan is just a symbolic externalization of the evil that lurks in all of us."

"But where does that evil in us come from?"

"From the merging of the spirit and the flesh. The spiritual part of us comes from God and wants to return to Him. The physical part of us is like a wild beast that wants what it wants when it wants it and doesn't care who gets hurt in its drive to get it. Life is a process of striking a balance between the two. If the spiritual part prevails, it is allowed to return to God when life is over. If the baser drives and emotions of the physical aspect taint the spirit too deeply, it is not allowed to return to God. That, Carol, is hell. Hell is not a fiery place with pitchfork-wielding demons. It's a state of being bereft of God's presence."

5

Carol was still trying to digest Bill's words when they pulled into the driveway of the mansion.

"I know it sounds pretty radical," he said, "but really it's not. It's just a different perspective. We tend to take what the nuns taught us in school and tuck it away in the backs of our minds and accept it at face value without question for the rest of our lives. But real grown-ups need a grown-up theology."

"I'm working on it," she said.

"And just think about this 'Mark of the Beast' or 'Vessel of Satan' or 'Gateway for Satan' crap. Even if you want to cling to the old mythology, remember that God doesn't move in obvious ways, that's why it's a trial at times to keep one's faith in Him. If Satan existed, don't you think he'd avoid the obvious as well? Because finding proof of the Ultimate Evil—Satan—would make it so much easier for us to believe in the Ultimate Good—God. An' dat wouldn't be to dat ol' debbil Satan's liking, would it now?"

Carol couldn't help laughing—the first time all week.

"You make it sound so simple."

"That's probably because I'm oversimplifying. It's not simple. But I hope it helps."

"It does. Oh, believe me, it does."

She felt so much better. She saw the whole idea of Jim being possessed by the devil for the juvenile, superstitious silliness it was. The fear, the uncertainty, all slipped away, to be replaced by a sense of peace.

All thanks to Bill.

But as Bill opened the mansion's front door for her and ushered her inside, the gratitude evaporated in a blast of rage.

You smug, sanctimonious son of a bitch!

She staggered a step. Where had that come from?

She didn't feel that way about Bill at all! Why that instant of hatred? He was only trying to soothe her, doing his best to— impress her with his pseudo intellectual bullshit and make himself look so infinitely superior, so far above the petty fears of the common folk like her. Pompous, self-righteous Jesuit bastard! So fucking aloof! Thinks he's immune to the insecurities and frailties of the flesh! She'd show him!

Carol didn't understand this sudden rage within her. It was a wild, alien emotion, coming out of nowhere, imposing itself on her, enveloping her, making her want to claw at Bill's blue eyes with her nails, making her want .to bring him down, degrade him, humiliate him, break him, drag him into a mire of self-loathing and make him wallow in it, rub his face in it, drown him in it.

As soon as he was in the foyer she closed the door behind her. Passion was suddenly a white-hot flame inside her.

"Kiss me, Bill," she said.

He stared at her incredulously, as if trying to make himself believe that he really hadn't heard her correctly. A small voice deep inside her screamed, No, I didn't mean that! But a much stronger voice was overpowering the first, shouting that she did mean just that. And more.

6

"Carol?" Bill said, watching her. Her face had changed, as if the lighting had shifted to give her a strange, almost malevolent look. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am. I just want you. Right now. Right here."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"I've never been saner," she said, fixing him with her bright, slightly unfocused eyes as she slowly pulled off her sweater.

"Stop that!"

"You say that, but you don't really mean it," she said, smiling. "You've wanted me since high school, haven't you? And I've wanted you. Don't you think we've waited long enough?"

She reached around behind her and began unfastening her bra.

"Carol, please!"

Then the bra came loose and she shrugged free of it, letting it drop to the floor. Bill's mouth went dry as he stared at her bare breasts. They weren't the big, bouncy kind he had seen in the men's magazines he had confiscated from the boys over the years, but they were round and firm with pink nipples and they were right within reach.

"Who's going to know, and who's it going to hurt?" she said in a softly reasoning voice as she drew long strands of her sandy hair over her shoulders, pulling them taut and strumming them back and forth across her breasts until the nipples stood out hard and erect, just as Bill felt himself becoming hard and erect within his trousers. "After all this time, don't you think we owe it to each other? Just this once?"

"Carol—"

"Come on. It's sort of like unfinished business, don't you think?"

Bill closed his eyes. The idea was so appealing. It was almost as if she were echoing thoughts from his own subconscious. In a way it really was unfinished business, a ghost from his past that would haunt him indefinitely if he didn't do something to exorcise it. Just this once, with Carol, his old love. What could be more perfect? How good to surrender to this delicious warmth spreading from his groin and suffusing his whole being. Just this once and then he could put her behind him and get on with his vocation unencumbered.

When he opened his eyes, he stared in awe. She had slipped out of her jeans and panties and stood completely naked before him. She was beautiful—so beautiful! His eyes were drawn to her light brown pubic hair. He had never seen a completely naked woman before, even in a photo, and this one was naked for him, in the flesh, and she was Carol.

"Come on," she said, smiling and moving closer. She took his hand and placed it against her breast. He could feel the nipple arching against his palm. "Just for old-times' sake."

Just once? In the long run, would it matter if he broke his vow of chastity just once? He tried to reason against that seductive thought but his mind didn't seem to be working too well at the moment.

She released his hand and went down on her knees in front of him.

Just this once. In the long run, in the big picture, what could it matter?

7

He was weakening. She could feel the arrogant bastard's defenses crumbling as she knelt before him and ran her fingers over the bulge behind his fly. A wave of exultation engulfed her. She felt strong, powerful, as if she could conquer the world. The feeling was better than sex, better than the best orgasm she had ever had.

She reached for the zipper on Bill's pants. If she could get her mouth on him, he'd be hers, she knew it. There'd be no turning back for him then.

She smiled.

So much for keeping the spirit unsullied by the flesh, Mr. Jesuit priest!

Suddenly he backed away two stumbling steps. His face was flushed, tortured. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead and upper lip.

"No."

The word was spoken softly, in a hoarse, agonized voice, but it was like a red-hot spike driving into her pelvis. Suddenly the powerful feeling was ripped away. The world seemed to teeter, the walls of the mansion leaned toward her, as if about to crash down upon her.

And the pain—the pain inside was like hell.

Bill had turned away. His words were hurried, breathless, spoken to the empty rear section of the front hall.

"Carol, please! I don't know what's gotten into you, but this is no good!"

More pain, but she forced out the words.

"It's love!" she said to his back. "It's sex! What's more natural than that?"

"Yes, but I made vows, Carol! And one of them was chastity. You can argue all you want about the wisdom and utility of that kind of vow and whether it's productive or counterproductive—and believe me, I've heard all the arguments—but the fact remains that I made it freely, and I intend to hold to it."

The pain drove Carol to the floor. It felt as if something were slowly ripping apart inside her.

"But you of all people, Carol. I can't understand you," he said, his voice slowly returning to normal. "Even if you think my vows are stupid, you know what they mean to me. Why would you try to get me to break them? Especially now with Jim barely cold in his—"

He turned and saw her.

"My God! What's wrong?"

Something felt hot and wet on her thighs. Carol looked down and saw blood gushing from her vagina. The room swam around her. And the pain was so much worse.

"Help me, Bill! I think I'm going to die!"

Twenty

1

"Do you really find comfort in all these little statues and knickknacks?"

Grace regarded Mr. Veilleur with a mixture of fondness and wariness as he finished gluing the head of the Archangel Gabriel back onto its body. Brother Robert was at the far end of the living room, sorting the pieces of the large Madonna.

If you had my past, she thought, you'd take comfort wherever you found it!

"Comfort," she said. "Yes, that's a good word. They do bring me comfort. Just as the two of you do today."

Brother Robert wasn't listening, but Mr. Veilleur looked up at her with his intense blue eyes. Grace felt an immense attraction for the man. Nothing sordid. Nothing like that. He was perhaps ten years older than she, and talked freely of his wife, to whom he seemed very devoted. There was nothing sexual in the warmth he inspired in her. It was just that his presence gave her such a safe, secure feeling, and heaven knew, after last night's terror, security had become a precious commodity.

"It must have been a terrible experience for you," he said. "I thought you wouldn't want to be alone."

"I didn't! But how did you know?"

"I called—or tried to—to see how you were faring after Sunday. The phone was out of order. I came by and learned about the break-in from the super."

She hadn't been able to stay here last night. The young patrolman had been kind enough to drive her over to Martin's home. He and Brother Robert had been shocked by her story. They gave her the use of one of the spare bedrooms. But even with the coming of this bright, sunny day she had been unable to bring herself to return to the apartment.

Then Mr. Veilleur had shown up at the brownstone this afternoon. He had offered to escort her back. Brother Robert had come along. The super had replaced the lock on the door and went looking for a spare phone to lend her until the phone company could replace the one that had been smashed.

"Why are you helping me fix my things when you no doubt think they're just a silly woman's toys?"

"I doubt that you know very much at all what I think," he said. There was no hostility in the remark. The tone was casual, as if stating a simple fact.

"I'm quite sure that you do not believe as we believe," Grace said, gently challenging him. She wanted to draw him out. He intrigued her so.

"I thought I had made that quite clear."

"Then why do you keep coming back to us—I mean, the Chosen? And why are you here today? I'm enormously grateful for your presence, but surely you have something better to do with a Friday afternoon than help me repair my apartment."

"At the moment I do not," he said with a quick smile. "And as to why I keep coming back to the self-proclaimed Chosen, I'm not all that sure myself. But this group of yours—"

"It's not mine," she was quick to say, for she did not in any way wish to be held responsible for what had happened to poor Jim. She glanced at the preoccupied monk. "It's Brother Robert's group."

"I meant yours by association. But no matter. This tiny group of Catholics seems to comprise the sum total of everyone who is aware of the return…" His voice trailed off.

"Of the Antichrist?" she offered. "Satan?"

The term seemed to annoy him. "Yes, yes, if you must. But I am drawn to the group. I sense that the one who will finally stand against the threat will be drawn from these Chosen." He looked at her intently. "Perhaps it will be you."

The idea jolted Grace. She almost dropped the broken base of the Infant of Prague she had been holding.

"Oh, heavens! I hope not!"

"For your sake, so do I." He paused, then said, "But I can't help but wonder if there might be a chance that the attack last night was related to this… thing you are involved in."

"You mean," she said, chilled, "someone might have been after me—personally?"

"Only idle speculation," he said, waving a hand in dismissal. "I don't mean to alarm you." He held up the repaired archangel. "There! The glue is set. Where does he go?"

But the idea would not go away. What if it hadn't been a robber? What if the intruder had been lying in wait for the sole purpose of killing her? What if her time of judgment had come and she was to pay for all those lives she had taken in her past? Please, no! It can't be! Not yet! She hadn't had time to make full atonement. She didn't want to spend all of eternity in hell!

Just then there was a heavy pounding on her door and she jumped in fear.

Mr. Veilleur rose to his feet. "I'll get it."

When he opened the door, Martin was there. He looked Mr. Veilleur up and down.

"What are you doing here?"

"Just helping out," the older man replied with a slow smile. Martin's roosterish posturings seemed to amuse him.

Martin turned to her. "I've been trying to call here for the past hour!"

Grace pointed to the shattered remnants of her telephone.

"He got that too. I'm still waiting for a replacement."

Martin looked around, apparently noticing the carnage for the first time.

"Praise God, it looks like the work of the devil himself!"

"Is a crowbar the devil's truncheon of choice?" Mr. Veilleur said, still looking amused.

Brother Robert stepped forward. "What is it, Martin?"

"I've been having Grace's niece watched," he said in a low voice.

Grace was shocked and annoyed by the news.

Brother Robert appeared surprised as well. His fingers idly twisted a strand of his beard as he spoke.

"Why didn't I know of this, Martin?"

Martin did not meet his gaze.

"Because I was pretty sure you wouldn't approve. But it was you who said that this isn't over yet. I figured she's our closest link to the soulless one—and to that house where I'm sure the heart of this mystery rests!"

Grace said, "But what has that—"

"She was rushed to the hospital this afternoon."

Grace leapt to her feet. "What happened?"

"I don't know. The member of our group who was watching her today called to say that after lunch she met with her priest friend—the Jesuit who tried to send us away from the mansion on Sunday—who accompanied her to the cemetery and then back to the mansion. They both went inside, and then shortly after that an ambulance raced up and took her away on a stretcher. The priest stayed in the ambulance with her all the way to the hospital."

Grace felt her heart pounding. Poor Carol! And so soon after Jim's death. Good Lord, what can it be?

"There's something suspicious about that priest," Martin was saying. "He's a little too cozy to this whole situation for me to believe he is completely untainted."

Brother Robert said, "The Jesuits have their own agendas, their own priorities, which don't always coincide with those of the Holy See, but I doubt he's in league with the devil."

"He's an old high-school friend of Carol's!" Grace cried. "Oh, please, God, I hope she's all right!"

"It might be just nervous collapse," Mr. Veilleur said. He had seated himself again and begun arranging the broken pieces of a plaque depicting the Annunciation. "After seeing her husband die like that, I wouldn't be surprised."

"I've got to go see her," she said, starting toward the closet for her coat.

Brother Robert said, "Why not simply call first and find out what the problem is?"

Grace looked at him and guessed from his expression that Brother Robert was just as eager as she to learn the details of Carol's illness.

"Maybe I should."

Grace got the number of Monroe Community Hospital from information and dialed. When she asked to be connected to Carol Stevens's room, there was a pause, and then she was told that the patient was taking no calls.

That upset her. No calls could mean that Carol had a serious problem or perhaps had been taken to surgery.

"What's her room number?"

"Two-twelve."

"And who's her attending physician? Dr. Alberts?" She knew he had always been Carol's family doctor.

"No, it's Dr. Gallen."

Suddenly numb, Grace put down the phone without saying good-bye. It took her two tries to set it properly in its cradle.

Brother Robert, Martin, and Mr. Veilleur were all staring at her.

"What's wrong?" Brother Robert said.

"I'm not sure. Maybe nothing."

"Then why do you look as if you've seen a ghost?"

"They said her attending is Dr. Gallen."

"So?"

"I've heard of him. He's an obstetrician."

Mr. Veilleur dropped the Annunciation plaque.

2

"Did I lose the baby?" Carol said, holding on to the hospital-bed side rails like an overboard sailor clinging to floating debris.

Dr. Gallen shook his head. He was on the young side— maybe thirty-five—plump and fair, looking sort of like the Pillsbury Dough Boy after a visit to Brooks Brothers. He had yet to develop the imperious air of many of his colleagues. Give him time, Carol thought. But right now she was glad he was down-to-earth and amiable.

"As far as I can tell, no. You came awfully close, but I believe the fetus is still intact."

"But my pregnancy test was negative!"

"Who ordered it?"

"Uh, I did, sort of."

"When did you run it, sort of?"

"The Sunday before last."

"Almost two weeks ago. Too early. You were pregnant, but your urinary HCG levels weren't high enough to give you a positive. You got a false negative. Happens all the time. A few days later and it probably would have come out positive." He waggled his finger at her good-naturedly. "That's what happens when nonmedical staff members try to play doctor without going to medical school. Now, if you'd come to me in the first—"

"How far along am I?"

"I figure four to six weeks. Probably closer to four, If you're still pregnant."

Carol thought her heart would stop.

"If?"

"Yes, if. Although I'm pretty sure you haven't lost it, there's still a possibility you might have. We'll keep you off your feet a couple of days and keep running pregnancy tests. If they remain positive, everything's go. If not, you'll have to try again."

Reality slammed into Carol with numbing force. She fought the tears.

Try again? How? Jim's dead.

The pain must have shown on her face.

Dr. Gallen said, "Is something wrong?"

"My husband… he was killed Sunday."

His eyes widened. "Stevens? Not that Stevens! Oh, I'm so sorry. I've been out of town. I'd heard about it but I… somehow I never made the connection. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay," she said, but it wasn't. She wondered if anything ever would be okay again.

"All right, then. I guess that means we'll just have to see to it that this baby makes it," he said with a determined look in his eyes. "Right?"

She nodded, biting her lip in fear for the child.

"I'll check in on you later," he said. "I'm staying right on top of this. All night, if necessary." He gave her a quick wave and then he was gone.

Something about him almost made her believe that they could pull it off.

3

"It's all beginning to make sense to me now," Mr. Veilleur said as Grace watched him pick up the plaque shards.

"Good for you," Martin said sourly. "It has been perfectly clear to us for many weeks now."

"Easy, Martin," Brother Robert said. "A little more tolerance. Remember, faith is a gift."

"Has it really been all that clear to you?" Mr. Veilleur said to Martin. There was no amused smile playing about his lips now. He looked positively grim.

"Of course. The Antichrist is coming and—"

"Can we dispense with the Judeo-Christian mythology for a while? It only muddies the water."

"Mythology?" Martin said, huffing and drawing himself up. "You are talking about the Word of God!"

"Let's just use a neutral term, shall we? I can't have a serious discussion if we're going to talk about 'the Antichrist. ' How does 'the Presence' sound to you?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Oh, come, Martin," Grace said. "That sounds pretty neutral to me. What can it hurt?"

Grace sensed that Martin was as interested as she was in what Mr. Veilleur had to say but that he didn't want to admit it.

Martin glanced at Brother Robert, who nodded.

"It's all right, Martin," he said slowly.

Martin turned to Mr. Veilleur. "Okay. But just remember that—"

"Fine," Mr. Veilleur said. "Now tell me, all of you: When did you get your first inkling of the Presence?"

"I'm not sure," Brother Robert said. "It was all so vague at first. Early February, I'd say."

Martin agreed, nodding vigorously. "Definitely."

"How about the speaking in tongues?"

"Oh, that's been happening since we first began meeting last year. It's common in Pentecostal groups."

"I mean the special tongue, the one Grace used when she spoke to me that night at the meeting."

Grace shivered at the memory. "The one you called the Old Tongue?"

He nodded but kept his eyes fixed on Martin. "Yes. When did you first hear that?"

"That I can tell you. It was shortly before Brother Robert arrived. I remember it because it was so remarkable. Everyone who spoke in tongues that night spoke in the same language. It was Septuagesima Sunday—February eleventh."

"Interesting," Mr. Veilleur said. "That was the night Dr. Hanley's plane crashed."

"Do you think there's a connection?" Grace asked.

"Think about it," the older man said. "That seems to be the event that set all the other events in motion. Of course, there was another event that might have preceded the crash."

"What?" Grace said simultaneously .with Brother Robert and Martin.

"The conception of the Stevens baby."

Grace felt as if all of her blood had drained out in a rush. The words seemed to crystallize an idea in her mind. It was only partially formed now, but it was growing.

"Why would that—?"

"Consider the sequence of events. Hanley's death made James Stevens a rich man. James Stevens's death makes his wife a rich woman and guarantees that their child will be raised in an atmosphere of financial power, leaving only one person between the child and control of the Hanley millions. Doesn't it all strike you as a little too convenient?"

"The child!" Brother Robert whispered. "Of course! The child is the Antichrist!" His eyes were bright with wonder. "It's so obvious now! Satan used Stevens's soulless body as a conduit through which he could invade this sphere by entering a woman and becoming human flesh! Evil incarnate!"

"You're partly correct," Mr. Veilleur said with a sigh. "But the Presence has been in 'this sphere,' as you put it, much longer than a month."

"How do you know so much?" Martin said.

Really, Grace thought, he's acting very childish.

"You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't want to understand. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

"Tell me, please," Brother Robert said. "When do you think the Presence entered the clone's body?"

"In May of 1941, I believe. Shortly after James Stevens was conceived. Perhaps there is something to this business of the soul, after all. It's very possible that James Stevens, being a clone, never had one. That being the case, the Presence probably thought he had found the perfect vehicle for himself. But instead he wound up trapped. And he remained trapped inside James Stevens's body—impotent, ineffectual, raging— for over a quarter of a century. Until—"

"Until Carol conceived Jim's child!" Grace blurted.

"Exactly. Whatever powers the Presence possesses were blocked while it inhabited James. It remained viable but… disconnected, so to speak. A larva locked in a living chrysalis. But when James Stevens fathered a child, the Presence broke free of him and 'became flesh,' as Martin might say."

"You mean it's taken over Carol's child?" Grace said. The thought horrified her.

"No," Mr. Veilleur said with a slow shake of his head. "It is the child. From the moment of conception its powers have begun to grow. That is the wrongness you've sensed in the world for the past month or so. It is the Presence, maturing within Carol Stevens, growing stronger with each passing day."

"This sounds like Rosemary's Baby," Grace said.

Martin said, "God works in subtle and mysterious ways. Perhaps He inspired that author to write such a book; perhaps He made it a best-seller as a warning to us all!"

Grace was dubious. "God works through The New York Times best-seller list?"

"His hand is everywhere!" Martin leapt to his feet. "And even now the Antichrist is growing within the clone's wife. That explains why we sensed no diminution of the evil when the clone died."

"Stop calling him that!" Grace said, her growing resentment of Martin's callousness finally reaching the breaking point. "He was my niece's husband. He had a name. And we are responsible for his death!"

"That was an accident!"

"An accident that proved very convenient for the Presence," Mr. Veilleur said.

Martin looked shocked for a moment. He made no reply.

"I fear Mr. Veilleur may have a point," Brother Robert said. "And speaking of names, don't you have one for this Presence, as you call it?"

"Actually it's a him, and he has many names, none of which you've ever heard, so they would mean nothing to you."

"How about 'Satan'?" Brother Robert said.

"Satan? Forget Satan! Something evil is coming—you're right about that—but it's not your Satan. Something far worse is on the way, something beyond your worst nightmares. The Antichrist? If only it were! When it gets here, you'll long for your Antichrist. Because prayers won't help you. Neither will guns or bombs."

The utter conviction in Mr. Veilleur's voice drove a shaft of terror through Grace's soul.

"How… how do you know so much about him?"

Mr. Veilleur gazed out the window as a stray cloud passed across the sun.

"We've met before."

4

Bill came in, entering her hospital room like an unarmed man entering a gladiator ring. "Are you okay, Carol?"

Carol's control almost dissolved at the sight of him. She remembered this afternoon—Bill carrying her to the couch, covering her with a blanket, calling the first aid squad, and staying by her side during the ambulance ride.

"Oh, Bill!" she said, sobbing.

She sat up and lifted her arms, aching to embrace him. Her unaccountable lust of a few hours ago was gone now, gone as if it had never been. This was for friendship, from a deep, simple need for someone solid to hold, to cling to.

But Bill only grasped one of her hands and looked down at her with worried eyes. That had always been his way, it seemed—when she had needed some hands-on support after her parents were killed, he had backed off, just as he was doing now.

But who can blame him for being gun-shy after the show I put on a few hours ago?

She felt her face redden with the memory of it.

"Please, Bill," she said. "I'm so sorry about what I did to you before. I don't know what happened to me. It was like someone else had taken me over."

"It's okay," he said softly, smiling and patting her hand. "We both survived."

"But the baby almost didn't."

His hand tightened on hers. "Baby?"

"Yes! Dr. Gallen says there's every chance the baby's still okay."

"You're pregnant?"

"Four to six weeks along. Maybe that's why I acted so crazy back at the mansion. They say the hormone changes in pregnancy make some women do crazy things."

"I don't know much about that sort of thing," he said, grinning shyly. "But please don't ever do anything like that again. I know they say beware the Ides of March, but you almost gave me a heart attack!" He paused as his smile faded. "A baby—"

His voice choked off and she saw tears spring into his eyes as he worked to speak again.

Finally he managed to say, "Carol, that's wonderful!"

She shook her head and then began to cry herself, unable to hold it in any longer.

"Not so wonderful!" she said finally. "Why couldn't this have happened a year ago? It stinks! Jim's child—and he'll never see him! He wanted a child so bad and we weren't sure we could ever have one, and now we do but he's gone and the baby will be born without a father! Why does God play such rotten, dirty tricks?"

"I don't know. But maybe it's not so rotten. I mean, in a way it means that Jim is still alive, doesn't it?"

Struck suddenly by the wonderfulness of the thought, Carol slowly leaned back on the pillow and allowed herself to float on the warmth and comfort it brought.

5

Grace felt cold all over. She rubbed her hands together as she spoke.

"Then you think we played into the hands of this… this Presence when we went out to Monroe. Do you think it was influencing us? Do you think we've been tricked all along?"

"Never!" Martin cried. "How can you say such a thing! The Spirit was with us, guiding us!"

"Wait, Martin," Brother Robert said. "Let us hear Mr. Veilleur's answer. Explain, please."

"Well," Mr. Veilleur said, looking older than when he had arrived here earlier this afternoon, "there are two sides to this. I think you've all been touched by the other side, the one that would resist the Presence. The reason isn't clear yet, but I think the one who has been chosen to stand against the Presence will emerge soon."

"The way is clear enough, isn't it?" Martin said. "The baby must never be born!"

"Carol is my niece!" Grace said, a fiercely protective urge rising within her. "Look what happened to Jim! I won't allow her to be harmed! Never!"

"Of course not!" Brother Robert said, glaring at Martin. "The girl is innocent! To harm her is to sink to the level of the evil we wish to oppose!"

"Then what," Martin cried, his expression anguished, "do we do?"

Grace could think of nothing to say. Mr. Veilleur was silent.

Brother Robert turned to Grace. "Do we accept that the Antichrist dwells within your niece?"

Grace turned away. She did not want to accept that, but it explained so much. It explained her own reaction that night a month ago when Carol and Jim visited. Carol must have been pregnant then, and Grace must have sensed the Evil One within her. And later that very night she had unconsciously turned a sacred hymn into blasphemy.

Silently she nodded. Martin, too, nodded. Mr. Veilleur sat motionless.

The monk's voice was soft. "Then we all must also agree that we cannot allow that child to be born."

"Carol is innocent!" Grace cried. "You cannot harm her!"

"I have no wish to. In fact, I forbid it. So we must find a way to strike at this unholy child without harming the woman who carries him. We need a way to cause a miscarriage, or to convince her"—he glanced heaven ward—"I never thought I would ever say this—to have an abortion."

Grace felt her blood turn to ice, and then to fire, a holy fire of renewed faith as the slowly growing spark of an earlier idea burst into an epiphany of diamond-clear light. Grace was lifted on wings of rapture as she wondered at the glory of God and His intricate ways.

"Oh, glory!" she cried.

"What's wrong?" Martin said, stepping back from her.

"The Chosen One, the one who will strike the fatal blow against the Antichrist. I know who it is."

Slowly, still feeling as if she were floating, Grace turned and walked into her bedroom.

This was the chance she had been praying for all these years. With this one deed she could undo all the sins she had committed in her youth. With this one death, the stains of all the other deaths on her soul would be cleansed.

Awed by the perfect symmetry of it all, she removed the bottom drawer from her dresser and reached into the open space below. Her questing fingertips found the dusty leather box she had placed there so many years ago. She pulled it out. It was as wide and as high as a cigar box but twice as long.

The tools of her salvation.

Ignoring the dust that coated it, she clutched the box to her breast and gazed into the mirror, remembering.

She had started in the mid-thirties when she had been twenty or so. After a few years, all the young girls in trouble had come to call her Amazin' Grace, for she was a trained nurse who was caring and careful with them and knew how to keep them from getting infections after her work was done. Eventually she came to see the sinfulness of what she was doing, and had put it all behind her.

Now she could only wonder if her becoming Amazin' Grace had been part of God's plan all along.

"I'm the Chosen One," she said, beaming at Brother Robert, Martin, and Mr. Veilleur as she returned to the front room.

"Chosen for what?" Martin said.

Grace opened up the box to show the curettes and dilators she had used for so many abortions.

"Chosen to stop the Antichrist."

Twenty-one

Saturday, March 16

"It is too much to bear!" Brother Robert said as he strode back and forth across Martin's living room. Beyond the windows, night had fallen. The hardwood planking was cold against the soles of his bare feet but he ignored the discomfort. "It is out of the question! I cannot allow it!"

"But Brother Robert—" Martin began.

The monk cut him off. "Abortion is a sin! The Lord does not want us to sin! It is blasphemy even to consider such a thing!"

The very idea of abducting this poor young woman, whoever she was, anesthetizing her, invading her most private parts to rip out the dweller in her womb, no matter what its nature… it was completely alien to everything he had dedicated his life to, to everything within him. His body shook with revulsion at the mere thought of being party to such a violent act.

"Then why was I guided to the Chosen?"

Brother Robert stopped his pacing and stared at the third person in the room—Grace Nevins. She sat quietly on a chair in the corner with her hands folded on her lap. He had sensed a buried torment in the woman since their first meeting, and yesterday he had learned what it was. Now that torment seemed to be gone, replaced by an inner peace that shone from her eyes.

"I don't know," Brother Robert told her. "But I cannot conceive that you were brought to us to commit a sin…to involve all of us in the sin of abortion."

"But surely this is an exception," Martin said. "Abortion is the taking of a human life. That is wrong. But this is not a human life. We're talking about the Antichrist, Satan himself. A human life would not be ended by this act. The only thing ended would be Satan's threat to Christ's salvation of mankind! To destroy him is not a sin. It is doing God's work!"

The argument was persuasive, but Brother Robert found it too pat, too facile. He was missing something. There was more to this than he had ever imagined. And so confusing. Was his faith being tested? Tested again?

Faith. He had to admit that his had been sorely tested during the past few years by what he had seen and read and heard during his travels. Not that he had ever been in danger of swerving from his lifelong devotion to God, but he could not help but feel that his faith had been sullied during his travels. It had always been like a pristine, diamond-clear liquid, hermetically sealed against contamination. But the secrets he had heard whispered in the darkest, maddest corners of his travels—and culled from the most deranged ramblings in the forbidden texts he had forced himself to read to their vile conclusions—had somehow tainted that fluid, briefly clouded it with doubt. He had persevered, however, and through fasting and prayer had restored the clarity of his faith. But the doubts had remained as an inert sediment. A sediment that had been stirred up by Mr. Veilleur.

Who was that man? What did he know? The things he had said, what he had implied, they echoed what the hidden others had said: that there was no God, no salvation, no divine Providence, that humanity was but an old franc's worth of booty in an endless war between two amorphous, implacable, incomprehensible powers.

Brother Robert squared his shoulders. Mr. Veilleur was wrong, as were the madmen he had met in Africa and the Orient. Satan was the enemy here, and God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were guiding them all against him. But guiding them toward an abortion? He could not accept that.

The doorbell rang then. He threw a questioning glance at Martin.

"Are you expecting anyone?"

The younger man shook his head. His expression was annoyed.

"No. It's probably that pest, Veilleur. I'll get rid of him."

He hurried down the hall, but when he returned, he was not alone. Two of the Chosen were with him. Brother Robert recognized them as an especially devout pair—Charles Farmer and his sister, Louise.

"They've come to see you," Martin said, a troubled look on his face. "They say they're supposed to be here."

"We're answering the call," Charles said.

"Call?" Brother Robert said. "But the regular prayer meeting isn't until tomorrow afternoon."

The bell rang again. Martin answered it and returned this time with Mary Sumner.

"I'm here," she said brightly.

Brother Robert turned to Martin. "Did you call anyone?"

Martin shook his head. "No one."

Brother Robert was nonplussed. What was happening here?

The bell rang again. And again, until ten new arrivals—six men and four women—were gathered in the living room.

"Why… why are you here?" Brother Robert asked them.

"We thought we should be," said Christopher Odell, a portly man with florid cheeks.

"But why did you—do you—think that?"

He shrugged, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I don't know. I'm just speaking for myself here, but for me it was a feeling… an overwhelming feeling, almost like a summons, that I should come here right now."

Brother Robert saw the other new arrivals nod in agreement. Suddenly he was thrilled. Something was happening here. The Spirit was gathering them together—Martin, Grace, these ten especially devout members of the Chosen, and himself—in one place for a reason.

But why?

He decided to reveal to them the moral dilemma with which he and Martin and Grace had been wrestling before their arrival. Perhaps they had been called here to provide him with a solution.

But first he needed Grace's permission. He turned to the corner where she remained seated.

"Grace," he said, "may I share with our brethren what we have learned about the Antichrist, and about you, and about the remedy you have proposed?"

She nodded, then lowered her eyes to gaze at her folded hands.

Brother Robert told them then about Carol Stevens's pregnancy, that she carried the child of Dr. Hanley's soulless clone, and about what they believed to be the true nature of that child. He saw the fear and wonder in their eyes as they listened, then saw it turn to revulsion when he told them what Grace had revealed about herself.

Murmurs of "No" and "It can't be true" slipped through the room as they rejected the thought that one of their number could have had such a past.

Grace's voice suddenly cut through the babble.

"It's true!" she said. She had risen from her chair and was now moving toward the center of the room. "I told myself I was helping those girls, saving them from shame and disgrace, saving them from someone else who might butcher them or even kill them with infection. And maybe that was true to some extent. But I was also doing it for the money, and simply for the thrill of doing it!"

The ones who had been called here backed away from her, as if mere proximity might taint them. But Brother Robert saw the pain in her face as she poured out the secret she had locked up for so long.

"I didn't think of the consequences to those unborn children, those tiny souls. I simply thought of myself as a courageous problem solver. It never occurred to me how many lives I was destroying. But there came a time when my perspective changed. I became unable to dehumanize them any longer, to reduce them mentally to mere bits of tissue by calling them embryos and fetuses. I saw them as children—and I had murdered them! I returned to the church… and I've been atoning for my sins ever since." She sobbed. "Please forgive me!"

"It's not up to us to forgive you," Juan Ortega said softly. "That's in God's hands."

"But perhaps," Grace said, "I am already in God's hands. Perhaps I am to be his weapon against the Antichrist. That is why he brought me to you. Because I have the skills to prevent his enemy from being born! I can abort the Antichrist while he is small and helpless. And I can do it without harming the innocent woman who harbors him!"

A shocked babble of voices filled the room. Cries of "No!" and "Never!" Louise Farmer turned and started down the hall toward the front door, saying, "I'm not listening to any more of this!"

As Brother Robert raised his hands to quiet them he felt the hardwood floor ripple under his feet.

And somewhere on the second story of the brownstone a door slammed with a sound like a shotgun blast.

Everyone froze in place and listened in awed silence as, one by one, every door in the brownstone slammed shut.

Brother Robert felt the floorboards ripple again. The others must have noticed it, too, for they all looked down at their feet. Suddenly the air seemed charged with electricity. He felt his face tingle, felt the hairs on his arms and legs stand up. The tension in the room was building quickly, inexorably.

Something was going to happen! Brother Robert didn't know whether to cower or to open his arms and accept it.

And then there was a light. It hovered in midair for a moment in the center of the room over Grace, a flickering tongue of flame, and then it began to expand. And brighten. There came a silent explosion of brightness, filling the room with an intolerable, staggering brilliance that spiked into Brother Robert's eyes, making him cry out with the pain.

And as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.

Brother Robert shook his head and tried to blink away the purple splotches swirling and floating before his eyes. Finally he could see again. He saw the others squinting and stumbling around the room. Some were crying, some were praying. Brother Robert too felt the urge to pray, for he had just witnessed a miracle… but what did it mean?

As he folded his hands together he noticed that they were wet. He looked down. Blood. His hands were slick with it, both palms and backs smeared with red. Shocked, wondering where and how he could have cut himself, he turned to look at the others and felt his foot slip.

More blood. Both his feet were bleeding.

And then he knew. Brother Robert felt the strength go out of him like the air from a ruptured balloon. He dropped to his knees.

He examined his hands closely. There, in the center of each palm, was an oval opening, oozing blood. He touched the right wound with the little finger of his left hand. There was no pain, not even when he probed it. He felt his fingernail slide between the edges of the skin. He pushed it farther through the warm, wet flesh within until it emerged on the other side. He stared dumbly at the red, glistening fingertip protruding from the back of his hand.

He snatched his finger free and fought a wave of nausea. Then he pulled aside the scapular and ran his hand over the left side of his chest, not caring that he smeared the fabric of his robe with blood. Yes! His skin was wet under there! He had the chest wound as well.

A nail hole in each hand and foot, and a spear wound in the chest! All five wounds of the crucified Christ!

The Stigmata!

He struggled to his feet to show the others, and that was when he became aware of the bedlam around him. There were cries and prayers and chaos. And blood. He was shocked to see the blood on all of them. All of them!

Amid the panicked cries and wondering murmurs, Grace Nevins stood straight and still, her rotund figure an eye of calm in the center of the storm. She held out her punctured palms to him as her voice cut through the clamor.

"The Spirit has spoken," she said. "We know what we must do."

Filled with wonder and unable to find another explanation, Brother Robert bowed his head in devotion and accepted the will of the Lord.

Twenty-two

Sunday, March 17

1

So it is done.

Jonah watched Carol as she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. Morning sunlight streaked the coverlet as Emma fussed over her, adjusting the slim straps of the new sundress she had bought for her daughter-in-law.

He knew now that the first step had been successfully completed. He had sensed it for the past month but had dared not allow himself to rejoice until he had absolute proof.

The only blot on his mood was his failure to fulfill the vision that had led him to Grace Nevins's apartment. He had so wanted to batter her skull until it was soft as a beach ball, but had failed. So he'd unleashed some of his fury upon her belongings.

But none of that mattered.

The One was alive. That was what really mattered.

The One he had awaited all these years had become flesh. The first step had been taken. The next task was to usher the One safely into the world. When that was done, he would guard the One as he grew to maturity. When the One reached the full level of his powers, no further guarding, no further assistance of any kind would be necessary.

Then the world would sink into chaos and Jonah would receive his reward.

He shook off dreams of the future and brought his thoughts to bear on the here and now.

The One had been in mortal danger.

The woman's womb had almost expelled his developing form two days ago. Jonah had been at work at the time. He had sensed the sudden weakness, the impending catastrophe, but had not understood the nature of the threat. Now he knew. The One had been near death then, clinging to physical life by the flimsiest thread.

Now, however, all seemed well. The One's strength was growing again. Jonah could sit here in the same room with the woman and bask in the power seeping through her from the One.

"Doesn't that sundress look wonderful on her, Jonah?" Emma said.

It was long, a blue flowered print, exposing her shoulders. Sunlight outlined her long, slim legs through the fabric.

"Very nice," he said.

"She just seems to glow!"

Jonah smiled. "Yes, she does."

"And she's coming home to our place when she's released this afternoon, aren't you, dear?"

Carol shook her head. "No. I'm going back to the mansion. It will be months before the house is rebuilt, so I think I'd better get used to the place."

"But you can't! Dr. Gallen told you to rest!"

"I'll be fine," Carol said. "I've put you out enough already. I won't impose on you anymore."

"Don't be silly! You—"

"Emma, I've made up my mind."

Jonah was aware of the determination in her eyes. So, apparently, was Emma.

"Well, then. If Muhammad can't move the mountain, I suppose I'll just have to keep stopping by that awful old house to keep an eye on you."

Although she said nothing further, Jonah saw Carol roll her eyes toward the ceiling.

It was good to have Emma here. She obviously was thrilled to have a grandchild on the way. She would make an excellent midwife during the journey toward birth, a scrupulous, conscientious guardian who was completely ignorant of what she was guarding.

Just as well.

Besides, it would be good for her as well. Her spirits had been down so since the death of the Vessel, her Jimmy. But there had been new light in her eyes and new life in her step since she had heard the news of the pregnancy. Jonah wanted Emma to be happy and alert. She was more useful that way. He would need her vigilance.

For the threat to the One was not past. The One was most vulnerable now. There were forces still at large that would oppose the One and try to end his reign before it could begin. Jonah had guarded the Vessel for twenty-six years. Now he must protect the woman and her precious burden.

The priest entered then, and Jonah immediately sensed a disturbance in the glow from the One. A ripple of hate and… fear.

The reaction was so unexpected, so uncharacteristic. It startled Jonah. And puzzled him.

Why should the One react so to this young priest? He represented nothing that could threaten the One. And yet… he had been with the woman when she had begun to miscarry. Had he somehow caused it?

"What do you want?" Jonah said, standing and placing himself between Carol and the priest.

"I'm here to visit Carol, just as you are, Mr. Stevens."

His tone was polite but his expression said, Back off.

"Hi, Bill," the woman said from her bed. "They're letting me go today."

"Great." The priest brushed past Jonah and stepped to her bedside. "Need a lift?"

"We'll drive her," Jonah said quickly.

"That's okay, Jonah," she said. "I'd already asked Father Bill."

Jonah doubted that was true but didn't know what he could do about it. He would have to be watchful. If this priest was a threat to the One, then he was a threat to Jonah as well.

"Very well. Emma will go ahead of you and fix you something for dinner."

"Good idea, Jonah!" Emma said, beaming. "I'll have a nice lunch waiting for you!"

As Carol opened her mouth to protest the priest said, "I think that's for the best, don't you?"

Jonah wondered at the look that passed between them at that moment.

"Maybe so," Carol said, and looked away.

There's a secret between those two.

What could it be? Did he lust after Carol? Had he attempted to seduce this rich young widow, perhaps even try to rape her?

But no. That would not have weakened the One. It would have strengthened him. He would have glowed brighter from such an encounter. Instead, the One's light had almost been extinguished.

Did the priest know about the One?

That didn't seem to be the case. He showed nothing but warm friendship for Carol. He acted anything but intimate with her. In fact, for such an old friend, he seemed almost afraid to get too close to her.

Yet Jonah could not escape the conviction that this priest had somehow hurt the One. Whether by accident or by design, it marked him as a potential danger. He would have to be watched.

There was danger all around. Now, at least, Jonah had identified one threat. He would watch for others.

Do not worry, he told the One. I shall protect you.

He did not intend to be very far from the woman at any time during the next eight months.

2

During the ride from the hospital Carol noticed how Bill kept the conversation light. As they listened to the static-charged radio in St. Francis's battered old Ford station wagon, he commented on the music, on the unseasonably warm weather, and told her how it took every bit of his automotive know-how to keep this old crate running. But his face darkened when the newsman told of Bobby Kennedy's announcement that he intended to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.

"That gutless opportunist! What a creep! McCarthy takes all the risks, wounds the dragon, and then Kennedy steps in!"

Carol had to smile. She could not remember seeing Bill really angry before. She knew what Jim would say. That's politics, Bill.

"Makes me sick!"

They were pulling into the mansion's driveway then, and Carol spotted Emma's car.

"She's already here!"

"I think you could use the help," Bill said as he brought the station wagon to a stop before the front doors. "Don't you?"

Carol shrugged, not wanting to admit that he was right. She was feeling well now—so much better than she had even yesterday—but she was still weak. Dr. Gallen had said she'd lost a fair amount of blood but not enough to make a transfusion absolutely necessary. He'd said he preferred to let her bone marrow make up the deficit. So maybe she did need someone around to lean on now and again. But Emma…

"She's sweet," she said, "and her heart's in the right place, but she never stops talking! Sometimes I think I'll go mad from her incessant chatter!"

"Just a nervous habit, I gather. And don't forget—she's lost somebody too. Maybe she needs to feel needed."

"I guess so," Carol said around the lump in her throat. "But that's another part of the problem. She reminds me of Jim."

Bill sighed. "Yeah, well, she can't help that. Put up with it for a few days. 'Offer it up,' as the nuns used to tell us. It will be good for both of you. And I'll feel better knowing you're not out here alone."

"Thanks for caring," Carol said, meaning it. "It must be hard after that stunt I pulled Friday."

"Already forgotten," he said with a smile.

But the hint of uneasiness in his smile told her that it hadn't been forgotten. How could anyone forget something like that? She had stripped herself naked in front of this old friend of hers, this priest, and had thrown herself at him. Had actually been trying to unzip his fly! She shook her head at the memory.

"I still don't know what got into me," she said. "But I swear it will never happen again. You've got to forgive me."

"I do," he said, and there was nothing forced about his smile this time. "I could forgive you just about anything."

Amid the glow of relief she experienced an intense flash of resentment at his generosity of spirit. It was gone as soon as it came, but it definitely had been there. She wondered about it.

"Listen," he said, hopping out and running around to help her to her feet on her side of the car. "I told my mother you'd be out here by yourself. She's going to check in. And if I know her, she'll be dropping off a pot of stew or a casserole too."

"She doesn't have to."

"She's dying to. She can't get used to an empty nest. She's hunting someone to mother."

Carol remembered the warm, rotund Mrs. Ryan from the days when she had dated Bill in high school. She knew Bill had been staying at his folks' house since Friday and wondered how his parents were doing.

"I'll be fine," she said. "Really I will."

Emma was waiting inside. She ushered Carol to the big wing chair in the library, supporting her arm as if she were an elderly, infirm aunt.

"There!" she said. "You just rest easy in that chair and I'll get you some lunch."

"That's really okay, Emma. I can—"

"Nonsense. I made some tuna salad, the kind with the sliced gherkins, just the way you like it."

Carol sighed to herself and smiled. Emma was trying so hard to make her comfortable and look after her. How could she throw it back in her face?

"Where's Jonah?"

"He's home, calling his foreman. He's got some vacation time coming—lots of it—and he's going to take a few weeks to stay close by and help you get this place in shape."

Just what I need, she thought. The two of them around at once.

But again she was touched by the concern. In all the time she had known him, Jim's father—adoptive father—had been as remote as the moon. Since the funeral, however, his demeanor had changed radically. He was concerned, solicitous, even devoted.

And in all those years she could not remember him ever taking a vacation. Not once.

All this attention was getting to be too much for her.

"Want to stay for lunch, Bill?"

"No thanks. I really—"

"You've got to eat sometime. And I could use the company."

"All right," he said. "But just for a quick sandwich, and then I've got to be getting back to St. Francis."

The sun was so bright and the day so warm that Carol thought it might be nice to eat outside in the gazebo overlooking the Long Island Sound. Emma declined to join them. Bill was already out in the yard dusting off the seats when the phone rang.

"I'll get it!" Carol said, wondering who could be calling her here on a Sunday afternoon. She lifted the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Carol Stevens?" said a muffled voice.

"Yes? Who's this?"

"That is not important. What is important is that you be aware that the child you are carrying is the Antichrist himself."

"What?" Fear gripped her insides and twisted. "Who is this?"

"Satan has transferred himself from the soulless shell of your husband to your womb. You must put Satan out!"

"You're crazy!"

"Will you put Satan out? Will you rip the beast from your womb and cast him back into Hell where he belongs?"

"No! Never! And don't ever call here again!"

Her skin crawling, she slammed the heavy receiver down and hurried outside, away from the phone before it could ring again.

3

Grace unwound the handkerchief from around the mouthpiece of the receiver and stuffed it into her pocket.

That settles that.

She had hated speaking to Carol like that, but she had to know if the poor girl could be frightened into resolving the problem on her own. Obviously she could not. So now Grace's course was set.

She walked back to the front of her apartment where thirteen people waited in her cramped living room. There was Brother Robert, Martin, and the ten members of the Chosen who had been miraculously marked by the Spirit in Martin's apartment last night. They were dressed in sweaters and jackets and slacks and jeans—and all had bandages on their hands. Like Grace's, their wounds had stopped bleeding within an hour of the miracle.

Grace wondered if they had spent the entire night awake like her, staring at her palms, her feet, inspecting the stab wound under her left breast, assuring and reassuring herself that the wounds were real, that she truly had been touched by God.

Mr. Veilleur was there too. He alone had unbandaged hands. They were all waiting, all staring at her with expectant looks in their eyes.

Without fanfare or ceremony, much of the burden of leadership of the Chosen had passed to her. Grace felt strong, imbued with holy purpose. She knew what the Lord wanted her to do, and as much as her heart recoiled from what was to come, she was ready to obey. The others, Brother Robert among them, were behind her. The monk had stepped aside— gladly, it seemed—to allow her to decide the next move. Grace was receiving guidance from on high. The Spirit was with her. They all knew that and yielded to it.

Only Mr. Veilleur withheld his allegiance.

"She's home," she said. "At the mansion. It's time for us to act. Our mission today is the reason we were touched by the Spirit. It is the purpose for which we were brought together. The Spirit is with us today. It has made us the instruments of God. Let us go."

They rose as one and began filing out the door.

All except Mr. Veilleur. The sight of him sitting there immobile while everyone else mustered for action triggered a flow of syllables she did not understand. She heard herself speaking in what he had called the Old Tongue.

"Not this time," he said, answering in English. "You've had enough use of me. I'm out of it now. Out of it for good."

"What did I say?" Grace asked, momentarily unsure of herself for the first time since yesterday's miracle.

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Veilleur said.

"You're not coming with us?"

"No."

"You think we're wrong?"

"What I think doesn't matter. Do what you have to do. I understand. I've been there. Besides, this 'stigmata' you've all incurred has achieved its purpose. All doubt has been cast aside. You're all inflamed with holy purpose."

"Are you saying we're wrong?"

"Absolutely not. I'm merely saying you must go without me."

"What if I don't go? What if I do nothing? What if I turn my back to the calling of the Lord and allow the—allow Carol's baby to be born? What will that child do to us, to the world, when he's born?"

"It won't be what he will do to the world so much as what the world will do to itself. He will have little effect at first, although his very presence will cause those living on the knife edge of violence and evil to fall into the abyss. But as he grows older he will steadily draw strength from the ambient evil and degradation of life around him. And the day will come—as it inevitably must—when he realizes that his power is unopposed. Once he knows that, he will let in all the lunatic darkness stalking the edges of what we call civilization."

"You said something about what the world will do to itself. Will he make us all depraved and evil?"

Mr. Veilleur shook his head. "No. That's not how the game is played."

"Game?" Suddenly she was furious with him. Carol's husband was dead and she was going to have to perform an abortion on her niece and he had the nerve— "How can you call this a game?"

"I don't think of it as a game, but I have a feeling they do."

"They?"

"The powers that are playing with us. I think… I don't know for sure, but after all these years I've come to the conclusion that we're some sort of prize in a contest between two incomprehensibly huge opposing powers. Not the big prize. Maybe just a side bet. Nothing of any great value, just something one side wants simply because the other side seems interested and may find useful someday."

Grace wanted to block her ears against this heresy.

"But God, Satan—"

"Call them whatever you wish. The side we might call Good doesn't really give a damn about us. It merely wishes to oppose the other side. But the other side is truly harmful. It feeds on fear and hate and violence. But it doesn't cause them, for forcing you to do evil gains it nothing. The evil must rise from within."

"Because we're evil due to Original Sin."

"I've never understood why people buy that Original Sin business. It's just the Church's way of making you feel guilty from day one. It means it's a sin to be born—patently ridiculous. No, we're not evil. But we have a huge capacity for evil."

Grace didn't want to hear, but she couldn't help listening. And as she listened, she sensed the sincerity behind his words.

"And so its agent here—the Presence I mentioned the other day—will strive to make it easier for you to defile yourselves and each other. He will clear the path for all that is base within you to come to the fore, facilitate the actions that destroy the bonds of love and trust and family and simple decency that enrich your lives and feelings for each other. And once each and every one of you is divided from each and every other one, when you all have become mentally, physically, and emotionally brutalized islands of despair, when you have each descended into your own private hell, then he will merge you all into one hell on earth."

"But how bad—?"

"A gentle skim of the history of mankind, even the sanitized accounts preserved in commonly used texts, can give you some idea of man's capacity for what is called 'inhumanity.' That only scratches the surface of what will come. The horrors of daily life will make the Nazi death camps seem like a vacation resort."

Grace closed her eyes in an attempt to envision the future he spoke of, but her imagination failed her. And then suddenly she saw it. The whole apocalyptic vista appeared in her mind—she felt it, touched it, tasted the misery and depravity that lay ahead. She cried out and opened her eyes.

Mr. Veilleur was staring at her, nodding grimly.

"And you won't help us stop him?" she cried.

"No. I'm old. And I've had enough of fighting. I have only a few years left. All I want is to live them out in peace. I can't add to your effort. Only you can do what needs to be done. But I wish you luck today. And don't let anything frighten you off."

"Frighten… ?"

"Yes. You may see things. You may find yourself confronted with your worst fears, your deepest guilts. Ignore them. They can't harm you. Just do what you've been chosen to do."

He accompanied her down to the street where the Chosen waited by their cars. He shook hands with her, then turned and began walking uptown.

As she got into Martin's car to head for Monroe—with a planned stop at a hardware store along the way—Grace watched the older man's retreating figure and could not shake the feeling that she would never see him again.

4

Carol had hoped to hide it from him, but it didn't work. Bill looked up from where he had spread a blanket on the lawn and leapt to his feet.

"Carol? What's wrong?"

Sobbing, she told him about the phone call.

"Damn!" he said. "What is wrong with those people?"

"I don't know! They frighten me!"

"You've got to get the police in on this. Have them watch the house."

"I think you're right. I'll call them after lunch." She looked down at the blanket. "I thought we were going to eat in the gazebo."

"It's warmer out here in the sun."

She dropped to her knees on the blanket and stared at the tuna-fish sandwiches. What little appetite she had before the call was completely gone now.

"How'd they learn I was pregnant? I found out less than two days ago."

Bill seated himself across from her. He didn't seem much interested in eating, either.

"It means they've been watching you."

Carol glanced around at the willows, the house, the empty Sound. Watched! It gave her the creeps. And it made her suddenly glad that Jonah Stevens would be around.

"Aren't they ever going to leave me alone?"

"Eventually, yes. Once all this publicity dies down, they'll find some other ripe target for their paranoia. Until then, maybe you should reconsider Emma's offer to put you up with them. Or maybe you could stay with my folks. They'd love to have you."

"No. This is the only home I have now. I'm staying here."

She was angry that she should even have to consider hiding from these kooks. But she worried about the baby. Could they really want to hurt her baby?

Jim's baby.

"The voice on the phone—I think it was a woman—said I'm carrying the Antichrist."

Bill stared at her. "And you believe that?"

"Well, no, but—"

"No buts, Carol. Either you believe you're carrying a perfectly normal human baby or you don't. Normal baby or supernatural monster—I don't see much middle ground here."

"But Jim's being a clone—"

"Not that again!"

"Well, it bothers me, what they said. What if they're right? What if a clone really isn't a new human being? I mean, it's really just an outgrowth of cells from an already existing human being. Can it have a soul?"

She watched with dismay as Bill's assured expression faltered.

"How can I answer that, Carol? In the two-thousand-year history of the Church, the question has never arisen."

"Then you don't know!"

"I can tell you this much: Jim was a man, a human, an individual. He had a right to a soul. I believe he had one."

"But you're not sure!"

"Of course I'm not sure," he said gently. "That's what faith is all about. It's believing when you can't be sure."

She thought of the awful dreams she had been having, the consummate evil depicted within them. Were those dreams originating in her womb and filtering up to her subconscious? What if they were more than fantasies? What if they were memories'!

"But what if what you believe is wrong? What if Jim had no soul and Satan used him as a passage into… into me!"

She was losing it. She could feel all control slipping away. Then Bill reached over and squeezed her hand.

"I told you about Satan. He's a fiction. So is the rest of this mumbo jumbo. This isn't a horror story, Carol. This is real life. Antichrists get born in works of fiction, not in Monroe, Long Island."

She felt the panic flow out of her. She was acting silly. But right then, surfacing in the midst of the flood of relief, came a fleeting burst of hatred for Bill and for the comfort he had brought her. Why?

She forced a laugh. "Maybe I should stop thinking so much."

Bill smiled and held out the platter of sandwiches to her.

"Maybe you should."

She took one. She felt so much better now. Maybe she could get something down.

5

Time to go.

Lunch, what little they'd eaten, was over. Bill looked at his watch and reluctantly decided that he had better be hitting the road soon. It had been a hectic weekend, a decided change of pace from the routine of St. F.'s. He knew he couldn't survive this kind of stress too often. Who could? But he realized that all the stresses Carol had put him through since his arrival on Friday afternoon were but a sampling of the pressure weighing upon her hour after hour, day after day. Bad enough that Jim had died a week ago today, but then to learn that she was carrying his baby, and now to have some paranoid lamebrain call and tell her she's carrying the Antichrist!

The limitless possibilities for perversity in daily life never failed to astound him.

Time to go.

Bill looked at Carol sitting across the blanket and felt as if he were looking through her sundress. He kept seeing her naked body as she had stood before him on Friday afternoon. Her breasts with their erect nipples, her fuzzy pubic triangle…

Time to go.

It was torture being near her like this. And he was ashamed of the regret he felt for not giving into her on Friday. He tried to push it away, walk on, and leave it behind, but it kept at his heels, nagging at him, tugging on his sleeve.

To his dismay he realized he loved her, had always loved her, but had submerged the feeling in a well of daily prayer and busy work and ritual. Now the old feelings had bobbed to the surface and lay floating between them like a murdered corpse.

If he didn't get out of here soon…

"Time to go," he said.

Carol nodded resignedly. "I guess so. Thanks for staying."

She reached out and grasped both his hands, her touch sending an unwelcome thrill through him. "Thanks for everything this weekend. If you hadn't been there Friday, I might have died."

"If I hadn't been there, maybe you wouldn't have—" He stopped, unable to speak of it. "Maybe nothing would have happened."

She released his hands. "Yes. Maybe."

They got up, Carol taking the sandwich platter and he taking the blanket. As he turned to shake it out downwind he heard her cry out.

"Bill! Look!"

He turned and saw her pointing to a patch of brown grass at her feet.

"What's wrong?"

"That grass! That's where I was sitting! And now it's dead, just like the grass over Jim's grave!"

"Easy, Carol—"

"Bill, something's wrong, I know it! Something's terribly wrong!"

"Come on, will you? It's not even spring yet! Some big stray dog probably emptied his bladder there this winter and it hasn't had a chance to turn green again!"

"That's right where I was sitting!" she said. "Did you see it there before you put the blanket down? Did you?"

Seeing the panic in her eyes, he decided to lie.

"Now that you mention it, yes. I do remember seeing a brown patch there."

The relief on her face made the lie worthwhile. Actually he didn't remember seeing any dead grass there before. But of course, he hadn't been looking for it.

"Let's just do a little experiment, shall we?" he said. "Follow me."

Earlier, while waiting for Carol to come out, he had wandered around the backyard and had noticed a row of geraniums blooming in the greenhouse on the south side of the mansion. He led her now to the steamy glass enclosure. The pungent odor of the red-orange blossoms filled the room.

"Here," he said, pointing out a specimen with particularly long stems. "Wrap your fingers around one of those and hold it for a moment without squeezing."

"Why?"

"Because I want to prove to you that neither grass nor flowers nor anything else dies because of you or Jim or your baby."

Glancing at him uncertainly, she knelt and did as he had told her. Bill sent up a silent prayer that this moment would pass free from another example of life's limitless possible perversities.

If it dies, we've got big trouble, he thought lightly.

Carol let the stem go after a good half minute's grip and leaned away from it, as if the blossom might suddenly explode.

"See?" Bill said, hoping his own relief didn't show as the bright flower and its stem remained healthy, green, and unwilted. "You're letting your imagination run away with you. You're buying the paranoid delusions of those demented fanatics."

She smiled brightly and for a moment it looked as if she might hug him, but she didn't.

"You're right! It's all bullshit!" She laughed and slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oops! Sorry, Father!"

"Your penance for that is three Hail Marys and a good Act of Contrition, young lady!" he said in his father-confessor voice, wishing she had hugged him.

Oh, yes. It's way past time to go.

6

Brother Robert sat stiffly in the front seat of Martin's car. His thoughts churned chaotically as the caravan of three vehicles rolled along the Long Island Expressway.

In a way he was disappointed. He had taken it for granted that he would be the one to lead the faithful in this divine mandate, that he would carry the fiery sword of the Lord into battle against the Antichrist. But he had been passed over. Grace had been selected.

Still, he had not been passed over completely. Gently rubbing the scabs of the healing Stigmata on his palms, he thanked the Spirit for touching him in such an intimate manner.

To be honest with himself, he had to admit that he was somewhat relieved that the responsibility had been shifted from his shoulders. He was still nominally in charge by reason of his ordination, but it was no longer up to him alone to strike that final blow against Satan. It had been a weighty burden. Now that it had been partially lifted, he felt lightheaded, almost giddy.

What a strange Armageddon this would be. What a motley, ragtag Army of the Lord they made, these everyday people. And their fiery swords: some small surgical instruments!

Where was the majesty, the grandeur of this great battle between good and evil? Who ever would have imagined that the fate of the world would be determined in a small town in this quiet corner of Long Island? It didn't seem right. It was too ordinary, too mundane.

Yet he could deny neither the miracle of the Stigmata nor the message from deep within him: They were about to confront a monstrous evil. If they succeeded in uprooting it before it established itself, the world would be spared enormous pain.

Brother Robert had wanted to do that uprooting. But he did not have the requisite skills for that particular task. Grace did. He consoled himself with the thought that it was for that reason and not for any doubt about the strength of his faith that he had been passed over by the Lord. Personal considerations were of no consequence here. The task was all-important.

And soon it would be done. Soon the Antichrist would be sent careening back to hell, and Brother Robert would be headed back to his beloved cell in the monastery at Aiguebelle.

7

In the backseat Grace rested her arm on the leather, felt-lined box of surgical steel instruments at her side. She had auto-claved them on her shift last night at Lenox Hill, and now they were perfectly sterile. In her lap she cradled the jar of chloroform she had taken from the hospital. She also had antiseptic solution and supplies of antibiotic capsules and codeine tablets she would give Carol to take after the procedure was completed.

She couldn't help having second thoughts about this. The Stigmata still marked her, the Spirit still filled her, and she would not be turned from her mission… but she wished there were some other way. If only Carol had miscarried completely a couple of days ago, none of this would be necessary. Grace knew that for the rest of this earthly life she would pay for what was about to happen here. She just prayed it would be balanced by her reward in the next.

Oh, Lord, let this cup passeth from me.

But the cup could not be passed, she knew, because there was no one to pass it to.

Carol… her brother's only daughter. In the span between Henry and Ellen's death and Carol's marriage to Jim, the girl had become almost a daughter to Grace. She had sent her off to college in the morning and had stayed up and worried when she was out late on Saturday nights. She had given her away at her wedding.

Nothing was going to happen to Carol, only to the blasphemy she carried. But Carol would never understand, never forgive her, and that was the hardest part. Yet Grace was willing to sacrifice her niece's love for her God, for the safety of humankind.

And sometime after the Antichrist was eliminated—Grace was not sure when—the police would find her and arrest her, as they would most of those with her. None of them cared. They had been marked for glory. They were doing what had to be done. It was the Lord's work, and after it was done, they would put themselves in His hands.

They were filled, all of them, with holy purpose. Eight men and five women, including Grace, all chosen by the Spirit, all ready to die for their God. She needed the men along for their strength in case they had to subdue anyone who might be protecting Carol. And she needed the women to help her with Carol. It would not be right to expose her niece's body to strange men, even if those men were filled with the Spirit. So the women would hold Carol while the men made sure Grace could perform her task undisturbed.

She closed her eyes. This was her salvation. She could feel it. By this one act she would undo all the sins of her previous similar acts. The symmetry of it was perfect.

But of course, why wouldn't it be? Its origin was divine.

8

Carol watched Bill drive the old station wagon through the gate and turn out of sight. Suddenly she felt very alone. She walked back in the house to be with Emma—I must be really desperate!—and tried to help her clean up the kitchen. But Emma shooed her away, telling her to follow doctor's orders and stay off her feet.

Carol tried. She turned on the TV and spun the dial: old movies, G.E. College Bowl, hockey, and pro basketball. She picked up two books and put them down again. She felt restless. She had been cooped up in a tiny hospital room for the past two days. She didn't want just to sit and do nothing, because if she did, she'd start thinking of Jim and about what had happened to him and how she would never see him again…

She wandered into the greenhouse to see if she could busy herself with the plants. It was hot and dry under the glass. Almost everything here needed water. That was what she could do: water the plants.

She was searching for a watering can when she spotted the dead geranium.

For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. Then she told herself that it was a mistake—it wasn't the same plant. Couldn't be.

But it was.

As she drew closer she saw the long stems, green and crisp less than an hour ago, now brown and drooping. The orange petals were scattered on the floor. Amid all its vigorous siblings was one dead, desiccated plant—the one she had touched.

Carol stared at it for a moment, then turned away. She wasn't going to let this spook her. Holding on to Bill's words about buying into other people's paranoia, she walked straight through the house and out the front door. She had to get away from the mansion, away from Emma, away from everyone.

She walked through the gate without looking up at the spikes and headed toward town.

9

"That's settled," Jonah said aloud as he hung up the phone. He was alone in his living room.

He had called his foreman, Bill Evers, at home and told him a story about continuing family problems since his adopted son's death and how he would have to use up some of his back vacation time for the next couple of weeks. Evers had been sympathetic and had given him the okay.

Jonah smiled. He had never realized how useful a death in the family could be.

The sky darkened suddenly. Curious, he hauled his long body out of the chair and went to the window. Ominous clouds were piling high in the west, obscuring the sun. He remembered the weather forecast on the car radio earlier. Sunny and unseasonably warm all day. But then again, a freak thunderstorm wasn't so out of place in light of the heat wave they'd been having.

Still, something about those clouds gave him a bad feeling. On impulse he called the Hanley mansion. Emma answered.

"Where's Carol?" he said.

"She's around somewhere. Did they give you the time off?"

"Yes. Can you see her?"

"Carol? No. When are you coming over?"

"Never mind that! Go find her!"

"Really, Jonah. This is a big place and—"

"Find her!"

Jonah fumed as he waited while Emma looked for Carol. Emma had her uses, but sometimes she was so thick! Finally she came back on the line, sounding out of breath.

"She's not here. I've called and called but she doesn't answer."

"Damn you, woman!" he shouted. "You were supposed to keep a watch on her!"

"I did! I made her sandwiches, but I can't watch her every minute! She's a grown—"

Jonah slammed the receiver down and returned to the window. The clouds were bigger, darker, closer, rushing this way. He knew then that this wasn't a simple out-of-season storm.

He ran to the garage and started the car. He had to find her. Even if he had to drive up and down every street in Monroe, he'd find her and get her to safety.

That storm was aimed at her, and at what she carried.

Twenty-three

1

As she walked along the harborfront, Carol heard the refrain from Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay" through the open window of a passing car. She remembered how taken Jim had been with the song when he'd first heard it a couple of weeks ago. Now Jim was dead, just like Otis.

She tried to shake off the morbid associations, but everyplace she went reminded her in some way of Jim. And God, how she needed him now.

The heat and humidity were becoming oppressive. What breeze there was off the harbor was like a big dog panting in her face. She heard a faint rumble of thunder and looked up to see a towering mass of clouds sliding across the sky, smothering the sun. Those thunderheads seemed to be in an awful hurry. Flickers of lightning flashed against their dark underbellies. Before she knew it, the bright afternoon was gone, replaced by the still, heavy gloom that precedes a storm.

Just what I need, she thought.

Carol hated thunderstorms. But Jim had always loved them. She would cringe against him with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed tightly shut while he stared out a window in rapt fascination at the lightning. The more ferocious the storm, the better for Jim.

But there would be no one to huddle with in this storm, and it looked like it was going to be a whopper. She began to hurry back toward Shore Drive.

Suddenly the storm leapt upon the town. A cold wind beat against the still warm air and drove it off. The lightning narrowed from pale sheets into lancing bolts of crackling blue-white fury, the thunder rose from muttered rumbles to the sound of savage giants wielding monstrous sledgehammers against the tin dome of the sky. Then the rain came. Huge wind-driven drops, scattered at first, left silver-dollar-size splotches on the streets and sidewalks, followed by sheets of icy water that beat the swirling dust into mud and carried it away in eddying rivulets that in no time were running two inches deep along the curbs.

Carol was soaked in an instant. She ran under a tree but remembered how that was supposed to be the worst place to wait out a thunderstorm. Up ahead, half a block away, she saw her old parish church—Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. It had to be safer than this tree.

As she dashed for the front door, hail began to pound out of the sky, icy white pellets, mostly marble-size but some as big as golf balls, bouncing off the pavement, pelting her head and shoulders, making a terrific racket on the cars parked along the curb. She ran up the stone steps, praying the front door was unlocked. It yielded to her tug and allowed her into the cool, dry silence of the vestibule.

Abruptly the storm seemed far away.

Church. When was the last time she had been in church? Somebody's wedding? A christening? She couldn't remember. She hadn't been much of a churchgoer since her teens. Looking back, she thought she could blame her falling away on a reaction to her parents' deaths. Her careless attitude toward church had caused some friction with Aunt Grace during her college years, but no big scenes. She never became antireligious like Jim; it was just that after a while there simply didn't seem much point in all that kneeling and praying every Sunday to a God who with each passing year seemed increasingly remote and indifferent. But she remembered times between her parents' death and her falling away when coming to Our Lady alone and just sitting here in the quiet had given her a form of solace.

She looked around the vestibule. To her left was the baptismal font and, to the right, the stairway to the choir loft. During seventh and eighth grades she had sung in the choir every Sunday at the nine a.m. children's Mass.

She shivered. Her hair and bare shoulders still dripped with rain and her wet sundress clung to her like an ill-fitting second skin.

She opened the door and stepped into the nave. As she walked up the center aisle, the rapid-fire lightning flashes from the storm illuminated the stained-glass windows, strobing bright patterns of colored light across the pews and the altar, almost like one of those psychedelic light shows that were so popular with the acid heads.

Thunder shook the building again and again as she walked about two thirds of the way to the altar and slipped into a pew. She knelt and buried her face in her hands to shut out the lightning. Questions kept echoing through her mind: How was she going to do this alone? How was she going to raise this baby without Jim?

You are not!

Her head snapped up. The words startled her. Who… ?

She hadn't really heard them. They hadn't been spoken. They had sounded in her mind. Yet she glanced around the church anyway. She was alone. The only other human figures present were the life-size statues of the Virgin Mary standing in the alcove by the pulpit to the left of the altar, her foot crushing the serpent of Satan; over on the right, the crucified Christ.

For a heart-stopping instant, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Christ's thorn-crowned head move, but when she looked again, straight on, it seemed unchanged. Just a trick of the flashing light from the storm.

Suddenly she felt a change in the empty church. The atmosphere had been open and accepting when she had entered; now she sensed an air of burgeoning unwelcomeness, of outright hostility.

And she felt hot. The chill from her rain-soaked sundress was gone, replaced by a growing sensation of heat. Her skin felt scorched, scalded.

A sound like cracking wood startled her. She looked around, but because of the way sound echoed through the wide-open nave and across the vaulted ceiling, it seemed to come from all sides. Then the pew shifted under her. Frightened, she stumbled out into the aisle. The cracking sounds began to boom around her, louder than ever. The creaks, the groans, the screams of tortured wood filled the air. She watched the pews begin to shift, to twist, to warp and writhe as if in agony.

Suddenly the pew she had just vacated buckled and split lengthwise along the seat with a sound like a cannon shot. All around her the other pews began to crack in a deafening fusillade. Fighting the trapped, panicky feeling, she clapped her hands over her ears against the roar and staggered in a slow circle. In the flickering, kaleidoscopic light, splinters flew into the air as the pews cracked and pulled loose from the marble floor.

And she was hot! So hot! A mist rose before her eyes. She looked at her arms and saw tendrils of smoke curling, twisting, rising from her wet skin. Her whole body was steaming!

The flickering light, the rumble of the thunder, the screams of the tortured wood—it all seemed centered on her. She had to get out of here!

As she turned to run, she saw the head of the crucified Christ moving. Her knees went soft as she realized that this wasn't a trick of the light.

The statue had raised its head and was looking at her.

2

Curse this rain!

Jonah felt the balding tires slip on the old downtown trolley tracks as he guided his car toward the curb. He couldn't see where he was going. His wipers couldn't keep up with the downpour, and his huffing defogger labored in vain against the mist that blurred the sweating inner surface of his windshield.

He wiped a sleeve across the side window to clear it but that was no help. It was as if he'd driven into a gray, wet limbo. Outside, Monroe's shopping district was completely obscured by the mad torrent of water dropping from the sky. As rain and hail beat a manic tattoo on the roof, Jonah felt the first stirrings of fear. Something was happening. Somewhere nearby, the other side was doing something to her. Everything would be ruined if he didn't find her!

Where is she?

In desperation he pressed the heel of his palm over his good right eye, sealing out the light. He lifted the patch over his left.

Darkness. Some drifting afterimages on the right, but on the left only a formless void.

Well, what did he expect? The visions only came when they damn well pleased. And apparently whatever power he had was keeping to itself today. Today, of all days, when he needed it most! He swiveled his head left and right like a radar dish, hoping something would come, but—

Jonah froze. There, to the right. Uphill, away from the waterfront. He pulled off his right hand and saw only the fogged interior of the car. But when he covered it again…

A light.

Not a flashing beacon, not a bright spotlight. Just a pale glow in the sightless black. Jonah felt a burst of hope. It had to mean something! He put the car in gear and began to crawl through the deluge. At the first intersection he turned right and revved the engine uphill against the current. Every so often he would stop and cover his good eye. The glow was growing brighter as he moved. It was now ahead and to the left. He slowly continued to make his way up the slope, turning the car left and then right again, until the glow filled the void in his dead eye.

This is it!

He determined the position of the glow's center, flipped his patch down, and leapt from the car. Through the pelting rain he made out the looming stone-and-stucco front of the Catholic church.

Jonah froze at the curb. This couldn't be! The Church wasn't involved! It had no power—least of all over the One! What was happening here?

But the girl was inside, and with her, the One. And the One was in danger!

As Jonah started toward the church, the wind and hail doubled in fury, as if to keep him away. But he had to get inside. Something terrible was about to happen in there!

3

Christ stared—no, glared—at her from his cross. His eyes glowed with anger.

Carol's heart thudded against her chest wall. Her whole body trembled.

"This isn't happening!" she said aloud into the cacophony of rending wood, hoping the sound of her own voice would reassure her. It didn't. "This is another one of those dreams! It has to be! None of this is real!"

Movement drew her eyes to Christ's right hand. The fingers were flexing, the palm rocking on the spindle of the nail that pierced it. She saw the forearm muscles bulge with effort. But this was a wooden statue! Wooden muscles didn't bulge!

That proves this is a nightmare! Any minute I'll wake up!

For a moment she was transported to a more peaceful place by the thought of waking up next to Jim and finding that all the horrors of the past week had been just part of an awful dream. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Blood began dripping from Christ's hand as he worked the nail free. It oozed down his palm in a rivulet and fell to the floor in long, slow, heavy drops.

Carol turned to run down the aisle when she noticed the statue of the Blessed Virgin looking at her. Tears streamed from her eyes. A voice sounded in Carol's head: Would you undo all He suffered for?

This was madness! A fever dream! Someone must have slipped some LSD into her water carafe at the hospital!

Then she noticed movement at the blessed Mother's feet. The snake was moving, slithering free from beneath her crushing foot.

Would you set the Serpent free?

The snake slid off the pedestal and was out of sight for a moment. Then its thick, brown length appeared again at the chancel rail, coiling up a baluster and then pausing at the top to stare at her with its glittering eyes.

Carol wanted to run but couldn't. The horrid fascination of it had rooted her to the spot. And now the pains began low in her pelvis, just like they had on Friday.

The piercing screech of a nail being ripped from dry wood drew her attention to her right again. Christ's right hand was free of the cross. With the bloody nail still protruding from his palm, he leveled his arm and pointed a finger directly at her eyes.

Would you release the Serpent? Pluck it out! Pluck it OUT!

"It's my baby! Jim's and mine!"

Another wave of pain caught her, doubling her over. And as she looked down she saw the snake coiled around her feet. With an undulating motion it wound itself around her leg and began to climb.

Carol screamed with terror and with the increasing pain ripping through her lower belly. It was happening again! Oh, God, she was going to miscarry! And this time no one was here to help her!

Suddenly a hand gripped her arm and another one pulled the snake off her leg and hurled it toward the altar. She turned and saw Jonah standing close beside her. She gasped at the sight of him. He seemed to be on fire—smoke streamed from his skin and clothes. He appeared to be suffering agonies of his own.

"Got to get you out of here!" he shouted hoarsely.

Carol had never dreamed she'd be glad to see that cold, hard, one-eyed face, but now she fell against him and clung to him, sobbing.

"Oh, Jonah! Help me! So weak! I think I'm going to faint."

He stooped, got one arm behind her knees, the other around her back, and then he was carrying her toward the vestibule.

Safe! She was going to be safe!

Just then the ceiling exploded downward in a blaze of crackling blue-white incandescence. Jonah paused a moment, then dashed for the doors. She looked over his shoulder and saw the iron cross from the church roof hurtling through the opening in the ceiling, driving downward amid the water and debris to smash into the very spot where she had been standing. It quivered there, spiked into the marble floor on a tilt, glowing and burning with green fire.

And then they were through the vestibule and out the front doors into the rain. The cool water felt good on her burning skin as Jonah carried her down the steps to his car. He helped her into the backseat.

"Lie down," he said. "Didn't the doctor tell you to stay off your feet?"

The barely repressed fury in his face frightened Carol. Besides, he was right. So she laid back and got her feet up as Jonah slid behind the wheel and began to drive.

4

"The phone line's cut," Martin said, brandishing the wire cutters in his bandaged hand as he sat dripping and shivering beside him in the front seat of the car.

Brother Robert noted the excitement in his eyes and the feverish glow on his cheeks. His rain-plastered hair only added to the effect, giving him a deranged look. He seemed to think he was playing James Bond.

"Good," he said absently.

Martin rolled down the window and looked at the sky. "The rain's letting up," he said.

Brother Robert looked at Grace and saw how pale and tense she was. "What do you think, Grace?"

"I think it's time we began," she said.

Brother Robert nodded. There didn't seem to be a reason to put it off any longer.

"Go ahead," he told Martin. "But be careful."

"Watch out for Jonah Stevens," Grace said. "He's big and strong. He's the only one who'll give you trouble."

Martin nodded and got out of the car. He signaled to the other two vehicles, and soon he was surrounded by the other half dozen men from the Chosen. Brother Robert felt a shade unmanly for not going with the men, but he could not risk tainting his vows or his order with even a hint of violence. He would take the women and the cars farther down the road and wait until the men had secured the house, breaking in if necessary, subduing anyone inside who resisted them. They would signal Brother Robert when everything was settled. Two of the men carried axes, and another carried a coil of nylon clothesline. They seemed prepared for everything.

Is this right? he asked himself for the hundredth time since this morning. And each time he had asked, he looked at his punctured hands, as he did now, and the answer was always the same: How could one argue with the Stigmata?

He watched the group approach the open gate. He felt like a missile hurtling through space, nearing its target. It seemed that his entire life had been directed toward this moment.

5

Emma ran into the front hallway to answer the bell. She hadn't heard a car, so it could only be Carol.

Probably drenched, poor thing!

She reached for the knob but hesitated. A warning sounded somewhere in her brain. Something wasn't right. She peeked through one of the etched sidelights and was startled by the sight of the three men standing there. Where on earth had they come from?

"Who is it?"

"Mrs. Stevens?" said a voice. "We'd like to speak to you a moment."

"About what?"

"About your husband."

About Jonah? Something weird was going on here. Emma peeked again through the sidelight and studied the men more closely. She gasped when she recognized the thin, pale one—he had been outside the gate the day Jimmy died.

"I know who you are!" she shouted. "Get away from here before I call the police!"

But she had no intention of giving them a chance to leave. She was going to call the police right now. Sergeant Hall had said that if any one of those nuts showed his face around

Monroe again, she should call him and he'd pick them up right away. She lifted the receiver but there was no dial tone. Oh, no!

The storm must have— Just then one of the leaded stained-glass windows in the dining room shattered as an ax smashed through it.

6

Carol was almost hysterical. It took every ounce of restraint Jonah had within him to keep from reaching over the backrest and knocking her senseless. She more than deserved it for endangering the One this way, but he had to keep her confidence. If he was to protect her, she had to trust him, depend on him.

"I'm having Satan's child, aren't I? Isn't that what's happening? Isn't it? What else could explain what happened back there?"

"For the tenth time now, Carol," he said through clenched teeth, "you're havin' Jim's baby—my grandson. I don't know where you get this fool Satan idea. Satan's got nothin' to do with that baby."

He hoped the truth of that last statement came through in his voice. Of course, the real truth wouldn't have made her feel any better, maybe even worse, but he had to calm her. Her emotional state was threatening to cause the One to miscarry.

"Then how do you explain the statue of Christ coming alive?" she sobbed. "And Mary—and the snake! You'd almost think they were trying to make me miscarry!"

And you would be right! Jonah thought.

The other side had come close to succeeding today, playing through Carol's religious superstitions to fill her with guilt and terror. It had failed this time, but it would try again. Jonah would have to be ever vigilant against the next attempt. But right now, for the sake of the One, he had to calm this frantic young woman.

"I didn't see none of that, Carol," he said, lying easily. "The statues looked the same as ever to me."

"But the snake! You pulled it from my leg!"

"I'm sorry, Carol, but I didn't see no snake anywhere in the church. I just happened to stop in to get out of the hail and found you screaming like a banshee in the middle of the aisle."

She pulled herself up to a sitting position and stared at him with haunted eyes over the backrest.

"But it couldn't have been just my imagination! It was too real!"

"You been through some awful times lately, what with what happened to Jim and then the funeral and all, and then near losin' the baby, and all that bleedin' "—he glanced at her over his shoulder to emphasize the next—"and not followin' your doctor's orders to rest and stay off your feet, ain't no wonder you started seeing things! You're lucky that's the worst of it. You could've gone an' lost the baby for sure this time."

Jonah was pleased with the fluidity of his ad-libbed explanations. He could almost believe them himself.

"I know," she said, slumping back to a reclining position on the rear seat. "I was stupid. But I think the baby's okay. I mean, the pain's gone now and there's been no more bleeding."

Lucky for you, he thought. If she lost the One, he would kill her. Slowly.

"But what about that flaming cross almost killing us," she said. "You can't tell me I imagined that!"

" 'Course not. The church got hit by lightning, the cross got knocked through the roof and ceiling, and that was it. We were lucky."

"But the glow!"

"St. Elmo's fire. Used to see it out on the farm during storms when I was a boy. Scary but harmless."

"You and Bill—you've got an explanation for everything!"

"You mean that priest fellow?"

"Yes. He says I should forget all this Satan nonsense and concentrate on having a healthy baby."

Jonah smiled ruefully. He never thought he'd ever find himself on the same side as a priest.

"I couldn't agree more, young lady. We all want that boy to be safe an' strong."

"Boy? Do you think it's going to be a boy?"

"Sure do." I know it!

"I have that feeling too. I think I'll name him James, after his father."

"That'll be nice." He has no father, but name him anything you want. It won't matter.

"Thanks for coming when you did, Jonah. You saved my life."

"Think nothing of it."

Because your life means nothing to me without the One.

7

"Where is she?" said the thin, pale one.

Emma glared up from her chair at the men who surrounded her. The one with the ax had climbed through the smashed window and unlocked the front door for the rest. They wanted Carol, but Emma would die before telling them.

"She's gone. Gone for the week. Gone for a rest."

"Really?" said the thin one. "When did she leave?"

"Straight from the hospital."

"She's lying," he said to the others. "We spoke to her here on the phone earlier this afternoon."

Two of the men hurried down from the upper levels.

"No one upstairs."

"Come on, lady," said the thin one. "We have no intention of harming you. We just want to find Carol Stevens."

"What do you want with her?"

"We'll take that up with her."

She didn't like the sound of that. What could—

Suddenly one of the men shouted, "There's a car coming in!"

"Do you feel it?" the thin one said in a hushed voice, his eyes wide and bright with excitement. "Do you feel it? It's her!"

Emma tried to scream out a warning but a hand clamped over her mouth.

8

By the time Jonah realized something was wrong, it was too late.

Carol was still shaky when they got back to the mansion, so he got her out of the car and had an arm around her waist as he helped her through the light rain and up to the front door. As soon as he stepped into the foyer, he sensed the danger. He spun Carol around to get her back to the car but suddenly there were four men facing him on the front porch—and more coming from the house.

"Who are you?" Carol said to them.

"We just want to talk to you, Mrs. Stevens," said someone from behind them. Jonah turned and saw a pale, thin man standing inside the foyer. "Come in. Please."

Jonah's mind raced. He knew who they were and sensed why they were here. Inside the mansion, death awaited the One.

I can't let this happen!

"Recognize them?" he said to Carol. "They're the ones who were here last Sunday. They killed Jim."

"Oh, God," she said. He could feel her anger feeding strength into her body as she straightened and stood on her own. Her voice gained a sharper edge. "Who the hell are you and why are you here?"

"My name is Martin," the man said. He motioned the others away from the door. "Please come in. I'll explain everything."

Jonah had calculated their total number at half a dozen or so, but only a few stood between Carol and freedom. If he could keep them occupied…

"Let's go in," Jonah said, taking her arm as if to guide her through the door. "Let's hear what they have to say."

As Carol stared at him in disbelief he watched the strangers. He saw them relax. They thought they had won. That was when Jonah made his move.

Whirling, he shoved Carol toward the porch steps, shouting, "Run!"

Continuing the same motion, he grabbed two of the strangers and flung them into the other two. There was an instant of confusion on the porch. He saw Carol stumbling down the steps, looking back with a white, frightened face.

"Lock yourself in the car and go!" he shouted.

Then someone leapt onto his back. Then another. And then a third. As he went to his knees under the weight he saw Carol reach the car. Mentally he cheered her on.

Go, girl! Get away from here! Run them down on the way out!

9

With a scream welling her throat, Carol pulled the car door open and threw herself into the front seat.

Safe!

But as she went to slam the door, someone grabbed the outside handle and yanked it back. The waiting scream broke free!

"Stay away from me! Leave me alone!"

She looked up into the bland face and gentle eyes of someone who could have been an accountant or a hot-dog vendor or a department manager at Macy's. But there was no mistaking the determination as he stood there in the rain and stared down at her.

"We have no wish to harm you, Mrs. Stevens."

"Then let me go!"

"I'm afraid we can't do that. At least not at the moment." He held out his hand to assist her from the car. She noticed that it was bandaged; so was his other hand. He pulled it back as if he had suddenly changed his mind. "Please come with me."

Another man, about ten years older but equally bland-looking, came up beside him and looked down at her. Both his hands were bandaged too. Despite her fear, she was struck by the strangeness of all those bandages.

"Please don't fear us," the second one said. "We're only here to help you."

Both their expressions showed a strange mixture of serenity and implacable purpose. Here was a pair who had found the answer to all things in life. No further questions were necessary.

The effect was chilling.

She looked past them to the porch where four men were still struggling to subdue Jonah. The first followed her gaze.

"We mean him no harm, either. Come."

Carol fought the hysteria straining against the underside of her diaphragm. They seemed sincere about meaning her no harm, yet something within her screamed in fear at the look in their eyes.

But what choice did she have? She was outnumbered and outflanked. They were out of sight of the road, and none of the neighbors were close enough to hear her if she screamed. Her arms and legs felt leaden, too weak to put up a struggle, too heavy to run very far.

And up on the porch they had Jonah on his feet and were leading him inside.

"All right," she said. "I'll come. Just don't touch me."

That seemed to be the farthest thing from their minds. Both men stepped back out of her way, but she noticed that the first kept a firm grip on the door handle.

They followed her to the porch. The one who had called himself Martin was waiting there. He spoke to the men with her.

"Go signal Brother Robert."

The second one trotted off toward the road.

Carol wondered at the significance of that as Martin preceded her into the front hallway. Then she heard Emma's breathless voice coming from the parlor.

"—tried to warn you, Jonah, but they gagged me and pulled me into the back room!"

Carol followed Martin into the parlor where one of the men was tying Jonah into one of the chairs as two others steadied his arms. In the doorway to the dining room stood Emma, flanked by two more of the men.

And they all had bandages on their hands. What did that mean?

"Carol!" she said. "I'm so glad you're all right! I was so worried!"

Carol was suddenly furious at these interlopers. The Hanley mansion didn't really feel like her house, and so she had not reacted as instinctively as she might have had they been in the old family cottage. But with the sight of the smashed leaded window, the shattered glass on the carpet, the axes leaning against the wall, something changed within her. She suddenly felt protective toward this old place. This was her house, and it probably had been these people who'd burned her out of her old home. And now they were making themselves right at home here! And tying up her father-in-law!

She stormed into the parlor.

"Get out! All of you, get out of my house!"

"We'll be leaving soon," Martin said, unperturbed.

"Not soon! Now! I want you all out of here now!" She strode to where they were binding Jonah's wrists to the arms of the chair. "Stop that! Untie him immediately!"

The men glanced up at her, then at Martin, then continued tying their knots.

"All in good time," Martin said. "But there's someone I think you ought to talk to first before you get too upset."

Carol was ready to scream at him when she heard the sound of tires splashing through the puddles on the driveway. She glanced through the front window and saw three cars pulling in. None of them looked familiar. As she watched, the doors opened and a number of women got out—five in all—and a bearded man in monk's robes with the cowl pulled up over his head. As they approached the front porch she recognized the short, portly figure in the lead.

"Aunt Grace!"

"Grace?" Emma shouted from the far side of the room. "Grace Nevins? She's with them? I should have known! She helped them kill my Jimmy!"

Carol barely heard her. Aunt Grace was here! That was good. Emma was just overwrought. There was nothing to fear from Aunt Grace. She had taken her parents' place after they were killed. If she knew these people, she'd straighten everything out.

10

Grace had sensed the evil within the house as she stepped up onto the porch. But when she entered and saw Carol dash across the front hallway, running toward her with outstretched arms, it slammed against her like a mailed fist.

"Aunt Grace! Help us! We're being held prisoner here!"

Grace willed herself not to recoil as Carol clung to her. But holding her trembling niece was like embracing a sack of maggots. There could be no doubt now—the Antichrist was within her. Grace Nevins was suddenly filled with righteous rage at Satan for doing this to her own niece. How dare he!

"You'll be fine, dear," she said, stroking her niece's long, damp hair.

I will free you from your affliction. I will rip the corruption from within you and return you to your old unsullied self.

She hated herself for being so deceitful. For despite her desire to free Carol from Satan, she dreaded the ugly scene to come and wanted to put off the unpleasantness as long as she could, to compress it and concentrate it into the shortest possible length of time, into a tiny, bitter pill that could be downed in a single swallow.

"Aunt Grace, do you know these people?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I've known them since Ash Wednesday."

"Can you get them out of here?"

"Don't you worry. You know I wouldn't let anything happen to my niece. Just relax. Tomorrow this will all seem like a dream and you'll be fine. In fact, you'll be better than you are right now."

You'll be free of the loathsomeness growing inside you.

She felt Carol relax, but there was still fear in her niece's eyes when she leaned back and looked at her.

"Just get them out of here. Please? You should see what they've done to Jonah!"

"Show me."

She followed Carol into the room to the right. She had never seen a house like this, so ornate, so cluttered. She stopped at the threshold, startled by the sight of Jonah Stevens, trussed in a chair and straining at his bonds.

"You!" Jonah shouted when he saw her. His single eye glared at her from a rage-distorted face. "I might have known you'd be involved in this!"

Might have known? What did he mean by that?

But it was Emma who suddenly dominated the scene. She pulled away from the two Chosen guarding her and lunged across the room at Grace, her fingers curved like talons, screaming at the top of her voice.

"It's you! You killed my Jimmy! Yooouuu!"

Grace shrank back from the attack, and luckily the other Chosen were able to grab and restrain Emma before she reached her. Emma's words became raving gibberish and she screamed and spit and bit and kicked at her captors as they dragged her to the floor. She was like a madwoman, like a wounded wild animal! Finally, whether from exhaustion or the realization that she was helpless, Grace couldn't say, Emma calmed down and lay there on the flowered carpet, panting and grunting.

Wounded. Yes, she had been wounded, hadn't she? Poor Jim wasn't to blame for being born without a soul. He had been used by Satan to impregnate poor Carol and then discarded. Her heart went out to poor Emma for her loss, but that did not make Grace fear her rage any less.

Jim used, Carol used. And Carol, no doubt destined to be discarded like Jim after she'd served her purpose and delivered the Antichrist. It was all so dirty, so treacherous. Well, Grace would put an end to all of that here today.

She watched with relief as they lifted Emma from the floor and prepared to tie her into a chair like her husband. She wailed piteously.

"She killed my Jimmy! She killed my Jimmy and she's got to pay for it!"

"Emma, please!" Carol was saying. "Grace had nothing to do with that!" She turned pleading eyes on her. "Did you, Aunt Grace?"

Grace shook her head.

In a way, she told herself, her denial was true. She had been against that first trip to Monroe, hadn't wanted to come along, and had stayed in the car throughout the whole tragic confrontation.

"She lies!" Jonah cried. "She was there! I saw her in one of the cars!"

Carol stared at her. "That's not true, is it?"

Grace could not bring herself to lie to her niece. "You have to understand, Carol. I—"

"She was there to kill Jim!" Jonah cried. "And now she's here to kill Jim's baby!"

Grace would have given her life then to stop the growing horror she saw in Carol's face.

Carol's voice was a whisper. "No!"

"Carol, dear, you've got to know that the child you're carrying is not really Jim's. It's—"

Carol's hands were over her ears as her voice rose to a scream.

"No!"

11

Bill had watched the awesome fury of the storm with his parents from the family living room. Now that it had dwindled to a drizzle and a distant rumbling, he was on his way. The temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees. Winter was making a last stand against spring. He had the defroster temperature up as high as it would go to keep the windshield clear.

He had to pass Carol and Jim's old house on his way to Glen Cove Road, and he felt an ache in his chest as he drove by the charred ruins at 124 Collier.

That got him thinking about Carol and how she was managing, if she was all right.

But of course she was all right. She was out at the Hanley place with her in-laws.

Then why did he have this persistent gnawing feeling that she wasn't all right?

He was approaching Glen Cove Road and was about to turn south when he abruptly pulled the car over to the shoulder by a Citgo station and stopped. The feeling was growing stronger.

This is silly, he thought.

He didn't believe in premonitions or clairvoyance or any of that extrasensory nonsense. It not only went against the teachings of the Church, but it went against his personal experience.

Yet he could not escape the feeling that Carol needed him.

He put the car in gear, started toward Glen Cove Road again, then braked and pounded on the steering wheel with his fist.

He could see that he wasn't going to be able to rest easy until he had settled this.

He pulled into the Citgo station, dug the Hanley mansion's phone number out of his pocket, and dropped a dime. No ring. The operator came on and told him the phone was out of order. Lines were down all over northern Nassau County. The storm, you know.

Right. The storm. Maybe the mansion had been hit. Maybe it was ablaze right now.

Damn. He was going to have to take a run out there. Just drive by. He wouldn't stop in. Just make sure everything looked okay, then head for Queens.

He took the direct route through the harbor area but was slowed by the traffic being detoured away from a fire on Tremont Street. He joined the rubberneckers, straining to see what was burning up the hill. Whatever it was, it looked to be near Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. An awful thought struck him—maybe the burning building was Our Lady. He had said Mass there only this morning.

He was tempted to park and run uphill to see. If Our Lady was ablaze, maybe he could help Father Rowley. But the sight of the smoke heightened his anxiety about Carol's safety. He gunned the car toward Shore Drive.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the street in front of the mansion wall free of fire trucks and no pall of smoke dirtying the air over the roof.

But the driveway inside the gate was loaded with cars.

Something about that didn't sit right with Bill. He did a U-turn down the street and drove by again. Slowly.

A good half dozen cars in the drive—J. Carroll, both the Stevenses', and others he didn't recognize. Curious, he pulled in by the wall and walked around to the gate. Maybe he could knock on the front door and ask if anyone had seen his sunglasses. Nobody had to know that they were sitting on the dashboard of his car.

He was halfway up the drive when he heard Carol scream. He began to run.

12

Emma was glad to see the pain in that bitch Grace Nevins's face when Carol screamed. That would be the least of her pain if Emma got her hands on her.

She felt her back teeth grind against one another as the two men seated her in a chair next to Jonah and prepared to bind her. She had never felt rage like this before. It bordered on madness. In fact, she was sure that if she ever got free and got within reach of Grace, she would lose completely her present tenuous grip on sanity. The last vestige of civilization would slough away and she would become some sort of raving, slavering animal.

Part of her was frightened by the intensity of the murderous feelings and wanted to hide them away, and yet another part hungered to set the savage free.

She watched Grace as she fumbled with some mealy-mouthed explanations to Carol. And then there was a commotion at the front door, out of Emma's view, a man calling Carol's name. Suddenly Carol's friend, Father Ryan, burst into the parlor.

"Carol!" he said. "Are you all—" He stopped when he took in the tableau before him. And everyone, including the monk, stared back, frozen by the sight of the priest's Roman collar.

"Bill, thank God you're here!" Carol cried.

"I'm Father Ryan," he said as Emma watched his astonished eyes take in Jonah, tied up in a chair, and she about to be. "What in heaven's name is going on here?"

"How aptly put, Father Jesuit," said the one called Martin. "Because that's just what this is: in Heaven's name."

"You were here last week!" he said to Martin.

"That is true."

"You're all insane!"

"Please! Please!" said the monk, pushing back his hood as he came forward.

For some reason, the sight of the gleaming scalp of his tonsure startled Emma. She tried to identify his accent as he stepped up to Father Ryan.

"Who are you?" the Jesuit said.

"I am Brother Robert of the Monastery at Aiguebelle," the monk said. "Please, Father, you must leave. You must trust me as a fellow-ordained priest that we are here to do God's work."

"Since when does God's work involve binding people to chairs?" the young priest said scornfully. "The game's over. Time to clear out. Get out of here now before I call the police! "

"Man's laws are of no account when doing God's will," Brother Robert said. "Surely you know that, Father."

"We'll see if the police agree."

Emma saw Father Ryan turn and make to leave the parlor, but two of the Chosen blocked his way. The priest pushed them aside. He was strong and they had difficulty holding him. One of Emma's guardians left her to help with the priest, leaving only one standing over her, and he was engrossed in watching the struggle.

And Grace… that bitch Grace Nevins had stepped back from the parlor entrance, bringing her closer to Emma.

Without hesitation or even conscious thought, Emma launched herself from the chair and lunged at Grace. The pent-up rage broke free and lent her quickness and power. She felt strong, stronger than she had ever felt in her life.

A high-pitched, feral cry forced itself free as her fingers found the other woman's throat. Grace's shocked, horrified face twisted into view. Her eyes bulged, her mouth worked around a scream, but Emma squeezed harder, increasing the driving pressure of her thumbs on Grace's voice box.

But others could scream, and scream they did. Emma could hear their high-pitched wails of shock and anger faintly through the roaring deep in her ears.

She paid them no mind.

Grace's pudgy hands pawed at her, alternately trying to push her away and pry the constricting fingers free of her throat. Other hands flailed at her, grappled with her, many hands, pulling at her arms, clawing at her face, desperately trying to free Grace from the death grip.

Emma shrugged them off.

So strong. The power surging through her was like nothing she had ever experienced before. No one could stop her now. She watched Grace's red, bulging eyes and slowly purpling face and knew that the end was near. New strength poured into her to finish off the fat bitch.

13

Carol's mother-in-law was trying to strangle Carol's aunt—the sight held Bill awestruck.

In the back of his mind was a voice urging him to take Carol and run. He knew it was right, but instead of heeding it he stood there and watched the melee in the center of the museumlike Victorian parlor as the ones who called themselves the Chosen converged upon the pair of struggling female figures and tried to separate them.

Carol stood next to him, clutching at his right arm, crying out for the two women to "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" And the monk, Brother Robert, hovered off to the left, tense and frozen, a statue in a habit.

It would have been like a piece of absurdist theater if it were not apparent to all that Grace was dying in Emma's grasp.

"Get her off Grace!" shouted the monk at last. "She's killing her!"

Bill was tempted to help, but there were already too many oddly bandaged hands trying to do just that, and accomplishing little more than getting in each other's way.

As Grace's face darkened toward a dusky gray, the cries from the Chosen became more frantic, more terrified. Suddenly one of their number—the thin one named Martin— darted away from the group and hurried past the spot where Jonah Stevens struggled with the bonds that held him in his chair. He went to the corner and retrieved something that had been leaning against the wall over there.

Bill didn't realize it was an ax until the man had raised it in the air over the struggling crowd. After a horrified instant's hesitation, he cried out a warning and leapt forward, reaching for the handle. Brother Robert was beside him. He too was clutching at Martin's arm. But they were too late. Before they could get to it, the blade descended in a blurred arc, burying itself in the top of Emma Stevens's head with a sickening crunch of cracking bone.

Gasps of revulsion, cries of shock and horror mixed with his own, filling the parlor as the crowd fell away like dropped jackstraws. Grace sagged to the floor, gasping and clutching at her throat as Emma reeled and staggered in a circle, her eyes wide, confused, her arms and hands jerking and spasming, the ax blade jutting from her bloodied head, the handle waving in the air over her back like a baton.

Suddenly she stiffened, and for one awful, endless instant Emma Stevens stood on her toes with her body, arms, and legs steel-rod rigid, her eyes rolled up in their sockets. Then she collapsed. Her body seemed to deflate, sinking to the floor in a flaccid heap, facedown on the carpet.

Bill wanted to be sick. Carol moaned behind him. Many of the Chosen fell to their knees in prayer. Brother Robert rushed to Emma's side and began to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Martin helped Grace to her feet. She pointed to Emma's body and tried to speak, but no words came.

"I had to do it," Martin said nervously as he patted Grace's arm with a trembling hand. "She was killing you. It was do that or watch you die. I had to!"

As Carol clung to him, weeping, Bill glanced over at Jonah Stevens sitting quietly in his chair. His wife had just been murdered before his eyes, yet he showed no more emotion than if someone had swatted a fly.

Martin pointed to Bill.

"Tie him up! Quickly! Before something else goes wrong!"

Bill was too numb with shock to fight off the hands that gripped his arms and pulled him away from Carol. Emma Stevens… dead… murdered with an ax. He had seen death before, people slipping away in beds after he had administered Extreme Unction, and even the violence in Greenwich Village had occurred in the dark, to strangers. He'd never seen anything like this, never violent, bloody murder in the light of day.

By the time he got a grip on the chaotic swirl of his thoughts and feelings, he was in a chair and coils of rope were snug about him. The monk was still ministering to Emma's body.

"Why are you here?" he said to Martin.

"To stop the Antichrist before he is born," Martin said.

Behind Martin he saw the women close in around Carol, and suddenly it was all horribly clear to him.

14

Brother Robert gave a final blessing to the body of the poor unfortunate woman, then rose to his feet and surveyed the scene.

Father Ryan's shouts of protest mixed with the young woman's screams as she was led out of the parlor and down the hall. Brother Robert wanted to run away but knew he could not. The young woman—his heart cried in response to her anguish—she was an innocent, unaware of what she carried. But there could be no mistake about the icy core of consummate evil he sensed growing within her. It chilled the room like a blast of arctic air, buffeting him like a gale. They had come to the right place.

He stared at the Jesuit. He had known that forcible restraint might be necessary, but the actual sight of a fellow priest bound to a chair was upsetting. He had a sense that everything was coming apart, that he was losing control of the situation— if, indeed, he had ever been in control.

He glanced again at the body lying at his feet and felt a gorge rise in his throat.

"What has happened here?" he cried to the Chosen. "We are not a rabble! We are doing the Lord's work! Killing is not the Lord's work!"

"You can't get away with this!" Father Ryan shouted.

"Sure they can," he heard the other man say in a flat, dry voice as he glared across the room at Martin. "They're going to kill us all."

Brother Robert stared at the one-eyed man. Hatred gushed from him. Here too was evil.

"Enough of such talk!" Brother Robert said. His voice had a distant sound in his own ears. "No talk of killing. This has been an awful, tragic mistake, and Martin will answer for it—to earthly authorities, and to God!"

"But I did it for God!"

Brother Robert was suddenly furious. "How dare you say that! I cannot accept that! I will never accept that!"

Martin looked at him with woeful eyes, then turned and ran from the house. Brother Robert heard a car engine sputter to life and its tires skid on the wet pavement as it roared away.

There was silence for a moment. Peace. Order. Everything was under control. He walked to a window and pulled down one of the heavy curtains. Gently he draped it over the dead woman's still form. Then he motioned the Chosen around him.

"Let us pray that God will guide Grace and give her the strength to do what must be done."

He began the Our Father while the Jesuit and the other man strained at their ropes. But Brother Robert knew the cords were stout, and the chairs were solid Victorian oak. Neither would give an inch.

15

Carol struggled desperately with the stone-faced women who were dragging her toward the kitchen, but they were as determined to hold her as she was to get free, and there were four of them.

"Please, Aunt Grace!" she cried, sobbing in her helplessness. "Please! Don't do this to me!"

Grace wouldn't look at her. She walked ahead, carrying a Gristede's grocery bag. Carol could see swollen purple marks on her neck. Her voice when she spoke sounded hoarse and wheezy.

"It's God's will."

"But it's my baby! Mine and Jim's! It's all I have left of him! Please don't take that from me!"

"God's will," Grace said. "Not mine."

As they entered the kitchen, Grace glanced at the women holding Carol and pointed to the rectangular, paw-footed kitchen table.

"Put her there."

Carol screamed and struggled more violently than ever. For a moment she twisted one hand free and flailed at the women, but they soon trapped it again and subdued her. She used up what little of her strength remained to twist and writhe in their grasp as they each took a limb and lifted her into the air.

Loss of contact with the floor loosed the floodgates of panic and she unashamedly wailed out her fear. She called out to God to save her, to come and tell these maniacs that they weren't doing His will, to strike them dead on the spot for doing this to her.

The women ignored her. They might as well have been deaf. And Grace—Grace stood at the sink, washing her hands and working at something on the counter that was hidden by her bulk.

Then Carol felt the tabletop against her back. She lay pinned and helpless while Grace finished at the counter. When Grace turned, her face was a mask, eyes blood-shot, her skin still mottled from the near strangulation. She was holding a wad of gauze in one of her gloved hands.

"Oh, please, Aunt Grace! Please!"

Her aunt pressed the gauze over her mouth and nose. It was wet and freezing cold, and the cloyingly sweet smell made her want to gag. The fumes stung her throat. Carol struggled but couldn't shake free for a clean breath.

Gradually, despite her fiercest efforts, a tingling, seductive lethargy crept up her limbs and claimed her.

16

Grace sobbed as she held the chloroform over Carol's nose and mouth.

I know you'll never forgive me, dear. But someday I hope you'll understand.

Finally Carol's violent struggles eased. In pairs, first the arms, and then the legs, her limbs went slack. When Grace was satisfied that her niece was unconscious, she removed the gauze and watched a moment to make sure she was still breathing regularly. She didn't want to put her too far under. Too much chloroform risked liver damage, and even respiratory arrest. Grace wanted her to have just enough to block the pain and relax the muscles so that she could do what had to be done.

"Carol?" she said, looking for a response. There was none. She brushed her fingertip over her niece's eyelashes, but the wink reflex was gone.

Good. She was under.

She smoothed the hair back from Carol's perspiring brow and looked into her eyes between the half-open lids.

"You're going to be all right," she whispered. "You must believe what I am telling you, dear. The Satan-child inside you will be gone, but you're going to be all right."

She straightened up and turned to the women.

"Okay," she said. "You can relax now, but don't move out of position."

She didn't want Carol to come to and roll off the table and hurt herself. She watched the women release Carol's limbs and noticed the blue-red marks where they had gripped her during her struggles. Each bruise was a tiny stab through the walls of her heart.

She pointed to the two women by Carol's legs.

"Undress her."

They hesitated a moment, glancing at each other—Grace sensed that they were as uncomfortable with this nightmare as she.

"From the waist down," Grace said, prompting them. "We can leave the dress on."

As the two women began lifting the skirt of Carol's sundress, Grace stepped over to the kitchen door and closed it. It shut out the sound of the prayers being said in the parlor. But that was not the reason she closed it. Although they were all here on a holy mission, she would not expose her niece's nakedness even accidentally to the male Chosen.

The women pulled the hem of the skirt up to Carol's neck and tucked the rest of it under her, then they slipped the beige cotton panties down past her ankles, revealing a tangle of light brown pubic hair. There was a sanitary napkin in place over the vaginal area. This too was removed but showed no trace of blood.

Grace stared wistfully at the unblemished napkin.

If only you'd lost the baby two days ago, none of this would be necessary.

Grace adjusted her surgical gloves and spread the sterile instruments out on their autoclave wrappers. She showed the two women by Carol's lower body how to position her legs—by grasping each behind the knee and flexing it up and back until the top of the thigh was almost touching the abdomen, then rotating it out to the side a few inches and holding it there.

The lithotomy position.

Grace had to look away from Carol's exposed perineum for a moment. It pained her to see her so helpless and vulnerable. But she steeled herself with the thought that it made the Antichrist vulnerable too. That was all that—

Something moved on the floor near her feet. Grace looked down and stifled a cry. An infant, a naked nine-month-old, was crawling toward her from beneath the table. It gripped her leg and pulled itself to a standing position. She could see now that the baby was a male. He looked up at her with wide, guileless blue eyes.

"Don't do it," the child said in the voice of a five-year-old. "Please don't kill another helpless baby!"

Grace bit down on her lower lip to keep from screaming. This must have been what Mr. Veilleur had warned her about. Her worst fear, her deepest guilt. She looked away.

Another infant, a female, was sitting atop Carol's abdomen, staring at Grace, a reproachful look on her chubby face. She spoke in the same voice.

"Haven't you killed enough of us already? Must you add one more innocent life to your long list of victims?"

Grace closed her eyes and felt the room begin to sway.

"You can't hide from us!" the voice continued, rising in volume. "We are always with you. Everywhere you go, we are there, watching. Open your eyes, Grace Nevins. My friends are all here now. Open your eyes and see what you did to them!"

Grace had to look. She blinked her eyes open for half a heartbeat and then squeezed them shut again, fighting back the vomit that surged into her throat, clutching the table edge to keep from falling.

Blood. The kitchen was awash with it. And everywhere were torn and mangled infants—ripped limbs, gouged faces, eviscerated torsos. And they were moving!

The child's voice never stopped.

"See what your instruments did to them? They'd be whole now, alive, working, loving, having babies of their own—if not for you. Please don't hurt another one of us. Please!"

Grace refused to break down. She straightened her back. This was Satan's work. This wasn't real. The demon wins by deceit and confusion. She would draw on the strength of the Lord to overcome him.

She opened her eyes and forced herself to stare at the bloody carnage. Of course it wasn't real. The other women still stood where she had placed them, oblivious to the charnel house around them.

"Murderess!" screamed the infant on Carol's abdomen, but Grace only smiled at it.

And then the gore and the mangled corpses and the accusatory infants began to fade. In seconds they were gone as if they had never been.

Grace realized she had been holding her breath. She shuddered and let it out, then forced herself back to the task before her. With a trembling hand she rubbed a Betadine-soaked gauze pad over Carol's pubic area, then dipped a large, cotton-tipped applicator in the brown antiseptic and swabbed the inside of the vaginal canal. She felt perverse, as if she were violating her own niece, but it was for Carol's protection, to prevent infection. Only the Satan-child would be harmed.

And it would be harmed. Satan would need more than visions to deter her from this holy task.

17

They were praying! Jonah ground his teeth in rage and frustration as he listened to the lousy bastards. He glared at Emma's covered body where she lay facedown on the carpet. The ax handle raised a tent over her head, but she was covered and apparently that made them feel better. Now they stood around mouthing their worthless Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Acts of Contrition. What fools.

The worst part was knowing that he could break free of this chair if only they'd allow him to move. He could bounce it, rock it, twist it until something broke, and then he'd be on his way to untying himself.

But they wouldn't let him move! Every time he tried to swing the chair or twist himself, hands would clamp onto his shoulders and hold him still.

All the years of waiting, preparing, hoping, planning—most of his life!—all about to be turned to shit by that fat bitch Grace Nevins in the other room. He couldn't stand the thought of it. He wanted to explode and kill them all!

And he would kill them all. Jonah memorized their faces. He would spend the rest of his days tracking them down one by one and slowly tearing the life from each of them.

Suddenly he froze.

Something in the room had changed. Something was in the air, gathering, growing. No one could see it, but Jonah could sense it. He forced himself to relax. It might not be too late vet. The One could still be salvaged.

He leaned back and watched. Something was about to happen.

Something wonderful.

18

"You don't deserve to have those prayers on your lips!" Bill shouted to the unheeding room.

Heads bowed, hands folded, they prayed on.

Bill shut out the voices and thought of Carol. Her shrill pleas and piteous wails had cut off abruptly a few moments ago, and then he had heard the kitchen door shut.

My God, my God! What are they doing to her in there?

He knew damn well what they were doing, but his mind shied away from the horror of it, especially since they were doing it in the name of God.

If only they'd listen to him! If only they'd—

The drape that covered Emma moved.

He stared at it, watching for another sign of life, sure that he must have been mistaken. But then he saw it move again. His stomach lurched. This was no random postmortem twitch, if there was such a thing. Emma Stevens's body was rising up under the drapery.

The prayers died in the throats of Brother Robert and the so-called Chosen as they noticed it too. The room was deathly still as they all stood and stared with gaping mouths at the body beneath the drapery rising to its feet. Bill, too, was transfixed, but he stole a glance at Jonah Stevens and was appalled at the sight of his bright, hungry eyes and flinty grin.

The drape slid to the floor and there stood Emma, the bloody ax still protruding from the back of her cloven skull. Slowly she turned in an unsteady circle, her eyes wide and blank, her lips pulled back in a grim rictus, dried rivulets of blood streaking her forehead and cheeks.

The tableau suddenly fell apart as all but one of the Chosen males scrambled from the room, crying out and tripping over each other in their mad haste to flee the horror before them. A moment later Bill heard a car speed away. No doubt some were running back to the safety of their homes and neighborhood churches, but a few remained huddled in the shadows of the hall.

Only Brother Robert stood his ground.

He pulled a long, slim, shiny brass crucifix from within his habit and thrust it before Emma's face.

"Back to hell, demon!" he cried. "Back to the pit you crawled from!"

She cocked her head to the side and stared at the crucifix. Slowly she reached out and touched it, running a fingertip softly over the figure of Christ.

Then her hand moved quickly, gripping the crucifix and snatching it from Brother Robert's bandaged hand.

"No!" he cried. "You can't have that!"

But he made no move to retrieve it from her. He simply stood there and watched her, as did the other two living occupants of the room.

For a moment Emma held the crucifix up between them, gripping it by the short upper end, her palm wrapped around Christ's head, the crosspiece flush against the body of her hand.

With the light gleaming along the slim length of its long lower end, Brother Robert's crucifix looked like an Art Deco dagger That thought was just passing through Bill's mind when Emma's arm straightened in a pistonlike thrust. Still grinning horribly, she drove the lower end of the crucifix deep into the left side of Brother Robert's chest.

With a shout of pain and shock he staggered back. Blood spurted from the wound, blossoming across the scapular of his habit like a crimson flower opening to the morning. He stared down dully at the crucifix protruding from his chest, a bloodied Christ staring back as it bobbed up and down with the chaotic rhythm of his fibrillating heart. He looked up, looked around the room, his eyes finally coming to rest on Bill's.

Bill flinched from the impact of those frightened, agonized eyes. It took all of his strength not to turn away. Then he saw the life slip from them. Brother Robert's mouth opened but no words came forth, only a trickle of blood, running slowly into his beard. He toppled backward like a felled tree, twitched once, then lay still.

"May God have mercy on your soul," Bill said, really meaning it.

He looked up and saw that Emma seemed to have forgotten her victim. Numbly he watched her step around him and move toward the kitchen, the protruding ax handle bobbing up and down over her as she walked.

19

Grace had paused briefly when she heard the cries and commotion from the parlor, but all was quiet now. No doubt Jonah Stevens had tried to break free from his bonds and the men had had to subdue him. It was good that there were so many of them out there. They would assure her of sufficient time to complete the task God had assigned her.

Everything was set, everyone was in position.

Carol's legs were propped in place by two of the women; her vagina and perineum had been prepped with the Betadine; a third woman was standing by her head, ready to administer more chloroform if necessary; the fourth woman was at Grace's side with a flashlight.

Grace lubricated the cold steel speculum and slipped it into Carol's vagina—

No. Not Carol's vagina. A vagina. She had to distance herself from this. That was the only way she was going to be able to go through it. This wasn't her niece, this was a doll, a lifelike mannequin.

She inserted the speculum sideways at first, then she rotated it ninety degrees and squeezed the handles. The speculum blades expanded and the corrugated tunnel of the vaginal vault lay open before her. A little adjustment of the angle and the cervix came into view, a pink, quarter-size dome with a deep dimple at its center—the cervical os, the gateway to Carol's uterus—

No! The uterus. Somebody's uterus. Anyone's but Carol's.

Beyond the cervix, through the os, the Antichrist grew.

She picked up the uterine sound, a slim metal rod with a small knob at the end. With this she would find the depth of Carol's—someone's—uterine cavity. Once she knew that, she could avoid the major complication of an abortion—perforation of the uterus.

After sounding, she would gradually widen the cervical os with a progression of curved steel dilators until it was open enough to pass the curette.

Then she would begin scraping.

She would clean the inner walls of the uterus until she had torn the embryonic Satan-child from his lair. And then she would take the bloody membranes and bits of tissue and burn them in the fireplace. And then she would scatter the resultant ashes to the wind.

And the world would be safe once more.

20

Carol slowly became aware that she could see. She found herself looking down the length of her body. It was like looking into a canyon. Her pubes formed the floor and her raised thighs the walls. And framed within the canyon was Grace's head. She tried to move, to call out, but her limbs wouldn't respond.

Was it over? Had they killed her baby?

If only I could move!

Then she heard Grace's voice: "We're ready to begin."

It wasn't over yet! She still had a chance! But she needed help—she couldn't do this herself!

She thought of her parents, dead all these years now, and wished they could rush in and save her. Her Dad could yank Grace away and give his sister pure hell for what she was about to do.

She tried to move again, and this time felt her limbs respond a little. But not enough! She had to get away, but she was too weak. Too weak to fight.

If only her Jim were here—he'd wipe the floor with these people and set her free.

But Jim was dead, just like her parents. And Emma too. All dead. Maybe Bill and Jonah were dead now as well. There'd be no help from the dead. She'd have to do it herself.

Herself. From now on she'd have to do everything herself. Starting now.

The women holding her legs seemed tense and distracted. No one was holding her arms. Carol gathered her strength and turned her body partly on its side. She tried to continue the motion in an effort to roll off the table. She heard Grace's voice shouting in the sudden confusion, felt hands rolling her onto her back again.

That was when she saw Emma's blank-eyed, blood-streaked, grinning face rise in the canyon above Grace's.

21

As she was slipping the uterine probe toward the os, Grace glanced up and saw Carol staring at her, a look of horror on her face. Her legs began to move. Her pelvis writhed, ejecting the speculum. It clattered to the floor.

"She's coming to!" Grace cried. She looked up at the woman standing at Carol's head. "Give her more chloroform! Quickly!"

But the woman wasn't paying attention. She too had a look of horror on her face. Grace noticed then that the woman's gaze was actually fixed above and behind her. Suddenly the other women were screaming and moving away from the table.

"What's wrong?" she cried. "Don't let her go!"

And then she felt a cold hand close on the back of her neck in a grip of iron.

22

The horror of it was slow in coming, for Carol realized in that instant that no one was restraining her any longer. She managed to roll onto her side again but rolled too far. Suddenly she was falling. She hit the linoleum hard and lay there a moment, stunned.

She shook off the pain, the dizziness, the nausea, and used the table leg for support to pull herself to a kneeling position, instinctively pulling the skirt down around her legs. Even though she was naked beneath it, the thin fabric gave her a protected feeling.

In the center of the kitchen, Emma and Grace were struggling. Emma was trying to get a lock on Grace's throat, but Grace was fighting her off this time, keeping her from getting the death grip she'd had in the parlor. And the ax—oh, God, the ax was still in Emma's head!

The other women clung to the sides of the room, their backs pressed against the walls like passengers spinning on that amusement park ride, the Round-Up.

A couple of the men came in from the front hall, timidly, like mice watching two cats locked in combat. They whispered to each other. Carol wondered where the rest of them were, especially that skinny one—Martin.

Suddenly Grace gave out with a choking cry and Carol saw that Emma was slowly reestablishing her stranglehold on her throat. Still weak and nauseous, Carol fought to make sense of her roiling emotions. She wanted Grace stopped, wanted her put away where she couldn't threaten or hurt her baby ever again, but she didn't want her killed—especially not at the hands of this walking horror that had once been Emma Stevens.

The two men seemed to gather some strength from Grace's peril. They rushed forward and tried to pull Emma away. Two of the women helped. This time they succeeded in freeing Grace by yanking Emma's arms outward and away, one in each direction. As Grace staggered free and gasped for breath, Emma shook off the Chosen and reached behind her head. With no change in her expression, no indication that she felt the slightest discomfort, she levered the ax handle up and down until it came free from her skull with a wet, sucking noise.

Carol knew what was going to happen next, as did everyone else in the room, most likely, yet she could not move to prevent it. Neither could any of the Chosen. Neither could Grace.

Still grinning horribly, Emma raised the ax until its red-stained blade almost touched the ceiling. Grace screamed and raised her arms over her head, but to no avail. The ax swung down with blinding speed and crushing force.

Carol screamed and turned away before the blow struck, but she heard the awful splitting impact and heard screams and trampling feet, heard and felt a heavy thump on the floor.

Then silence.

Slowly Carol opened her eyes. Her head was down. She could see a limp, outstretched arm and blood on the floor on the far side of the table. Fighting nausea, she raised her head. Emma still stood in the center of the kitchen, stiff, swaying. She looked at Carol, and for an instant there was a spark of something in her dead eyes—maybe a spark of Emma. But if so, it was a miserable, infinitely sad Emma.

She raised her arm and pointed toward the door to the hallway. Shakily Carol pulled herself to her feet and stumbled toward it, giving wide berth to Emma and averting her eyes from the still form in the pool of blood on the floor. As soon as she was past them, she ran.

As she reached the hall she heard the thud of a second body hitting the kitchen floor, but she didn't look back.

When she got to the parlor door and saw Bill, bound in a chair but still alive, she almost lost it. She wanted to cry out his name and throw herself on him, wanted to clutch at him and sob out all the grief, rage, horror, and relief exploding within her. But she couldn't do that. That was what the old Carol would have done. She was now the new Carol.

Besides, even as she stood here, all her emotions seemed to be running out of her. An endless tunnel had opened inside her. All her feelings seemed to be flowing down its black length toward a yawning, bottomless pit, leaving her empty, cool, controlled.

"Carol!" Bill cried. "Thank God you're all right!"

She started toward him, then saw Brother Robert's body with the bloody crucifix jutting from his heart.

I don't know who should be thanked, she thought, but I've got a funny feeling it's not God!

She looked away and darted behind Bill's chair.

"What happened in there?" he said, trying to look at her over his shoulder as her shaking fingers worked at the knots.

Carol experienced another of those sudden surges of hatred for Bill, a blazing rage that urged her to take a length of clothesline and strangle him with it. It frightened her. She shook it off.

"Grace is dead."

"I mean, to you. Are you okay?"

"I'll never be the same," she said, "but I'm okay, and so's the baby."

"Good!"

Oh, I hope it's good!

"What about… Emma?" he said.

"Gone. Like Grace. Both gone." A sob built in her throat, but she forced it down the tunnel.

Finally the knot at the back came free and she began to unwind the rope from around Bill's chest. As the coils loosened, he managed to pull an arm free.

"I'll get the rest," he said. "See if you can get Jonah started."

Jonah… she almost had forgotten about him. He'd been so quiet. She turned toward her father-in-law and hesitated. He was sitting calmly in his chair, smiling at her. She pushed herself forward and knelt beside him to work on the knots.

"You did good!" he whispered.

"I didn't do anything."

"Yes, you did. You kept strong. You kept the baby. That's all that matters."

Carol looked into his eyes. He was right. Her baby—Jim's and hers. That was all that really mattered.

"We've got to get away," he said, still whispering.

"We?"

"Yes. You've got to hide. I can help. I can take you south. To Arkansas."

"Arkansas?"

"Ever been there?"

"No." In fact, Carol couldn't even remember if she had ever said the word before this.

"We'll keep on the move. Never stay in one place long enough for them to gather strength against the baby."

"But why? Why do they want to hurt him?"

She searched Jonah's face for an answer, but there was nothing written there.

"You heard them," he said. "They think he's the devil."

"After what just happened, I wonder if they may be right," she muttered.

"Don't say that!" Jonah hissed. "He's your baby! Part of your flesh! It's your bound duty to protect him!"

Carol was stunned by his vehemence. He seemed genuinely concerned for the child. Maybe that was because he and Emma had never had a natural child of their own. But Emma was dead, murdered, and he didn't seem to care. All his concern was focused on the child. Why?

"I'll go to the police," she said.

"How can you be sure some of them won't be involved with these fool Chosen? Or won't join up later?"

The thought was chilling. This was becoming a paranoid nightmare.

"Here," Bill said, dropping to her side. "Let me finish those."

Carol noticed that his hands were shaking too. She resisted the urge to claw at his face as he worked on Jonah's knots. These irrational bursts of hatred for Bill—she didn't understand them, but she wouldn't let them control her. She would dominate them. She would learn to control everything in her life now.

She stood and walked to the bay window to stare out at the clearing sky. She felt as if she were in the center of a great whirlwind, and she desperately wished she knew which way to turn, where to go. The sun was low, shining through a break in the clouds on the horizon. The air was cold again. She clutched her arms across her chest and tried to rub away the chill.

And suddenly felt her blood freeze.

23

As he loosened the last of the knots that bound Jonah Stevens, Bill heard a low moan, a tragic mixture of shock and pain. He glanced up and saw Carol standing by the bay window. Her back was to him and she was swaying back and forth, as if she were standing on the deck of a ship in a storm.

"Carol? Are you all right?"

He saw her stiffen. She turned to him, her hands thrust stiffly into the pockets of her sundress, her face a deathly white.

"No," she said in a soft, hoarse voice. "I may never be all right again."

She looked as if she were about to keel over any minute. He rushed to her side and took her arm.

"Here. Sit down."

She shook off his hand, then lowered herself to the window seat where she sat with her shoulders hunched, trembling. She looked up at him; her attempt at a smile was awful.

"I'm okay," she said.

Bill didn't believe her, so he went to the phone and lifted the receiver.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jonah said in a low voice.

"Calling the police."

Bill saw a look pass between Carol and Jonah. What had they been whispering about while she'd been working on his knots?

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Carol said.

Bill didn't want to argue with her. He too was shaking all over, inside and out. He had seen things today he never would be able to explain, had never dreamed possible. He needed the police here to impose some order, some semblance of a sane reality.

He put the receiver to his ear. There was no dial tone.

"Line's dead, anyway," Bill said. "But what's wrong with the police?"

"They might be involved."

That was preposterous. "I can't—"

"Bill, will you drive us to the airport?"

"Who?"

"Jonah and me. I've got to hide for now. It's the only way I can be sure of being safe, of saving my baby."

"I can help her disappear," Jonah said.

He glanced at Jonah and saw him nodding. He remembered the complete lack of emotion as his wife was murdered before his eyes. The man was a snake! Bill couldn't let Carol go with him.

"No! It's crazy! This can all be straightened out! The police can round up these nuts and—"

"Jonah can drive me," she said, "or I can drive myself. But I'm going now, and I'd like you to come along. I may never see you again."

Bill stared at Carol. She had changed. Whatever iron had been scattered through her personality in the past had been drawn together and tempered to a solid, steely core by what had happened to her today. Her eyes looked out at him with unswayable determination. He felt so damn helpless!

Bill forced the words out. "Okay. I'll drive you."

Maybe he could change her mind on the way.

24

Carol faced Bill at the Eastern Airlines gate.

"Time to go," she said.

She felt scared and alone. Jonah was going to be with her, but that was like being alone. Yet she could see no other way. Head south where things weren't so organized, get lost in between the small towns—that was the plan.

"Will you be all right?" Bill said, his eyes searching her face.

She hid her real feelings from him. He had been trying to talk her out of this since they had left Monroe, but she had no choice. She had to go.

"I think so. We'll buy a car once we reach Atlanta, then we'll drive off. I suppose we can be easily traced as far as Atlanta. After that, Jonah promises we'll be almost impossible to find."

And that was just what she wanted right now. She was going to have her baby and raise him in peace and quiet. And no one was going to stop her.

She watched Bill glance over to where Jonah was standing by the ramp, waiting to board with her. When Bill looked back at her, his expression was stricken, his eyes full of foreboding.

"I don't trust him, Carol," he said in a low voice. "He's hiding something. Don't go with him."

"I have to, Bill." She didn't particularly trust Jonah herself but knew he would protect her and the baby.

"Does he know what he's doing?"

"I think so. I hope so."

She saw Bill's hands curl into fists of frustration as he said, "God, I wish there was something I could do!"

They stood in silence for a moment, then Bill spoke in an even lower voice. He seemed to fumble for the words.

"Carol… what happened back at the Hanley place?"

She did her best to keep her expression neutral, blocking out the horrors of the afternoon. She'd work them out later.

"You know," she said. "You were there."

"Emma was dead, Carol. As dead as can be. I know. I sat there looking at her unblinking eyes and her motionless chest before they covered her up. Yet she got up and killed two people."

"Then I guess she wasn't dead."

She knew how cold that sounded, but she couldn't help it. This was the only way she could deal with any of what had happened and what might yet come.

"She was dead, Carol. But she got up and saved you and your baby from your aunt. That wasn't Emma in Emma's body. It was someone else—something else. What's going on here?"

Something wants to kill my baby; and something else is trying to protect it!

This was the first time she had allowed the idea to put itself into words, and the bald truth of it terrified her. But the truth was there, staring at her, and she had to face it.

And she had to choose sides.

There was a monstrous struggle going on, and she seemed to be at the heart of it. She dreaded the thought of which side of that struggle might be protecting her child. But no matter what the nature of her ally, there was no question with which side she would align herself.

She would choose for her baby, now and forever.

"I don't know what's going on, Bill. All I know is that my baby was threatened, and now he's been saved. That's all I care about at the moment."

"I care about that too," he said. "But I've got to know more." Another glance over his shoulder at Jonah. "I bet he knows more than he's saying."

"Maybe he does. Maybe he'll tell me." Although she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"We're being used," Bill said suddenly.

Carol didn't let him see that she instantly knew exactly what he meant.

She said, "I don't understand."

"Jim, you, me, Grace, Emma, that monk, even Jonah over there—I don't know it but I feel it: We've all been used like pawns in some sort of game. And the game's not over yet."

"No," she said with leaden certainty. "It's not."

Suddenly she felt another of those inexplicable bursts of rage at him. Run out of facile rationalizations, smart ass? The words very nearly escaped her before she bit them back.

The loudspeaker announced the last call for passengers to board the Eastern flight to Atlanta.

"Gotta go," she said quickly, forcing good feelings for Bill to the surface. "Tell the police whatever you know, or as much as you dare."

"I guess this is good-bye, then," Bill said. "Let me hear from you once in a while, to know that you're safe."

He reached for her hand, but she embraced him instead, kissing him on the cheek.

"I'll be in touch."

And she would. She fully intended to return to New York sporadically for brief periods to answer any police questions about the three corpses in the mansion and to settle any problems regarding the estate. Once the baby was born, she was going to use Jim's inherited fortune to insulate their child from any and all outside threats. She would make the money grow, and one day it would all go to him.

Turning, she hurried to join Jonah where he waited by the boarding ramp.

Twenty-four

1

The setting sun had gained some borrowed time up here, miles in the air. It shone redly through the oval window at her shoulder. Jonah sat on her left, head back, eyes closed, hands folded in his lap. He could have been either dozing or praying. Carol doubted it was either.

She allowed herself to relax just a little. She let her shoulders sag to ease the tension in them but kept her hands balled into fists. The Chosen were below and behind her. She and the baby were up here, out of their reach. Things were under control for the moment.

Suddenly she felt a chill. A frozen, crystalline locus was expanding deep within her, sucking the heat from her tissues. Quickly it grew, taking her over, radiating icy malevolence. It coursed through her limbs. Sheer viciousness shot from her, streaking outward and down, bathing the globe below.

2

Below and to the south, in Memphis, a burly white man watches Martin Luther King speaking on the news. He doesn't listen to the words. He doesn't have to. Always the same damn thing. He hates these uppity niggers making trouble everywhere, especially in the South, hates all of them, but most of all he hates this one with his Nobel Peace prize and his ability to get his face on the TV screen and into everybody's home whenever he wants.

And now, in this instant, the man decides that he's had all he can take. He ain't gonna sit back and grouse any more like some pissant wimp. He's gonna do something about it.

He goes to the closet, pulls out his rifle, and begins to clean it.

3

Far to the east, in Bengal, a one-armed man who is far older than he looks suddenly dreams of the burned ruins of an ancient temple and decides, despite his many numerous futile attempts in the past, to search once more for a large mottled egg that may lie hidden there.

4

To the west, in Los Angeles, a Jordanian student watches once more the news footage of Robert F. Kennedy announcing his intention to seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. He has searched the channels all day, watching the footage over and over. It seems amazing and somehow sinful to him that a man would seek the same post as his assassinated brother. A half-formed plan abruptly coalesces into firm determination.

He forms his hand into the shape of a gun and points the finger-barrel at the grinning image of RFK. His voice is barely a whisper. "Bang bang."

5

Farther to the west, in Indochina, an ancient primordial force, known to the locals as Dat-tay-vao, begins a slow, meandering journey that will bring it halfway around the world to the United States.

Interlude on Central Park West—III

Mr. Veilleur stares out his apartment window at the growing darkness, thinking.

The Chosen have failed. He doesn't need to call anyone to know that. He has sensed the burgeoning strength of his ancient enemy, and that is enough. The enemy is leaving for now, and the woman carrying him is alerted and will be on guard. He will be born, and with no one to oppose him, his power will grow. With luck he will not 'realize that he is unopposed, so he will remain cautious. The world will be safe until he grows to manhood.

Mr. Veilleur turns and glances at his wife, busy setting the table for Sunday dinner.

And then he'll come for us—but mostly for me.

For himself, he doesn't care much. He has lived long enough. But what of the world? What of the horrors the enemy will bring about when he comes of age?

Ah, well. That will be someone else's problem. And it will be a couple of decades hence. Maybe he and the wife will be lucky.

Maybe they'll be dead by then.

Epilogue

As suddenly as it had begun, the dark radiance diminished, shrinking to a cold, tight, hard little knot, and then it was gone. Carol shuddered.

Oh God, what's happening to me?

She looked at Jonah. She found him staring at her, smiling and nodding, his eyes aglow.

"I…I have to go to the bathroom," she said. She was feeling weak and nauseated. She didn't want to be sick on the floor.

He hopped out of his seat and stood in the aisle to let her by. As she rose, the cabin seemed to spin around her. A passing stewardess reached for her outstretched hand to steady her, but Carol pulled it away and clenched it into a fist between her breasts. She wasn't letting anyone touch her hands until she'd had a chance to shave off the fine little hairs she had found sprouting from her palms a few hours ago.

Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Part I: Now

September

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

The Boy

Chapter Four

The Boy

October

Chapter Five

The Boy

November

Chapter Six

The Boy

December

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Boy

Chapter Thirteen

Part II: Then

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part III: Now

January

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

February

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

The Secret History of the World

Also by F. Paul Wilson

Praise for The Adversary Cycle

Copyright

Acknowledgments

The Marquis de Sade for his warped philosophy; George Hayduke whose Make My Day inspired certain dirty tricks in this novel; Lisa Krause for helping me bring this into the twenty-first century; and as usual to Steven Spruill and Albert Zuckerman for their invaluable input.

Author’s Note

In reviewing and updating Reprisal for this new edition, I was struck by how dark it is. The Christmas Week sequence and the final scene in St. Ann’s Cemetery contain some of the most wrenching fiction I’ve ever written. I found it difficult to compose those scenes—I had to get up and walk away from the keyboard numerous times—but nothing here is gratuitous. The story demanded them. I’d created a strong character, secure in himself, his role in the world, his faith … and now I had to break him.

The finale of Reprisal is contemporaneous with Fatal Error, fusing the two strands of the Secret History. The Adversary Cycle and the Repairman Jack series now proceed as one through The Dark at the End to the conclusion of the Secret History in Nightworld.

—F. PAUL WILSON

the Jersey Shore

August 2010

Part I

NOW

SEPTEMBER

ONE

Queens, NY

Rain coming.

Mr. Veilleur could feel the approaching summer storm in his bones as he sat in a shady corner of St. Ann’s cemetery in Bayside. He had the place to himself. In fact, he seemed to have most of the five boroughs to himself. Labor Day weekend. And a hot one. Anyone who could afford to had fled upstate or to the Long Island beaches. The rest were inside, slumped before their air conditioners. Even the homeless were off the streets, crouched in the relative cool of the subways.

The sun poured liquid fire through the hazy midday sky. Not a cloud in sight. But here in the shade of this leaning oak, Mr. Veilleur knew the weather was going to change soon, could read it from the worsening ache in his knees, hips, and back.

Other things were going to change as well. Everything, perhaps. And all for the worse.

He had been making sporadic trips to this corner of the cemetery since he’d first sensed the wrongness here. That had been on a snowy winter night many years ago. It had taken him a while, but he’d finally located the spot.

A grave, which was perfectly natural, this being a cemetery. This grave was not like the others, however. This one had no marker. But something else made this grave special: Nothing would grow over it.

Through the years Mr. Veilleur had seen the cemetery’s gardeners try to seed it, sod it, even plant it with various ground covers like periwinkle, pachysandra, and ivy. They took root well all around, but nothing survived in the four-foot oblong patch over the grave.

Of course, they didn’t know it was a grave. Only Mr. Veilleur and the one who had dug the hole knew that. And surely one other.

Mr. Veilleur did not come here often. Travel was not easy for him, even to another part of the city he had called home since the end of World War Two. Gone were the days when he walked where he wished, fearing no one. Now his eyes were bad; his back was stiff and canted forward; he leaned on a cane when he walked, and he walked slowly. He had an old man’s body and he had to take appropriate precautions.

Age had not dampened his curiosity, however. He didn’t know who had dug the grave, or who was in it. But whoever lay down there below the dirt and rocks had been touched by the enemy … the Otherness.

The enemy had been growing steadily stronger for more than two decades now. But growing carefully, staying hidden. Good thing too, for he had no one to oppose him. But he did not know that. He was waiting. For what? A sign? A particular event? Perhaps the one buried below was part of the answer. Perhaps the occupant had nothing to do with the enemy’s quiescence.

No matter—as long as the enemy remained inactive. For the longer the enemy delayed, the closer Mr. Veilleur would be to reaching the end of his days. And then he would be spared witnessing the chaotic horrors to come. His Heir would shoulder that burden.

A shadow fell across him and a sudden gust of wind chilled the perspiration that coated his skin. He looked up. Clouds were moving in, obscuring the sun. Time to go.

He stood and stared one last time at the bare dirt over the unmarked grave. He knew he would be back again. And again. Too many questions about this grave and its occupant. He sensed unfinished business here.

Because the grave’s occupant did not rest easy. Did not, in fact, rest at all.

Mr. Veilleur turned and made his unsteady way out of St. Ann’s cemetery. It would be good to get back to the cool apartment and get his feet up and have a glass of iced tea. He tried to believe that his wife had missed him during his absence, but with her mind the way it was, Magda probably hadn’t even realized he was gone.

TWO

Pendleton, North Carolina

1

Conway Street had come to a virtual standstill. Like a parking lot. Will Ryerson idled his ancient Impala convertible between fitful crawls in the stagnant morning traffic and watched the heat gauge. Still well in the safe range.

He patted the dash. Good girl.

He glanced at his watch. He’d already had a late start for work, and this was going to make him later. He took a deep breath. So what? The grass on the north campus at Darnell University could wait a few extra minutes for its weekly trim. Only problem was, he was in charge of the work crews this morning, so if he didn’t get there, J.B. would have to get things rolling. And J.B. had enough to do. That was why he’d recently promoted Will.

Will Ryerson is moving up in the world.

He smiled at the thought. He’d always wanted an academic life, to spend his workdays on the campus of a great university. Well, for the last few years his wish had come true. Except he didn’t travel there every day to immerse himself in the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the ages; he came to tend the grounds.

With his degrees he could have been at Georgetown, or even Darnell or Brown as an academic, but proving his qualifications would require him to reveal his past, and he couldn’t do that.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at his long, salt-and-pepper hair—mostly salt now—still wet from his morning shower, pulled tight to the back; at his scarred forehead, bent nose, and full, graying beard. Only the bright blue eyes of his former self remained. If his mother were still alive, even she might have trouble recognizing him now.

He peered ahead. Had to be an accident somewhere up there. Either that or the road department had picked the town’s so-called a.m. rush hour to do some street repairs. Will had grown up in a real city, the city with the king—no, the emperor of rush hours. This little bottleneck couldn’t hold a candle to that.

He killed time by reading bumper stickers. Most of them were religious.

“BORN AGAIN”

“YOUR GOD DEAD? TRY MINE: JESUS LIVES!”

“LISTEN FOR THE SHOUT—HE’S COMING AGAIN!”

“A CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE BEST KIND: JESUS!”

And Will’s favorite …

“JESUS IS COMING AGAIN AND BOY IS HE PISSED!”

I can dig that, Will thought.

He considered turning on the radio but wasn’t in the mood for the ubiquitous country music or the crud that dominated the university’s student station, so he listened to the engine as it idled in the press. An ancient gas guzzling V-8 but it purred like a week-old kitten. It had taken him a while but he’d finally got the timing right.

Will noticed that the right lane seemed to be inching forward faster than his own. When a space opened up next to him, he eased over toward the curb and made slightly better time for half a block. Then he came to a dead stop along with everybody else.

Big deal. He’d picked up fifty feet over his old spot. Hardly worth the trouble. He peered ahead to see if the next side street was one he could use to detour around the congestion. He couldn’t make out the name on the sign. He glanced to his right and froze.

Oh, no.

A telephone booth stood on the sidewalk not six feet from the passenger door of his car.

Not many left these days, and usually he could spot one blocks away. But this had been hidden by the unusually large knot of people clustered at the bus stop next to it. He’d missed it.

Panic gripped the center of Will’s chest and twisted. How close was he? Too close. How long had he been stopped? Too long. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t need much, just half a car length forward or back, but he had to move, had to get away from that phone.

No room in front—he’d already pulled up to the rear bumper of the car ahead of him. He lurched around in his seat, peering over the trunk. No room there either. The car behind was right on his tail.

Trapped.

Get out of the car—that was the only thing to do. Get out and walk off a short distance until the snarl loosened up, then run back and screech away.

He reached for the door handle. He had to move now if he was going to get away before—

No. Wait. Be cool.

Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe the horror had finally let go. Maybe it was over.

He hadn’t allowed himself near a landline phone for so long, how did he know it would happen again? Nothing had happened yet. Maybe nothing would. If he just stayed calm and stayed put, maybe—

The phone in the booth began to ring.

Will closed his eyes, set his jaw, and gripped the steering wheel with all his strength.

Damn!

The phone rang only once. Not the usual two-second burst, but a long, continuous ring that went on and on.

Will opened his eyes to see who would answer it. Someone always did. Who’d be the unlucky one?

He watched the commuters at the bus stop ignore it for a while. They looked at each other, then at the phone, then back down the street where their bus was stuck in traffic somewhere out of sight. Will knew that wouldn’t last. No one could ignore a phone that rang like that.

Finally, a woman started for the booth.

Don’t, lady.

She continued forward, oblivious to his silent warning. When she reached the booth she hesitated. It was that ring, Will knew, that endless continuous ring that so jangled the nerves with its alienness. You couldn’t help but sense that something was very wrong here.

She looked around at her fellow commuters who were all staring at her, urging her on with their eyes.

Answer it, they seemed to say. If nothing else you’ll stop that damned incessant ring!

She lifted the receiver and put it to her ear. Will watched her face, watched her expression change from one of mild curiosity to concern, and then to horror. She pulled the receiver away from her head and stared at it as if the earpiece had turned to slime. She dropped it and backed away. Another of the commuters—a man this time—began to approach the booth. Then Will noticed the car in front of him begin to move ahead. He gunned the Chevy and stayed on the other car’s bumper as it pulled away.

Will kept his sweaty hands tight on the wheel and fought the sick chills and nausea that swept through him.

Thank God it didn’t happen with cell phones. At least not yet. Only landlines. And he had a pretty good idea of why.

2

Lisl Whitman sat in her office in the Math department at Darnell University and stared at her computer screen as she tried to ignore the insistent beeping of her watch.

Lunchtime.

Not too hungry now, and she was really rolling on these calculations. A very productive morning. She didn’t want to see it end just yet. This was good work. She had a feeling that it was going to make people sit up and take notice.

But that advanced calculus class at one o’clock wouldn’t wait, and a couple of those eager Darnell undergrads wouldn’t let her get away for at least another fifteen minutes after class, which meant she wouldn’t break free until well after two. She’d be famished by then and maybe even a little shaky. And when she got that hungry she always ran the risk of going into a feeding frenzy.

And so what if I do?

One more binge wasn’t going to matter. She was already at least twenty pounds overweight. Who’d notice a few more? Will Ryerson might, but her weight didn’t seem to matter to him. He accepted her for who she was, not how she looked.

Lisl had never had a weight problem until her late twenties—until after the divorce. She was thirty-two now and knew she’d let herself go in a big way. She’d been lonely and depressed, so she’d immersed herself in her doctoral thesis. And food. Food had been her only pleasure. And somewhere along the line she became a compulsive eater. She’d binge, hate herself for it, and then binge again.

Why not? She’d been considered a math nerd all her life, and nerds were supposed to look rumpled and slovenly. It came with the territory. She’d never allow herself to look slovenly, but the loose clothes she tended to wear did lend her a rumpled look. She rarely wore makeup—her high coloring didn’t require it—but took scrupulous care of her naturally blond hair.

Eat now, she told herself. Now!

Maybe her weight didn’t matter, but she had to draw the line somewhere. Had to say enough sometime.

She saved and waited for confirmation. Satisfied that her work was now safely stored away in the university servers, she shut off the monitor and looked out the window. Another bright, warm, glorious September day in North Carolina.

Now … where to eat? Four choices: here in the Math department—either alone in her office or joining Everett in his—or in the caf, or al fresco. Actually, only three choices. Alone could be more company than Ev. Still, he was the only member of the department still on the floor and she guessed she owed him the courtesy of asking him to join her. The gesture risked nothing, and she sensed that Ev genuinely appreciated it whenever she asked.

She stepped across the hall to his open door. EVERETT SANDERS, Ph.D. ran in black across the opaque glass. She found him hunched over his computer keyboard, his narrow back to her. His shiny pink scalp gleamed through his thinning light brown hair. He wore the Ev Sanders uniform: short-sleeved white shirt and brown polyester slacks. Lisl didn’t need to see his front to know he had a slim, nondescript brown tie tightly knotted around his neck.

She tapped on the door glass.

“Come,” he said without looking around.

“It’s me, Ev.”

He turned and rose from his seat to face her. Always the gentleman. Only in his mid-forties but he looked older. And yes, another of his muddy brown ties was cinched up high under his Adam’s apple.

“Hello, Lisl,” he said, his watery brown eyes peering at her through his wire-rimmed glasses. He smiled, showing slightly yellowed teeth. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“What?”

“The article.”

“Oh, yes! The article. I think it’s super, don’t you?”

US News & World Report‘s annual college issue had given Darnell University a top rating, even going so far as to call it “the new Harvard of the South.”

“I’ll bet John Manning’s sorry now that he left for Duke. All we need to complete the picture is a Division One basketball team.”

“And you can coach it,” Lisl said.

Ev gave one of his rare, heh-heh-heh laughs, then rubbed his palms together.

“Well, what can I do for you?”

“I’m going to lunch now. You want to come?”

“No, I don’t think so.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be stopping work in two minutes. After that, I’ll be eating lunch here and catching up on some reading. You’re welcome to join me.”

“That’s okay. I didn’t bring anything today. See you later.”

“Very well.”

He smiled, nodded, and reseated himself at his computer.

Relieved, Lisl turned away. Asking Ev to lunch was a private game she played. He always brown-bagged it, always ate in his office. A safe courtesy. He never accepted. Ev Sanders was nothing if not predictable. She wondered what she’d do with him if he ever did accept.

She grabbed the vinyl-covered cushion from behind her office door and headed for the caf.

3

The caf’s lasagna was good as a rule, but the weather was a little too warm for a hot lunch. She picked out a fruit cocktail and turkey on white.

There. That looked sensible.

Then she came to the dessert counter and snatched a piece of coconut cream pie before she could stop herself.

Who’ll notice?

She scanned the tables in the faculty room and saw no one she cared to sit with, so she headed outdoors to the grassy knoll behind the caf. She hoped Will would be there.

He was. She spotted Will Ryerson’s familiar figure leaning against the wide trunk of the knoll’s only tree, a battered old elm. He was sipping a can of pop and reading, as usual.

Her mood buoyed at the sight of him. Will had proved a tonic for her. Ever since she’d started dabbling with this idea of submitting a math paper, Lisl had found that her insides tended to twist into tight little knots of tension when she was working on it. Her underarms would dampen from the intense concentration, like someone doing hard physical labor. All that tension uncoiled within her now as Will looked up and saw her. A welcoming smile lit through his graying beard. He closed the little book in his hand and slipped it into his lunch box.

“Beautiful day!” he said as she joined him under their tree.

Their tree. At least that was the way she thought of it. She didn’t know how Will thought of it.

“That it is.” She dropped the cushion on the mossy ground and sat on it. “What were you reading there?”

“Where?”

“When I came up.”

Will suddenly seemed very interested in his sandwich.

“A book.”

“I gathered that. What book?”

“Uh … The Stranger.”

“Camus?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t read that one by now.”

“I have. I thought I’d try it again. But it doesn’t help.”

“Help with what?”

“Understanding.”

“Understanding what?”

He grinned at her. “Anything.”

Then he took a savage bite out of his sandwich.

Lisl smiled and shook her head. So typical of the man. She’d once heard something described as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. That was Will. The philosopher groundskeeper of Darnell University.

Lisl first met him two years ago under this very tree, on a day like today when she’d decided to sit outside to correct some test papers. Will had come up and informed her that she had taken his spot. Lisl had looked up at a tall bearded stranger. His accent was definitely from somewhere to the north, he smelled of motor oil, his hands were heavily callused and looked to be permanently stained with engine grime, his green overalls were dusty and sweat-stained, his work boots were clumped with grass clippings. He had clear blue eyes and long graying hair pulled back and fastened into a short ponytail with a red rubber band, a nose that had been badly broken, and a wide scar on the right side of his forehead.

An aging hippie-type handyman who’d managed to land himself a steady job, she’d thought as she smiled and moved exactly three feet to her right. He seated himself and produced a sandwich and a Pepsi. No surprise there. But when he pulled out a copy of Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death and began reading, Lisl had to revise her assessment. And she had to talk to him.

They’d been talking ever since. They became friends. Sort of. She doubted Will had a true, deep friendship with anyone. He was so secretive about himself. The most she knew about his origins was that he was from “New England.” He would tell her his deepest thoughts on life, love, philosophy, religion, politics—and listening to him it was quite apparent to her that he had done a lot of thinking in those areas. He would expound on any subject but Will Ryerson. Most men loved talking about themselves. Get them started and they’d never stop. Which made Will all the more intriguing.

Lisl sensed that he was a lonely man and that she was one of the few people in his life he could communicate with on his own level. The other groundskeepers weren’t in Will’s league, or he wasn’t in theirs. He had often complained that, as far as his co-workers were concerned, if it wasn’t in the sports section, or didn’t have big breasts, it didn’t matter. So he used his lunchtimes with Lisl to vent the thoughts that accumulated during the time they were apart.

That was why she couldn’t understand why he was being so evasive about the book in his lunch box. She was sure it wasn’t The Stranger. But then what was it? Porn? She doubted it. Porn wasn’t his style. And even if it were, he’d probably want to discuss it with her.

Lisl shrugged it off. If he didn’t want to tell her, that was his business. He didn’t owe her an explanation.

She watched him tear into his lunch. Another of those belly-buster subs he favored, where anything within reach was sliced up and piled between two halves of a loaf of Italian bread and splattered with oil and vinegar.

“I wish I were like you.”

“No you don’t,” he said.

“Metabolism-wise, I do. Lunch-wise, at least. Good Lord, look at the size of that sandwich—and I can imagine what you eat for dinner. Yet you don’t put on a pound.”

“I don’t sit at a desk all day either.”

“True, but your body does a far better job of burning calories than mine.”

“Not as good a job as it used to. With each passing year I can feel the machine slowing down.

“Maybe, but men age better than women.”

Will was aging pretty well in Lisl’s estimation. From the references he made from time to time—especially about the 1950s—he had to be in his sixties, but he didn’t look it. Maybe because he carried his weight so well: lean and muscular, a good six foot in height, perhaps a little more, with broad shoulders and no gut. Maybe it was his long hair and beard, both of which had grown grayer over the past two years. His clear blue eyes remained mild and gentle, though—and impenetrable. Will had equipped the windows of his soul with steel storm shutters.

“Men simply don’t worry about it as much,” he said. “Look at all the guys on the maintenance crew with beer bellies.”

Lisl smiled. “I know what you mean. Some of them look eight months pregnant. And if I put on any more weight, so will I. If only I could shed the pounds like you.”

Will shrugged. “I guess it’s just like everything else about us—opposites. What you can’t do, I can. What I can’t do, you can.”

“You know, Will, you’re right. Together you and I make one well-rounded, well-educated person.”

He laughed. “What I said: I know next to nothing about the sciences, and you might well be classified as culturally deprived as far as the humanities go.”

Lisl nodded, agreeing fully. These pastoral lunch hours with Will had made her realize how painfully lopsided her education had been. She had her Ph.D., yes, but it seemed as if she had gone through high school, college, and graduate school with blinders on. Science and math, math and science—they’d been her whole life, all she’d cared about. Will had shown her how much she’d missed. If she had it to do all over again, she’d do it differently. She’d missed a whole other world out there, rich and colorful, filled with stories, music, art, dance, schools of thought on ethics, morals, politics, and so much more. Missed completely. She still had plenty of time to catch up. And with Will as a guide, she knew it would be fun. Still, the thought of all that wasted time irritated her.

“Well, thanks to you, I’m certainly less deprived than before we met. Can we keep this up?”

She sensed his face soften behind the beard. “As long as you want.”

Just then, Lisl spotted someone waving from the base of the knoll. She recognized Adele Connors’s stout, compact figure.

“Yoo-hoo!” she called in her squeaky voice. “Lisl! Look, y’all! I found them!”

She trundled up the slope jingling a set of keys in the air.

“Your keys?” Lisl said. “Oh, good!”

Adele was one of the stalwarts of the secretarial pool. Lisl had found her wringing her hands and lamenting the loss of her key chain yesterday. Adele had searched most of the afternoon with no luck. Finally, since she couldn’t start her own car without her keys, she’d asked Lisl to drive her home.

Which had vaguely annoyed Lisl. Not that she minded doing Adele a favor, it was just that the secretaries tended to treat her like “one of the girls.” And Lisl wasn’t “one of the girls.”

Although not tenured yet, she was an associate professor in the university mathematics department and wished sometimes they’d treat her as such. But she had herself to blame. As the only female in the department, perhaps she’d become too chummy with the secretaries when she first arrived. Unaccustomed to being in a position of authority, she’d been oversensitive about coming off as a tight-assed bitch. Plus, a little girl-talk had come in handy—she’d got the low-down on everyone in the department without even asking.

But still … as useful as the camaraderie had been, she’d paid a price. She couldn’t help noticing how the secretaries addressed all the other Ph.D.s in the department as “Doctor,” while she was always “Lisl.” A minor point, but irritating.

“Where’d you find them?” she asked as Adele reached the top of the knoll.

“Right behind my seat cushion. Isn’t that something!”

“I thought you said you searched the entire area.”

“I did! I did! But I left out one thing. I forgot to ask for the Lord’s help.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Will pause in mid bite. She groaned inwardly. Adele was a Born Again. She could go on interminably on the subject of Jesus.

“That’s great, Adele,” Lisl said quickly. “By the way, this is Will Ryerson.”

Will and Adele exchanged nods and hellos, but Adele was not to be turned from her favorite subject.

“But let me tell you how the Lord intervened for me. After you dropped me off home last night, I got big Dwayne and little Dwayne together and we knelt in the middle of our living room and prayed to the Lord for help in finding my keys. We did that twice last night, and once again this morning, just before the school bus came for little Dwayne. And you know what?”

Lisl waited. Apparently it wasn’t a rhetorical question, so she took a wild stab.

“You found your keys.”

“Praise the Lord, yes! When big Dwayne dropped me off this morning, I went to my desk, sat in my chair, and felt a lump under my cushion. I looked and, praise the Lord, there they were! It’s a little miracle, that’s what it is! Because I know they weren’t there yesterday. God found them and put them where I was sure to happen across them. I just know He did. Isn’t the Lord wondrous in His ways?” She turned and started back down the slope, bubbling and babbling all the way. “I’m spending the whole day just witnessing and praising Him, witnessing and praising my wonderful Lord. Bye y’all!”

“Bye, Adele,” Lisl said.

She turned to Will and saw him leaning back against the tree and staring after Adele’s retreating figure, the sandwich lying forgotten in his lap.

“Incredible!” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“People like that make me lose my appetite.”

“Nothing makes you lose your appetite.”

“The Adeles of the world do. I mean, how empty-headed can you get?”

“She’s harmless.”

“Is she? I mean, where’s her perspective? God isn’t a good-luck charm. He’s not there to help you find your keys or make it a nice day for the church’s Labor Day picnic.”

Lisl sensed the growing heat behind Will’s words. He usually avoided the subject of religion—anything else was fair game, but he didn’t seem to like to talk about God. This would be good. She let him roll.

“God helped her find her car keys. Great. Just great. Praise the Lord and pass the mashed potatoes. Where’s her head, anyway? We’ve got thousands—no, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people starving in East Africa. Desperate fathers and mothers kneeling over the bloated bellies of their starving children, crying out to heaven for a little rain so their crops will grow and they can feed their families. But God’s not answering them. The whole damn region remains a dustbowl with children and adults alike dropping like flies. Adele, however, sends up a couple of quick Our Fathers and God hops right to it. He locates those lost keys and shoves them under her seat cushion where she’s sure to find them first thing in the morning. There’s still no rain in Ethiopia, but Adele What’s-her-name’s got her goddamn car keys.” He paused for breath, then looked at her. “Is it just me, or is there something wrong with that scenario?”

Lisl stared at Will in frank shock. In the two years she’d known him she had never heard him raise his voice or become angry about anything. But Adele obviously had touched a raw nerve. He was seething; the scar on his forehead had turned red.

She patted his arm.

“Calm down, Will. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. Where does she get off thinking that God’s ignoring prayers for rain in the Sudan so he can go put her car keys where she can find them? It’s not fair for her to go around telling everybody that God’s answering her ditsy prayers while prayers for things that really matter go unanswered!”

And suddenly it was clear to Lisl. Suddenly she knew why Will was so angry. Or at least thought she did.

“What did you pray for, Will? What did you ask for that didn’t happen?”

He looked at her, and for a moment the shutters were open. In that moment she had a glimpse into his soul—

—and recoiled at the pain, the grief, the agony, the disillusionment that welled up in his eyes. But mostly it was the overriding fear that shook her so.

Oh, my God! Oh, my poor Will! What happened to you? Where have you been? What have you seen?

And then the shutters slammed closed and once again she faced a pair of bland blue eyes. Opaque blue eyes.

“It’s nothing like that,” he said calmly. “It’s just that the childishness and superficiality of that kind of religion—religiosity, rather—gets to me after a while. It’s so prevalent around here. You hear of bumper-sticker politics, but it seems to me they’ve got bumper-sticker religion in these parts.”

Lisl knew from what she had glimpsed in his eyes that it was much more than that, but sensed it would do no good to probe. Will had shut down tight.

Lisl added another mystery to the mental list she’d been keeping about the enigmatic Will Ryerson.

“Not just around these parts.”

He sighed. “Yeah. Ain’t that the truth. It’s all over the country. Televangelism. God as game-show host. A heavenly Wheel of Fortune.”

“Except the money flows from the contestants instead of to them.”

He looked at her. “You’ve never said much about it, Leese, but I gather you’re not very religious.”

“I was raised a Methodist. Sort of. But you can’t get too far into higher math and stay very religious.”

“Oh, really?” He smiled. “I’ve looked into some of those journals you bring up here. I’d say it takes quite a leap of faith to get involved in that stuff.”

She laughed. “You’re not the first person to feel that way.”

“Speaking of higher math, what about that idea you had for a paper? How’s it coming?”

Just thinking about the paper started a buzz of excitement within her.

“It’s going great.”

“Good enough for Palo Alto?”

She nodded. “I think so. Maybe.”

“No maybes. If you think so, you ought to enter it.”

“But if it gets rejected—”

“Then you’re right back where you started. Nothing lost except the time you spent working on it. And even then the time isn’t completely lost, because you’ll no doubt learn something. But if you don’t do the paper, and don’t submit it, you’re betraying your potential. It’s bad enough to let other people stifle you. But when you stifle yourself—”

“I know, I know.”

They’d been over this ground before. Lisl had grown so close to Will over the past couple of years. She’d opened up to him as she had to no man before, more even than to Brian during their marriage. She never would have believed she could be so intimate with a man without sex edging into the picture. But that was the way it was.

Platonic. She’d heard of platonic affairs but had always thought them fantasies. Now she was living one. Once she had broken through Will’s shell, she’d found him warm and accepting. A great talker and a better listener. But she’d remained wary of him. The deep discussions during lunch hours here on the knoll during the week, the long, aimless, languorous drives on weekends … through them all Lisl had stayed on guard, dreading the inevitable moment when Will would put the moves on her.

And dread really said it. The nightmare of divorcing Brian still had been too fresh in her mind, the wounds had barely stopped bleeding and were a long way from healing. She hadn’t wanted another man in her life, no way, no how, especially not someone so much older. And she knew—just knew—that Will was going to want to expand their relationship beyond the purely intellectual to the physical. Lisl didn’t want that. It would back her into the position of rebuffing him. And what would that do to their relationship? Wound it, surely. Perhaps even kill it. She couldn’t bear that. She’d wanted things to stay just as they were.

So Lisl had faced each of those weekend drives to nowhere with growing anxiety, waiting for the inevitable invitation back to Will’s place for “a couple of drinks” or where they could “be more comfortable.” She waited. And waited.

But the other shoe never dropped. Will never made that “inevitable” pass.

Lisl smiled now at the memory of her own reaction when it had finally dawned that Will wasn’t going to put the moves on her. She’d been hurt. Hurt! After spending months afraid he’d make a pass, she was wounded when he didn’t. There was no winning this game.

Of course, she’d immediately blamed herself. She was too dumb, too frumpy, too dull, too nerdy to attract him. But then logic reared up and asked: If he truly saw her that way, why would he spend so much time with her?

Then she blamed Will. Was he gay? That didn’t seem to be the case. As far as she could figure, he had no male friends. No friends at all other than Lisl.

Asexual? Maybe.

A lot of maybes. One thing had been certain, though. Will Ryerson was the kindest, gentlest, deepest, weirdest man she had ever met. And despite all his quirks—and he had quite a few of them—she’d wanted to know him better.

Over these two years Will gradually had assumed the role of tutor and Dutch uncle, conducting mini seminars on the knoll as he casually guided her through the terra incognita of philosophy and literature. A good uncle. He demanded nothing of her. He was always there for her, to give advice when asked for it or merely to serve as a sounding board for her problems and ideas. And always encouraging. His opinion of her capabilities was always far more sanguine that hers. Where Lisl saw limits, Will saw endless possibilities.

Lisl liked to think that their relationship wasn’t just a one-way street, that she gave something back. She wasn’t sure why or how, but she sensed that Will had benefited almost as much as she from their interaction. He seemed far more at ease with the world and with himself since they’d first met. He’d been a bleak, melancholy, almost tortured man then. Now he could make jokes and even laugh. She hoped that had been at least partly her doing.

“Go for it,” Will said.

“I don’t know, Will. What will Everett think?”

“He’ll think you’re making a bid to get tenure in the department, just like he’s doing. Nothing wrong with that. And why on earth should you defer to him? You both joined the department the same year. Even if you are younger, you’re his equal in seniority, and you’re his match—if not his better—in ability. And besides, you’re a hell of a lot better looking.”

Lisl felt herself flushing. “Stop that. That’s irrelevant.”

“Of course it is. But no more so than any of those cop-outs you allow to hold you back. Go for it, Leese.”

That was Uncle Will: supremely confident that she could attain any goal she set her sights on. Lisl wished she could buy into his unabashed enthusiasm for her abilities. But he didn’t know the truth.

She was a fake.

Sure, she’d earned her Ph.D. and managed to be the first woman accepted into Darnell’s traditionally all-male Department of Mathematics, but Lisl was sure that some sort of fluke had let her slip past the review board, some sort of affirmative action thing that had opened the doors for her. She wasn’t all that good. Really.

And now Will was pushing her to try to move up in the department. The International Congress of Mathematicians was meeting in Palo Alto next spring. Ev Sanders was submitting a paper for presentation there. If it was accepted, he’d be the fair-haired boy in the department, a shoe-in for tenure. With all the budget cuts coming down, Darnell had been tightening up on the number of tenured positions the past few years. And now that it was being called “the new Harvard of the South,” the situation was sure to become even tighter. But John Manning had left his tenured professorship in the department last month to take that position at Duke, which meant Math had an open spot. If Lisl’s paper was also accepted, Everett would no longer have the post position. And if Lisl’s paper was accepted instead of Ev’s …

“You really think I should?”

“No. I just like the sound of my own voice. Do it, dammit!”

“All right! I will!”

“Good. See? Wasn’t that easy?”

“Yeah. Sure. Easy for you. You don’t have to deliver a paper.”

“You’ll do it.”

“Uh-huh. Can I call you when I get stuck?”

“You can try.”

“Oh, right. The man without a telephone. How could I forget.”

Even after all this time, Lisl still could not get used to the idea that Will managed to live in the modern world without the benefit of a telephone—neither regular nor cell. She realized no one would ever get rich as a groundskeeper, but the men had a union that had bargained them up to decent wages and good benefits. So Will’s lack of a phone could not be due to a lack of money.

“You’ve got to get a phone, Will.”

He finished off the last of his sub. “Not this again.”

“I’m serious. A telephone is an essential tool of modern living.”

“Maybe.”

“And I know they’ve got phone lines out there on Postal Road.” After realizing she had nothing to fear from him, Lisl had visited his home a number of times. He lived in an isolated cottage but it wasn’t in the boonies. “What if I call Sprint and get you a cell? I’ll even pay—”

“Forget it, Lisl.”

She sensed from his tone that he wanted her to drop it but she couldn’t. No phone … it was crazy. Unless …

“You’re not one of those Luddite types, are you? Or a Unabomber? You know, anti-technology?”

“Now, Leese, you know better than that. You’ve seen the place. I’ve got a TV, a radio, a microwave, even a computer.” He looked at her. “I just don’t want a phone.”

“But why on earth not? Can’t you give me a hint?”

“I simply do not want one. Can we leave it at that?”

His voice carried only mild annoyance, but his eyes surprised her. Just before he looked away, she could have sworn she caught a trace of the fear she had seen before.

“Sure,” she said quickly, hiding her concern and the curiosity that burned inside her. “Consider it dropped. When I hear that my paper’s been accepted, I’ll let you know immediately—by carrier pigeon. Or maybe smoke signal.”

Will laughed. “You’d better drive right out and knock on my door! Promise?”

“Promise.”

“What’s up in the faculty world?” he said in an obvious attempt to steer the conversation away from the subject of telephones.

“Not much. Dr. Rogers is having his annual Welcome Back party Friday night and he invited me.”

“He’s in the Psychology Department, isn’t he?”

“The chairman. The party’s just for his department, but since I helped him out with some tricky statistical glitches he was having over the summer, he says I’m an honorary member. So I’m invited.”

“And knowing you, you turned him down, right?”

“Wrong.” She lifted her chin, glad to be able to surprise him. “I’ve decided to show up with bells on.”

“Good for you. You need to get out more with the rest of the faculty instead of spending your free time with a broken-down groundskeeper.”

“Right. You’re positively decrepit, and intellectually backward as well.”

Will glanced up at the faculty office building. “Will Professor Sanders be going?”

“No. Why would—?” she began, then broke off as she caught his meaning. “Oh. Is he watching us again?”

“Yep. Having his after-lunch cigarettes.”

Lisl glanced up at the second floor window of Ev’s office. No face was visible in the dark square, but at regular intervals a puff of white smoke would drift out through the screen.

4

Everett Sanders stared down at Lisl Whitman and the groundskeeper as they sat together beneath the tree. They seemed to be staring back at him. But that could be no more than coincidence. He knew he was invisible to them when he stood this far back in his office.

He drew deeply on his cigarette, his sixth for the day, his first after a lunch of eight ounces of tuna salad, a cold potato sliced and smeared with mustard, and a medium-sized peach. The same lunch he brought every day and ate right here at his desk. He kept rigorous track of his nutrition, and balanced it carefully. His fourth cup of coffee cooled on the desk. He allowed himself a dozen cups a day. Excessive, he knew, but he’d found he couldn’t function well on less. He smoked too much too. Twenty cigarettes a day—opened a fresh pack of Kool Lights every morning and finished the last just before bed. Coffee and cigarettes—he wanted to give them up, but not yet. He couldn’t give up everything. But maybe in a few years, when he was more confident about his level of control, he’d try to get off tobacco.

He watched Lisl and wondered again at the type of man with whom she chose to spend her precious time. Here was one of the most brilliant women he had ever met wasting her lunch hours dallying with a common laborer—one with a ponytail, no less. A mismatch if he ever saw one. What could they possibly have in common? What could a man like that possibly have to say to interest a mind like hers?

It plagued him. What could they talk about, day after day, week after week? What?

The most frustrating aspect of the question was knowing that he would never have the answer. To obtain that he would either have to eavesdrop on them or join them, or ask Lisl directly what they talked about. None of which he could do. It simply wasn’t in him.

Another question: Why on earth was he wasting his own time pondering such an inconsequential imponderable? What did it matter what Lisl and her big gardener friend discussed at lunch? He had better things to do.

And yet … they looked so relaxed together. Ev wished he could be so relaxed with people. Not even people—he’d settle for just one other person in the world with whom he could sit down and feel perfectly at ease discussing the secrets of the universe and the inconsequentials of quotidian existence.

Someone like Lisl. So soft, so beautiful. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful in the accepted modern sense, but her golden blond hair was thick and silky smooth—he wished she’d wear it down and loose instead of twisted into that French braid she favored—and her smile so bright and warm. She was small breasted and carrying too many pounds for her frame, but Ev wasn’t impressed by exteriors. Appearances meant nothing. The inner woman was all that counted. And Ev knew that beneath Lisl’s dowdy, pudgy shell hid a wonderful, brilliant woman, sweet, sincere, compassionate.

What did that handyman see when he looked at her? Everett sincerely doubted the other man was attracted to Lisl for her mind. He didn’t know him, of course, but it seemed that the groundskeeper possessed neither the values nor the depth of character that would set him in pursuit of a woman’s mind.

So what was his angle?

Were they sexually intimate? Was that what it was all about? Pleasures of the flesh? Well, nothing wrong with that as long as it didn’t interfere with Lisl’s future. Tragic if she were drawn away from her career. A brilliant mind such as hers did not belong at home all day changing diapers.

And of what concern was any of this to Everett Sanders?

Because I want to be where they are.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful. To have her as a friend, a confidante, a sharer. To have almost anyone to share even a few hours with. Because, Everett knew and freely admitted to himself, he was lonely. And although loneliness was far better than other problems he had known in the past, it could be a terrible burden at times, a constant gnawing ache in his soul.

Lunches with Lisl, silly chit-chat with Lisl. More than he could hope for.

More than he would hope for.

The whole idea was ridiculous. Even if it were feasible, even if it were possible, he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t permit himself to become involved in an emotional relationship. Emotions were too unpredictable, too difficult to control. And he couldn’t let any area in his life slip from his control. Because if one area broke free, others might split loose and follow. And then his whole life might slip from the iron fist in which he clutched it.

So let Lisl Whitman dawdle with her groundskeeper friend and/or lover. None of his business. Her life was her own and he had no right to think he should control it. It took all his resolve to control his own.

Besides, he should have been reading instead of wasting time at the window like this. Especially on a Wednesday. He had the weekly meeting tonight so he had to complete his daily page quota on this week’s novel earlier—Daddy by Loup Durand. An old, old book, but someone had recommended it to him as a thriller with a twist. And indeed it did have a twist. More than one. He was enjoying it immensely.

Everett had come to find fiction a welcome relief from the constraints of working with numbers all day, so years ago he had resolved to read one novel a week. And he did. He started a new novel every Sunday. Faithfully. Daddy was 377 pages long. So, to finish the novel in a week he had to read 53.85 pages a day. This was Wednesday, which meant that he had to reach page 216 before he slept tonight. Actually, he was a little ahead of the game today because he had gone past his daily page increment last night and continued to the end of a chapter. Hardly a terrible thing, but he didn’t like breaking his own rules.

He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another immediately. He allowed himself two in a row after lunch. He opened the book to the top of page 181. Thirty-five to go. He settled himself at his desk and began reading.

5

Will glanced at his watch. Almost quitting time, but he wanted to get this tractor-mower running before he knocked off for the weekend. That way it would be ready to roll first thing Monday morning.

He looked across the gently rolling field of the lower campus where the soccer and football teams were practicing on the freshly mown grass. Keeping the campus pruned and trimmed was an endless task, but Will loved it. Never thought he’d end up a groundskeeper—not with his background and education—but he had to admit it had its rewards. He found a very real satisfaction in doing simple manual labor. Weeding, edging, pruning, doing motor maintenance, it didn’t matter. While his hands were busy, his mind was left free to roam. And roam it did. It occurred to him that he had done more heavy-duty thinking in the last few years than he had done in his entire life.

But still hadn’t found any answers. Only more questions.

Back to the tractor. The old John Deere was one of the crew’s workhorses and it had been kicking up all week, coughing, sputtering, stalling. He thought he’d heard something that sounded like a bad wire. He’d replaced it. Now came the test.

The engine started on the first turn of the key. Will listened carefully. He could tell a lot about an engine just from the way it sounded, a knack he’d discovered he had back when he began fooling around with cars as a teenager.

“Hey, Willie! Sounds great!”

Will looked up and saw Joe Bob Hawkins, the foreman of the grounds crew, standing over him. He was younger than Will—about forty or so—but his receding red hair and big, burly, barrel-chested physique made him seem older.

“Bad wire.”

“You got that magic touch, I tell ya. Ain’t never seen a body could fix an engine the way you do. Y’all got a degree in motor medicine or something?”

“You got it, Joe Bob. I’m an M.D.—a motor doctor.”

He laughed. “That you are, guy, that you are. Tell you what. You stow that thing in the garage and then join me in my office. I’ll buy you a TGIF snort of sour mash.”

Will thought about that. A drink would be good about now, although he’d have preferred a cold beer to a shooter. And some simple conversation with an affable good ol’ boy like Joe Bob would be good too. But he couldn’t risk it.

“Aw, I’d love to J.B., but I’ve got to hit the road as soon as I’m off. My ma’s been kinda sick and so I’m heading north for the weekend.”

“That’s too bad. She’s not bad sick is she?”

“Yes and no. It’s her heart. Sometimes it acts up and sometimes it don’t. Lately it is.”

Will hated the easy way the lies tripped off his tongue, but this story was so well practiced he almost believed it himself.

“Well, okay. I reckon y’all better get hustlin’. Hope she’s all right. There’s anything I can do, you know, if you need some extra time off to stay with her or anything like that, you just let me know.”

“I hope it won’t come to that, but thanks for offering.”

Joe Bob’s genuine concern touched Will, and made him feel worse than usual for lying. But no way he could go kill a half hour or more sitting and sipping in the foreman’s office.

Joe Bob had a telephone there.

Will drove the tractor over to the garage and stowed it away for the weekend, then headed for the parking lot.

On the ride home, Will cruised Conway Street and thought about the day. Too bad he’d had to lie to her again about rereading The Stranger. Couldn’t let her know what he really was reading. She’d ask too many questions. Questions he couldn’t answer.

Pretty foolish stunt, bringing it to work with him. Almost as if he wanted her to see it, wanted her to ask those questions. Was that it? Was his subconscious deliberately nudging him into exposing his past, pushing him to get off the dime and into motion instead of marking time here year after year?

Maybe. But no matter what his subconscious wanted, Will knew he wasn’t ready to surface again. He still had a ways to go before he could even consider going back.

Maybe he’d never go back. He liked it here in NC. He’d fit in, and Lisl was a big part of that comfortable feeling. She made him feel good. She had her share of hang-ups, though, the most glaring being her lack of self-esteem. She was bright, warm, real, so free of pretense—a refreshing trait these days on the campus of “the new Harvard of the South.” She’d had no trouble convincing Will of her brilliance, her sweetness. Why couldn’t she see it?

Somebody had done a real number on Lisl. The most obvious culprit was her ex-husband, but Will sensed that it went deeper than that. What were her parents like? How had they raised her? Stuck her in front of a TV? Like so many people he met these days, Lisl seemed to have been raised with no values. She was brilliant, but she lacked focus. She was incomplete, vulnerable, and lacking a vital piece: someone to love. The right someone could make it all come together for her. The wrong someone—again—could unravel her. Even if he were younger, Will knew he was one of the wrong someones.

He wished he could help her, but didn’t know exactly what to do—pulling her closer, pushing her away, wanting to open up to her the way she had opened up to him yet knowing he couldn’t truly open up to anyone ever again.

THREE

1

Lisl parked her car in her assigned space and got out. The sun was well on its way down the sky but the early September air was still warm and slightly hazy with the humidity. Hazy enough to mute and blend the various shades of green on the trees and the wild splotches of color from the bunches of mums blossoming all over the grounds. Only the aging garden apartments kept the scene from being an Impressionist’s dream.

Brookside Gardens was a set of two-story brick apartments, occupied for the most part by young marrieds, many with kids. It could get noisy here on Saturday afternoons. But Brookside adequately suited Lisl’s needs. Her one-bedroom unit offered security and comfort, was the perfect size, and didn’t strain her bank account. What more could she ask?

Right now? Maybe a little company. She wished Will lived nearby instead of out in the country. She had this urge to drop in on someone and plop into a chair and talk about nothing over a glass of wine. But she knew no one else well enough for that.

That was one problem with Brookside: she had no real friends here. She didn’t fit in with the young marrieds surrounding her. Sure, they welcomed her to their parties and cookouts on holiday weekends, and she’d drink and talk and laugh with them, but she never felt at ease with them, never really felt she belonged.

None of which was relevant tonight. She had to get herself spruced up for Dr. Rogers’ Welcome Back party.

In the old days, it might have been called a faculty tea. Nowadays it was a cocktail party. Lisl really didn’t want to go. She’d know hardly anyone there. After all, it was the Psych department, not Math. She and Ev had only helped them with a few snags over the summer. No big thing. No reason to invite them to the party. Of course it would have been a little easier to take if Ev were going. At least she’d have someone to talk to. But Ev never went to parties.

Lisl wasn’t a party person either. A rotten conversationalist who could think of nothing to say once she’d covered the weather and general comments about the incoming student body. Then long uncomfortable silences would follow and she and whoever she was with would slowly drift to different rooms.

Funny, she never seemed to run out of things to say to Will.

But no way Will could be there, so forget that. If tonight followed the usual pattern, she’d wind up alone, standing by the bookshelves, nursing a plastic tumbler of too-tart Chablis as she sneaked looks at her watch and pretended to be interested in what titles and authors were stacked on the shelf. Usually the selection was as uninteresting as she felt.

This past summer had proved an unusually solitary one. She’d shuttled between her apartment and her office six days a week with little or no deviation in pattern. Over a long, lonely Labor Day weekend she had decided a change was in order. Time to force herself into some sort of social … what? Whirl? Her social life would never whirl. And she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. A social crawl was more her speed. She’d settle for that.

And so the old Lisl determined to become a different Lisl, a new, improved, socializing Lisl. She would turn down no invitation to a social gathering, no matter how dreadful she thought it might be.

Which was why she was determined to show up at Ed Rogers’ party tonight.

But the most immediate problem was what to wear. These things were casual but she didn’t want to be too casual. Most of her comfortable clothes fell into the latter category; and her good stuff didn’t fit her anymore. She’d gained more poundage over the summer and had just passed the one-sixty mark.

You’re a cow, she thought, looking in the mirror.

She rarely looked in the mirror. What for? To check how she looked? She wasn’t all that interested. Since the divorce she hadn’t been able to dredge up much interest in anything besides her work. Certainly not much interest in men. Not after what Brian had put her through. Six years later it still hurt.

Brian … they’d met as freshmen in calculus class at U.N.C., both of them aiming toward a B.S.—Brian a premed in biology, Lisl a math major. A tentative courtship, a growing affection blossoming into love, at least on Lisl’s part, and then sexual intimacy—the first time for Lisl. They married immediately after graduation and moved to Pendleton where Lisl went to work teaching high school math while Brian started his stint at Darnell University School of Medicine.

Lisl supported him through most of those four years, taking occasional night courses toward her masters in math. During Brian’s fourth year in medical school she discovered that he was having an affair with one of the nurses at the hospital. That would have been bad enough, but she learned from one of the other nurses that since he had begun his in-hospital clinical training, Brian had been bedding any female employee who would have him.

Lisl felt her throat constrict at the memory. God, it still hurt. After all this time, it still hurt.

Lisl filed for divorce. This seemed to infuriate Brian. Apparently he had wanted to be the one to do the dumping. Lisl’s lawyer told her that he was probably terrified too, because of a recent legal precedent in which a wife who had supported her husband through medical school could demand a share of the future proceeds he reaped from that diploma.

Lisl wanted no part of that. She only wanted out.

But Brian made sure he had the last word.

When all was said and done, when all the papers had been signed and notarized, Brian had caught up to her as she’d fled the attorney’s office.

“I never loved you,” he said. “Not for a minute. Ever.” Then walked away.

No amount of physical abuse, no tirade of vituperation, no stream of curses, no matter how long, how loud, how vile could have hurt Lisl nearly as much as those four whispered words. Although she had said nothing and had walked coolly and calmly to her car, inside she’d been shattered. Completely. Utterly.

I never loved you.

The words had been echoing down the empty hallways of her life ever since.

Even now she felt her knees wobble with the hurt. And the worst part was he was still around. He lived on the other side of town and was on staff as an orthopedist at the county medical center.

Shaking off the memories, Lisl searched deep in her closet for something to wear, but stopped when she came across a familiar-looking shoebox. She lifted the lid and found her old shell collection from childhood. She smiled at the memory of how she’d once wanted to be a marine biologist.

Shells. Since childhood she’d assigned shells to the people in her life. She picked up a beautiful brown-striped chambered Nautilus. This was Will—big, mysterious, hiding who-knew-what in all those inner chambers; and secretive, withdrawing and snapping his lid shut whenever anyone got too close. The razor clam was Ev—thin, sharp-edged, smooth-surfaced, unadorned, what you saw was what you got. And here was Brian, a starfish, gentle and appealing on the surface, but it survived by trapping a mollusk with its arms, boring through its shell, and sucking out the soft parts inside to leave an empty husk.

Like me, Lisl thought, picking up a chowder clamshell—common, uncollectible, its pale, dull surface windowed by a starfish burr hole. Me.

She lidded the box and continued her search for something to wear. She wound up squeezed into a pair of cream colored slacks topped with an oversized lightweight sweater. She felt like a sausage from the waist down but it would have to do. At least the sweater hid her muffin top. A little make-up, five minutes with the curling iron, and she was set. All she had to do was get through the evening without splitting a seam.

Someday soon she was going to do something about these extra pounds.

2

Lisl noticed him as soon as she walked through the front door. She’d never seen him before. Not tall—no more than five foot ten, she guessed—and very slim. Hardly prepossessing physically, yet he was the first man she noticed. His movements were smooth, relaxed, and graceful. With his neat mustache, Latin coloring accentuated by perfectly pressed white slacks and shirt that fit as if they’d been made just for him—and perhaps they had—he stood out in the crowd of paunchy, shaggy, patch-sleeved academics like a prince among peasants. This man had style.

He was handing drinks to a pair of faculty wives who were blatantly gushing over him. As he turned from them, his eyes brushed past her, then returned. He smiled and gave her a tiny bow. Unaccountably, Lisl blushed, pleased that he had picked her out for a personal welcome.

Probably does that to every woman who comes through the door, she thought as he turned away to speak to someone.

Lisl sidled through the press of guests in the living room, nodding, smiling, saying hello to the faces she recognized. Her immediate goal was the bar—a card table laden with beer, jug wine, soda, mixers, and a few bottles of hard liquor. Lisl didn’t drink much, but a half-filled glass in her hand made her look and even feel like someone who belonged.

As she moved, she noticed from the corner of her eye that the stylish unknown seemed to be watching her. Who was he?

At the bar she found the host—portly, jovial Calvin Rogers, an aging Puck who sported a goatee to offset the hair he was losing on top. He held up a glass and smiled.

“Hi! Want a drink?”

Lisl could see by his expression that he knew her face but couldn’t quite connect it with a name.

“Sure.”

“Wine, beer, or booze?”

“A white wine, please.”

“Great!” As he poured from a two-liter bottle of Almaden he said, “House rule: I make you the first; after that you’re on your own.”

“Fine,” Lisl said. “No limit?”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Oh, it’s going to be one of those nights, is it?”

Lisl laughed. “Not really.” She hesitated a moment, debating whether she should ask him, then decided to plunge ahead. “Say, I see some new faces here.”

“Yeah. I invited a couple of the new graduate students.”

She glanced at the dark young man. “Really.”

“That’s Losmara,” Rogers said, following her gaze. “Rafael. Bit older than our usual grad student, but something of a dude, isn’t he? Brilliant mind, though. Brilliant. Comes out of Arizona State, which isn’t exactly a heavy-hitter in psychology, but he sent this proposal for a paper outlining a cybernetic model for schizophrenia that just blew me away. I knew right then this was a guy who was going somewhere. And wherever he was going, I wanted him to come from here. I couldn’t offer him money—I understand his family’s half as rich as Croesus—so I played coy and conned him into choosing Darnell for his doctorate. Figured he might teach the rest of us something before he’s through. I invited him and the other grads tonight to make them feel more at home with the department.”

“That’s nice of you.”

He smiled and handed her the glass of wine. “I’m a nice guy. Or so they tell me.”

Lisl wandered the cramped living room-dining room area, looking for someone she knew. She avoided the bookshelves, figuring she’d have plenty of time later to inspect them. One full circuit and she found herself standing alone by the sliding glass door that opened onto the backyard.

This wasn’t working. Without a single other person from her own department, she felt more out of place than usual. She looked around and envied all these people with the knack for conversation. Nobody else seemed to be having problems. They all made it look so easy. Why couldn’t she just stop by a group, listen in for a while, and then join the conversation?

Because I can’t.

She stepped out onto the small flagstone patio. After examining what few of Cal’s roses hadn’t been eaten by beetles, she turned to go back inside.

And found the dark grad student next to her.

“Hello,” he said. His voice was velvet, deep but soft, melodious. His teeth were so white under the dark mustache, his eyes almost luminous in the dark. “I hear you’re from Math.”

So simple. So perfect.

Small talk. Rafe—that was how he introduced himself—seemed to be a natural at it. Relaxed, exuding self-confidence, he gave her the feeling that no subject could be inconsequential if he was discussing it. They stood side by side for a while, then moved to the redwood bench by the picnic table. Rafe had a lot of questions about campus life at Darnell, especially as it related to graduate students. Since Lisl had earned her own doctorate here, she had a good store of knowledge on the subject.

He listened. Really listened. Whatever Lisl had to say, her insights, her opinions, all seemed important to him. A part of her was on edge, ready for the brush-off, waiting for him to smile, excuse himself, and move on after he’d learned what he wanted to know. But Rafe stayed by her side, asking more questions, drawing her out, freshening her wine when he replenished his own bourbon and water. He left her from time to time, but only briefly.

Lisl found him stimulating. He exuded maleness, almost like a scent, a pheromone. Whatever it was, she knew she was responding to it. This would never go anywhere, but it was exciting to be with him. He was making the party for her.

Throughout the evening she noticed inquisitive glances from other women as they passed in and out through the patio door. She could almost read their minds: What was the most interesting-looking man at the party doing with that frump?

Good question.

Idly, she sorted through the pretzels in the bowl between them on the picnic table, and picked out one to eat.

“Do you always do that?” Rafe said, his gaze flicking back and forth between the pretzel in her hand and her eyes.

“Do what?”

“Take the broken ones.”

Lisl looked at the pretzel. Well, half a pretzel—a loop and a half. She vaguely remembered picking out broken ones all evening. She always picked out the broken ones.

“I guess I do. Is that significant?”

He smiled. A warm smile, showing off those white, even teeth.

“Could be. What matters is why.”

“I guess I don’t want to see them go to waste. Everybody grabs the whole ones and leaves the broken ones. They’re like old maids. When the night’s over they’ll probably get thrown away. So those are the ones I take.”

“In other words, you’re existing on other people’s leftovers.”

“I wouldn’t call it existing—”

“Neither would I.” Rafe pulled an unbroken three-ring from the bowl and offered it to her. His voice was suddenly serious. “Never be satisfied with leftovers.”

Intrigued and fascinated by his intensity, Lisl took the pretzel and laughed. A bit too shrilly, she thought.

“It’s just a pretzel.”

“No. It’s a decision, a statement. A paradigm of life, and how one chooses to live it.”

“I think you’re reading too much into this.” But what else could she expect from a Psych grad. “Life is a little more complex than a bowl of pretzels.”

“Of course it is. It’s a bowl of choices. A series of choices you make from moment to moment from the time you are volitional until you die. Each choice you make mirrors what you are inside. They say where you’ve been, they tell where you’re going.”

His intensity was a tiny bit intimidating, yet exciting, stirring something within her.

“Okay,” she said, not wanting to argue yet unwilling to let him get off without a qualifier. “But pretzels?”

Rafe picked another whole three-ring from the bowl and took a savage bite out of it.

“Pretzels.”

Laughing, Lisl took a big bite of her own.

Yes. One very intense man.

3

Too soon the crowd began to thin. People were leaving so early. This had to be the shortest party Lisl had ever been to. She glanced at her watch and was shocked to see 1:06 on its face.

Impossible. She’d just got here. But a check with the mantel clock inside confirmed it.

“I guess I’d better be going,” she told Rafe.

He smiled. “I’m sorry for monopolizing all your time.”

Monopolizing her time—that was a laugh.

“Don’t worry. You didn’t.”

“You have a ride?” he said, his eyes holding hers.

“Yes.”

For an instant she wished she didn’t. But as much as she wanted to continue their party-long conversation, driving off with him would look like she’d been picked up, and that would be all over the Math department before she arrived Monday morning.

“Good,” he said, “because I feel obligated to give Doctor Rogers a hand cleaning up.”

“Of course.”

Lisl had difficulty picturing Rafe Losmara, dressed all in white as he was, emptying ashtrays and rinsing glasses. But the fact that he was cheerfully willing to pitch in said something about him.

He walked her to the front door where he took her hand as if to shake it, but did not let go.

“This would have been a pretty dreary affair without you.”

Lisl smiled. Took the words right out of her mouth.

“You really think so?”

“I know so. Can I call you some time?”

“Sure.” Sure you will.

“Great. Talk to you soon.”

Right.

Lisl had no illusions about hearing from him again. Not that it would really matter, anyway. A nice evening. No, more than nice—the most interesting, stimulating evening she’d had in longer than she cared to compute. A shame it had to end, but that was that. Rafe, the fascinating grad student, had seemed genuinely interested in her. Her. And she’d held up her end of the conversation effortlessly. Such a good feeling. But it was over. Take it for what it was worth and go on from here. She was glad she’d decided to come. If nothing else, this evening had bolstered her resolution to become more socially active.

Party-hearty Lisl—that’ll be me.

4

Back in her apartment, Lisl groaned with relief as she released herself from her slacks and readied for bed. She reached for the amber, safety-topped bottle of Restoril, then stopped. She didn’t want a sleeping pill tonight. She preferred the idea of lying awake for a while and savoring memories of the evening.

The phone rang as she slipped under the covers.

“Hi. It’s me,” said a soft voice.

Lisl recognized it immediately. She wondered at the rush of warmth that surged through her.

“Hello, Rafe.”

“I escaped Doctor Rogers’s place and got home, but I’m still kind of wired. Feel like talking?”

Yeah, she did. She felt like talking all night. Which they damn near did.

Before hanging up, he asked her if they could have lunch together tomorrow. Lisl hesitated—she was faculty, after all, and he was a grad student—but only for a second. She was feeling more alive tonight than she had in years, and now an opportunity to extend that feeling was being offered to her. Why turn it down?

“Sure,” she said. “As long as they don’t have bowls of pretzels sitting around.”

His laugh was music. “You’re on!”

5

The man in the white shirt and pants hung up the phone and leaned back on the white sofa in the white living room of his condominium town house. He smiled and traced letters in the air. His fingertip left trails of depthless black as it moved: L … I … S … L.

“Contact,” he said in barely a whisper.

He rose and walked to his back door, glided down the pair of steps to his backyard, and stood barefoot in the moist grass. He smiled again as he gazed up at the wheeling constellations in the moonless sky. Then he spread his arms straight out, level with the ground, palms down.

Slowly, he began to rise.

6

Everett Sanders jerked upright in his bed and stared at the window.

He’d never been a good sleeper and tonight had been just like all the rest: a series of catnaps interspersed with periods of wakefulness. He’d been lying here with only a sheet covering him, tilting on the cusp of a doze, when he thought he saw a face appear at his window.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Nothing. The window was empty. Nothing there but the screen, nothing moving but the drapes swaying gracefully in the breeze.

Nothing there at all. But then, how could a face have been there? His apartment was on the third floor.

He lay back and wondered if it had been a dream or a hallucination. He’d hallucinated years ago. He didn’t want to go through that again.

Everett Sanders rolled onto his side and searched for sleep. But he remained facing the window, opening his eyes every so often to check if the face was back. Of course it wouldn’t be. He knew that.

But it had seemed so real. So real …

7

Will Ryerson awoke sweating. At first he thought it might be another of his nightmares, but he couldn’t remember dreaming. As he lay there in the dark he had a strange, uneasy sensation that he was being watched. He got up and went to the window but saw no one outside. No movement. No sound except the crickets.

Yet the sensation persisted.

Slipping into an old pair of loafers, Will grabbed a flashlight, turned on the yard lights, and went out to the front yard. He stood there in his undershirt and boxers and trained the flashlight beam into the dark recesses of the tree-lined lot. Somebody was out there. He was sure of it.

Why? Why would someone be watching him? He was sure no one knew about him. If someone did, they’d surely turn him in. So who was out there?

He sighed. Maybe no one after all. Maybe just his paranoia getting the best of him. But why tonight? Why now, after all these years?

The phone call. That had to be it. Days ago, but it must have sent his subconscious into overdrive. He was beginning to feel the effects tonight.

As he turned to go back inside, he glanced up and froze.

Far above him, a white cross floated against the stars.

It was moving, drifting toward the south. As Will squinted upward, it appeared less like a cross and more like a man—a man all in white, floating in mid-air with his arms spread.

Will felt his saliva dry up as his palms began to sweat. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. A nightmare—this was the nightmare. But after his real-life nightmare experience in New York, he knew the rules of reason and sanity were not constant. Sometimes they broke down. And then anything could happen.

Far above, the man-cross drifted over the trees and vanished from sight.

Trembling with dread, Will hurried back inside the house.

THE BOY

at six months

Oh, Jimmy—what’s wrong with you?

Carol Stevens stared down at her sleeping son and wanted to cry. Lying prone in his crib, pudgy arms and legs spread wide, round-faced with soft pink cheeks, wisps of dark hair clinging to his scalp, he was the picture of innocence. She studied the delicate venules in his closed eyelids and thought how beautiful he was.

As long as those eyelids stayed closed.

When they were open he was different. The innocence disappeared—the child disappeared. The eyes were old. They didn’t move like the eyes of other infants, roving, trying to take in everything at once because everything was so new. Jimmy’s eyes stared, they studied, they … penetrated. It was unnerving to have him watch you.

And Jimmy never smiled or laughed, never cooed or gurgled or blew bubbles. He did vocalize, though. Not random baby noises, but patterned sounds, as if he were trying to get his untrained vocal cords to function. Since his birth, his grandfather Jonah would sit here in the nursery with the door closed and talk to him in a low voice. Carol had listened at the door a number of times but could never quite make out what he was saying. But she was sure from the length of the sentences and the cadence of his speech that it wasn’t baby talk.

Carol turned away from the crib and wandered to the window where she looked out on the Ouachita Mountains. Jonah had brought them here to rural Arkansas to hide until the baby was born. She’d followed his lead, too frightened by the madness she’d left behind to do anything else.

If only Jim were alive. He’d know how to handle this. He’d be able to step back and decide what to do about his son. But Jim had been dead a little over a year now, and Carol could not be cold and logical and rational about little Jimmy. He was their son, their flesh and blood, all she had left of Jim. She loved him as much as she feared him.

When she turned she saw that Jimmy was awake, sitting in the crib, staring at her with those cold eyes that had started out blue but then darkened to brown. He spoke to her in a baby’s voice, high and soft. The words were garbled but clear enough to be understood. She had no doubt about what he said:

“I’m hungry, woman. Bring me something to eat.”

Carol screamed and fled the nursery.

FOUR

Manhattan

1

“Letter for you, Sarge,” said Potts, waving the envelope in the air from the far side of the squad room.

Detective Sergeant Renaldo Augustino, reed thin with a ruddy complexion and a generous nose, glanced up from his cluttered desk. His dark hair was combed straight back from his receding hairline. He took a final drag on his cigarette and jammed it into the crowded ashtray to his right.

“The mail came a couple of hours ago,” he told Potts. “Where you been hiding it?”

“It’s not regular mail. Came over from the One-twelve.”

Great. Probably another late notice for dues to a PBA local he no longer belonged to. He’d been transferred to Midtown North years ago and they still hadn’t got the message.

“Chuck it out.”

“Could be a bill of some sort, Renny.”

“That’s what I figured. I don’t even want to see the damn thing. Just—”

“A phone bill.”

That brought Renny up short. “Local?”

“No. Southern Bell.”

His heart suddenly thudding in his chest, Renny was out of his chair and across the squad room so fast he frightened Potts.

“Give me that.”

He snatched the envelope and strode back to his desk.

“What gives?” said Sam Lang, leaning over Renny’s desk, slurping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

They’d been partners for a couple of years now. Sam was lots younger, mid-forties, balding and overweight. Everything Sam wore was rumpled, tie included.

As Renny sped through the text, he felt the old anger rekindling.

“It’s him! And he’s up to his old tricks!”

Puzzled creases formed in Sam’s doughy brow.

“Who?”

“A killer. Name of Ryan. Nobody you’d know.” He scanned the letter again. “Any idea where Pendleton, North Carolina, is?”

“Somewhere between Virginia and South Carolina, I imagine.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Renny seemed to remember something about a big university there. No matter. He could find out easily enough.

A long time ago … the kid, Danny Gordon … left for dead by some sicko bastard. Renny had been assigned to the case. Since then he’d seen a lot of gut-wrenching things in his years on the force. When you spent your nights turning over rocks in a city the size of New York, you got used to the slimy things that crawled out. But never anything like that boy and what had been done to him. It had grabbed Renny by the throat and never let go. Still hadn’t.

His mind leapt back across the years, images flashed before his eyes. The white, pain-racked little face, the hoarse screams that wouldn’t stop, and other horrors. And the priest. So horrified, so shattered, so lost, so convincing in the lies he told. Renny had fallen for those lies, had allowed himself to believe, to get sucked into that bastard’s trap. He’d come to like the priest, to trust him, to think of him as an ally in the search for Danny’s mutilator.

You worked me beautifully, you son of a bitch. Played me like a maestro.

Renny knew he was being hard on himself. The fact that he had once been an orphan like Danny Gordon, growing up in the same orphanage as Danny, raised a Catholic with endless respect for priests, all of that had made him an easy mark for that slimy Jesuit’s lies.

Until it had become clear that Danny Gordon was not going to die, and the priest had acted in desperation to save his worthless guilty hide.

And then, in one night, the whole case had gone to hell. As a direct result of that, Renny had lost his rank. An indirect result of the whole mess had been the end of his marriage.

Joanne was long gone now. When the Danny Gordon case fell apart and Renny’s career took a dive, he took it out on everybody within earshot. Joanne had been around the most so she bore the brunt of his rage and frustration and growing obsession with bringing the killer to justice. She took as much as she could—two years’ worth. Then she folded. She packed up and left. Renny didn’t blame her. He knew he’d been impossible to live with. Still was, he was sure. He blamed himself. And he blamed Danny Gordon’s killer. He added the Augustino marriage to the list of the killer’s victims.

One more thing I owe you for, you bastard.

But what was really going on here? Now. Today. Had the killer priest he’d been chasing forever finally surfaced, or was this just a coincidence? He couldn’t tell for sure. And he wanted it so bad, he didn’t trust his own judgment.

He decided on a second opinion.

He placed a call to Columbia University and arranged to meet Dr. Nicholas Quinn in half an hour. At Leon’s, Midtown North’s watering hole.

2

Dr. Nick arrived just as Renny was downing the last of his second scotch. Not bad time, considering the guy had to come all the way from Morningside Heights. They shook hands—they didn’t see each other often enough to forgo that formality—and moved to a table. Renny carried his third scotch along, Nick brought an eight-ounce draft.

Renny savored the dark and the quiet, not minding the mixed odors of stale smoke and spilled beer. Not often you could have a quiet drink or three in Leon’s. But in forty-five minutes, when the first shift ended, look out. Most all of Midtown North would be here, three deep at the bar.

“So, Nick,” Renny said. “What’re you up to?”

“Particle physics,” the younger man said. “You really want to hear?”

“Not really. How’s the love life?”

Nick sipped his beer. “I love my work.”

“Don’t worry,” Renny said. “It’s just a phase you’re going through. You’ll get over it.”

Renny smiled and looked at his companion. Dr. Nick, as he called him—or Nicholas Quinn, Ph.D., as the people at Columbia called him—was an odd-looking duck. But weren’t physicists supposed to be weird? Look at Big Bang Theory. Look at Einstein. There’d been a strange-looking guy if there ever was one. So maybe Nick had a right to look weird. From what Renny had been able to gather, Nick Quinn had an Einstein-league brain. And under all that unkempt hair, an Elephant Man skull. He also had bad skin, pale with lots of little scars, as if he’d had a severe case of acne as a teenager. And his eyes. He was wearing contacts these days, but Renny had a feeling from their wide stare and the flattened look of his eye sockets that he’d probably worn coke-bottle lenses most of his life. Fortyish or fiftyish—hard to tell—thin, a little stooped, and developing a paunch. Not surprisingly, he was single. A true nerdo from the git-go. But who knew? Maybe someday he’d find himself the perfect nerdella, and together they’d raise a family of nerdettes.

“How’s by you?” Nick said.

“Couldn’t be better, kid. Coupla years from retirement.”

Nick hoisted his beer. “Congratulations.”

Renny nodded but didn’t drink. It wasn’t good news. What the hell was he going to do with himself without the Job?

“So,” Nick said slowly, “why’d you want to see me?”

Renny smiled. “Anxious?”

“No. Curious. I’ve been calling you regularly since it happened, and for years now it’s always the same answer: nothing new. Now you call me. I know you like to keep people dangling, Mister Detective, and I’ve been dangling long enough. What’ve you got?”

Renny shrugged. “Maybe something, maybe nothing.” He pulled the letter from Southern Bell from his pocket and slid it across the table. “This came today.”

He watched Nick study it. They’d met during the Danny Gordon case. But they’d stayed in touch since. That had been Nick’s idea. After Renny had blown the Gordon case, Nick had shown up in the squad room—Renny had been working out of the 112th in Queens, then—and offered to help in any way he could. Renny had told him thanks but no thanks. The last thing he needed was a nerdy citizen getting in the way. But Nick had persisted, pulling on the common thread that linked the three of them.

Orphans. Renny, Danny Gordon, and Nick Quinn—they’d all been orphans. And they’d all spent a good part of their childhood in the St. Francis Home for Boys in Queens. Renny had lived there until he was adopted by the Augustinos. Nick had been a resident until adopted by the Quinn family, and had known the killer-priest well. That alone made Nick an asset. But on top of that, Nick was brilliant. A mind like a computer. He’d sifted through all the evidence and run it all through his brain, and had come up with a theory that was hard to refute, one that made the suspect, Father Ryan, look clean … up to a point.

What Nick’s scenario couldn’t explain was the eyewitness accounts of Father Ryan carrying Danny Gordon from the hospital and driving off with him, never to be seen again.

In anybody’s book, that was called kidnapping.

Renny felt his jaw muscles bunching even now as he thought about it. He’d liked that priest, had even thought they were friends. What a jerk he’d been. Allowed himself to be set up so the priest could pull an end run around him and leave him looking like a Grade-A asshole. An empty-handed asshole who’d let some sicko bastard snatch a child victim from right under his nose. The memory still sent icy fury howling through him like a hungry wind.

“North Carolina,” Nick said, looking up from the letter. “Think it might be him?”

“I don’t know what to think. It sort of came out of the blue.”

“How—?”

“A long-term gain on a short-term investment, you might say.”

When Father Ryan had taken off with the boy, and seemed to have gotten away clean, Renny had put out a man-and-a-boy description of the fugitive pair, but had added a new wrinkle. Through the FBI he’d asked the East Coast phone companies to be on the lookout for complaints about a certain kind of prank phone call that Renny had come to associate with the missing priest. There’d been a fair amount of returns on that at first, and for a while Renny had thought they were zeroing in on Ryan, but just when he’d been sure they were going to run him to ground, he disappeared. Suddenly, Father Ryan was gone, vanished from the face of the earth as if he’d never existed.

Nick dropped the letter onto the table and reached for his beer.

“Amazing it was still in the company’s computer. After all the upgrades they must have done since then.”

“I’m told if you don’t erase stuff, it never goes away.”

“In some cases, yeah.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s so vague. Isn’t there some way you can talk to anyone down there?”

“Already have. Couldn’t get anything firsthand, though. It happened on the street near a bus stop. The people who’d actually listened to the phone had boarded their bus and gone home by the time the police and emergency squads had arrived. But there seemed to be a definite consensus that the call was from a child in trouble.”

Just like the other calls, Renny thought, his mind leaping back to the waiting area outside the children’s ward at Downstate. He still had nightmares about that endless week in hell, the door to Danny’s hospital room looming before him, drawing him forward, opening to reveal the horrors that lay behind it. And he remembered that phone call.

He’d been sitting there with Father Ryan, the man he had come to trust, even to admire. They were both on tenterhooks, alternately sitting and pacing, waiting for the docs to give them the latest news on Danny Gordon, when the phone rang.

A no-name pay phone, bolted to the wall, like a zillion others around the city. But Renny had never heard a phone ring like that before. It just rang, steadily, on and on. Something about it made his hackles rise. Against the priest’s warnings, he’d answered it. What he’d heard over that wire still echoed in his brain on those too-frequent nights when sleep wouldn’t come. He’d been horrified, mystified, sickened. But when the priest—his new friend, Danny’s supposed guardian—had hiked off with the kid, he realized it had all been a scam, a sleazy attempt to direct suspicion elsewhere.

And it might have worked too.

You were good, you bastard, Renny thought. The Marlon fucking Brando of the priesthood.

“Low specificity,” Nick said.

Renny yanked himself back to the present. “Say what?”

Nick smiled. “Scientist talk. It means that the incident under review resembles the sought-after phenomenon in only the most general sense. What about that bizarre ring of the bell you’ve told me about?”

“Like I said: I couldn’t talk to the folks who picked it up, so I don’t know. Wish I could. If they confirmed that long drawn-out ring, I’d be on a plane heading south right now.”

Nick glanced at him, then looked away. “You still think he killed the boy?”

As Renny replied, he watched Nick closely. He’d had a feeling all along that Nick knew more about the whereabouts of the priest than he let on. That was why Renny kept in touch. One day Nick might slip, and then Renny would have the break he’d been waiting for.

“I’m sure of it. It’s the only way he could get away clean. If there’s one good thing about working in Manhattan, it’s that it’s an island. There’s only so many ways you can get off. We screened every bridge and tunnel for a man and a boy. Pulled over every man-and-boy combo we found. Danny and the priest weren’t among them. Yet we know he slipped past us; through Staten Island is my guess. And as far as I’m concerned, that means he offed the kid and dumped his body—maybe in a construction site, maybe in the East River. Wherever it was, it was a good spot. We haven’t found him yet. But Danny Gordon is dead. That’s the only way that bastard could have gotten away.”

“How about a boat?”

Renny shook his head. He’d already shuffled through this deck. Many times.

“Uh-uh. Not in that weather. And anyway, there were no boats reported missing or stolen. No, Nick. Ryan eliminated the only witness that could finger him.”

“And then disappeared himself,” Nick said. “The point of eliminating a witness is to obviate flight. You’re saying he did both. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing about this whole case has made sense from the start,” Renny said, finishing his scotch. “And whose side are you on, anyway?”

“It’s not a matter of sides. I’m pulling for Danny Gordon, that’s for sure. But as for the rest…”

“You mean you’re keeping a soft spot for that pervo priest?”

Nick’s eyes blazed. “Don’t say that. Nobody’s ever even hinted—”

“I’m sure that was behind it. When we finally turn over all the rocks, that’s what we’ll find. And it won’t be the first time, believe me.”

“He was good to me,” Nick said, his throat working as he looked away. “Damn good.”

“Yeah,” Renny said, sensing the turmoil in the younger man, and feeling for him. “I know what you mean. He fooled us all.”

After a while, Nick cleared his throat. “So what are your plans?”

“Not sure. That’s why I called you. What do you think?”

Renny trusted his own instincts, but he’d learned over the years that you could get too close to a case—you could get so fixed on the leaves that you lost sight of the tree. That was where a “third eye” came in handy. And since no one at Midtown North really gave a damn about the Danny Gordon case—after all, it was ancient history and really belonged to the 112th—Renny used Nick as a sounding board. Besides being brilliant, he was interested.

“I’d wait.” Nick tapped the letter. “There’s not enough to go on here. Odds are extremely low it was him. And even if it was, he might have been just passing through. Wait and see.”

Renny nodded, pleased because Nick’s assessment jibed with his own.

“I think you’re right. But if I get another notice like this from North Carolina, I’m out of here. I’m southbound.”

Nick nodded slowly and sipped his beer, a faraway look in his eyes. Yeah, this rocket scientist knew more than he let on. Definitely.

3

Nick Quinn’s mind raced ahead of him as he left Leon’s and hurried back to Morningside Heights. He didn’t know if he should be worried or not. If that telephone incident in North Carolina was connected to Father Ryan, it could mean real trouble for the priest. If only he had some idea where Father Bill was. But he didn’t even know if he was still in the country. He could be in Mexico or Staten Island, or anywhere between.

It made no difference, really. Nick knew how to get in touch with him. And he also knew that Father Bill was no killer, no matter what Detective Augustino or the NYPD or the FBI thought. The man had practically raised him. He couldn’t be a killer.

As soon as he got back to his office, he locked the door and sat at his desk. He turned on his PC and logged on to the Web.

Father Bill had called him on that long-ago New Year’s Day to tell him he’d be disappearing and to have faith. Nick sensed what had happened. And not only had he had faith, he’d kept it.

Time passed and he’d given up hope of ever hearing from him again when a strange message from ignatiusSt.F@gmail.com arrived in his Columbia email inbox.

Saint Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits … Saint F, the nickname for the St. Francis Orphanage …

Nick immediately had set up a new email account on an anonymous server as elcomedo—a private joke—and they’d been in sporadic contact ever since. He sent a message now, making it as oblique as possible.

Your August opponent got word of an aberrant ring-a-ding in Duke country. That you, Iggy? He’s staying put for now but you be extra careful. Hope you’re well. Please stay so.

El Comedo

Nick leaned back and sighed. Even after all these years he still felt the loss of a dear friend.

Please be careful, Father Bill—wherever you are.

THE BOY

at one year

He’d stopped sleeping.

It had frightened Carol at first, but she was getting used to it now. Somewhere in his tenth month he’d begun to stay up all night reading. He’d been reading books and newspapers ever since he could manipulate the pages. He would give her lists of titles to buy or take from the library in Dardanelle. An omnivore of information, the child read voraciously, almost continuously. And when he didn’t have his nose in a book, he’d settle himself in front of the TV.

Carol stood in the doorway now and watched Jimmy, clad in his Bullwinkle pajamas, as he sat before the screen. Legs folded beneath him, he rested on his heels, his feet pigeon-toed inward, crossing under his buttocks. His dark eyes were alive with interest, a small smile played along his lips. But he never watched kid shows like Banana Splits or H.R. Pufnstuf or cartoons. He read during the day and watched TV at night. At the moment he was watching a story about Vietnam on the ten o’clock network news.

“All that fear and destruction and death over there,” he said with shocking clarity in his toddler’s voice. “And all the rage and strife here. All over a worthless, tiny clump of dirt on the other side of the world.” He turned his head and smiled at Carol. “Isn’t it wonderful!”

“No,” Carol said, stepping forward. “It’s awful. And I don’t want you watching it.”

She turned the set off and lifted him under the arms.

“How dare you!” he cried. “Put that TV on! Put me down!”

She held his tiny body away from her, out of reach of his flailing arms and kicking legs.

“Sorry, Jimmy! You may not be like any other baby in the world, but I’m still your mother. And I say it’s past your bedtime.”

She placed him in his crib, closed the door to the nursery, and tried to block out his screams of rage as she walked back to her bedroom. He was still too small, his arms too weak to pull himself over the crib railing. Thank God for small favors.

She sat on the bed and tried for the thousandth time to sort out her feelings for her son. Despite everything, there was love—at least on her part. He was Jim’s child, and carrying him within her for nine months had forged a bond that would not break, no matter how bizarre his mental abilities and his behavior. And yet she felt fear too. Not fear for herself, but fear of the unknown. Who was Jimmy? Carol wanted desperately to be a parent to him, but that had proven impossible. He seemed like a fully developed adult in a toddler’s body. He’d been born with an encyclopedic knowledge of world history and he was ravenous for more.

Suddenly the screams from the nursery stopped. Carol stepped out into the hallway in time to see the tall, lean figure of Jonah Stevens leading Jimmy toward the den.

“Jonah!” she said. “I want him in bed. He needs his rest.”

Here was another skirmish in what had become a constant battle between mother and grandfather: Whatever Carol denied Jimmy, Jonah would give him. He almost worshipped the child.

Jonah smiled condescendingly. “No, Carol. The One needs to learn all he can about the world. After all, it’s going to be his someday.”

“The One” … he kept calling Jimmy “the One.” He was an only child, yes, but Carol had a feeling Jonah attached far more meaning to it than that.

Her son barely glanced up as he toddled past her to the den. Carol leaned against the wall and fought the tears as she heard the news begin to blare anew from the TV.

OCTOBER

FIVE

North Carolina

1

“What a wonderful piece of filmmaking!” Rafe said as they left the auditorium.

Lisl smiled at him. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen Metropolis before.

“Never. Those sets! How much have I missed by ignoring silent films? I’ve always avoided them—all those histrionics. But that’s going to change. Next stop: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

Lisl laughed. She’d been seeing a lot of Rafe since Cal Rogers’s party. She felt comfortable with him. More than that, she felt confident with him. Never a dull moment, never a lag in the conversation. Always something to talk about—some new idea, some new theory about anything that struck his fancy. His mind was a voracious, restlessly foraging omnivore, always on the prowl for new game, new fields in which to graze. She’d come to see their pretzel conversation that night at Cal’s as a paradigm of so many of their conversations over the past few weeks. Rafe found significance in every little action of an individual. “The increments of personality,” he called them. He said he planned to devote his career as a psychologist to tallying, quantifying, grouping, and analyzing those increments. His doctoral thesis would be his first step along that path.

As the weeks passed, they’d progressed from lunches to dinners to long walks in the parks to tonight’s special screening. Rafe hadn’t put a move on her yet and she wasn’t exactly pleased about that. Not that she wanted a physical relationship with him, and she was sure the thought had never crossed his mind. She was too frumpy to appeal to someone like him. But it would have done wonders for her ego to politely turn him down.

But would she turn him down? Could she?

Lisl caught herself. Sexual feelings for Rafe? Preposterous. Dreaming of a sexual relationship with him? Impossible.

First off, he was a student. An older student, to be sure—almost her age. He told her he’d spent a lot of time traveling the world between high school and college. So, Rafael Losmara was not the typical graduate student, not someone who had passed through the college experience yet remained in a state of becoming. Rafe seemed to be complete. God, there were times when he seemed so much older than she, when she felt like a child learning at his feet. He seemed to see everything so clearly. He had this ability to cut through all the layers of pretense and get to the core of whatever matter was at hand.

But even if she could forget the faculty-student problem—not an insurmountable problem since they were in different departments—Lisl still had to ask herself a very basic question: Why?

Why should someone as wealthy, bright, talented, and good-looking as Rafe Losmara, who could cut a sexual swath through the female graduate students and the hordes of nubile undergraduates as well, want to get involved with a dumpy divorcee?

Good question. One not easily answered, because Rafe wasn’t chasing other students, graduate or undergraduate. As far as Lisl knew, she was the only woman in his life at the moment. The thought had crossed her mind that he might be gay. But he didn’t seem interested in men.

Recently she had noticed little touches, sidelong glances that seemed to hint at something bubbling beneath his cool exterior. Or was she reading too much into them, looking for something she hoped might be there?

He was a lot like Will. Maybe they were both asexual. Why not? And what did it matter? They had a nice, platonic relationship, one that brightened many a day for her. Very much like the one she shared with Will. She decided to be satisfied with that, because it was unrealistic to the point of delusion to think it could be anything more.

Rafe took her hand and squeezed it. A tingle ran up her arm.

“Thank you, Lisl. Thanks for suggesting this.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Will.”

“Will?” Rafe’s brow furrowed. “Oh, yes. That intellectual groundskeeper you told me about. Thank him for me.”

“If he’s here, you can thank him yourself.”

“I’d love to meet him. He sounds interesting.”

Lisl searched the small crowd of attendees and immediately spotted Everett Sanders’s reed-thin figure passing nearby. She waved him over and introduced him to Rafe.

“An impressive film, don’t you think?” Rafe said.

“Extraordinary.”

Lisl said, “We’re going over to the Hidey-hole for a drink. Want to come along?”

Ev shook his head. “No. I have some work to do. And speaking of work, I understand you intend to submit a paper for the Palo Alto conference.”

“I thought I’d give it a shot,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable.

Even though she had every right in the world to submit a paper, she felt as if she were crashing his party.

“I’m sure it will be brilliant,” he said. “Good luck.”

“Sure you won’t have that drink with us?” Rafe said.

“Positive. I must be off. Good night.”

As they watched Ev stride away, Rafe leaned close and said, “A bit stiff, don’t you think?”

Lisl grinned. “Maybe that’s why I like him. When he’s around I feel like a swinger.”

She resumed her search for Will but couldn’t find him.

Strange. He’d seemed so enthusiastic about the university film society’s acquisition of a restored print of the Fritz Lang classic, telling her all about the long-lost footage that had been reinserted. This afternoon he’d said he was going to try to make it. But she’d sensed a hint of melancholy in his voice, as if he knew he wasn’t going to be there. Too bad. He’d have loved it. Lisl had once seen a shorter version on TV and hadn’t been too impressed. But tonight, in a theater, in the dark with a full-size screen, the scope of the images of the restored print had been mesmerizing.

To Rafe it had been some sort of epiphany.

“You know,” he said, raising his voice as they walked out into the night, “I wonder if adding sound to films really improved them.”

“It forced the acting to improve, that’s for sure.”

“True. All that mugging and those exaggerated gestures were no longer necessary. But not having sound forces the filmmaker to use the visual medium to the max. It’s all he has. He can’t tell you things, so he’s got to show you. My new theory of film criticism: If you can close your eyes and still follow the story line, maybe they should have saved the celluloid for some other feature and performed the script on the radio. If you can plug your ears and follow the story with your eyes only, there’s a damn good chance you’ve got a good movie on your hands.”

The couple walking ahead of them obviously had been listening, for the man turned around and challenged Rafe’s theory with the titles of a number of Academy Award winners. Lisl recognized him from the Sociology department. A few more of the filmgoers chimed in and within minutes Lisl found herself in the heart of a friendly but vigorous debate moving across the east campus. The whole group gravitated to the Hidey-hole where they commandeered one of the big tables and went through round after round of drinks while discussing Rafe’s theory and Metropolis itself.

“Visually stunning, yes,” said Victor Pelham from the Sociology department. “But the class-war politics are positively archaic.”

“And a rip-off of H. G. Wells,” said a doctoral candidate from English. “The idle rich frolicking above and the oppressed workers toiling below—it’s the Eloi and the Morlocks from The Time Machine.”

Pelham said, “I don’t care who he ripped off—a socialist like Wells or Marx himself—that class-war bullshit has been passe for ages. A shame too. It hobbles the film.”

“Maybe it’s not as passe as you think,” Rafe said.

“Right!” Pelham laughed. “Will the real Overman please stand up.”

“I’m not talking about anything so crass as Overmen and Undermen,” Rafe said softly. “I’m talking about Primes and non-Primes—or, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, Creators and Consumers.”

The table fell silent.

“That’s where the real division lies,” Rafe continued. “There are those who innovate, invent, modify, and elaborate. And there are others who contribute nothing, yet enjoy all the benefits of those innovations, inventions, modifications, and elaborations.”

“Sounds like another variation on the Eloi and Morlocks,” someone said. “Creators on top, Consumers below.”

“Not so,” said Rafe. “That implies that the Consumer masses are slaves to the Creator overlords, but it doesn’t work that way. The Creators are in fact the slaves of the masses, providing them with all the benefits of art and modern science. The Wellsian cliche of the Eloi elite owing their comfortable lifestyle to the labor of the Morlock masses is backwards. The Consumer masses owe their health, their full bellies, and the comforts of civilization to the efforts of the small percentage of Creators among them.”

“I’m confused,” someone said.

Rafe smiled. “It’s not a simple concept. Nor is it a clear-cut division. The dividing line is nothing so obvious as economic status. Creators have often reaped fame and profits from their work, but throughout history there have been countless Creators who’ve lived out their entire lives in obscurity and abject poverty. Look at Poe, at Van Gogh; think of the mathematicians and physicists whose work Einstein studied in laying the groundwork that led to his theory of relativity. What are their names?”

No one answered. Lisl glanced around the table. All eyes were fixed on Rafe, everyone mesmerized by his voice.

“And far too many of the wealthiest among us are nothing more than overfed Consumers. Those who have merely inherited their wealth are the most obvious examples. But there are others who’ve supposedly ‘earned’ it who are just as useless. Take the Wall Street types—the stockbrokers and arbitrageurs: They spend their lives buying and selling interests in currencies or in concerns that actually produce things, they pocket their commissions, they cash in on the spread, but they produce nothing themselves. Nothing at all.”

“Nothing but money!” Pelham said, evoking a few muted laughs.

“Exactly!” Rafe said. “Nothing but money. A whole life of six, seven, eight decades, and what besides a big bank account have they left behind? After their assets are gobbled up by their greedy little Consumer heirs, what mark have they left in their wake? What evidence is there to indicate that they ever passed this way?”

“Not much, I fear,” said a middle-aged woman with red hair. Lisl knew she was in the Philosophy department but couldn’t remember her name. “If I may quote Camus: ‘I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and read the papers.’”

“And if I may paraphrase Priscilla Mullins,” said Rafe. “‘Speak for yourself, Albert.’”

Amid the laughter, Pelham said, “Are you serious, or are you just trying to rattle the cage as you did with your sound-as-a-detriment-to-filmmaking theory?”

“I’m quite serious about both.”

Pelham stared at him, as if waiting for Rafe to smile and laugh it all off as a joke. Lisl had a feeling he might have a long wait.

“Okay,” Pelham said finally. “If all this is true, why haven’t these Creators taken over the world?”

“Because they don’t know who they are. And because too many of them have learned over the years not to reveal themselves.”

“Why on earth not?” Lisl said.

Rafe’s eyes poured into hers.

“Because they’ve already been crippled or damaged by the masses of Consumers who try to destroy any trace of greatness in others, who do anything they can to douse the faintest spark of originality, no matter where they find it. Even in their own children.”

Lisl felt as if a bell were chiming in a remote corner of her past, toning in resonance to Rafe’s words. It made her uncomfortable.

“I’ve consumed too many drinks to create a cogent rebuttal,” said someone at the far end of the table. He turned to his date. “Want to dance?”

They headed for the postage-stamp dance floor and began to sway to a slow tune on the jukebox. A few others followed; those who didn’t said good night and departed, leaving Lisl and Rafe alone at the table.

Lisl glanced around the dimly lit tavern, at its college memorabilia-strewn walls, at the dancers on the floor. When she turned back to Rafe she found him staring at her over the rim of his glass. His eyes glistened in the neon light. The scrutiny made her uncomfortable.

“Care to dance?”

Lisl hesitated an instant. She had never been much of a dancer—had always thought of herself as clumsy—and had never had many opportunities to learn. But the two and a half glasses of wine in her system had lulled her inhibitions and she was too surprised to say no.

“I, uh … sure.”

He led her from the table, took her in his arms, pressed himself against her, and led her expertly around the tiny floor. They moved as one. Light presses and pulls from his left hand on her right, or from his right hand against the small of her back told her precisely which way to move. For the first time in her life she felt graceful.

“Where did you learn to dance like this, Rafe? I thought it was a lost art.”

He shrugged. “My folks made me take ballroom dancing when I was a kid. I found it came easily. I was the best in the class.”

“How did you do in your modesty lessons?”

He laughed. “Flunked every time.”

As she grew used to the sensation of gliding around the floor, she became aware of another: Rafe’s body against hers.

Deep within her, old emotions stirred. At first she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. So long since she’d felt much of anything. After the number Brian had done on her in the final days of their marriage, and the nastiness of the divorce, she had simply turned off. She’d wanted nothing to do with another man, and women didn’t interest her that way in the least, so she’d gone into a sort of sexual coma.

What was happening now? Was that what she was feeling? Was she waking up?

She couldn’t deny how good it felt simply to have someone hold her. The emotions stirring in her, churning to life after years of dormancy, surprised her. Human contact. She had forgotten what it was like. She had thought she no longer needed it.

Maybe she was wrong.

She pushed the thought away but stayed close to Rafe. The contact was too enjoyable. He was holding her tight against him. She became aware of the sensation of her breasts rubbing against his chest; their two bodies seemed joined at the pelvis.

Warm. Very warm where they met. And the warmth was spreading. She found her body pressing itself more firmly against his, as if it had a mind of its own. Well, not a mind, perhaps, but most definitely an agenda.

It wanted him.

Rafe leaned back from Lisl and looked at her.

“Let’s go to my place,” he whispered.

Her mouth was dry. “Why your place?”

“It’s closer.”

The logic of that simple statement struck her as utterly flawless.

2

It wasn’t far from the tavern to Parkview, the upscale development where Rafe owned a condo. They walked quickly, in silence. Lisl was afraid to speak, afraid it would shatter the mood and taint the delicious excitement coursing through her. The last thing she wanted or needed now was to stop and think about this. No common sense, no cold hard facts, no prudence, no worries, no doubts or second guesses. None of that. The excitement was too wonderful. So long since she had felt anything like this. Like a teenager. She didn’t want to let it go. And she wouldn’t. She’d flow with it, let it take her where it was going, do something impulsive for once in her life.

But she had to hurry before she changed her mind.

The brisk walking pace graduated into a jog, which evolved into a gallop. When they reached the door to Rafe’s condo, they were both breathing hard, perhaps not wholly from the exertion. Lisl leaned against the railing while he fumbled with his keys. When the door opened they ducked inside, slammed it shut, and then they were in each other’s arms. Rafe’s lips found hers. Lisl’s arms went around him as his fingers slipped lightly up the sides of her face and ran through her hair, down to her shoulders, coming to rest at the top button of her blouse. He unbuttoned it and moved to the second.

Lisl experienced an instant of panic. Too fast! This is happening too fast! Then his tongue probed hers and her apprehensions melted away.

When he had her blouse open, he slipped it off her shoulders, then reached around and unfastened her bra. As that fell away, he pulled his lips from hers and ran them down her neck to her breasts, his silky mustache tickling her along the way. She groaned and leaned back against the door as his tongue found a nipple.

“Oh, God, that feels good.”

Rafe said nothing. His hands never stopped moving. While his lips and tongue pleasured her breasts, his fingers caressed her back, her abdomen, and then they were working on her belt, the buttons to her slacks, pulling them open, pushing them and her panties down until they sank to her ankles.

And then Rafe too began to sink. He drew his tongue between her breasts, down her abdomen to her navel, circled it, then continued downward. His lips slid into her hair down there, his tongue probed toward the swelling heart of all her sensation but didn’t reach it. Lisl spread her legs. She felt wanton, she felt wonderful. She entwined her fingers in the silky black waves atop his head and pushed his face more tightly against her. So close now … he had to reach it. Rafe gripped her right leg behind the thigh and lifted it so that it rested on his left shoulder. It felt fat and heavy there. She was glad the lights were out, she wished she were slimmer, she wished—

“Ahhh!”

He’d found it! Bolts of white hot pleasure shot down her legs and up through the rest of her body. She shuddered with delight, not wanting it to stop, not wanting it ever to stop.

Too fast! she thought again as her breath hissed in and out through her teeth at a steadily increasing rate. It’s going way too fast!

But the night was only beginning.

THE BOY

at five years

“You’ve been neglecting my money,” Jimmy said at breakfast one day.

“Your money?” Carol said. “I didn’t know you had any.”

She and Jimmy had reached a sort of equilibrium. She had grown used to his almost unearthly precocity and adapted to it. Adapted as well as one could to a forty-inch child whose brain seemed to hold the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Five years of daily life with him had closed off areas of feeling; and questions she’d asked had gone unanswered so long her mind had stopped asking them. He was imperious, intolerant, inconsiderate, insufferable at times, but he could be charming when he wished. There were times when she almost liked him.

“The inheritance. The eight million dollars worth of assets my father inherited from Doctor Hanley.”

“So Jim’s ‘my father’ now, is he? I thought he was ‘merely the vessel.’”

“I do carry his genes. However, the fact remains that my birthright has been lying around, moldering, static, when it could have been growing all these years. I want you to rectify that immediately.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

He was in his insufferable mode but Carol found him amusing nonetheless. Despite everything, he was still her son. And Jim’s.

“I want you to go back to New York and start converting everything—the mansion, everything—to cash. I will then advise you on how it shall be invested.”

Carol smiled. “How good of you. The Bernard Baruch of Sesame Street.”

His dark eyes blazed. “Do not make fun of me. I know what I’m doing.”

Carol realized her remark had been gratuitous. But understandable in light of their ongoing battle of wills.

“I’m sure you do.”

“One thing, though,” he said, his voice soft, almost hesitant. “When you get to New York—”

“I didn’t say I was going.”

“But you will. It’s your money too.”

“I know. But we can’t spend the interest we get on the bonds and CDs we already have. Why fool with it?”

He favored her with one of his rare smiles. “Because it will amuse me to see how fast I can multiply it.” Then the smile faded. “But when you get to New York … be careful.”

“Of course I’ll—”

“No. I mean, be wary. Beware of anyone who asks about your child. Tell them you miscarried. No one must know I exist, especially…”

Something in Jimmy’s eyes … something Carol had never seen before.

“Especially who?”

Jimmy’s tone was grave. “Be alert for a man in his mid-thirties with red hair.”

“I’m sure there’ll be a fair number of those in Manhattan.”

“Not like this one. His skin will have an olive cast and his eyes will be blue. There is only one like him. He will be looking for me. If such a man approaches you, or tries to speak to you, or even if you merely see someone like him, call me immediately.”

Carol realized that Jimmy was afraid.

“Call you? Why? What will you do?”

He turned and stared out the window.

“Hide.”

NOVEMBER

SIX

North Carolina

1

Lisl glanced at her desk clock as she finished grading the last calculus test. Noon. Perfect timing. She was starved. She pulled on her jacket, picked up her cushion, and stepped out into the hall.

Al Torres, a tenured associate, was passing by, shrugging into a light sport coat as he headed for the stairs.

“Going to the caf, Leese?”

“Brown-bagging it today, Al.”

“Again?”

“The diet. Can’t make it work if I go to the grease pit.”

He laughed. “You’re really sticking to this one. And it’s working. Good girl!”

Lisl was tempted to call him on that “good girl” business—she was thirty-two, for God’s sake—but knew his heart was in the right place. He had two young daughters and probably used the phrase a lot.

She pulled her lunch bag from the department’s ancient refrigerator and looked inside: Four ounces of cottage cheese mixed with pineapple chunks, two carrots, two celery stalks, and a diet Dr Pepper. She stuck out her tongue.

Yummy-yummy! I can hardly wait.

But it was working. With a three-mile jog every morning and a strict diet the rest of the day, she’d dropped fifteen pounds in just six weeks. She was feeling more fit now than at any time in her life.

She headed for the elm tree. Will had beat her to it, sitting on the newly fallen leaves, unwrapping a huge sandwich. Her mouth watered at the sight of the inch-high stack of corned beef between the thick slices of rye.

“You buy those things just to torture me, don’t you?”

“No. I buy them to torture myself. You southerners don’t have the faintest idea of the proper curing of corned beef. This thing may look good, but taste-wise it’s a pallid reflection of the kind of sandwich people eat every day in New York. What I wouldn’t give for a hot pastrami from the Carnegie Deli.”

“So go back and get one.”

Will looked away for a moment. “Some day I just might.”

“You sound like a born-and-bred New Yorker. I thought you grew up in Vermont.”

“I lived all over the Northeast before moving south.” He suddenly leaned forward and stared between her breasts. “A new necklace?”

Don’t think I don’t know when you’re changing the subject away from your past, she thought as she smiled and lifted the shell hanging from the fine gold chain.

“Yes and no. The chain’s been in my jewelry box for years and I’ve had the shell forever. I just decided one day to put them together.”

“What’s the shell? It’s a beauty.”

“It’s called a cowry. The South Seas natives use them for money.”

This was her Rafe shell. A few weeks ago she’d dug into her shoebox and pulled it out. A glossy cowry with an intricate speckled pattern on its back. Beautiful—just like Rafe. She’d had a jeweler drill a hole and, voila, she had a necklace. Only Lisl knew who it represented.

A moment later, Will was staring again, this time at the impoverished contents of her lunch bag as she laid them out on a paper napkin.

“Still hanging in with that diet, I see.”

“Hanging is right—by my fingernails. Six weeks of gerbil food. I just love it. I jump out of bed every morning looking forward to the myriad gustatory delights that await me.”

“You’re getting results. I mean I can really see the difference. Maybe you’ve lost enough to merit a treat once in a while.”

“Not till I’ve reached my target weight.”

“And what’s that?”

“One-thirty. Fifteen pounds to go.”

Whoops. She just gave her weight away. Not that it would matter with Will. She had a feeling that he was something of a sphinx when he wasn’t with her. But it was not a number she wanted to slip out too often.

“I think you’re fine the way you are now.”

“So do the actuarial tables. According to them, a five-five, medium frame female like me should weigh one-forty stripped, and I’m close. Maybe that’s optimal for maximum life span, but it’s not right for the clothes I want to wear.”

“You still look fine to me.”

“Thanks.” But she knew her looks didn’t really matter to Will. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. Besides freeing me of some excess baggage, all this dieting has given me some real empathy for those people with lifelong weight problems. I can’t imagine fighting the pounds year in and year out. It’s so depressing!”

Will shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich.

“Just self-discipline,” he said around the mouthful. He swallowed. “You set yourself a goal and you go after it. Along the way you make choices. The choices you make are determined by what you value more. In the dieter’s case it comes down to choosing between a full belly or a trim figure.”

Strange. He sounded almost like Rafe.

“It’s not that easy, Will. Especially not when there are people around—like you, for instance—who seem to be able to manage both a full belly and a trim figure. When have you ever had to make a sacrifice hour by hour, day by day, week after week, month after month?”

Will stared at her, and for a moment something flashed in his eyes, then he looked away. His gaze found the horizon and rested there. Again, the question flashed through her mind: What have you seen, what have you done?

“Don’t…” Lisl’s voice faltered. “Don’t brush it off until you’ve had to do it.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

They ate in silence for a while. Lisl finished her cottage cheese and veggies and was still hungry—as usual. She nursed her diet Dr Pepper.

“Didn’t you tell me this was your first diet?” Will said.

“Yes. Rafe says it will be my last. I hope he’s right.”

“Is this Rafe fellow pushing you to lose weight?”

“Not in the least. As a matter of fact, he wishes I’d ease off because we don’t go out to eat anywhere near as often as we used to. He says he liked me just the way I was when he met me.”

She felt a little smile flicker across her lips as she remembered Rafe telling her how his taste in the female figure tended to run to the Reubenesque. But that hadn’t stopped her from starting her get-in-shape program.

Will grunted.

“What’s that for?” Lisl said.

“It means that, despite what he said, he doesn’t strike me as the type who leaves well enough alone.”

“How can you say that? You don’t know him.”

“Just an impression. Maybe because he’s too good-looking and appears to have had too much money for too long. Those kind tend to think the rest of the world exists for their exclusive use.”

“Well, you know the old saying about books and covers. Look at yourself. Who’d believe you’ve done the kind of reading you have?”

“Touche.”

“You’d like him if you got to know him.”

“I’m hardly in his league. He drives a brand-new Maserati; I drive an ancient Chevy. He doesn’t seem the sort who likes to hang out with groundskeepers.”

Lisl hid her growing annoyance with Will’s attitude.

“If you had something interesting or intelligent to say, as you usually do, he wouldn’t care what you did for a living.”

Will shrugged again. “If you say so.”

Lisl wondered at Will’s hostility toward Rafe, a man he’d never met, and then she realized: He feels threatened.

That had to be it. Lisl was probably the only person in Will’s small world with whom he could communicate on his own level. And now he saw Rafe as a rival for her attention, someone who might take her from him.

Poor Will. She searched for a way to reassure him that she’d always be his friend and be here for him, a way that wouldn’t let on that she knew what was eating him.

“I’m planning a Christmas party,” she said.

His eyebrows rose. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

“Thanksgiving’s only days away. And besides, everybody starts planning Christmas around Thanksgiving time.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so. And I also say that you’re invited.”

She sensed rather than saw Will stiffen.

“Sorry.”

“Come on, Will. I’m inviting people I consider my friends, and you’re at the top of the list. You’ll finally get to know Rafe. I really think you two will hit it off. He’s a lot like you. You’re both deeper than you seem.”

“Lisl…”

She played her ace: “I’ll be very hurt if you don’t deign to make an appearance.”

“Come on, Lisl—”

“I’m serious. I’ve never thrown a party before and I want you to be there.”

A long pause followed as Will stared into the distance.

“Okay,” he said with obvious reluctance. “I’ll try to make it.”

“‘Try’ isn’t good enough. Remember what Yoda said: ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’”

“You’re quoting Star Wars?”

She had no idea why that had popped into her head, but—

“No changing the subject. You were going to ‘try’ to make it to Metropolis last month. I don’t need that kind of try. I need a promise.”

Lisl caught a trace of hurt in his eyes that contrasted sharply with his smile.

“I can’t promise. Please don’t ask me for something I can’t deliver on.”

“Okay,” Lisl said softly, hiding her own hurt. “I won’t.”

2

As they finished what was left of their lunches in uncharacteristic silence, Will thought about Losmara. A strange character. A loner. Didn’t seem to have any friends but Lisl.

Like me.

He’d seen him from a distance and hadn’t been impressed. His recurring nightmare was that the close-up Rafe would be a limp-wristed, foppish Latin-lover type, reed thin with a pencil-line mustache, draped with half a dozen gold chains, wearing a blousy, open-necked, lacy-cuffed white shirt.

Lisl deserved a Clint Eastwood; Will was afraid she’d wound up with Prince.

And if she had, so what? As long as he made her happy, as long as he wasn’t taking advantage of her vulnerability.

And she was so very vulnerable. He’d sensed that the first day he’d met her. Like a gentle forest creature who’d been cruelly treated, she’d drawn her defenses tight around her and tried to seal herself off from further hurt. But her defenses were thin. Behind her buzz of constant activity, Will saw a lonely woman, aching to love and be loved. An oblique approach, clothed in gentle words telling her what she wanted to hear, and Will knew she would respond. Treated with a modicum of warmth and tenderness, she would open like a flower to the morning sun.

Love was what she needed most. Romantic, sexual love. And that was the one thing Will could not offer. He could work at opening her mind, but not her heart. He could offer her anything but that kind of love.

Not that the idea hadn’t occurred to him more than once. Many times, in fact. Though he was considerably older—she was young enough to be his daughter—he’d passed through a phase during their relationship when he’d sensed that the time was ripe for a joining of more than minds. But that was not the way for him to go. He was gearing up for other things, slowly retooling himself to return to the life he had left behind. There was no place for a woman in that life.

So Will was glad that someone had found the key to Lisl’s heart. He fervently hoped it was the right someone. Lisl was very special. She deserved the best. He did not believe in meddling in other people’s lives, but if it became evident that this Rafe Losmara was taking advantage of her vulnerability, of her trusting nature, he would have to step in.

He could not allow anyone to hurt Lisl.

The thought startled Will.

Me. Protector of the defenseless. I can hardly take care of myself!

Yet why shouldn’t he have strong protective feelings toward Lisl? She had grown to be an enormously important part of his life over the past couple of years, his only friend in the world—at least the only one he could talk to. In his own way he loved Lisl. What she possessed was rare and precious, and demanded protection. He’d do his best to provide that protection.

Will smiled again. Lisl had told him so many times how much she thought she owed him for opening the worlds of philosophy and literature to her. If she only knew. She had done more for him than he could ever do for her. Her unstudied combination of sweetness, innocence, intelligence, and vulnerability had gone a long way toward restoring his faith in humanity, in life itself. When all had seemed blackest, she had provided a ray of sunlight. And as a result, Will’s whole world was brighter now.

3

Lisl left the campus early that afternoon. The days were getting shorter and she reveled in the autumn coolness. When she reached Brookside Gardens, she realized she didn’t want to be in her apartment. She sat in her car in the lot and wondered what to do with the extra time she’d found this afternoon. She told herself she should invest it in her paper for Palo Alto, but that didn’t appeal to her. Too restless to sit in front of a computer terminal.

Restless. Why?

Then she knew.

Lisl didn’t feel like being alone today.

This wasn’t like her. Since the divorce she’d been a loner, always with so much on her mind that she could keep busy enough not to miss human company. But not now. Today she felt the need to be with someone else.

And not just anyone.

A memory of what she had come to think of as “Metropolis night” wafted through her mind and she shuddered. She and Rafe had spent many other nights together since then, all of them wonderful, but that particular night remained special because it was the first, and because it had awakened an almost overwhelming appetite in her, one that could be only temporarily sated. She was a sexual being now, a whole person, and she reveled in it. And Rafe … Rafe was like a satyr—always ready.

Probably ready even now.

Instead of restarting her car, Lisl got out and began walking toward the park. She cut across its grassy southwest corner to Poplar Street. From there it was four short blocks to Rafe’s condo in Parkview, the town’s haven for yuppies who either didn’t want or couldn’t yet afford their own home.

But as she entered the development and walked among its contemporary two-story row-house condos, finished in blue-green stained cedar clapboard, a tiny knot of apprehension began to form in her stomach. He might not be there, of course, but that wasn’t it. This was going to be a surprise visit. What if she were the one who wound up surprised? What if she found him there with another woman? What would she do then?

Part of her said she’d die on the spot. And another part of her whispered that she wouldn’t die at all. Why should she? She’d been betrayed before—in spades. And being betrayed by someone like Rafe would be no more than she should have expected, no less than she deserved.

Stop it! she told herself. Negative thinking.

Rafe had warned her time and again against tearing herself down like that. And Lisl tried. But it was a habit. And lifelong habits were difficult to break.

Once a nerd, always a nerd.

And what was a nerdy broad like her doing, trysting with a man like Rafe Losmara? Handsome, brilliant—what could a man like that see in her?

Yet he did see something. Had to. They’d been a “thing” on campus for almost a month now. They did their best to keep it a discreet, off-campus affair, but it was impossible to hide a relationship like theirs in such a close-knit community.

Lisl was sure some of her fellow faculty members and their wives tsked and shook their heads when they saw them together downtown, but no one had told her to cool it and drop him. She was sure it would have been a different story if Rafe were doing graduate work in her department. Their relationship then would be perceived as a blatant conflict of interest and she had no doubt that Harold Masterson, as chairman of Math, would have come down on her like a ball of fire. But since Rafe’s work was overseen by the Psychology department, their relationship was tolerated, viewed not with disdain, but rather with wonder and astonishment.

Go ahead and stare, she’d think with a smile. I’ve got mine, you get yours.

But did she really have hers? Or was she only fooling herself?

She loved him. She didn’t want to. She hadn’t wanted to place herself in that vulnerable position again, but there was no helping it. And she couldn’t help but wonder how he felt about her. Was he stringing her along, playing with her?

Lisl paused as she stood before Rafe’s door, unannounced. He was so much more experienced in the world. Would he tire of her? Could he ever be truly satisfied with her? Was somebody else inside with him now?

Only one way to find out.

Taking a deep breath, Lisl knocked. And waited. No one came to the door. She tried again with no result. Maybe he wasn’t home. Or maybe he wasn’t answering the door because …

Better not to know.

But as Lisl was turning away, the door opened. Rafe stood there with dripping hair and a bath towel around his waist. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Lisl! I thought I heard the door but I never dreamed—”

“If—if this is a bad time—”

“No! Not at all! Come in! Is anything wrong?”

The whiteness of his condo never failed to strike her—the walls, the furniture, the rugs, the picture frames and most of the canvases within them—white.

“No,” she said, stepping in. “Why should there be?”

“Well, it’s just that this is so unlike you.”

She felt her confidence draining off. “I’m sorry. I should have called.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is great!”

“Are you really glad to see me?”

“Can’t you tell?”

She glanced down at his towel and saw how it was tented up in front of him. She smiled, her spirits lifting. That was for her. All for her. Hesitantly, she reached out and loosened the knotted portion of the towel at his hip. It fell away.

Yes. For her. Just for her.

She stroked him ever so gently with her fingernails, then knelt before him.

4

“I don’t deserve this,” Lisl murmured.

“Don’t deserve what?” Rafe whispered in her ear.

She sighed. She was so happy and at peace now she could almost cry. The exhausted afterglow of their lovemaking was almost as delicious as the lovemaking itself.

“Feeling this good.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that you don’t deserve to feel good.”

They lay side by side, skin to skin, on his white king-size bed. The waning sun was beaming through the window, suffusing the pallor of the room with red-gold light.

“Want me to pull the shade?”

Lisl laughed. “A little late for that now, don’t you think? Whoever’s out there looking has already gotten quite an eyeful.”

“No worry about that.”

Right. Rafe’s bedroom was on the second floor. No other windows were visible from the bed.

Making love in the day or with a light on had bothered Lisl at first, back when she had been a pudgette. She’d preferred then to cloak the excess fatty baggage on her body in darkness. But now that she’d slimmed down some, she didn’t mind. In fact, she found it exciting to exhibit her new, trimmer proportions.

“You’ve lost more weight,” he said, running a hand along her flank.

“You like?”

“I like you anyway you want to look. What’s more important is how you like the thinner you.”

“I love it!”

“Then that’s all that matters. I’m for anything that gets you thinking better of yourself.”

“And I’m for anything that makes you enjoy looking at me as much as I enjoy looking at you.”

Lisl loved looking at Rafe. He’d told her that his mother had been French, his father Spanish. His features favored the Spanish side—his almost black hair, the thick lashes around his eyes, and the irises of a brown so very dark they too seemed almost black. His smooth cafe-au-lait skin was flawless. She could have resented that skin. Its perfection was almost feminine. She could have wanted it for herself.

But there was nothing feminine about the way he approached sex. Lisl had made love to only one other man in her life, Brian, who she’d considered in her limited experience to be a good lover. After her first night with Rafe, she had learned just how limited her experience had been. Maybe that old cliche about Latin lovers was true after all.

He put his face between her breasts.

“You’re a Prime. You deserve to feel good about yourself. You’ve allowed the host of lesser creatures around you to determine what you think of yourself.”

Primes—Rafe had called them Creators when he’d broached the subject after Metropolis in the Hidey-hole Tavern, but that had been for simplicity’s sake. In private he divided the world into Primes and everyone else. Primes, he’d told her, were unique people, like prime numbers, divisible only by one or by themselves. It was his favorite topic. He never tired of it. Always pointing out examples. After weeks of listening, Lisl was beginning to think it might have some validity.

“I’m not a Prime. What have I created?”

Rafe was a Prime, no doubt about that—Homo superior in every way. But Lisl? Not a chance.

“Nothing yet, but you will. I sense it in you. But let’s get back to what you think you don’t deserve. What don’t you deserve? And why not?”

“Don’t you think…” she began, then paused as Rafe nuzzled one of her nipples and sent new chills up and down that side of her body … “a person should have to do something special to merit feeling so happy and content? It’s only fair.”

Rafe lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

“You deserve the best of everything. As I said, you’re a Prime. And after the kind of life you’ve had until now, after what you’ve put up with, you’re long overdue for some good feelings.”

“My life hasn’t been so bad.”

Rafe flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

“Right. Sure. A lifetime of being knocked down and kicked around by the people who should have been supporting you and encouraging you to keep going. That’s a long way from ‘not so bad.’”

“Since when do you know so much about my life?”

“I know what you’ve told me. I can guess the rest.”

Lisl rose up on one elbow and looked down at him.

“Okay, wise guy. Tell me all about me.”

“All right. How’s this? Nothing you ever did really pleased your parents.”

“Wrong. They—”

Rafe overrode her. “They were always on your case, weren’t they? Even though all through grammar school and high school you got straight A’s. Right?”

“Right, but—”

“And I’ll bet your project took first place at the science fair, didn’t it? Even though you did it all on your own. With no help from your folks—who always seemed to have better things to do—you beat out all those other kids whose fathers and brothers and uncles—who also had better things to do, by the way, but who gave a damn—did most of the work for them. And how did your folks respond when you came home and showed them your blue ribbon? I’ll bet it was, ‘That’s nice, dear, but do you have a date for the prom yet?’ Am I far off?”

She laughed. “Oh, God! How do you know?”

“And I’ll bet your mother never let up on you. ‘Put down that book, get up, get out, meet boys!’”

“That’s her! That’s what she said!”

God, this was uncanny.

“What single phrase during your developing years most typified her attitude toward you?”

“Oh … I don’t know.”

“How about, ‘What’s the matter with you?’”

The words pierced her. That was it. God, how many times had she heard that through the years?

She nodded. “How—?”

“Your mother never paid you a single compliment, I’ll bet. An insecure bitch who couldn’t bring herself to say that you looked nice, couldn’t stoop to bolster your confidence. You got the message: ‘Sure you’re a brainy kid, but so what? Why don’t you date more? Why don’t you dress more in style? Why don’t you have popular friends?’”

Lisl was getting uncomfortable now. This was striking a little too close to home.

“All right, Rafe. That’s enough.”

But he wasn’t finished yet.

“And when it wasn’t something they said or did that cut you off at the knees, it was what they didn’t say, didn’t do. Never went to parents’ night to hear your teachers gush about you. I’ll bet they never even went to the science fairs to see how your project stacked up against the others.”

“That’s enough, Rafe.”

“But somewhere along the line, late in the game, I’ll bet, your father became a believer. Throughout most of your adolescence he was afraid you’d become a spinster school marm and hang around the house forever. Then somebody told him that your SAT scores made you prime scholarship material, that you could qualify for a free ride at one of the state universities. Epiphany! Suddenly he got religion and became Lisl’s big booster!”

This was becoming too painful. “Stop it, Rafe. I mean it.”

“Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he was bragging about his daughter, how she was going to tap into the state for big bucks and get him back some of the taxes he’d been paying all those years.”

“Shut up!”

It was true—too true. She’d seen it then, she’d known it all along, but she’d never faced it. It had hurt so much she’d buried it in some deep, dark recess. But now Rafe was digging it up, rubbing her nose in it. Why?

Rafe smiled. “Suddenly Daddy was standing foursquare behind his precious little academic meal ticket!”

“Damn you!”

She swung a fist at him. He didn’t turn, didn’t try to block it or fend her off. She felt her knuckles land square on his chest with a meaty impact, saw him wince.

“He was a creep!” he said.

She hit him again. Harder. Again, he took the blow.

“He drained off your self-esteem like a drunk guzzles beer! So what did you do? You hooked up with a creep in college who was the same! Good old Brian! He proposed and you accepted. He let you support him through med school and then he dropped you the first time a pretty nurse smiled at him!”

Lisl was almost blind with fury now. Why was he doing this? She rose to her knees and began slapping at him, scratching him, pounding on him. She couldn’t help herself. She hated him.

“Goddamn you!”

But Rafe wouldn’t stop.

“They all dumped on you! And you know why? Because you’re a Prime. And all those petty nothings who raised and educated you hate Primes. But worse than that, you’re a woman! A woman who dares to be intelligent! Who dares to think! You can’t do that! You can’t be better than them! Not unless you’re a guy! And even then, don’t be too much better!”

Lisl kept slapping, scratching, pounding. Rafe flinched with each blow, but took it all.

“Go ahead,” he said in a lower tone. “Get it out. I’m you’re mother. I’m your father. I’m your ex-husband. Beat the shit out of me. Get it out!”

Like smoke in a gale, Lisl’s anger suddenly dissipated. She continued striking Rafe, but the blows were fewer, and lacked their previous force. She began to sob.

“How could you say those things?”

“Because they’re true.

Lisl gasped when she saw the scratches, welts, and bruises on his chest.

I did that?

“Oh, Rafe, I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?”

He glanced farther down and smiled. “Not so’s you’d notice.”

Lisl followed his gaze and gasped. He was erect again. Hugely so. She let him pull her atop him. He kissed away her tears as she straddled him, then he slipped smoothly inside her. She sighed as her turbulent emotions faded and became lost in the misty pleasure of having him so deep within her. She couldn’t be sure, but he seemed bigger and harder than ever before.

5

“I can see we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Rafe said as Lisl got dressed.

Her hands shook as she rolled her panty hose up her legs. Never had she experienced anything like their second bout of lovemaking today. Numerous smaller eruptions had led to a final explosion that had been, well, almost cataclysmic. She was still weak.

“I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve got that down pretty near perfect.”

Rafe burst out laughing. “Not sex! Anger!”

“Who’s angry?”

“You are!”

Lisl looked at him. “Rafe, I’ve never been happier or more content in my entire life.”

“Perhaps.” He sat down beside her on the mattress and put his arm around her. “But way down deep inside, where you don’t let anybody go but you, you feel you really don’t deserve it and you’re convinced it’s not going to last. Am I right?”

Lisl swallowed. He was right. He was so right. But she didn’t want to admit it to him.

“Lisl, you’ve said as much, haven’t you?”

She nodded.

“And you don’t want to feel that way, do you.” It was not a question.

She felt a tear form in each eye. “No.”

“It makes you angry, doesn’t it.”

“I hate it.”

“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. You ‘hate’ it. That’s the key, Lisl: anger. You’re riddled with it. You seethe with it.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. You’ve bottled it up so well behind this placid exterior of yours that even you don’t know it’s there. But I do.”

“Oh, really?” His know-it-all Psych grad student attitude was beginning to annoy her now. “How do you know?”

“Recent experience. Like maybe half an hour ago.”

She glanced at his chest. The wounds she had inflicted—the scratches, the welts and bruises—were almost completely gone. She ran her fingers over the near normal skin.

“How—?”

“I’m a fast healer,” he said quickly, pulling on a T-shirt.

“But I hurt you!” She stifled a sob. “Oh, Jesus! I’m so sorry!”

“It’s all right. It’s nothing serious. Forget about it.”

How could she forget about it? She frightened herself.

Maybe Rafe was right. Now that she thought about it, she did resent her parents for the way they had managed to denigrate all her interests and cheapen her accomplishments. And Brian—God knew she had reason enough to hate her ex-husband.

“It’ll never happen again, I swear it.”

“I didn’t mind, believe me. As a matter of fact, I want you to take some of your anger out on me. It’s good for both of us. It binds us more closely.”

“But why … why would you want to put up with that?”

“Because I love you.”

Lisl felt her heart swell within her. It was the first time he had said it. She threw her arms around him and hugged him to her.

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course. Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t know what I can tell. I’m so mixed up now.”

“We’re going to have to fix that. We’re going to have to find a way to cleanse you of all that anger.”

“How?”

“I don’t know just yet. But I’ll think of something. You can count on that.”

THE BOY

at ten years

Two patrol cars and an ambulance in her driveway. Carol dashed toward the kaleidoscope of red and blue flashing against the front of the house.

More than a house. A three-story mansion. The former pride and joy of an oil company executive, with a pool, lighted tennis courts, even an elevator from the wine cellar to the third floor. They’d bought the place last summer. In the five years since he’d begun managing the inheritance, Jimmy had increased their net worth to twenty-five million dollars. He no longer felt the need to remain in the Arkansas boondocks, so they’d moved here to the outskirts of Houston.

“What happened?” Carol cried, grabbing the arm of the first policeman she saw.

“You the mother?” he said.

“Oh, my God! Jimmy! What’s happened to Jimmy!”

Shock ran through the fear coiling within her. Jimmy was so self-contained, so self-sufficient, she couldn’t imagine anything happening to him. He seemed almost indestructible.

“That’s some boy you’ve got there,” the cop said. “He’s fine. But his grandfather…” He shook his head sadly.

“Jonah? What happened?”

“We’re not sure. He was in the elevator shaft. Why, we don’t know. But whatever the reason, he was trapped in there when the car came down.”

“Oh, God!”

She pushed past the policeman and ran toward the open front door. She stopped when the ambulance attendants appeared, pulling-pushing their wheeled stretcher. A black body bag was strapped atop it. Blood oozed from one of the zippered sides.

Carol pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. She’d had her differences with Jonah, and many times had wished he’d pack up and move out on his own. But this!

She slipped past the stretcher and into the house. Something had been going on between Jonah and Jimmy lately. Jonah’s previous deference and almost slavish devotion had undergone a strange transformation during the past year or so. His attitude had become challenging, verging on threatening.

“Jimmy!”

She spotted his short, slight figure, dwarfed by the pair of policemen flanking him. Her impulse was to run to him and gather him in her arms but she knew he’d only push her away. Affection was repugnant to him.

“Hello, Mother,” he said softly.

“Quite a boy you’ve got here,” one of the cops said, tousling Jimmy’s dark hair. Only Carol saw the glare Jimmy leveled at him. “Kept his cool and called us as soon as he saw what happened. Too bad we couldn’t get here in time.”

“Yes,” Jimmy said with a slow shake of his head. “He must have been in such terrible agony for so long. If only I’d found him sooner.”

His eyes reflected none of the sadness in his voice.

When the police and the ambulance were gone, she faced him. “What happened, Jimmy?”

He shrugged and gave her a bland look. “Jonah had an accident.”

“Why did he have an accident?”

“He made a mistake.”

“It wasn’t like Jonah to make mistakes.”

“He made a serious one. He was here to guard me. But he started believing he could be me.”

As a numbing frost gathered in Carol’s marrow, Jimmy turned and walked away.

DECEMBER

SEVEN

1

Lisl had just finished addressing the last invitation to her Christmas party when the phone rang.

“How’s my favorite Prime?” Rafe said.

Warmth flowed through her at the sound of his voice.

“Pretty good. Glad to be just about done with these invitations.”

“Feel like doing some Christmas shopping?”

Lisl thought about that. December had barely begun. She had a small list of people to buy for and usually waited until the last minute. Purposely. She’d found that the trials and tribulations of last-minute shopping—the crowded malls, the clogged parking lots, anxiety over the very real possibility that all the good gifts would be gone—added a certain zest to the Christmas holidays.

But this wouldn’t be mere shopping. This would be a day with Rafe. They were together almost every night now. But daytime together was rare. He had his studies to keep him busy, and she had her classes and her Palo Alto paper.

“Sure. When?”

“I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

“I’ll be ready.”

As she stamped the invitations, Lisl double-checked to make sure she’d addressed one to everybody on her list—she had—and then she thought of Will. He wasn’t on the list because he’d be a waste of an invitation, but damn it, she wanted him at her party. So why let him get off easy by not inviting him? Quickly she addressed one last envelope, added a personal note to Will, and shoved the stack into her purse. Then she hurried to get dressed.

She thought of the Thanksgiving she and Rafe had spent together.

For the first time in her life, Lisl hadn’t shared the traditional turkey dinner with her folks. She had Rafe to thank for that. One result of her combative encounters with him was a deeper insight into her childhood. She was beginning to understand her parents better, to see them in a new light. And she didn’t like what she saw. As a result, it had been only mildly traumatic to call her folks and make up an excuse why she wouldn’t be there this year. They’d been very understanding. She’d almost wished they’d been less so.

Rafe confessed that he had almost no experience with Thanksgiving Day. His Spanish father and French mother had never celebrated the holiday. But since he considered himself a full-blooded American, he now wanted to join in the tradition. So Lisl had baked a breast of turkey with all the usual trimmings. They’d drunk two bottles of Riesling during the course of the evening and wound up in another bout of traumatic lovemaking.

Their time together had become a bit strange. Rafe would start out gentle and loving, then begin to probe her past. He knew all the weak points in her armor, all the most sensitive areas of her psyche. He’d probe and poke until he provoked her to violence. And then they’d make love. She’d be left feeling exhausted and ashamed for physically lashing out at him. But he encouraged the violence, seemed to want it, and she had to admit that afterward she felt somehow cleansed.

A strange relationship, but one she did not want to quit. Rafe said he loved her and Lisl believed him. Even amid all her nagging insecurities, despite the tiny insistent voice that kept whispering, Watch out, he’s going to hurt you, she sensed his deep interest in her. She needed that. Slowly, steadily, Rafe was filling an emptiness within her, a void she only vaguely had been aware of before now. His mind challenged her, his heart warmed her, and his body pleasured her. And now that she was beginning to feel complete, she couldn’t bear the thought of facing that emptiness again.

2

“Where are we going?” Lisl said as she slipped into the passenger seat of Rafe’s Maserati.

“Downtown.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. He wore gray wool slacks and a pale blue shirt under a cranberry cashmere sweater; black leather driving gloves, as tight as a second skin, completed the picture. “I thought we’d try the new Nordstrom.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Downtown was bedizened with Christmas decorations—animated Santa mannequins in the windows, giant plastic candy canes on the corners, tinselly arches over the streets of the shopping district, all under a bright sunny sky and temperatures in the balmy mid-sixties.

“Pretty garish,” Rafe said.

“And it gets more garish every year. But that’s the shopkeepers’ doing. That’s not what Christmas is about.”

“Oh? And just what is Christmas all about?”

Lisl laughed. “I can buy the fact that your family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but Christmas?”

“Of course we celebrated Christmas. But I want to hear what you think it’s all about.”

“It’s about all the good things in life—giving, receiving, sharing, friends gathering, good-fellowship, brotherhood—”

“Peace on earth, good will toward men. And so on and so forth.”

Something in his voice made Lisl pause. “You’re not some sort of Scrooge, are you?”

As they pulled to a stop at a light on Conway Street, Rafe turned toward her.

“You don’t really believe all that brotherhood of man stuff, do you?”

“Of course. We’re all on this planet together. Brotherhood is the only way we’ll all come out of it in one piece.”

Rafe shook his head and stared ahead. “Man, oh, man, did they ever do a brainwashing number on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Brotherhood. It’s a myth. A lie. ‘No man is an island’—the Big Lie.”

Lisl had a sinking feeling.

“You don’t really mean that,” she said, but deep within she sensed that he did. “You sound like that guy Hank Thompson and his Kickers.”

His expression turned fierce. “Don’t insult me. That man is an idiot.”

“Sorry.”

“Look around you, Lisl. Do you see any real brotherhood? I see only islands.”

The Maserati was moving again. Lisl watched the people on the crowded sidewalks as they flowed by. She liked what she saw.

“I see people walking and talking together, smiling, laughing, hunting for gifts for their friends and loved ones. Christmastime draws people together. That’s what it’s all about.”

“What about the children starving in Africa?”

“Oh, come on now!” Lisl said with a laugh. For a moment he reminded her of Will. “You’re not going to drag out that hoary old cliche, are you? My mother used to pull that on me to make me finish my Brussels sprouts!”

Rafe didn’t return her smile.

“I’m not your mother, Lisl, and I’m not giving you a line to make you finish your greens. I’m talking about a real continent. I’m talking about real people, really starving—eat ants, Lisl—really dying.”

Lisl felt her own smile fade. “Come on, Rafe…”

He pulled into a municipal lot just as someone was backing out of a space.

“He must have known I was coming,” Rafe said. He pulled into the slot and turned to Lisl again. “What about the endless genocide in Zaire? What about the daily brutalization of the female half of the populace in any fundamentalist Muslim country?”

“Rafe, you’re talking about the other side of the world!”

“I didn’t know brotherhood was limited by distance.”

“It’s not. But you simply don’t dwell on those things day in and day out. They’re so far away. And the numbers are so staggering they don’t seem real. Like it’s not happening to real people.”

“Exactly. You’ve never seen them, never visited their lands, and what happens to them does not affect your life.” He gently poked her shoulder with his index finger. “That puts you on an island, Lisl. A big island, maybe, but still an island.”

“I don’t accept that. I feel for them.”

“Only when someone reminds you—and even then only briefly.” He gripped her hand. “I’m not putting you down, Lisl. I’m the same way. And we’re no different from anyone else. We all need a certain amount of insulation from what our fellow humans do to each other.”

Lisl stared out the window. He was right, dammit.

They locked up the car and headed for Nordstrom. Rafe put his arm around her shoulder.

“Okay now. Let’s move closer to home. Look around you at these houses, these apartment buildings. They look peaceful, but we know from statistics that there’s a certain amount of violence and brutality going on behind those walls. Wives being beaten, children being sodomized.”

“But I can’t feel anything for statistics.”

“What about that three-month old in the paper this morning? Scalded to death by his mother. I believe his name was Freddy Clayton. He’s more than a statistic. Think how that child felt as the person he depended on for everything forced him down into that steaming water and held him there. Think of his agony as—”

“Enough, Rafe! Please! I can’t! I think I’d go mad if I even tried.”

His smile was slow. “The water around your little island just got wider and deeper.”

Lisl was suddenly depressed.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m only trying to open your eyes to the truth. There’s nothing wrong with being an island. Especially if you’re a Prime. We Primes can be self-sufficient on our islands, but the rest of them can’t be. Thus the ‘No man is an island’ lie. We are the wellspring of human progress. They need us to get by. What’s wrong is to allow yourself to be deceived into believing you need them.”

“But I like the idea of brotherhood. There’s no deception in that.”

“Of course there is. You’ve been culturally conditioned to believe in it. The leeches, the Consumers, they want everyone—especially us Primes—to swallow the Brotherhood-of-Man myth. It makes it so much easier for them to suck off our juices. Why should they bother stealing from us if we’re gullible enough to let them convince us to give of ourselves willingly in the name of Brotherhood?”

Lisl stared at Rafe. “Are you listening to yourself? Do you realize how you sound?”

He sighed and lowered his eyes to the sidewalk as they approached Nordstrom.

“I can imagine: paranoid. But Lisl, I’m not crazy. And I’m not saying we’re the victims of an overt plot. It’s not that simple. I think it’s more of a subconscious thing that has developed down the millennia of human civilization. It’s persistent and pervasive for a very simple reason: It works. It keeps us producing so they can milk us.”

“There you go again.”

He held up his hands. “Okay. Maybe I’m crazy. But then again, maybe I’m not. One thing I’m sure of is that you and I aren’t like them. I want my island to fuse with your island. I want an unbreakable bond between us. Look at these people, Lisl. Your so-called Brothers. Is there one of them you can count on? Really count on? No. But you can count on me. No matter what, no matter where, no matter when, you can count on me.”

Lisl looked at Rafe and saw the intensity in his eyes. She believed him. And that lifted her spirits. Suddenly she felt like shopping again.

They wandered the crowded aisles, finally stopping at the jewelry counter. The three saleswomen were busy with other customers. Lisl squinted at a wide, twenty-inch eighteen-karat gold necklace out of reach behind the counter. The herringbone pattern appealed to her.

“You like that?” Rafe said.

“It’s beautiful.”

He reached one of his long arms across and plucked it off its peg. He undid the clasp.

“Here. Try it on.”

He reclasped it around her neck then guided her to the mirror. The gold gleamed as it hung between her breasts, all but obscuring the slim chain and the cowry.

“I love it.”

“Shiny metal makes you happy, does it? Well then, let’s get you some more.”

He reached out again and picked out a pair of gold earrings with onyx centers. Lisl pulled off the little studs she had worn today and allowed him to fasten the new ones onto her earlobes.

“Perfect. And now the final touch.”

A moment later, he was slipping an eighteen-karat gold filigree bracelet over her right wrist.

“There! The picture is complete.” He gripped her elbow and gently propelled her away from the jewelry department. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we—?”

“Out.”

“But we haven’t paid.”

“We don’t have to. We’re Primes.”

“Oh, God, Rafe!”

Lisl tried to turn back toward the counter but Rafe had a firm grip on her arm.

“Trust me on this, Lisl,” he said in her ear. “Follow my lead. I’m the only one you can really trust.”

She held her breath and let him guide her toward the exit, sure that at any minute the store detectives would appear and escort them to a back office where they’d be grilled and then arrested. But no one stopped them.

Until the exit. A uniformed doorman stepped in front of them at the glass door that led to the street; his gloved hand gripped the handle.

“Find everything you need?” he said with a smile.

Lisl felt her knees begin to wobble. Shoplifting! And with what this jewelry was worth, she’d be charged with grand larceny instead of petty theft. She saw her reputation, her whole academic career heading for the sewer.

“Just looking today,” Rafe said.

“Fine!” He pulled open the door. “Come back any time.”

“We’ll be sure to do that,” Rafe said as he guided Lisl ahead of him.

Relief flooded through her as they joined the pedestrians outside and walked up Conway Street. When they were half a block from the store, Lisl snatched her arm away from him.

“Are you insane?”

She was furious. She wanted to run away, break it off, never see him again.

Rafe’s expression was one of shock, but the hint of a smile played about his lips.

“What’s wrong? I thought you liked gold jewelry.”

“I do! But I don’t steal things!”

“That wasn’t stealing. That was merely getting your due.”

“I have money! I can afford to buy my jewelry!”

“So can I. I could buy out that whole department in there and cover you with gold. But that’s not the point. That’s not why I did it.”

“Then what is the point?”

“That there’s Us, and there’s Them. We don’t have to answer to them. They deserve anything we do to them. They owe us anything we take from them. They’ve been dumping on you all your life. It’s high time you got something back.”

“But I don’t want anything from anybody unless I earn it.”

His smile was sad. “Don’t you see? You have earned it. Just by being a Prime. We carry them on our backs. It’s our minds, our dreams, our ambitions that fuel the machinery of progress and give them direction. Without us they’d still be boiling tubers over dung fires outside their miserable little huts.”

Lisl reached back and unclasped the necklace from around her neck. She removed the earrings and pulled off the bracelet.

“All that may be true, but I’m taking these back. I can’t wear them.”

And I can’t stay with you.

Rafe held out his hand. “Allow me.”

Lisl hesitated, then handed him the gold jewelry. Rafe turned and gave it all to the first woman who passed by.

“Merry Christmas, ma’am,” he said as he thrust all of it into one of her hands.

The gesture shocked Lisl. This wasn’t petty thievery. Rafe was trying to make a point. When he took her hand, she didn’t pull away.

They walked on and Lisl glanced back. The woman was staring after them as if they were crazy. She glanced at the jewelry in her hand, then dropped it all in a nearby litter basket.

Lisl stopped and tugged on Rafe’s arm.

“That’s eighteen-karat gold!”

Rafe pulled her along. “She thinks it’s junk jewelry. Either way, it’s shiny metal. That’s all.”

Lisl turned her back on the woman and the litter basket.

“This is all so crazy!”

“But exciting too.”

“Not exciting—terrifying.”

“Come now. Admit that there’s a kind of exhilaration buzzing through you right now.”

Lisl felt the adrenalized tingling of her limbs, the racing thump of her heart. As much as she hated to admit it, it had been exciting.

“But I feel guilty.”

“That will pass. You’re a Prime. Guilt and remorse—they have no place in your life. If you do something that causes guilt, you must do it again. And again. Ten, twenty, thirty times if need be, until the guilt and remorse are gone.”

“And then what?”

“And then you go farther. You crank it up a notch. You’ll see.”

Lisl felt a chill.

“I will?”

“Sure. You’ll see that it’s easier the next time.”

“I don’t want a next time, Rafe.”

He stopped and stared at her. They were at a corner. People were streaming by but Lisl barely noticed them. The disappointment in Rafe’s eyes nearly overwhelmed all other perceptions.

“This isn’t for me, Lisl. This is for you. I’m trying to cut you loose, to free you to fly and reach the heights of your potential. You can’t fly if you won’t kick off the shackles they’ve used to hobble you all your life. Do you want to kick free or not?”

“Of course I do, but—”

“No buts. Are you going to stay chained down here or are you going to fly with me? The choice is yours.”

Lisl saw how serious he was, and realized in that moment that she could lose this man. He was so radical and intense, but dammit, she could not remember ever feeling this good about herself, about life in general. She felt like a complete woman, an intellectual and sexual being for whom there were no limits. She felt a certain greatness beckoning; all she had to do was follow the call.

And it was all due to Rafe. Without him she’d still be just another math nerd.

Nerd. God, she hated the word. But she’d always been a nerd. She knew it and was brave enough to admit it: She was a nerd to the bone and she was tired of it. She didn’t want to be who she was, and here was Rafe offering her a chance to be somebody new. And if she didn’t take that chance, what would he do? Would he turn his back and walk away? Give up on her as a lost cause?

She couldn’t stand that.

But it wouldn’t happen. She was through being a nerd. The new Lisl Whitman was going to take control of her life. She was going to squeeze the last drop of juice from it.

But she didn’t want to steal. No matter what Rafe said about other people owing her, the idea of stealing stuck in her craw. And no matter how many times she did it, she knew she’d still feel guilty.

She could pretend to go along, though. Pretend that she’d overcome any guilt or remorse about it and then they could quit that and move on to quieter, saner pastimes. A little time and she knew she could mellow him.

She smiled at him.

“All right. I’m ready when you are. When’s the next caper?”

He laughed and hugged her. “It’s now. It’s right up the street. Let’s go!”

“Great!” she said, reaching into her bag to hide the sinking feeling inside. She pulled out a stack of envelopes.

“What are those?”

“The Christmas party invitations. I finished addressing them this morning.”

She dropped them in the mailbox and sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t be in jail for her party.

EIGHT

1

Everett Sanders stepped off the bus from the campus at his usual stop and walked the three and a half blocks home. Along the way he picked up his five white, short-sleeved shirts—boxed, no starch—from the cleaners. He owned ten such work shirts, kept five at home and five at the cleaner at all times. He made his usual stop before the front window of Raftery’s Tavern and peered inside at the people gathered there in the darkness to drink away the afternoon and the rest of the evening. He watched for exactly one minute, then continued on to the Kensington Arms, a five-story brick apartment house that had been built in the twenties and somehow had managed to survive the Sun Belt’s explosion of new construction.

He had the day’s mail arranged in proper order by the time he reached his apartment on the third floor: the magazines and mail-order catalogs on the bottom, then the second- and third-class mail, then the first-class envelopes. Always the first-class mail on top. That was the way it was done. He just wished the mailman would put it into his box that way.

Ev placed the mail in a neat pile where he always placed it—on the table next to his La-Z-Boy lounger—then made his way to the kitchenette. The apartment was small but he saw no sense in a bigger place. What would he do with the extra room? It would only mean more to clean. He never had company, so what would be the point? This efficiency was fine for him.

He spotted a smudge of dust on the glossy surface of the tiny dining table as he passed and pulled out his handkerchief to buff it away. He glanced around the living area. Everything was in order, everything clean and exactly where it should be. The television was over by the sofa and lounger in the living room; the computer terminal was dark and dumb on the desk in the dining area. The plaster walls were bare. He kept telling himself he should get something to hang on them, but every time he went to look at paintings he couldn’t find anything that appealed to him. The only picture he had was an old photograph of his ex-wife which he kept on the night table.

In the kitchenette Ev measured out exactly half a cup of unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts into a paper cup. He returned with this to the lounger. This week’s novel was Hawaii, a fat one. He’d have to get to today’s quota of pages immediately after dinner. He nibbled on the peanuts one at a time as he began opening the mail. First class first, of course.

The invitation to Lisl’s party surprised him, and pleased him to no end. What a sweet woman she was to include him in her plans. He was touched. He had a warm feeling for Lisl, and although her intention to prepare a paper for the Palo Alto conference was a direct challenge to his own bid for tenure, it did not alter his feelings for her. She had every right to go for it. And after what he’d overcome in the past, Everett was hardly afraid of a challenge, especially from a respected colleague like Lisl.

But he’d have to turn down her invitation. A party of that sort was out of the question.

He noted that the address was not Lisl’s but a place in that exclusive new development, Parkview. Probably belonged to that Rafe Losmara she had been seeing.

Poor Lisl. She no doubt thought she was being so discreet and low key, but her affair with that rich graduate student was the talk of the department.

Ev wondered what Rafe Losmara saw in her. He too was reputed to possess a brilliant mind, perhaps the equal of Lisl’s. Rich and good-looking, he could have any of dozens of willing women on campus. Why was he pursuing Lisl? She couldn’t help him academically—she was in a different department than he. So what was his game?

None of my business, he told himself.

And perhaps he wasn’t being fair to Lisl. She was an attractive woman—at least Ev had always found her so—and even more attractive now that she was slimming down. He saw no reason why she shouldn’t have many men chasing after her.

Which made the pool among the other members of the Math department all the more offensive. When they’d approached him to see if he wanted to place a wager on how long Lisl’s romance would last, he’d coldly dismissed them. He should have given them hell, should have gone to Lisl with it, but he lacked the nerve, and hadn’t the heart to bring her such hurtful news.

He hoped Lisl and this Losmara fellow stayed together for a long time, just to show up the fools in the department.

But what of that groundskeeper? Ev still saw Lisl taking lunch with him. He wondered how he felt about her relationship with Losmara.

2

Will Ryerson put off opening the envelope. He knew what it was. He dropped it on the kitchen counter and wandered the main room of his rented house. The tiny ranch was old and damp; built on a concrete slab, but that hadn’t stopped the termites from establishing themselves in the walls. He swore that some nights he could lay awake in the dark and hear them chewing. The house was situated on a large wooded lot in the center of a dense stand of oaks. He wouldn’t have to go outside to know when fall arrived—the acorns raining on his roof heralded the return of cool weather.

Nothing here belonged to Will but the food, the linens, and the MacBook on the dining room table. The house came furnished. And decorated, so to speak. The previous renter had run a roadside stand specializing in velvet paintings. According to the landlord, that tenant had fallen behind in his rent and had simply disappeared one night, leaving behind some of his stock. The landlord had taken a few of the choicer works for himself and had hung the rest in the little ranch, literally covering the walls with them. Everywhere Will turned he faced yards of black velvet smeared with garish colors—yellow lions, orange-striped tigers, sad-eyed clowns, purple-white rearing stallions, and multiple, idealized studies of good old Elvis. The later Elvis, the glitter-sprinkled, high-collared, white-jumpsuited King of Rock and Roll.

Will had found the collection unsettling when he’d first moved in, but he’d become used to them after a while. Lately he’d found himself actually growing fond of one or two. That worried him.

He picked up the envelope again and stared at it without opening it.

The party.

Lisl talked about little else these days. And she never let up on pestering him to come. She saw it as her big chance to get him together with Rafe Losmara. Rafe, Rafe, Rafe. Will was tired of hearing about him. In a way, he wanted very much to meet the man who had stolen so completely Lisl’s heart. He was curious as to what kind of man could engender that level of infatuation in such an intelligent woman. And in another way he dreaded the meeting, fearing he’d discover that Rafe Losmara had feet of clay.

No use in putting it off. He tore open the envelope.

There it was. After all his refusals she’d gone ahead and invited him anyway. A holiday party, from eight till whenever, the Saturday before Christmas. At Rafe’s Parkview condo.

It sounded nice. Too bad he couldn’t go. Not only would he feel out of place—a laborer mingling with the professors—but there’d be telephones there. Out here he had electricity, a propane tank for heat, and high-speed cable for TV and broadband, but no phone. He had to stay away from telephones.

Then he saw the inscription at the bottom of the inside page.

Will—

Please come. I don’t have many friends, but I want them all at the party. And it won’t be a party at all if you’re not there. Please?

Love,

Lisl

Guilt. How could he say no to that? He hated the thought of letting her down, but he couldn’t go. It was impossible.

Or was it?

Maybe there was a way. He’d have to think on it….

NINE

1

Will was on his third cruise through the Parkview complex now. He’d passed Rafe Losmara’s condo on each circuit, but each time had been unable to stop and go in. He felt like an awkward teenager, driving past the home of the prettiest girl in school, endlessly circling the block because he was too shy to knock on her door.

No doubt about where the party was. Will could have found it without the address. The gallimaufry of cars cluttering the street in front of Losmara’s unit told the story.

Finally he forced himself to pull his Chevy to the curb, but he kept the engine running.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Decision time.”

Was it worth it? That was the question. He was already an hour late. The smart thing would be to turn around and head for home and forget about Christmas parties.

He could see them standing in the windows, drinks in hand, laughing, talking, posing. He didn’t belong in there. They were faculty and he was maintenance. And he hadn’t been in a social situation for so long he was sure he’d commit some gaffe within the first ten minutes.

But these were all minor excuses. The telephone—that was the obstacle that really counted. What was he going to do about the damn phone? Make that plural. There had to be more than one in Losmara’s three-story unit.

And within minutes of entering a room with one, it would ring that long eerie ring, and then they’d hear that voice, and if Will was close enough he’d hear it too, and even after all these years he couldn’t bear to hear that voice again.

But he had a plan. And it was time to act. Time to take a chance.

Will turned off the engine and got out of the car. At the front door to the town house he paused, fighting the urge to flee. But no—he could beat this. He could.

Now or never.

Without knocking, he stepped inside and grabbed the arm of the nearest person—a tweed arm with a suede patch over the elbow. A bearded face turned toward him.

“Hi,” Will said with all the confidence he could muster. “I’ve got to check in with my service. Where’s the phone?”

“I believe I saw one over on the table next to the sofa in the front room there.”

“Thanks.”

Immediately Will began to worm his way through the guests, focusing straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with anybody, aiming for the sofa. A white sofa. A white rug. White walls. Everything white. The guests looked out of place, obtrusive. They wore every color but white.

There it was. To the left of the sofa. The phone. White, of course.

A simple plan: Locate the phones one at a time, make a beeline for them, and disable them.

The first was right in front of him. He reached for it but a tubby figure suddenly blocked his way.

“Why, Will Ryerson!” said a familiar voice. “Is that you? Praise the Lord, I almost didn’t recognize you in that jacket and tie!”

It was Adele Connors, Lisl’s secretary friend from the Math department.

“Hello, Adele. Look, I’ve got to—”

“Oh, Lisl was so hoping you’d show up.” She glanced around. “Isn’t it strange here? Doesn’t it make you feel funny? I mean, look at those paintings.” She lowered her voice and pointed at the abstracts. “There’s something unholy about them. But not to worry. The Lord is with me. And Lisl will be so glad you’re here.”

“Uh-huh.”

He tried to slip around her but Adele’s girth left no room to get by.

My God, the phone!

“She wanted you here so bad but didn’t think you’d show up. So last night I prayed to the Lord that you’d be here today, and see? Here you are!”

He could feel the sweat breaking out all over his body. Any second now, that phone was going to ring. Any second …

“I’ve got to make a call, Adele.”

“You know,” she said, “not enough people at Darnell appreciate the power of prayer. Why, just the other day—”

Will pushed past her and lunged for the phone. He yanked up the receiver.

Safe! At least for the moment. It couldn’t ring while it was off the hook.

That had been his original plan: Find a phone, lift the receiver, and leave it off the hook. But then it would begin to howl, or someone would see it off the hook and replace it on its cradle. His new plan was better.

Positioning his body between the phone and the rest of the room, Will reached around to the rear of the base and unclipped the jack. This phone was now cut off from the rest of the world. No wire, no calls. Simple but effective.

He hung up the receiver and turned back to Adele. She was looking at him strangely.

“What was so important that you had to almost knock me over to get to the phone?”

“Sorry. Had to check on something. But there’s no answer.” He looked around the room. “Where’s our hostess? I’d like to say hello.”

“In the kitchen, I think.”

The kitchen. Most likely there’d be a phone there as well.

“Thanks, Adele. I’ll see you later.”

Will wove through the living room, banked right around a corner, then left toward the back, and found the kitchen. And Lisl as well. She was placing canapes on a cookie sheet, spacing them evenly before sliding them into the oven.

Will had to stop and look at her. She wore white, the same white as the rest of the condo, a dress of some soft fabric that clung in all the right places, its whiteness broken only by the red and green splash of holly above her left breast. He had always found her attractive, but she looked beautiful today. Radiant.

Whoever had said white wasn’t a good color for blondes obviously had never seen Lisl.

She glanced up and saw him. Her eyes widened.

“Will!” She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and hugged him. “You’re here! I can’t believe it. You said you weren’t coming!”

“Your little note changed my mind.”

“I’m so glad!” She hugged him again. “This is great!”

As pleasant as the contact was, Will couldn’t enjoy it right now. He glanced left and right over the top of her head, searching the kitchen for the telephone. He spotted it next to the refrigerator—a wall phone.

How was he going to disconnect that?

Gently he pushed Lisl back to arms’ length.

“Let me look at you,” he said while his mind raced. A wall phone—it hadn’t occurred to him. “You look great!”

Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She looked excited. And happy. So good to see her happy like this. But he had to do something about that phone. And now.

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” She reached up and straightened his tie. “But I can tell you’re not used to one of these.”

“Can I use your phone?” he said.

Her brow furrowed. “I thought you didn’t like phones.”

“I never said that. I said I just don’t have one.” He reached over and lifted the receiver. “That’s why I’d like to use yours.”

“Actually it’s Rafe’s”

“Just a local call.”

“I didn’t mean that. Go right ahead. He won’t mind.”

She turned back to the oven. While Lisl inspected the progress of her canapes, Will pressed the heel of his free hand under the base of the wall phone and pushed up. It resisted so he leaned his body into it. If he could get it free he could—suddenly the base came loose and popped off the wall with a clatter. He glanced around and found Lisl staring at him.

“What on earth—?”

He smiled sheepishly. He didn’t have to fake embarrassment—he wished he could have been a little more subtle about this.

“It’s okay. I’m just not used to these things. Don’t worry. I’ll get it back on its plate.”

He saw that the base was connected to the wall by a three-inch coil of jack wire. He quickly unplugged the wall end, then reset the base onto the wall plate. He listened to the receiver. Dead.

“The line’s busy,” he told Lisl as he hung up the receiver. “Can I try again later?”

“Sure.”

“How many phones does he have?”

“Three. There’s one out in the living room and one upstairs in the…” Her voice trailed off. “Did you meet Rafe yet?”

“No. I just got here.”

“As soon as these are done I’ll introduce you.” Her smile was bright with anticipation. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“Great. Uh, where’s the men’s room?”

“Right around the corner.”

“Be right back.”

Will ducked around the corner, spotted the stairs, and ran up to the second story. He glanced in an open door, a bedroom, all in white, the double bed littered with coats, and spotted the phone on a nightstand. Seconds later he was on his way back down to the first floor, light of step, light of heart. All three phones were disabled. Now he could relax a little and try to enjoy himself.

“There you are!” Lisl said, catching him in the hallway as he approached the kitchen. She had her arm crooked around the elbow of a dark, slim man. “Here’s the person I’ve wanted you to meet for months now.”

Lisl introduced Rafe Losmara. Black hair and mustache, fine features, piercing eyes. His open-collared white shirt and white slacks—the same white as Lisl’s dress—emphasized his dark complexion. Will realized then that these two were a real couple. And they were letting everybody know.

As he shook Rafe’s hand, Will experienced a powerful sensation of deja vu. The feeling had tickled him before when he had seen Rafe at long distance, but here, close-up, it was almost overwhelming.

“Have we ever met before?”

Rafe smiled. A dazzling, charming smile.

“No. I don’t think so. Do I look familiar?”

“Very. I just can’t place you.”

“Maybe we’ve seen each other around campus.”

“No. It’s not that. I get the feeling it was years ago.”

“I lived all over Europe but spent some time in the Southwest. Ever been there?”

“No.”

Rafe’s smile broadened. “Perhaps it was in another life.”

Will nodded slowly, searching his memory.

“Perhaps.”

Another life …

Before coming to North Carolina, Will had spent a long parade of years on New Providence and the surrounding islands; most of that time was lost to him. That had been another life of sorts.

“Have you ever been to the Bahamas?”

“Not yet, but I’d like to.”

Will shrugged and said, “I guess we’ll just have to leave it as a mystery for now. But I’m glad to meet you. Lisl’s told me a lot about you.”

“All of it good, I hope.”

“All of it very good.”

Rafe slipped his arm around Lisl’s waist and hugged her against his side.

“She’s told me a lot about you too. Why don’t you stick around after this is over and we’ll sit down and get to know each other. Right now I’ve got to make sure everyone is fed and watered.” He gave Lisl a peck on the cheek. “See you later.”

Will watched Rafe disappear into the crowded living room. He seemed engaging enough. But what was so familiar about him? It didn’t seem likely he’d met him before—probably just someone very much like him. The answer swam tantalizingly close beneath the surface of his subconscious. Will would have been more than willing to wait for it to reveal itself except that he sensed his subconscious might be warning him about Rafe.

He turned to Lisl.

“Well?” she said. “What do you think?”

Her eyes were so bright, her smile so fiercely proud, Will was powerless to feel anything but happiness for her.

“I don’t exactly know him yet, but he seems very nice.”

“Oh, he is. But he’s very much his own man too. He has his own slant on everything.”

“Is his slant much off beam from your slant?”

He thought he saw Lisl’s eyes cloud over for a minute, but then they cleared. She laughed.

“Sometimes he surprises me. There’s never a dull moment with Rafe. Never!”

Wondering how he should take that, Will followed Lisl back into the kitchen where he volunteered to be her waiter.

* * *

Later, he wove through the crowd with his third tray of canapes, enjoying the job. He wasn’t a stand-around-and-jabber type, and this gave him a purpose. Everyone was friendly. A few had had a little too much to drink and were getting loud, but no one was out of line.

Then the phone rang.

Will froze and almost dropped the tray. How—?

Someone must have plugged it back in. He prayed for the ring to pause and then go on with the stop-and-go pattern of a normal phone call. But it didn’t. The ring went on and on, steadily, relentlessly.

And people noticed. One by one they fell silent under the pressure of that endless ring. The conversation noise level dropped quickly by half, then dwindled down to a single, slurred voice. And soon he fell silent, leaving only the ringing, that damned, incessant, infernal ringing.

Will felt as if he’d been turned to stone. Movement to his left caught his eye as Lisl stepped into the living room from the hallway.

2

That ringing, Lisl thought as she entered the room.

Good Lord, what was wrong with the phone? Why did it go on like that? Whatever the reason, it had brought her party to a screeching halt. The living room looked like a tableau—everyone silent, frozen in position, staring at the phone.

Something unsettling, unnatural about that ring. She had to stop it.

She lifted the receiver. A palpable sigh whispered through the room as the ringing stopped. Silence. Blessed silence. She put the receiver to her ear …

… and heard the voice.

A child’s voice, a little boy’s, sobbing, frightened. No … more than frightened—nearly incoherent with fear, crying for his father to come get him, that he didn’t like it wherever he was, that he was afraid, that he wanted to come home.

“Hello!” she said. “Hello! This isn’t your father. Who are you?”

The child cried on.

“Tell me who your father is and I’ll get hold of him.”

The child continued to plead.

“Where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll get you help. I’ll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are!”

But the child didn’t seem to hear her. Lisl tried talking to him again but to no effect. Without pausing for breath he continued crying for his father, his voice slowly rising in volume to a wail. Suddenly he began to scream out his fear.

“Father, please come get me! Pleeeeese! Father, Father, Father—”

Lisl pulled the receiver away from her ear. So loud. She couldn’t bear the sound of such naked fear in a child. She glanced around at all the strained faces looking her way, staring at the phone, listening to that small voice. They could hear it too.

“—don’t let him kill me! I don’t want to die!”

“What do I do?” she said. “What do I—?”

Suddenly the voice cut off and the abrupt, deathly silence that followed struck her like a blow.

Lisl jammed the receiver back against her ear. “Hello? Are you still there? Are you all right?”

No answer.

She jiggled the plunger on the base. The line remained dead for a few heartbeats, then the dial tone began to buzz.

Lisl turned and stared at her guests. Their pale faces and strained expressions reflected exactly how she felt.

Where was Will?

She didn’t see him. She remembered him standing in the center of the room holding a tray when she answered the phone. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he listened to that insane ringing. Like a cornered animal. Where was he now?

She glanced down and saw a tray of pigs in blankets cooling on the coffee table.

She heard tires screech outside. Through the picture window she saw Will’s old Chevy roar away down the street.

TEN

Manhattan

1

Detective Sergeant Renny Augustino found a note on his desk that the chief wanted to see him right away. He didn’t have anything better to do at the moment so he headed for Mooney’s office.

Renny dropped into one of the chairs opposite Mooney’s puke green desk. A tiny plaster Christmas tree—a product of Mrs. Mooney’s ceramics class—sat atop one of the filing cabinets, its lights twinkling chaotically.

“What up, Lieu?”

Midtown North’s chief of detectives, Lieutenant James Mooney, a jowly, fiftyish bulldog, looked up from a paper he was holding in both hands. The fluorescent ceiling lights reflected off his balding scalp.

“Got a message from the PC, Augustino,” he said in his whiny voice. “He wants you on his new task force to get that serial killer.”

“You sure you got the right?”

Mooney smiled. He didn’t do that often.

“Yeah I’m sure. Because I checked to make sure myself.”

Renny was shocked. The Police Commissioner wanted him?

“We’ll, ain’t that a kick in the head.”

“It’s your chance, Renny. Handle yourself right with this one and you can get yourself back on track.”

Renny looked at Mooney and saw that the chief genuinely wished him well. That gave his opinion of Mooney a slow turn. He hadn’t liked the man much; he was competent but had struck Renny as too concerned with paperwork. He didn’t inspire his detectives. His men had to be self-starters if they were going to be anything better than paper-shufflers. Fortunately Midtown North had a fair number of self-starters. But maybe he’d been too hard on Mooney. Maybe because he resented anyone with a detective lieutenant’s badge, something Renny should have had long ago.

“Yeah,” Renny said, rising and extending his hand. “Maybe I can. Thanks, Lieu.”

Mooney shook his hand and passed him his papers.

“They want you down at Police Plaza at one sharp. Try not to be late.”

Back in the squad room, the other detectives congratulated him as he passed through. Sam Lang, dressed in green corduroy wrinkles, was waiting at Renny’s desk, a coffee cup in his left hand, his right thrust out in front of him.

“Some Christmas present, ay, partner?”

“What is this?” Renny said, shaking Sam’s hand. “Am I the only guy in the joint who didn’t know about it?”

“Maybe if you weren’t late all the time you’d be au courant.”

Renny glared at him. He hated when people threw in foreign expressions—unless they were in Italian. Then it was okay.

“I got one question, Sam. Why me?”

“Because you’re tenacious.”

Renny peered suspiciously at his partner over the top of his reading glasses.

“‘Tenacious’ … ‘au courant’ … you been dipping into How To Increase Your Word Power again?”

“Let me put it another way,” Sam said with mild annoyance. “You’re a fucking bulldog when you get started on something.”

“And how would the PC know that?”

“Everybody knows that.”

“Would’ve been nice if he’d asked me if I wanted the job first.”

“You mean you don’t?”

“I don’t know, Sam.”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you? This is high profile.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t no kid. I’m thinking of winding down.”

“I know, I know, but what a way to go out.”

“Or go down. The whole thing could turn out to be another nightmare.”

Just like the Danny Gordon case, Renny thought.

And now another loon on the loose. The mayor and the police commissioner had been making a big deal out of forming this new hot-shot task force to hunt him down.

But what if they failed again? What if Renny got himself wrapped up in this case and they never found the killer?

He couldn’t go through something like that again. Not being able to resolve the Gordon case had torn him apart. Even now, all these years later, not a day went by that he didn’t think about that kid—or his killer.

Sam swallowed a slug of coffee. “You’re not going to turn them down, are you?”

Renny managed a smile. “Course not. Just ‘cause I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

“Good. You had me going there for a while.”

Potts walked up then, a glossy sheet of paper in his hand.

“Fax for you, Sarge.”

Sam laughed. “Probably the mayor.”

“No. From Southern Bell. Something about—”

Renny felt lightning jolt down his arms. They reached toward Potts on their own.

“Give me that.”

He grabbed the sheet and scanned through it.

Another one of those calls. And in the same town as the last time—Pendleton, North Carolina. That bulletin he’d put out years ago—to watch for reports of a certain kind of prank call: a strange ring, a child screaming for help. Like Nick had said—still in the computer.

Bless you, whoever had left it there.

“This is it! Son of a bitch, this is him! It’s Ryan! He’s in North Carolina—Pendleton, North Carolina.”

“Who?” Potts said. “And where’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Renny said as he slipped into his suit coat. “But I’m going to learn a lot about the place real quick.”

Sam stared at him. “You’re not heading for the library now, are you?”

“Yeah. I’m going to find a book or two on Pendleton to read on the plane. Not going to waste a minute this time.”

Sam’s face went slack. He dismissed Potts with a wave. His voice became a tense whisper.

“Plane? What do you mean, plane?”

“Going down there. Have to practice mah drawl. Noath KehLAHnah— that sound like I’m from the South?”

“Yeah. South Bronx. Look, buddy boy—are you out of your fucking mind? You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Renny had difficulty meeting Sam’s troubled eyes. “I’ve got to go, Sam. You know that.”

“I don’t know no such thing! What the hell we just been talking about? You could get a lieutenant’s badge out of the task force and retire an officer.”

“That just became a sucker bet.” Renny straightened the papers on his desk into two neat piles in no particular order and pushed his chair into the kneehole. “Because I feel the flu coming on and it’s going to be a bad case. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling feverish already.”

Sam’s face broke into a sickly grin. “You’re putting me on, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it? Another one of your put-ons.”

“Look at this face,” Renny said, knowing he must look pretty damn grim. “Is this the face of someone who’s kidding?”

“Jesus, Renny! The PC just asked for you personally. You can’t walk out now!”

“The Danny Gordon case takes precedence, Sam. You know that.” He could feel the heat rising in him. “I’ve been after this fucker forever and I’m no closer now than when I started. Christ, you know what this thing has cost me! Now I get my first solid lead in God knows how long and you think I’m going to file it for later? No way, Sam! No fucking way!”

And that was enough of that. Renny was out of there into the cold, late-morning grayness before Sam could try to lay any more common sense on him. He hurried down the subway steps and hopped the near-empty F train that was just pulling in. Thoughts of Danny Gordon hovered around him and hounded him all the way to Queens.

2

When he reached his stop and climbed back up to street level, he saw that the clouds had lowered. Snowflakes swirled among the tiny droplets that sprinkled his face. Sleet. He had no raincoat or umbrella, but he didn’t mind. Besides, the grim weather perfectly matched his mood.

He lit a cigarette and quick-walked the two blocks to his secondfloor apartment. He packed quickly, throwing a few clean shirts, his spare suit, a couple of pairs of twill slacks, and some toiletries into a battered old Samsonite suitcase. Then he dumped his drawer of socks and underwear on top of everything. He removed his shoulder holster and Smith & Wesson .38 and laid that in among the jockey shorts. Then he grabbed his raincoat and headed back down the stairs. He wanted to fly but he’d have to drive. Too much paperwork involved in getting a permit to bring a gun along on a plane, even if he was a cop and it was in checked baggage.

And he wanted a weapon along.

But before anything else, he had to make a little detour.

Outside, the mix had turned to pure snow. He pulled up his collar and walked south a few blocks, then east until he came to an old boarded-up building. As the snowflakes sifted through his thinning hair and melted on his scalp, he stood and stared up at the facade. The sign to the left of the door was still visible:

ST. FRANCIS HOME FOR BOYS

Not the first time he’d stood before the place where Danny Gordon had lived. He came here regularly to renew a vow he’d made here years ago.

It had been snowing then too.

Danny Gordon was dead. Even though his body had never been found, Renny had no doubt the priest had killed him. Ryan couldn’t hide and travel with a child injured like that. No. He’d finished what he’d begun, and then he’d faded away. A perfect disappearing act

Until now. After all these years, a lead had finally surfaced. Renny would follow it to the ends of the earth.

For Danny.

I don’t know where you are, kid, but I know you’re dead. But just because you’ve got no folks, no family, don’t think there’s no one alive who cares about what happened to you. There is.

Me.

And I’m going to get the guy who did it. That’s Renaldo Augustino’s promise.

He turned and walked away through the falling snow toward the subway station, whispering another promise to someone else.

And when I find you, Father Bill Ryan, I’ll bring you in … but not before I give you a taste of what you did to that poor kid.

ELEVEN

North Carolina

Rafe had been right about the stealing. It did get easier. It became so against her will.

With each little theft, Lisl had clung to the guilt, squeezed each incident for whatever remorse she could wring from it, but despite her best efforts the guilt dwindled, the remorse became brittle and desiccated to the point where it crumbled into a fine powder that ran through her fingers like sand.

She had changed. She saw so many things in a new perspective now. Her parents, for instance …

She had gone home for Christmas. No way out of that. She hadn’t wanted to leave Rafe but his own family had been tugging at him as well, so they separated for the holiday. What a nightmare.

And what an eye-opener. She had never realized before how empty her parents were. How shallow, how narcissistic. After she arrived they practically ignored her. All they seemed truly interested in was themselves. They’d wanted her home for the holidays, not out of any genuine desire for her company, but because having your only child home for Christmas was the way it should be. No real concern or interest in anything beyond their front door, except perhaps how they appeared to others.

The memory of Christmas night dinner was still fresh in her mind, how she had sat there and listened to them talk. All the pettiness, bitterness, jealousy disguised as wit. The subtle put-downs as they questioned her about how far she wanted to pursue this career thing; about remarrying and giving them grandchildren so they could keep up with their old friends the Andersons who now had three. She’d never seen it before, but these few months with Rafe had opened her eyes.

Depressing. And infuriating.

Lisl asked herself what these two people had ever really done for her as parents. They had fed her, clothed her, put a roof over her head—and she supposed there was something to be said for those benefits since not all parents did even that much for their children—but beyond the necessities of life, what had they given her? What had they passed on to her?

She’d realized with a shock that her life had no center. She’d been raised and sent out into the world without a compass. And unless she did something on her own to remedy that, she would remain emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually adrift.

The day after Christmas she had fled back to Pendleton. She’d been overjoyed to find Rafe waiting for her.

“All right,” Rafe said now as they stood on the sidewalk down the street from Ball’s Jewelry. They’d just completed their twenty-second shoplifting spree. “Who is the lucky passer-by to receive our largesse?”

Lisl scanned the faces of the post-Christmas shoppers and gift-returners as they flowed past. Then she glanced down at the gold butterfly pin in her hand, lifted from a counter in Ball’s only moments before. She was enchanted by the delicate filigree of its wings.

“No one.”

Rafe turned to her, his eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“I like this. I think I’ll keep it.”

The words shocked her. They seemed to have taken on a life of their own and escaped independent of her will. But she spoke the truth. She did want to keep this pin.

A slow smile spread across Rafe’s face.

“No guilt? No remorse?”

Lisl searched within herself. No. She could find no guilt. The thefts had become routine, actually. More of a chore—an errand, almost—than anything else.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking down at the gold butterfly. “And that frightens me.”

“Don’t be frightened.”

Rafe took the pin from her, opened her coat, and pinned it on her sweater.

“Why not?”

“Because this is a watershed, a cause for celebration.”

“I feel like I’ve developed a callus on my soul.”

“You’ve done nothing of the sort. That’s the kind of thinking that holds you back. Negative imagery. It’s not a matter of calluses. It’s breaking free from your childhood shackles.”

“I don’t feel free.”

“Because only one of those chains has fallen away. More remain. Many more.”

“I don’t know if I want to hear this.”

“Trust me.”

Rafe took her arm and they began walking along Conway Street.

“Up till now, we’ve been engaging in faceless acts of liberation.”

“Faceless? What’s been faceless? There’ve been plenty of faces involved here.”

“Not really. We’ve been stealing from stores. Faceless corporations that do not feel even the slightest prickle of discomfort from what we’ve done.”

“You’re not going to turn Marxist on me now, are you?”

Rafe’s expression was disdainful. “Please don’t insult my intelligence. No. What I mean is that from now on we’re going to get personal.”

Lisl didn’t like the sound of that.

“What do you mean?”

“Not what—who. I’d rather show you than tell you. And I wish to do a little research first. Tomorrow will be soon enough.” He opened the passenger door to his Maserati and bowed her toward the seat. “Your carriage awaits.”

A small, cold lump formed in Lisl’s stomach as she got in. Her relief that the thefts would stop was undercut by a growing unease about what would replace them.

TWELVE

1

The following day, Lisl opened her apartment door and was startled to find a seedy-looking stranger standing outside. She’d been expecting Rafe. He was due within the hour and when she heard the bell she figured he was showing up early.

“Can I help you?”

He was thin, graying, haggard looking, but clean-shaven and smelling of a spicy after-shave. A bulky overcoat rounded off the sharp edges of his wiry frame.

“You can if you’re Miss Lisa Whitman.”

“Lisl. That’s me. Who are you?”

He fished a black leather folder from within his coat and flashed a badge at her.

“Detective Augustino, Miss Whitman. State Police.”

She caught a fleeting glimpse of a blue and gold shield before the flap covered it again, then the folder was on its way back inside the coat.

A sudden surge of panic lanced through Lisl.

Police! They know about the stealing!

She glanced down at her sweater where she’d pinned the gold butterfly with the filigree wings. She had an urge to cover it with her hand—but that would be like pointing it out.

This was it: shame, disgrace, a criminal record, the end of her career.

“What…” Her mouth was dry. “What do you want with me?”

“Are you the lady who made the complaint about a crank phone call on December sixteenth?”

Crank phone call? December 16th? What on earth was he—?

“Oh, the party! The call at the party! Oh, that’s right! Ohmigod, I thought you were—” She cut herself off.

“Thought I was what, Miss Whitman?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” Lisl fought an insane urge to burst out laughing. “Nothing at all!”

“May I come in?”

“Yes! Come on in!” she said, opening the door wider and stepping back. She was so weak with relief she had to sit down. “And call me Lisl.”

He glanced at the notepad in his hand.

“So it really is Lisl, with an ‘l’ on the end? I thought it was a misprint.”

“No. My mother was Scandinavian.”

Lisl realized with a shock that she had referred to her mother in the past tense, as if she were dead. After that trip home for Christmas last week, maybe she was, in a sense. She brushed the thought away.

“Have a seat, Detective…?”

“Augustino. Sergeant Augustino.”

As he sat on her tiny couch and took out a pen, Lisl tried to pin down his accent. Something strange about the way he talked.

“Now, about that phone call—” he began.

“Why are the police involved? I reported it to the phone company.”

“Yes, but there’s been more than one incident like yours. Southern Bell felt it was serious enough to refer it to the State Police.”

Lisl remembered the terror in that child’s voice.

“It was a prank?”

“We hope so.” But something in his eyes said he didn’t think so.

“I’m glad the police are involved then. It was awful.”

“I’m sure it was. Could you describe to me exactly what happened, including the surrounding events? In detail?”

“I already gave that information to the phone company.”

“I know, but their report is vague. I need your firsthand account to be sure this is the same. Start at the beginning, please.”

Lisl shrank from the thought of reliving that call, but if it would help track down the twisted mind that would pull such a sick stunt, she was all for it.

She told Augustino about the party at Rafe’s place, the crowded living room, about the strange, endless ring that had set everyone’s teeth on edge. She watched him leaning farther and farther forward as she spoke. He was so intent that he wasn’t taking any notes.

“And since no one else seemed to want to do it,” she said, “I picked up the phone. And that’s when I heard that voice.” She paused, shivering. “How can I describe the terror in that child’s voice?”

Lisl glanced at Sergeant Augustino and knew immediately that she didn’t have to describe the voice to him. She saw it in his eyes—the look. Almost like the look she caught in Will Ryerson’s eyes every so often.

She said, “You’ve heard it too, haven’t you?”

2

The woman’s words jolted Renny.

How the hell did she know? How could she tell?

Shit, yes, he’d heard that voice. He’d had the unnerving experience all those years ago—Christ, it was almost to the freaking day!—of lifting the receiver on one of those drawn-out rings. He’d heard it. And he’d never forget it. How could he? The voice replayed night after night in his sleep.

He studied Lisl Whitman with renewed respect. This was one sharp gal. Good-looking too.

Looks and smarts—a deadly combination. She could put him off his guard enough to tip his hand. He’d have to watch himself. Not only did he lack any official capacity here in North Carolina, he was impersonating a state cop. And that was molto illegal.

“No, not really,” he lied—not well, he knew. “But I’ve heard the description so many times I almost feel like I have.”

She nodded absently. He could tell she didn’t believe him.

“Who’s behind this?”

“A very sick man. We’re trying to track him down.”

She looked him squarely in the eyes and said, “Was that a … a real child on the phone?”

“No.” Renny hoped his eyes didn’t betray him. “That was a recording.”

Has to be. What else could it be? He’d always followed the old Sherlock Holmes dictum to eliminate the impossible. Well, the real Danny picking up the phone and wailing those words was impossible, so …

He shook his head and changed the subject.

“But this was not the address at which the incident occurred, am I correct?”

Renny congratulated himself on how official that sounded.

“No. It was at Rafe Losmara’s. That should be in the report too.”

“It is. But every time I call Mr. Losmara or stop by his place, there’s no one home.”

“That’s strange…”

“How long have you known Mr. Losmara?”

“Only a few months.”

“Only a few months.” Renny sensed he was getting warm. He could feel the excitement building. “So you don’t know him that well.”

He saw her back stiffen.

“I know him very well.”

“Could you describe him to me?”

He’d been looking for an answer to that question for nearly two weeks now.

She described Losmara in glowing terms. Obviously these two had a thing going. Lucky Losmara. But Renny found his hot trail cooling rapidly. The man she described was too short, too dark, too small, and way too young.

Not Ryan. No way.

So much for that theory. But that didn’t mean that Ryan hadn’t been there. Maybe he didn’t own the place, but he’d been at that party. No question. Renny would stake his life on it.

“Could I have a guest list?”

“You can’t think that anyone at the party—?”

“Of course not. But it’s all we have to go on for now. It might be useful.”

She rose and went to a small desk in the corner of the living room and began rummaging through the papers that cluttered its surface. Abruptly she held up a sheet of paper.

“Got it! I always knew there was a reason never to throw anything away. Do you have a suspect?”

Renny chewed the inside of his lip. He’d have to be real careful here.

“We don’t have a name, but we do have an old photo.”

She handed back the list, then took her seat again.

“Well…?”

Renny pulled the photo out of his breast pocket and placed it on the coffee table between them. He wished he could have arranged for one of those computer-generated drawings that aged a suspect’s face.

“A priest?”

Anxiously, Renny watched her face, searching for some hint of recognition as she picked it up and studied it.

“A Jesuit. As I said, this is an old picture. No doubt he looks a lot different now. Give it a good look. He might have a beard or a mustache these days.” He thought he saw her stiffen. “Remind you of anyone?”

She shook her head quickly. “No. No one.”

A thrill shot through Renny as he realized she might be lying. Those last two words, the extra, unnecessary emphasis, gave her away. What was that look in her eyes now? Uncertainty? He caught her quick glance at the list in his hand. The photo must remind her of someone at her party.

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

If he’d been on his home turf, Renny would have jumped all over her, maybe even gone so far as to bring her down to the station. But he was in a legally precarious position here. If the department got even a whiff of what he was up to, he’d be in big trouble. So he stood and stuffed the guest list in his pocket. He reached across and took the photo from her.

“Thank you, Miss Whitman. You’ve been a big help. Maybe we’ll finally track down this pervo.”

She was staring at him.

“Your accent … you sound like a New Yorker now.”

Damn! Time to beat it.

“Yes, well, I spent part of my youth in Queens. Hard to kick some things, don’t you think?”

She said nothing.

“Okay, well, I’ve got to get back to Raleigh. Thanks again.”

He hurried out the door and fairly danced down the steps after it closed behind him. Somewhere on that list in his pocket was the new identity of Father Bill Ryan. He was closing in. He could taste it.

And when he found him, he’d drag him back for trial. But not before he’d extracted down payment on years of rage from his worthless hide.

Wouldn’t be long now.

3

Rafe showed up only moments after the detective had departed. Lisl told him about the encounter but didn’t mention how the photo of the priest had reminded her vaguely of Will. So hard to tell. The priest in the photo had been young and fresh-faced, with a straight nose and unscarred forehead, so different from Will. But still, something was there. Plus the fact that a beard was a good disguise if you were on the run …

She shook off the apprehensions. Groundless. Silly. Will was the gentlest of men. She couldn’t imagine him hurting anyone, especially a child. And besides, Will had been nowhere near the phone when it rang. She distinctly remembered seeing him standing in the middle of the room.

But why had Will disappeared immediately after?

No matter. She was sure he’d have a good explanation the next time they talked. And she didn’t have to worry about the cop bothering him—Will had been so adamant about not coming, she hadn’t bothered to put his name on the guest list.

Rafe brushed off her puzzlement as to why the State Police were getting involved, saying it had nothing to do with them, that they had more important things to concern them.

But she noticed that he was unusually quiet and pensive as they drove through town on their way to his mystery destination

They wound up sitting at the curb near the rear parking lot of County Medical Center for a good twenty minutes or more. With Rafe so quiet she found herself thinking about Will again. Why had he disappeared from her party like that? Right when that awful phone call had come through. She could have used a little comfort from him then.

She wished she could find him and talk to him but she hadn’t seen him since the party. Christmas break had a lot to do with that. The students were gone and campus routine was on hold until the second week in January. The few times she’d been back to her office she’d checked the old elm tree but he’d been nowhere in sight.

And she couldn’t call him because he had no phone …

Phone … she wondered if there was any connection between his aversion to phones and the call at the party. But how could there be?

The only way to find out would be to ask him, and that would have to wait until she saw him again. Right now she was chilly and bored.

“What are we waiting for?” she asked Rafe for the fourth time.

“A face. The face we will be targeting. Just watch that Porsche over there.”

“Which one is that?”

“That little black one, third from the right in the lot over there.”

Lisl spotted the car he meant. A sleek, sporty-looking two-seater. It looked built for speed.

“That’s the doctor’s parking lot.”

“Yes. I know.”

Lisl was just beginning to get an inkling of why they might be here when she saw him. A tall, dark-haired man in brushed wool slacks and a camel hair overcoat.

“Oh, God! It’s Brian!”

“Yes. Doctor Brian Callahan. Your ex-husband. Very good-looking. I compliment you on your taste. Reminds me a little of Ryan Reynolds. I suspect he tries to emphasize the resemblance.”

Lisl felt something akin to panic gripping her throat.

“Get me out of here.”

“Why? Does he frighten you?”

“No. I just don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

“Why not?”

Lisl didn’t answer. How could she? She wasn’t sure herself. She hadn’t seen Brian for years, and hadn’t thought of him much at all since she’d met Rafe. But the sight of him now brought back that awful, searing moment outside the attorney’s office. The look on his face, the contempt in his voice, the words … I never loved you …

And with the memory came the pain.

She couldn’t face him again, couldn’t bear to have those hard, cold eyes pierce her again. She had come so far since that day. She couldn’t risk letting him drag her down again. And he could do it. She knew he could look at her with that face and make her feel like nothing. Lisl never wanted to feel like nothing again.

So, yes. She was afraid of Brian. He had never struck her, never harmed her physically. She almost wished he had. That would have been easier to deal with than the punishment he had meted out at the end of their marriage.

“Why not?” Rafe repeated.

“He’s simply not worth the time.”

“Oh, but he is. You helped put him where he is. You worked to pay the rent, you cooked his meals, you made it possible for him to get through medical school while he was sticking it to anything in a skirt.”

“Drop it, Rafe. It’s yesterday’s news.”

“And then when he was ready for his residency and could start making money on his own, he dumped you.”

“Enough.”

“Look at him, Lisl. Tall, handsome, prosperous—only a couple of years into private practice and already he’s driving an expensive sports car, wearing Armani clothes. And he owes much of it to you.”

“I don’t want anything from him!”

“Yes, you do.” Rafe’s eyes were fierce. “You want to be free of him.”

“I am free of him.”

“Legally, yes. But are you?”

Lisl heard Brian’s car start, saw him back out of his space, then race to the lot exit. When the gate rose to let him out, he roared away with squealing, smoking tires.

“Let’s follow Doctor Callahan, shall we?”

Lisl said nothing. She felt cold and sick as she sat with her arms folded across her chest while Rafe followed Brian through town.

“Doctor Callahan has a heavy foot,” Rafe said.

Lisl remembered Brian’s love of fast driving. A trip across town with him was an invitation to whiplash.

“You’re not exactly a turtle yourself.”

“Just trying to keep up with the good doctor.”

They followed him through the black section at the southern end of town—”Downtown Browntown” as the students called it—and then into a development of luxury custom homes. The sign at the entrance read Rolling Oaks.

“What on earth is a Rolling Oak?” Rafe said.

Brian’s car zipped into a short asphalt driveway and screeched to a halt before a two-car garage attached to a new two-story colonial. The garage door opened automatically and he eased the car inside.

“Nice house,” Rafe said. “A ‘starter home,’ if you plan to be wealthy. Could have been yours.”

“I don’t want anything of his. I told you that.”

“He’s got a custom home, you’ve got a garden apartment.”

Lisl realized she was angry—very angry. But somehow admitting that would allow Brian another victory. So she said nothing.

Rafe looked at her a long time, then said, “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

“Life isn’t fair, Rafe. If you expect fairness from life you’ll go crazy long before you die.”

He clapped his hands. “Excellent! Couldn’t have said it better myself! Fairness is a human construct. Life doesn’t supply it—we do. That’s why I brought you here. Now that we know where Doctor Brian Callahan lives, we are going to create a little fairness in his neck of the woods.”

Rafe’s smile frightened Lisl as he chirped the tires and roared past Brian’s closing garage door.

4

They had a light dinner, and Rafe asked her to stay over. They had just removed the last of their clothing when Rafe pulled a black leather belt out of the drawer and handed it to her.

“What’s this for?” Lisl asked.

She uncoiled it in her hands—long, close to four feet in length, and two inches wide.

“I want you to use it on me.”

Lisl felt a sudden tightening inside.

“What do you mean, ‘use it’?”

“I want you to hit me with it.”

Her stomach turned. “This is sick.”

“What’s sick?”

“Look, I love you, Rafe, but I can’t get with this masochism thing of yours.”

His eyes suddenly blazed.

“My masochism thing? Lisl, you are the masochist! You’ve let people put you down, grind you down, chain you down until you’ve come to accept it as your state of being, your lot in life. Day to day life is a masochistic event for you, Lisl. You should be on top of the world yet you’re content to live under its heel!”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Rafe.”

He stepped up and gently slipped his arms around her.

“I know you don’t, Lisl. That’s because you’re a good person. But there’s so much anger in you it’s frightening. You seethe with it.”

She knew he was right. She’d never been aware of her anger before. But she could not deny its existence now. She had discovered it since meeting Rafe—a boiling rage deep down inside her. And with each passing week she could feel it bubbling closer to the surface.

“I can’t help that.”

“Oh, but you can. And you will. You’ve got to let that anger go before you can be the new Lisl.”

“I don’t know if I want to be the new Lisl.”

“Do you like the old Lisl?”

“No.”

God, no.

“Then don’t be afraid to change.”

His words were so soft, so soothing, the touch of his bare skin against hers was so warm. She floated on the sound of his voice.

“That’s why I’ve led you through these little faceless crimes. They’re symbolic. They let you bleed off the anger in tiny, harmless doses, and that brings you closer to the new Lisl. The same is true with the belt.”

“No, I—”

“Listen to me, listen to me,” he said softly, almost cooing in her ear. “It’s a symbolic act. I don’t want you to really hurt me. Believe me, I’m into pleasure, not pain. Just think of it as comparable to our little thefts—no one was really hurt. This will be much the same. You won’t strike me with any force. You’ll just lay the strap across my back and pretend I’m Brian.”

“Rafe, please…” She was beginning to feel sick.

“Where’s the harm? You won’t be hurting me and you won’t be hurting Brian. You’ll only be helping yourself. This is symbolic, remember? Symbolic.”

“Okay,” she said finally. “Symbolic.”

She didn’t want to do this, but if Rafe thought it was so important, she’d give it a try. And if it did release some of this anger in her—although she didn’t see how it could—that would be to the good. And if nothing else, once she got through it they could make love. That was what she really wanted to do.

Rafe lay across the bed, facedown, the smooth skin of his bare back awaiting the belt.

“All right,” he said. “Twenty strokes. Just think of me as Brian and slap it across my back.”

Feeling silly, Lisl raised the belt and let its length fall onto Rafe’s back.

He laughed. “Come on, Lisl. That was wimpy. This is Brian here. The guy you loved, the guy you trusted enough to marry.”

Lisl swung again and put just a little more into it.

“Is that the best you can do? Lisl, this is the guy who was probably cheating on you during your engagement. And you know from the divorce hearings that he was putting the moves on his female fellow med students the week you got back from your honeymoon.”

She swung harder this time.

“There you go. Just imagine I’m the guy who let you work for him all day to help earn his tuition, and then while you were out taking a night course would sneak a little chippy into your apartment and fuck her right in your own bed.”

Lisl remembered the savage look on Brian’s face when he’d told her that. The belt made a loud slap against Rafe’s back when she swung this time. She swung again, even harder.

Slap!

“Good! Here’s the guy who took you in marriage not as his wife but as his beast of burden, his meal ticket.”

Slap!

“And when he didn’t need you anymore, he tossed you away like an old newspaper.”

“Damn you!” Lisl heard herself say.

Rage suffused her, clouded her vision as she swung the belt with everything she had. And again, over and over, until she saw red …

… on Rafe’s back.

Blood. He had a deep gash across his back.

“Oh my God!”

Suddenly the rage retreated, leaving her cold and sick and weak.

Did I do that? What’s happening? This isn’t me!

She dropped to her knees beside the bed.

“Oh, Rafe, I’m so sorry!”

He turned toward her. “Are you kidding? It’s just a scratch. Come here.”

He pulled her onto the bed beside him. She could see that he was excited. He began kissing her, warming her, chasing the cold and dread and doubt, building the heat within her until it burst into flame.

5

Afterward he held her close and stroked her hair.

“There. Don’t you feel better?”

Lisl knew what he was referring to but didn’t feel like talking about it.

“I always feel good after we make love.”

“I meant with the belt. Didn’t that leave you feeling a bit cleaner, refreshed?”

“No! How could I possibly feel good about hurting you like that?”

“Don’t be silly. You didn’t hurt me.”

“You were bleeding!”

“A scratch.”

“That was no scratch. Turn over and I’ll show you.”

Rafe rolled onto his stomach and presented his back to her.

His unmarred back.

Lisl ran a hand over the smooth skin. There had been welts there only a short while ago. Blood too. She was sure of it.

“How…?”

“I’m a fast healer. You know that.”

“But nobody’s that fast.”

“Which means that you didn’t hurt me anywhere near as badly as you thought.”

He turned toward her and pulled her down to his side. Lisl snuggled against him.

“You see, it was all symbolic. You got some of the anger out without hurting me. The anger was real but my wounds were not. You simply magnified them in your mind. The net result: I’m unhurt and you’re a little bit closer to being the new Lisl.”

“I’m not so sure about this ‘new Lisl’ business.”

“Don’t hinder yourself, Lisl. You’re on the way to setting yourself free. And when you become the new Lisl, you truly will be a new person. No one who knew you before will recognize you. A new Lisl—that’s my promise to you.”

“Fine, but this bit with the belt—”

“That’s just a part of it—the symbolic part. That must continue. But we won’t limit ourselves to the merely symbolic with Doctor Callahan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see. My plans aren’t fully formed yet, but you’ll be a part of them, never fear. Stage one is all worked out, however. We execute that in a few hours.”

“A few hours? It’s after midnight!”

“I know. Don’t worry. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

Lisl hugged Rafe close, a shipwreck victim clinging to a lifeboat on a sea of roiling emotions. She trusted him, but she worried about him as well. Rafe didn’t seem to recognize the same limits as most other people.

6

Lisl shivered as she stood by Rafe’s side at the telephone booth. She glanced at her watch. Five forty-five a.m. What was she doing at this hour standing in the chilly darkness outside an all-night gas station?

For one thing, she was listening to Rafe call her ex-husband. He hadn’t wanted his cell number showing up on Brian’s caller ID, so he’d stopped here. She could have waited in the car and stayed warm but that hadn’t seemed right. She wanted to know exactly what Rafe was up to, wanted to hear every word he said. She was uneasy about this whole trip.

“Rafe, are you sure—?”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand and put a finger to his lips. He spoke into the receiver in an accented voice pitched a few tones higher than his own. He sounded Indian or Pakistani.

“Doctor Callahan?” he said with a grin and a wink at her. “This is Doctor Krishna from the emergency room at County. So sorry to awaken you at this hour. Yes, I am being very new here. I just started this very evening. Thank you very much. Yes, I have a seventy-six-year-old woman here, a Mrs. Cranston, who says her daughter is a patient of yours. Yes, well, let me see … no, I am not having the daughter’s name at hand. However, Mrs. Cranston has suffered a displaced fracture of her left hip. She is being in very much pain at this time. No, I am very sorry to say she is not stable. In fact, her blood pressure is falling. Yes, I have done that. Also she is being very obese and I am worried about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism.” A long pause, then: “Yes, I will be doing that. And I will be telling her daughter that you are coming in immediately. She will be most pleased. Thank you. I am most looking forward to meeting you, Doctor Callahan.”

Lisl stared at him in amazement.

“You sounded just like a doctor. Where did you learn all that?”

He laughed as he led her back to warmth of the car. “I went online and looked up the major complications of a broken hip.”

“But why?”

“To get him out of the house, of course.”

He helped her into the passenger seat and closed the car door. But instead of getting in on the driver side, he headed back to the gas station.

What’s he up to? she wondered. He’d been so secretive about his plans for tonight.

A moment later he emerged carrying a cardboard box. He placed it in the space behind the seats, then got behind the wheel.

“What did you buy?” Lisl asked.

“Motor oil.”

“Does that have anything to do with Brian?”

“It sure does.”

“Can I ask what?”

His smile was enigmatic. “All in good time, my dear. All in good time.”

“You sound like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Rafe let out a high-pitched cackle as the Maserati roared to life.

As they entered the Rolling Oaks development Lisl saw Brian speeding out.

“There he goes. The good Dr. Callahan on a mission of mercy.”

“Don’t knock that.”

“He’s covering orthopedic calls for the emergency room tonight. He has to go or he’ll be suspended from the medical center.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked. All it took was a telephone call. And besides, he figures on picking up a couple of grand for pinning some old lady’s broken hip, so let’s not award him a halo yet.”

Rafe shut off his headlights before he reached Brian’s house. They cruised to a stop just past the entrance to his driveway.

Lisl felt cold. Her stomach fluttered.

“You’re not planning something illegal, are you?”

“You mean like breaking and entering? No. But I suppose it could be considered malicious mischief.”

“Oh, great!”

“Come on. This is for you, not me.”

“A few hours sleep would do more for me.”

Rafe got out of the car and lifted the box of motor oil from behind the seat.

“Come on now. And be quiet. We don’t want to wake the neighbors.”

As he eased his door shut, Lisl got out and joined him on the driveway. The sky was winter-clear, full of glittering stars in the west but growing pale in the east. She could see Rafe twisting the cap off a half-gallon white plastic container of motor oil. He broke the foil seal and handed it to her.

“Start pouring.”

“Where?”

“On the driveway, of course. Start at the bottom and work your way up. A good thick coat.”

“But—?”

“Trust me. This will be good.”

Lisl looked around. She felt exposed and vulnerable out here in the growing pre-dawn light, but she knew Rafe would never leave before he’d accomplished what he’d come here for, so she began pouring.

The oil glugged from the container and splashed on the asphalt but soon she got the hang of pouring it in an even stream, back and forth, slowly backing up as she poured, container after container, letting the viscous golden liquid ooze down the slight decline of the driveway to merge like warm honey into a slick, uniform coat.

“Right up to the garage door there,” Rafe said, handing her the last half-gallon. “We’re not going to give this sucker one little bit of traction.”

Lisl complied, then handed him the empty.

“Okay. What now?”

“Now we sit and wait.” He glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

They returned to the car and Rafe drove it half a block to a corner where he parked at the curb. Almost dawn now. Lisl had a sharp, clear, unobstructed view of Brian’s garage and driveway.

They waited. Rafe kept the car idling with the heater on. It was warm. Too warm. Lisl began to feel drowsy. She was ready to doze off when a black sports car roared past them.

Rafe let out a low whistle.

“Ooh, he’s ticked. I wonder why? A wild goose chase to the hospital, maybe? Looking foolish in front of the emergency room staff, perhaps? But that’s no excuse. A doctor should know better than to hot-rod like that through a residential neighborhood.”

Brian’s car made a sharp, tire-squealing turn into his driveway—

—and kept on going.

It swerved as its brakes locked but found no purchase on the oil-slick asphalt, plowing through the garage door and coming to rest at a crazy angle amid its splintered remnants.

Lisl gasped in shock and stared, fighting an urge to get out of the car and run to the site of the accident.

“Ohmigod, is he hurt?”

“No such luck,” Rafe said. “Watch.”

The door to Brian’s car opened and Lisl watched his white-coated figure stagger out. He was rubbing his head and he looked dazed, but he didn’t seem seriously hurt.

She felt a smile slowly work its way to her lips.

Serves you right, you bastard.

As he moved away from his car to survey the damage, he stepped onto the oiled asphalt. Suddenly his arms began windmilling as his feet did a spastic soft-shoe routine. He went down flat on his back with his legs straight up in the air.

Lisl burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. She’d never seen Brian look so ridiculous. She loved it.

With her hand clapped over her mouth, she watched him roll over and work his way to his hands and knees. The back of his white coat was now black and he had motor oil in his blow-dried hair. He was halfway to his feet when his legs slipped out from under him again and he went down on his face.

Lisl was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She beat a fist against Rafe’s shoulder.

“Get me out of here!” she gasped. “Before I die laughing!”

Rafe was smiling as he shifted the car into gear.

“Not so scary now, is he?”

Lisl shook her head. She couldn’t answer because she was still laughing. Brian Callahan would never be able to intimidate her again.

A question leapt to her mind.

“Why me, Rafe? Why are you doing all this for me?”

“Because I love you,” he said, smiling brightly. “And this is only the beginning.”

THE BOY

at fifteen years

Carol caught him at the front door.

“Aren’t you even going to say good-bye?” she said.

During the past two years Jimmy had sprouted to the point where he was now taller than Carol. Slim, handsome, he looked down at her the way a cat might glance at a plate of food it had no taste for.

“Why? We’ll never see each other again.”

Jimmy had somehow worked a change in his birth records back in Arkansas to show that he was now eighteen. He’d hired a shyster from Austin who’d obtained a court order that had forced her to turn half of the fortune over to him. He’d treated her as so much dirt these past few years. So many times she had loathed her son, hated him, feared him. Yet something within her cried out with loss at the thought of his leaving.

“I’ve raised you, cared for you for fifteen years, Jimmy. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It’s the blink of an eye. Less. And why should you worry? It’s not as if you haven’t profited in that time. I’ve left you thirty million dollars to play with.”

“You don’t understand, do you?”

He looked at her quizzically. “Understand what?”

They stared at each other and Carol realized that he had no idea.

“Never mind. Where are you going?”

“To prepare the way and settle an old score.”

“With that red-haired man you keep looking for?”

For the first time, his face showed emotion.

“I told you never to mention him!” Then his expression softened into a chilling smile. “But there is someone else I will be looking for. I’m beginning to prepare for the renewal of an old acquaintance.”

“But you don’t know anyone.”

“Ah, but I do. And you know him too. A mutual acquaintance.”

“Mutual? Who?”

But then he left. Not a touch, not a smile, not a wave, not even a shrug. He simply turned and walked out to his waiting sports car.

As her Jimmy drove off, Carol began to cry. And hated herself for it.

And she feared for the “mutual acquaintance,” whoever he was.

THIRTEEN

New York

1

Another New Year’s Eve.

Outside St. Ann’s Cemetery in Bayside, Mr. Veilleur watched the red glow of the cab’s rear lights fade into the darkness, then he turned and walked toward the cemetery wall. The cab was to return for him in an hour. He’d given the driver half of a hundred-dollar bill as tip and told him the other half would be his when he returned. He’d be back.

He found a large granite block jutting from the earth near the wall. He eased himself down on it. The December cold of the frozen earth began to seep into his buttocks.

“I’ve come to sit with you a while,” he said, speaking to the wall.

No reply came from the unmarked, uneasy grave that lay just beyond it.

Veilleur couldn’t get into the cemetery at this hour, especially on New Year’s Eve, so he settled for a seat just outside. Magda would not miss him tonight. She did not even know it was a holiday. He pulled out a thermos filled with hot coffee and brandy, and poured some into the cap. He sipped and felt the chill melt away.

“This is the anniversary of your interment here. But I do not come to celebrate, simply to mark the occasion. To sit watch over you. Somebody should.”

He sipped some more of the brandied coffee and thought about the future. The near future, for he knew his future was severely limited.

The Adversary was growing steadily more powerful, the influence of the Otherness ever more pervasive. The Lady had been grievously wounded and the storm clouds were gathering, thunderheads of evil piling up on all horizons, closing in. The focal point of some of the forces seemed to be here, just over the cemetery wall, in that unmarked grave. Something was going to happen here. Soon.

“What part do you play in all of this?” he asked the grave’s restless occupant.

No reply. But Veilleur knew he’d find out soon. Too soon.

He sipped his coffee and continued his solitary vigil.

North Carolina

2

Another New Year’s Eve.

Will sat alone in his drafty living room watching the roiling crowd in Times Square on his TV. God, how he hated this night.

Years ago on this very night he had committed The Atrocity, the act that had drawn an indelible line between himself and the rest of humanity.

This year would be worse than usual because of the phone call.

So long since he’d heard it. For years he’d managed to avoid it. And then Lisl’s party. He shouldn’t have gone, but he’d thought he could get away with it. He’d tempted fate. Someone trying to make a call must have plugged the phone back into the wall.

And he’d heard that voice. All the way across the room, he’d heard that poor boy’s voice.

Will got up and turned off the TV. If he looked at the host’s grinning face much longer he was afraid he’d toss a chair through the screen. All those people milling around in Times Square, ready to jump around like idiots to celebrate the start of a new year.

A new year. Right. For him it was the start of another year in hiding.

But this new year would be different. This year he’d find the strength to go back, to try to resume his former life. And the best way to do that was to start the year off in prayer.

He pulled his old Breviary from his rear pocket—the book he’d been hiding from Lisl since September—and got an early start on tomorrow’s daily office.

But tonight the prayers seemed even more meaningless than they had since he’d gone back to them. Usually he could count on the rhythm of the familiar phrases to provide temporary relief from the memories of the horrors of the past.

But not tonight.

The faces, voices, sights, sounds—they splattered him like raindrops, falling fitfully at first, then increasing to a steady trickle, finally swelling to a rush that flooded the room. He fought the current but it was too strong tonight. Despite his best efforts it swept him into the past.

Part II

THEN

FOURTEEN

Queens, NY

1

Things started going wrong toward the end of winter that year. In March, with spring only a couple of weeks away.

People hadn’t called him Will then. His friends and folks called him Bill. The rest of the world called him Father.

Father Ryan. The Reverend William Ryan, S.J.

“I’ve got you now,” Nicky said from the other side of the chessboard.

Bill stretched inside his navy blue sweatsuit and reminded himself for the thousandth time to stop thinking of him as Nicky. He wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was teenager. And he had a last name too. Justin and Florence Quinn had adopted him in 1970 and he carried their name proudly.

Nicky … Bill was proud of him, as proud as he’d have been if Nick were his own son. His SATs had merited a free ride through Columbia where he earned a BS in physics in three years. Then he’d breezed through the graduate program, blowing the faculty away with his doctoral thesis on particle theory. Nick was brilliant and he knew it. He’d always known it. But along the way to gaining maturity he’d lost his old smugness about it. His skin had cleared up—mostly—and his long unruly hair now covered the misshapen areas of his skull. And he was wearing contacts. That had proved the hardest to adjust to: Nicky without glasses.

“Checkmate?” Bill said. “So soon? Really?”

“Really, Bill. Really.”

Another sign of Nick’s adult status: He no longer felt he had to call him Father Bill.

Bill studied the board. Nick had spotted Bill both his bishops and both his rooks, and still Bill was losing. In fact he could see no way to spring his king from the web Nick had woven around it. He’d lost.

Bill knocked over his king.

“I don’t know why you continue to play me. I can’t be any sort of challenge for you.”

“It’s not the challenge. It’s the company. It’s the conversation. Believe me, it’s not the chess.”

Nick was still a social misfit, Bill knew. Especially with women. And until he found himself a woman—or one found him—the traditional Saturday night chess games here in Bill’s office at St. F.’s would probably go on indefinitely.

“But I seem to becoming worse at the game instead of better.”

Nick shook his head. “Not worse. Just predictable. You fall into the same kind of trap every time.”

Bill didn’t like the idea of being predictable. He knew his main flaw in chess was lack of patience. He tended toward impulsive, seat-of-the-pants gambits. But that was his nature.

“I’m going to start reading up on chess, Nick. Better yet, I’m going to invest in a chess program for the computer. That old Kaypro you gave me will be your undoing. It’ll teach me to wipe up the board with you.”

Nick did not appear terribly shaken by the threat.

“Speaking of computers, have you been tapping into those bulletin boards I keep giving you?”

Bill nodded. “I think I’m becoming addicted to them.”

“You wouldn’t be the first. By the way, I recently downloaded this new article about cloning. It reminded me of that brouhaha back in the sixties over that friend of yours—”

“Jim,” Bill said with a sudden ache in his chest. “Jim Stevens.”

“Right. James Stevens. Supposedly the clone of Roderick Hanley. The Stevens case, as they called it, was mentioned in the article. Current wisdom, as stated in the article, says that it was technically impossible to clone a human being back in the forties. But I don’t know. From what I’ve picked up over the years, Roderick Hanley was a real wild card. If anybody could pull off something like that, it was him. What do you think?”

“I don’t think about it.”

And that was almost the truth. Bill rarely allowed himself to think about Jim, because that brought on thoughts of Jim’s wife, Carol. Bill knew where Jim was—under a plaque at Tall Oaks—but where was Carol? The last time he’d seen her was at LaGuardia shortly after Jim’s death. She’d called him once after flying off with Jonah, to tell him she was all right, but that had been it. She might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.

During the twenty-plus years since she’d disappeared he’d learned how to avoid thinking about her. And he’d become pretty damn good at it.

But now Nick had gone and stirred up those old memories again … especially of the time when she had taken her clothes off and tried to—

“It’s too bad—” Nick began, but was cut off by the arrival of a pajama-clad whirlwind.

Little seven-year-old Danny Gordon ran in from the hall at full tilt, then tried to skid to a halt in front of the table where Bill and Nick had set up their board. Only he didn’t time his skid quite right. He slammed against the table and nearly knocked it over.

“Danny!” Bill cried as the chessboard and all the pieces went flying.

“Sorry, Father,” the boy said with a dazzling smile.

He was small for his age, with a sinewy little body, pale blond hair, and a perfect, rosy-cheeked complexion. A regular Campbell Soup kid. He still had his milk teeth, so when he smiled, the effect of those tiny, perfectly aligned white squares was completely disarming. At least to most people. Bill was used to it, almost totally inured to it. Almost.

“What are you doing up?” he said. “You’re supposed to be in the dorm. It’s”—he glanced at his watch—”almost midnight! Now get back to bed this instant.”

“But there’s monsters back there, Father!”

“There are no monsters in Saint Francis.”

“But there are! In the closets!”

This was old territory. They’d been over it a hundred times at least. He motioned Danny toward his lap. The child hopped up and snuggled against him. His body seemed to be all bone and no flesh, and weighed next to nothing. He was quiet for the moment. Bill knew that wouldn’t last too long.

“Hi Nick,” Danny said, smiling and waving across the carnage of the chessboard.

“How y’doing, Danny-boy?”

“Fine. Were there monsters here when you were a kid, Nick?”

Bill answered for Nick—no telling what he might say.

“Come on now, Danny. You know there’s no such thing as monsters. We’ve been through all the closets again and again. There’s nothing in them but clothes and dust bunnies.”

“But the monsters come after you close the doors!”

“No they don’t. And especially not tonight. Father Cullen is staying here tonight.” Bill knew most of the kids at St. F.’s were in awe of the old priest’s stern visage and no-nonsense manner. “Do you know of any monster—and there aren’t any such things as monsters, but if there were, do you know of any monster that would dare show its face around here with Father Cullen patrolling the halls?”

Danny’s already huge blue eyes grew larger. “No way! He’d scare them right back to where they came from!”

“Right. So you get back to the dorm and into your bed. Now!”

“‘Kay.” Danny hopped off his lap. “But you have to take me back.”

“You got here all by yourself.”

“Yeah, but it’s dark and…” Danny cocked his head and looked up at him with those big blue eyes. “You know…”

Bill had to smile. What a manipulator. He knew only a small part of Danny’s fears were real. The rest seemed to be a product of his hyperactivity. He needed much less sleep than the other kids, so the fantasy of monsters in the closets not only bought him the extra attention he craved, but got him extra time out of the sack as well.

“Okay. Stay put for a minute or two while I talk to Nick here and I’ll walk you back.”

“‘Kay.”

Bill watched as Danny picked up two of the fallen chess pieces and, with all the appropriate sound effects, pretended they were dogfighting jets.

“I can’t imagine why no one has adopted him yet,” Nick said. “If I were married I’d think of taking him in myself.”

“You wouldn’t get him,” Bill said. When he saw Nick’s shocked face he realized he’d been more abrupt than he’d intended. “I mean, Danny’s adoptive parents will have to have special qualities.”

“Oh, really?”

He could tell Nick was a little miffed, maybe even hurt. He hurried to explain.

“Yes. I’m holding out for an older couple who’ve already raised a couple of kids. A young childless couple is definitely out.”

“I don’t get it.”

“How many times have you seen Danny before?”

Bill was keeping a close eye on Danny as he zoomed around the office with his makeshift airplanes. He knew from experience that the boy could dismantle a room in under ten minutes if he wasn’t watched.

“At least a dozen, I’d say.”

“And how long were you with him each time?”

Mimicking the sound of an explosion, Danny rammed the two chess pieces together in a mid-air crash, then let them fall. Before they hit the floor he was on his way toward Bill’s desk.

“I don’t know. A few minutes I guess.”

“Most of which time he was either on his way in and out, or sitting on my knee, right?”

Nick nodded slowly. “I guess so.”

Bill leaned back in his chair and pointed to Danny.

“Watch.”

In a matter of a minute, certainly no more than two, Danny had tipped over and explored the contents of the waste basket, climbed to a standing position on the chair and inspected everything on the desktop, tapped away on the computer keyboard, fiddled with the calculator, drawn on the blotter, opened every drawer and pulled out whatever was in his way, picked up and inspected anything that piqued his interest then dropped it on the floor as soon as something else caught his eye, then crawled into the kneehole and began playing with the plugs on the electric cords under the desk.

“Stay away from the electricity, Danny,” Bill warned. “You know it’s dangerous.”

Without a word Danny rolled out from under the desk and looked around for something else. His eyes lit on Nick’s overstuffed briefcase and he zeroed in on it.

Nick reached it first and snatched it off the floor and onto his lap.

“Sorry, Danny,” he said with a smile and a quick glance at Bill. “This may look like a wastepaper basket, but it’s highly organized. Really.”

Danny veered off in another direction.

“See what I mean?” Bill said.

“You mean he’s like this all day?”

“And most of the night. Nonstop. From the crack of dawn till he collapses from sheer exhaustion.”

“No nap?”

“Never.”

“Was I ever like that?”

“You had your own unique set of problems, but your hyperactivity was exclusively mental.”

“I get pooped just watching him.”

“Right. So you see why I need a pair of experienced parents for Danny. They have to have the patience of Job and they have to go into this with their eyes completely open.”

“No takers?”

Bill shrugged and put a finger to his lips. He didn’t like to discuss the children’s adoption prospects in front of them—no matter how preoccupied they seemed, their ears were usually wide open.

He clapped his hands once and got to his feet.

“Come on, Danny me-boyo. Let’s get you under the covers one last time tonight.”

Nick rose with him, yawning. “I think I’ll be getting on my way too. You’ve still got to drive out to the Island.”

They shook hands.

“Next Saturday?” Bill said.

Nick waved. “Same time, same station.”

“Bye, Nick!” Danny said.

“Bye, kid,” he said to Danny, then winked at Bill. “And good luck!”

“Thanks. See you next week.”

Bill held out his hand to Danny who took it and allowed himself to be led down the long hall to the dorm section. But only for a moment. Soon he was skipping ahead and then scampering back to run circles around Bill.

Bill shook his head in wonder. All that energy. He never ceased to be amazed at Danny’s endless store of it. Where did it come from? And what could Bill do to govern it? Because until it was brought under control, he doubted Danny would find an adoptive home.

Yes, he was a lovable kid. Prospective parents came in, took one look at him—the blond hair, those eyes, that smile—and said that’s the boy we’ve been looking for, that’s the child we’ve always wanted. His hyperactivity would be explained to them but the parents were sure they could handle it—Look at him … it’s worth anything to raise that boy. No problem.

But after Danny’s first weekend visit they all tended to sing a different tune. Suddenly it was, We have to give this some more thought, or, Maybe we’re not ready for this just yet.

Bill didn’t hold it against them. Euphemistically speaking, Danny was a trial. That one little boy required as much attention as ten average children. He’d been examined by a panel of pediatric neurologists, put through batteries of tests, all resulting in no hard findings. He had a non-specific hyperactivity syndrome. The medications they’d tried caused no significant improvement.

So day after day the incessant activity went on. And one after another, Danny simply wore people out.

Which somehow made Bill grow more deeply attached to him. Maybe it was the fact that of all the kids now residing in St. Francis, Danny had been here the longest. Two years. He’d grown from a shy, introverted hyperactive five-year-old survivor of a drug-addict mother who’d accidentally immolated herself while free-basing, into a bright, personable, hyperactive seven-year-old. And it wasn’t so hard taking care of him here at St. F.’s. After many hundreds of residents over its century-plus of existence, the building was as childproof as any place could be. Proof even against Danny Gordon.

But the days of the St. Francis Home for boys were numbered. The Society of Jesus was cutting back—like all the religious orders, the Jesuits were gradually dwindling in membership—and St. F.’s was slated as one of the casualties. The city and other Catholic agencies would fill the void when the place closed its doors in another two or three years. The old orphanage had fewer boys in residence now than at any time in its history.

As he tucked Danny into bed and helped him say his prayers, Bill wondered if he might be getting too attached to the child. Hell, why not admit it: He was already too attached. That was a luxury someone in his position couldn’t afford. He had to put the child’s interests first—always. He couldn’t allow any sort of emotional attachment to influence his decisions. He knew it would hurt when Danny left. And although it might take some time to arrange, adoption was inevitable. He could not forestall that pain at Danny’s expense.

But he was certainly determined to enjoy Danny while he was here. He had grown attached to some of the other boys in years past—Nicky had been the first—but most of them had started out at St. F.’s a few years older. Bill had been watching Danny grow and develop. It was almost like having a son.

“Good night, Danny,” he said from the bedroom door. “And don’t give Father Cullen any trouble, okay?”

“‘Kay. Where you goin’, Father?”

“Going to visit some old folks.”

“Those same old folks you see all the time?”

“The same ones.”

Bill didn’t want to tell him he was making one of his regular trips out to visit his own parents. That would inevitably lead to questions about Danny’s parents.

“When you comin’ back?”

“Tomorrow night, same as ever.”

“‘Kay.”

With that he rolled over and went to sleep.

Bill returned alone to his own room where a half-packed overnight bag waited. If he stepped on it he could probably make it out to Monroe before one a.m.

Monroe, NY

2

As usual, Mom had waited up for him. Bill had told her over and over not to do that but she never listened. Tonight she was swathed in a long flannel robe and had her usual motherly kiss and hug for him.

“David!” she called. “Bill’s here!”

“Let him sleep, Ma.”

“Don’t be silly. We have plenty of time for sleep. Your father would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t wake him when you arrived.”

Dad shuffled into the kitchen, tying his robe around him. They shook hands, Bill noting that his father’s grip was not what it used to be. He seemed slightly more stooped every time he saw him.

The regular ritual followed.

Mom made him and Dad sit down at the kitchen table while she plugged in the Mr. Coffee—all set up, loaded with decaf and water, ready to go. She served them each a piece of pie—cherry this time—and when the coffee was ready, they all sat and talked about “what’s new.”

Which was never much. Bill’s routine at St. F.’s was set so that one day was usually pretty much like every other. Occasionally he could report a successful placement or two, but as a rule it was business as usual.

As for Mom and Dad, they’d never been the types for golf or much socializing, so their existence was sedentary. They went out to dinner twice a week, Tuesdays at the Lighthouse Cafe and Fridays at Memison’s. The only break in their routine was the death of an acquaintance. They always seemed to have a new death or major illness to report. Discussion of the details formed the bulk of their conversation.

Not much of a life as far as Bill was concerned, but they loved and were comfortable with each other, laughed together, and seemed happy enough. And that, after all, was what really counted.

But the house was getting to be too much for them. Mom did all right keeping the indoors clean and neat, but slowly, steadily, the outside had got away from Dad. Bill had tried to convince them to sell, get an apartment closer to downtown where they’d have a fraction of their present maintenance and could walk to the harborfront. Uh-uh. They weren’t having any of that. They’d always lived here and so they would continue to live here and let’s not discuss it anymore.

He loved them dearly but they could be royal pains when it came to this house. Though in a way he couldn’t blame them. The idea of selling the old place and letting someone else live in it didn’t sit too well with him either. The house seemed like an island of stability in a world of flux and flow.

So, since last summer, a couple of times a month, Bill would devote his Sunday off to the upkeep of the three-bedroom ranch that was the Ryan family homestead. Decades at St. F.’s had turned him into a skilled handyman. And now he was almost caught up. By summer he figured he could reduce his maintenance schedule to once a month.

“I think I’ll hit the sack,” he said, pushing himself away from the table.

“But you haven’t finished your pie.”

“Full, Ma,” he said, patting his thickening waist.

He was carrying more weight than he liked. Mom didn’t seem to realize that a man his age did not need cherry pie at one in the morning.

After good-nights, he headed for the bedroom at the far end of the house—his since childhood. He was beat. Without bothering to change out of his sweats, he slipped into the creaky old bed like a tired foot into a well-worn slipper.

3

Bill awoke coughing, with stinging eyes and nose. Either he was having an allergy attack or—

Smoke! Something was burning!

Then he heard the approaching sirens.

Fire!

He jumped out of bed and turned on the lamp but it didn’t work. He pulled the flashlight he’d kept in the nightstand since he was a kid and that did work, but feebly. He stumbled through the white smoke that layered the air of his room and swirled in his wake. His bedroom door was closed. He spotted the smoke eddying in around the edges.

The house was on fire.

Bill grabbed the doorknob—hot … blistering hot—but he ignored the pain and pulled it open. The blast of heat from the hallway threw him back as a torrent of smoke and flame roared into the bedroom. He lurched for the window, yanked it open, and dove through the screen.

Cold fresh air. He gulped it. He rolled onto his back and stared at the house. Flames jetted from his bedroom window with a deafening roar, as if someone had opened the door to a blast furnace.

And then an awful thought tore through his gut and propelled him to his feet.

What about the rest of the house? What about the other end where his parents had their bedroom?

Jesus God oh please let them be all right!

He ran to his right toward the front of the house but froze when he rounded the corner.

The rest of the house was a mass of flame. It gushed from the windows and licked up the walls and climbed toward heaven through holes in the roof.

Dear God no!

Bill dashed forward to where the firemen were setting up their hoses.

“My parents! The Ryans! Did you get them out?”

A fireman turned to him, his expression grim in the flickering golden light.

“We just got here. You really think there might be someone in there?”

“If you haven’t seen an elderly couple out here, then yes, they’re definitely in there!”

The fireman glanced at the blaze, then back at Bill. His eyes said everything.

With a hoarse cry, Bill ran toward the front door. The fireman grabbed his arm but he shook him off. He had to get them out of there! As he neared the house, the heat buffeted him in waves. He’d seen blazing houses on the TV news over the years but film and videotape had never conveyed the true ferocity of a fire once it had the upper hand. He felt as if his skin was going to blister, as if his eyes were going to boil in their sockets. He crossed his arms in front of his face and pushed forward, hoping his hair didn’t burst into flame.

On the front porch he grabbed the brass door handle but winced and let go. Hot. Hotter even than his bedroom doorknob had been. Too hot to grip. And then he cursed as he realized it didn’t matter how hot it was—the door was locked.

He ran around the shrubs toward his parents’ bedroom where flames roared unchallenged from the windows. And yet from within, above the roar, he thought he heard …

… a scream.

He turned to the firemen and let out his own scream.

“In here!” He pointed to the pair of windows that opened into their bedroom. “They’re in here!”

Bill ducked as the fire fighters got the hose going and directed the fat stream directly through the window and into the bedroom.

He heard the scream again. Screams. Two voices now—wailing in agony. His father and mother were in there burning alive!

The fire fighter he had met before ran up to him and began pulling him back.

“Get away from here! You’ll get yourself killed!”

Bill fought him off. “You got to help me get them out of there!”

The fire fighter grabbed Bill’s shoulders and turned him toward the blaze.

“Take a look at that fire! Take a real good look! Nobody can be alive in there!”

“My God, don’t you hear them?”

The fireman stood still a moment, listening. Bill watched his craggy face as he took off his fire hat and cocked an ear toward the house.

He had to hear them! How could he miss those terrified, agonized cries? Each wail tore through Bill like barbed wire across an open wound.

The fireman shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, pal. There’s no one alive in there. Now come on—”

As Bill pulled free of his grasp again, the roof over the bedroom collapsed in an explosion of sparks and flaming embers. The blast of heat knocked Bill off his feet.

And that was when he knew they were gone. He felt his chest constrict around the pain. Mom … Dad … dead. They had to be. The bedroom was a crematorium now. Had been for some time. Nothing could have survived an instant in there.

He didn’t—couldn’t—resist as the fireman dragged him back to safety. He could only shout out his grief and anguished helplessness at the flames, at the night.

FIFTEEN

1

Why?

Bill stood alone beside the double grave under an obscenely bright winter sky. The unfiltered sunlight stung the healing burns on his cheeks, feebly warmed his chest and shoulders, but left his soul untouched. The cold knife of the wind sliced across the bare knolls of Tall Oaks Cemetery, ripping through the thin fabric of his black pants and jacket.

The mourners were gone; the caretakers had yet to arrive. By tradition he should have hosted a gathering at home, but his home was gone. Home was now a tumble of blackened, ice-encrusted timbers.

Why?

Bill had made all the mourners go, practically pushed them away from the graveside. He had wept his tears, had pounded his fists of rage against unyielding walls until they were bruised and swollen, now he wanted to be alone with his folks one last time before the earth was resealed over them.

How alone he felt at this moment. He realized that subconsciously he had taken it for granted that his parents would always be around. Consciously, of course, he had known that their remaining years were numbered in single digits, but he had envisioned them leaving him one at a time, taken off by natural causes. Never in his worst nightmares had he envisioned the possibility of such a … catastrophe. Their sudden departure had left a gaping hole in his life. Even the old ranch house was gone. Where was home now? He felt adrift, as if his anchor had torn loose three days ago and could no longer find purchase.

A long three days—two for the wake, then the Requiem Mass and funeral service itself this morning—full of pain and the sympathy of friends and acquaintances, days in which he’d tried to leaven his grief by telling himself that his parents had led long, happy, productive lives and hadn’t had much time left anyway, and how lucky he’d been to have had them around as long as he had. But none of it worked. Whatever tempering effect that sort of reasoning might have on his almost overwhelming sense of loss was repeatedly blasted away by the insistent memory of the two blackened twisted corpses he had seen removed from the ruins of their bedroom.

Why?

How many times had he offered pat, soothing bromides to a deceased’s mourning family when they turned to him with that same question? He had always avoided perpetuating the nonsense that it was God’s will, that God was “testing” the living, trying their faith. Circumstance, the capriciousness of reality, those were what tested one’s faith. God didn’t have to stick his finger into the soup and squash somebody. Disease, injury, genetic accidents, and the forces of nature were all quite capable of ruining and ending lives without the slightest help from God.

And yet here he was, Father Ryan, asking the same question—one chagrined Father Ryan who realized that he never really had answered the question for others, and now could do no better for himself.

Chief Morgan of the Monroe Fire Company had provided some sort of an explanation, though. He had pulled Bill aside in the rear of Cahill’s Funeral Home during the wake.

“I think we found the cause, Father.”

“Was it arson?”

Bill felt a wave of rage rise in him. He’d been sure the fire had been set. He had no idea who or why, but he couldn’t believe a fire could spread so far so fast on its own.

“No. We had the arson team go over the place. No sign of an accelerant. We think it started in the wiring.”

Bill had been dumbfounded.

“You mean a short circuit could make a house burn like that?”

“Your folks built that house before the war—World War Two. It was a tinderbox. A good thing one of the neighbors called it in or you wouldn’t be standing here.”

“Electrical…?”

“Well, the wiring was as old as the house. Not made for modern appliances. Something gets overheated once too often and then…” He finished the sentence with an elaborate shrug.

But he had said more than enough to leave Bill feeling weak and sick. Even now as he turned away from the grave and began walking aimlessly, the nausea still churned in his gut. He hadn’t mentioned to Chief Morgan that not all the wiring had been old. He’d spent a couple of weekends over the winter rewiring a few of the rooms himself.

My God, did the fire start in one of my junction boxes?

But he’d done the work in January, two months ago. If he’d botched something it would have been apparent before now. The sparks had probably originated in some of the old wiring he hadn’t got around to replacing. Still, Bill was unnerved by the mere possibility that he had contributed to his parents’ horrible deaths.

He stopped and looked around. Where was he? He’d wandered away from the graveside without actually watching where he was going. He remembered walking through a stand of oaks and was now halfway up the rise on another of Tall Oaks’ grave-studded knolls. No upright tombstones at Tall Oaks; everyone got uniform flat granite markers, the implication being that no matter what you were in life, you’re all the same in death. Something about that approach appealed to Bill.

A patch of lush, dark green grass off to his left caught his eye. The grass in Tall Oaks was just beginning to come back from its winter brown, but the green of this one small spot was almost tropical.

Curious, Bill approached it, then stopped in shock. He recognized the grave before he was close enough to read the marker. It belonged to Jim Stevens.

A flood of memories swirled around him, especially of the afternoon he had stood here with Jim’s wife Carol and looked down at this same spot, only then it had been dead grass surrounded by living. The grass over the grave today was so green, so perfectly rectangular, almost as if …

Bill squatted and ran his hands over the emerald blades. Despite the setting, despite the horror and misery of the last three days, he had to smile.

Plastic.

He dug a finger under the edge and lifted. The plastic sod came up, revealing a patch of cold, brown, denuded earth beneath. His smile faded as he realized that even decades later the gardeners at Tall Oaks had been unable to make anything grow over Jim’s grave. He glanced up at the flat granite-and-brass marker.

“What’s the story, Jim?” he said aloud. “What’s going on here?”

No reply, of course, but he felt his heart give a sudden twist as he noticed the dates on Jim’s marker:

JANUARY 6, 1942 - MARCH 10, 1968

March 10 …

Today was March 13—his parents had burned to death three days ago … in the early hours of March 10.

Suddenly the wind through Tall Oaks seemed to blow colder, the sunlight seemed to fade. Bill dropped the corner of the plastic turf and rose to his feet.

As he walked down the slope his mind whirled. What was going on here? Jim Stevens, his best friend, had died violently, horribly on March 10. And now his parents had died just as horribly on the same day.

Coincidence? Of course. But he could not escape the feeling that there was some sort of message there, some sort of warning.

But of what?

He shook off the thought. Superstitious garbage.

He returned to his parents’ grave, said a final prayer over their coffins, then headed toward his car.

2

The boys of St. F.’s were all waiting for him when he returned, swarming like bees around the hive of his office door. He’d been back only once for a few moments since the fire, like a thief in the night, long enough to grab a few changes of clothes before rushing back to Long Island. Father Lesko was letting him bunk in Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow’s rectory for the duration of the wake and funeral. But he was certain the kids all knew what had happened. Especially since so many of them seemed to be having trouble meeting his gaze this morning when he said hello to each of them by name.

What kind of talk had run through these halls last Sunday? He could almost hear it: Hey! Didja hear? Father Bill’s folks got burnt up in a fire last night!… No way!… Yeah! Burnt to a crisp!… Is he comin’ back?… Who knows?

Bill knew.

He would always come back. And he would keep coming back until they closed this place down. No personal loss, no matter how great, would keep him from fulfilling that vow.

Only a few of the boys were smiling. Weren’t they glad to see him?

As he stuck the key into the lock on his office door, Marty Sesta stepped forward from the group. He was one of the oldest boys at St. F.’s, and the biggest. He tended to throw his weight around but he was basically a good kid.

“Here, Father,” he said, his brown eyes averted as he thrust a legal-size envelope at Bill. “Dis is from us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Bill said, taking the envelope.

“Alla us.”

Bill opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of drawing paper, quarter folded. Someone had drawn a sun behind a cloud. Below was a flat green line with some tulip-like flowers sprouting from it. Block-printed words hung in the air: We are sorry about your Mom and Dad, Father Bill.

“Thank you, boys,” Bill managed to say past a steadily constricting throat. He was touched. “This means a lot. I’ll … see you all later, okay?”

They nodded and waved and took off, leaving Bill alone to ponder the incomprehensible wonders of children and what they could wring from a single piece of paper and some crayons. He’d expected a little sympathy from some of them, but never this kind of united display. He was deeply moved.

“Are you sad?” said a familiar small voice.

Bill looked up and saw blond hair and blue eyes. Danny Gordon was standing in his office doorway.

“Hi, Danny. Yes, I’m sad. Very sad.”

“Can I sit with you?”

“Sure.”

Bill dropped into the chair and let Danny hop up onto his lap. And suddenly the dark winter chill that had enshrouded his soul since Sunday morning melted away. The drifting sensation faded. The gaping emptiness within began to fill.

“Are your mommy and daddy in heaven?”

“Yes. I’m sure they are.”

“And they won’t be coming back?”

“No, Danny. They’re gone for good.”

“That means you’re just like us.”

And then it was all clear to him. The touching drawing, the sympathy from the kids. They’d been longtime citizens of the country to which he’d just emigrated. They were welcoming him to a land where no one wanted to be.

“That’s right,” he said softly. “We’re all orphans now, aren’t we.”

As Danny jumped off his lap, unable to confine himself to one location a second longer, Bill felt a sudden oneness with the boy, with all the boys who had passed through the doors of St. F.’s during his tenure. Not mere empathy, more like a merging of souls. The drifting sensation dissipated as his anchor found purchase again.

But he wasn’t entirely without family. He knew that although he was indeed an orphan like the other residents of St. F.’s, he still had the Society of Jesus. Being a Jesuit was like belonging to a family of sorts. The Society was a close-knit brotherhood. Whenever he needed them he knew his brother Jesuits would be there for him. In fact, as a priest, there was no reason why he shouldn’t consider the whole Church as one huge, extended spiritual family. And in that great body of relatives, the residents of the St. Francis Home for Boys could be looked upon as his immediate family.

True, he had lost his parents, but he never would be truly alone as long as he had the Church, the Jesuits, and the boys of St. F.’s. He would always have a home, he’d always belong.

And that was a good feeling.

Bill put the horrors of that night behind him by throwing himself back into the daily routine of running one of New York City’s last surviving Catholic orphanages. He felt he’d already faced and survived the worst that life could offer. What else was left to go wrong? Whatever could go sour had already done so—in spades. Things would be looking up from now on.

And for a while, through much of that spring, his life did indeed seem to chart a steadily upward course.

Then the Loms crossed the threshold of St. F.’s.

SIXTEEN

1

They arrived on a warm Saturday afternoon in early June. They seemed too young to be seeking to adopt a child. Mr. Lom was twenty-seven, his wife, Sara, was twenty-nine.

“Please call me Herb,” said Mr. Lom with a trace of the Southwest in his voice.

He had a round face, thick brown hair receding from his forehead, a thick, stubby mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses. He reminded Bill of Teddy Roosevelt. He half expected him to shout “Bully!” at any moment.

“Herbert Lom…” Bill said, musing aloud. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“There’s an actor with the very same name,” Herb said.

“That’s it.”

Bill remembered him now—Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau had driven him mad.

“No relation, unfortunately.”

“I see. And you want to adopt one of our boys?”

Sara nodded excitedly. “Oh, yes! We want to start a family right away and we want to begin with a boy.”

She was tall, dark, and slim with short, deep brown hair, almost boyish in its cut, and luminous dark eyes. Her drawl was delightful.

Bill had gone over their applications before the interview. The couple had been married only a year; both were native Texans, both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin, although they’d graduated years apart. Herbert worked for one of the big oil companies; he had been transferred to the New York office recently. His salary was impressive. Both were practicing Catholics. Everything looked good.

Only their ages were against them.

Normally Bill would have rejected their application with a gentle explanatory letter advising them to give more time to their decision to adopt a child. But the details of Sara’s social and medical history, combined with the fact that the couple had not limited their request to an infant, prompted Bill to give them a second look.

“You say here that you’re interested in a boy between the ages of one and five,” Bill said.

That had surprised him. As a rule, what young childless couples wanted most was an infant.

They both nodded. Sara said, “Definitely.”

“Why not an infant?”

“We’re realists, Father Ryan,” Herb said. “We know the wait for a white newborn can be seven years. We simply don’t want to wait that long.”

“Plenty of couples do.”

Sara said, “We know. But I’m willing to bet that those couples can occupy themselves with tests and procedures and hopes that they’ll conceive their own child during the waiting period.” She glanced away. “We don’t have that hope.”

Bill glanced at the application again. According to a summary of Sara’s medical history, supplied by a Dr. Renquist in Houston, she had been struck by a car at age eleven and suffered a pelvic fracture with internal bleeding. During exploratory surgery they found a ruptured uterine artery and had to perform a hysterectomy to save her life. The matter-of-fact tone of the summary ignored the emotional impact of that kind of surgery on a child. Bill saw a girl growing through her teenage years as the only one in her crowd who didn’t get her period. A small thing in perspective, but he knew how kids don’t like to feel they’re on the outside looking in—at anything. Even if it involves a monthly mess and discomfort, they want to belong.

But more than that was the inescapable fact that Sara would never have a child of her own. He was moved by the finality of her condition.

“Are you sure you can handle a toddler or a preschooler?”

She smiled. “I’ve had years of on-the-job training.”

Sara’s family history was a definite plus. She was the oldest of six children—and all her siblings were boys. Bill knew that in that sort of family structure, a female first child becomes the second-string mother. Which meant that, although childless, Sara was already well experienced in the art of caring for children.

Bill was impressed with her. Over the years he had developed a sixth sense for adoption applicants. He could tell when a couple wanted a child merely to complete the family portrait, because having a child was expected of them, because everyone else had one, or because it looked good on a resume: married with children.

And then there were the others, the special ones, the women in whom the nurturing drive was so strong that it went beyond instinct and became an imperative. These women could not feel complete, would not be a whole person until they had one, two, three children under their wings.

Sara struck Bill as the latter sort of woman. He wasn’t reading much off Herb—at worst he was a yuppie wannabe—but Sara radiated the need to nurture. It warmed the room.

“Very well,” he said. “I’m satisfied so far that you two have possibilities here. I think St. Francis can help you.”

They beamed at each other.

“Great!” Herb said.

“We’ll run a routine check on your references, of course, but in the meantime, I’ll let you look at some photos of the boys we have residing at St. Francis now. Later on—”

Suddenly Danny Gordon charged through the office. He had a rocket ship in his hand and he was making rocket noises as he roared it into orbit around Bill’s desk.

“Hiya, Father!” he shouted as he passed behind Bill at escape velocity. “You can be the Man in the Moon.”

Bill ran a hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

“You’ll be going on a real trip to the real moon if you don’t get back to the dorm this instant, young man.”

“Back to Earth!” Danny shouted.

As he careened around the desk he came face to face with the Loms.

“Whoa! Aliens!”

Sara turned her dark eyes his way and smiled at him. “What’s your name?”

The boy skidded to a halt and stared at her for a second, then went into orbit around her chair.

“Danny,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Sara.” She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Danny.”

Danny stopped again, this time for a couple of seconds, but he wasn’t still. His feet were tapping and shuffling on the floor as he glanced from Sara’s hand to Bill. Bill nodded, encouraging him to do the polite thing. Finally Danny shrugged and shook her hand.

“How old are you, Danny?” she said, keeping a grip on his hand.

“Seven.”

“Has anyone ever told you what a handsome boy you are?”

“Sure. Lot of times.”

Sara laughed and Bill found the sound delightful, almost musical. And then he noticed something.

Danny was standing still.

Normally by now the boy would have pulled his hand free and been on his way around the room again, racing along the walls and caroming off the furniture. But he was simply standing there talking to her. Even his feet were still.

She asked him questions about rocket ships, about school, about playing, and he answered her. Danny Gordon was standing in one spot and carrying on a conversation. Amazing.

He watched them together for a few more minutes, then broke in.

“Excuse me, Danny, but aren’t you supposed to be tending to your chores in the dorm?”

Danny turned the full power of his big blue eyes on Bill.

“I want to stay here with Sara.”

“I’m glad that you do, and I’m sure Sara wants you to stay as well, but we’re in the middle of some grownup work here and I’m sure there’s some Danny work left to be done back in the dorm. So say good-bye and I’ll see you later.”

Danny turned back to Sara who smiled and gave him a little hug.

“Nice talking to you, Danny.”

Danny stared at her a moment, then walked—walked—out of the office.

As Bill stared after the boy in wonder, Sara turned to him.

“That’s the boy I want.”

Bill shook off his amazement and focused on the young woman.

“He’s seven. I thought you were interested in an under-five child.”

“I thought I was too. But now after seeing Danny I’ve changed my mind.”

Bill glanced at Herb. “How do you feel about an older child?”

“What Sara wants, I want,” he said with a shrug.

“And I want to adopt Danny Gordon.”

“That’s out of the question,” Bill said abruptly.

The statement surprised him. He hadn’t intended to say anything like it. The words seemed to pop out of his mouth.

Herb Lom looked shocked; Sara appeared hurt.

“Why … why is that out of the question?” she said

“Because he’s hyperactive.”

“He looked like a normally active boy to me. And he was charming.”

“What you saw here was an aberration. Believe me, I have it on good authority from a number of specialists. Raising Danny will be a tremendously demanding, full-time job.”

“That’s true of raising any child,” Sara said, looking at him levelly. “And it’s a job I’m qualified to do.”

Bill would not argue with the first statement, and did not want to challenge the second. He tried an end run.

“Let me get out the pictures of the other boys we have here. If you look through them I’m sure you’ll—”

Sara was on her feet, a determined set to her mouth.

“I’m not interested in any other boys. I’m only interested in Danny now.” Her features softened. “I don’t think it’s very fair to let me meet such a lovely child and then tell me I’m not good enough for him.”

“I said nothing of the sort!”

“Then won’t you please reconsider?”

Bill opted to buy himself some time.

“Very well. I’ll think about it. But quite frankly, I do not think Danny should be anyone’s first child.”

“He won’t be,” she said with a sudden sunny smile. “I practically raised my three youngest brothers. And I want to raise Danny Gordon. And with your help I’m going to do just that.”

So saying, she took her husband’s arm and they strode from Bill’s office.

2

“You should have seen him this afternoon, Nick,” Bill said after Danny had rushed in and disrupted their weekly chess game again. “He was a totally different kid.”

Nick Quinn’s eyes followed the blur of motion around the room.

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I kid you not. He shook hands with her and he suddenly became docile. If I believed in magic, that’s what I’d say it was.”

“I’ve heard of people who have that effect on animals.”

Immediately Bill felt himself bristle within. “Danny’s not an animal.”

“Of course he’s not. I was just drawing a parallel.” He scrutinized Bill. “A little touchy, aren’t we?”

“Not at all.” Then he thought about it. He’d been on edge since the Loms had left. Why? “Well, maybe a little.”

“Because someone might adopt him?”

Bill glanced at Nick. He’d grown to be a perceptive son of a B. True, Bill had been wondering whether the prospect of facing St. F.’s without Danny Gordon running around might influence his judgment, but …

“I don’t think that’s it, Nick. It’s possible, of course. After two years with Danny I feel as if we have a blood relationship, and it will cost me a piece of my heart to see him go, but this feels different.”

“You mean like it doesn’t feel right?”

Very perceptive, that Nick.

“Yes. Maybe I do mean just that.”

“Well, you did say you thought he had to go to an older couple. These two don’t sound as if they fit that particular criterion.”

“An older, experienced couple. They don’t fit that either.”

“Then that’s probably why it doesn’t feel right.”

“But Sara says she practically raised her brothers, and I believe her. That would give her credit in the experience column. And if Danny consistently responds to her the way he did this afternoon…”

“Then he wouldn’t be exactly hyperactive anymore, although quite frankly I can’t see anyone slowing that boy down for long.”

“You had to be there.”

Bill called Danny over and sat him on his lap.

“What did you think of that lady you met here today?”

Danny smiled. “She was niiiice.”

“How did you feel when you were holding her hand?”

The smile broadened as Danny’s eyes got a dreamy, faraway look. “Niiiice.”

“Can you tell me anything more?”

“Nope!”

And then he was off and running again.

“I gather she was a niiiice lady,” Nick said with a grin.

Bill shrugged. “Danny’s new word. But I think I’m going to put those two together once more.”

“To see if it happens again? Good move. Reproducibility is an indispensable factor in the scientific method.”

“This is not an experiment, Nick.”

Sometimes, though, Bill wished there were a scientific method for this adoption business. It had its protocols and procedures, checks and evaluations and waiting periods, all sorts of safety measures and protections for both the child and the adoptive parents. Yet plenty of times over the years Bill had found himself operating on instinct, flying by the seat of his pants.

Some instinct within him warned against this match, but he suspected the feeling might be fueled by an emotional attachment to this particular child. Finding a good home for Danny, that was what really mattered. And if this woman had some special rapport with the boy, then he had no right to turn her away.

“I just want to see them together again. Maybe it was some kind of freak accident. But if it wasn’t, if he responds to her that way again…”

“Then maybe you’ve found him a home. But if that comes about, I see another problem.”

“I can let go. I’ve had to do it before.” He’d let Nick go when the Quinns adopted him sixteen years ago. “I’ll do it again.”

“I had no doubts about that,” Nick said. “But you’re going to have to find a way to get him to leave you.”

Bill nodded. He’d already foreseen that problem. He figured he’d solve it when the time came.

3

Bill invited both the Loms back but Sara came alone—Herb was tied up at his office. She arrived the following Tuesday between school dismissal and the dinner hour.

“Have you reconsidered?” she asked brightly as she seated herself in his office.

She wore a white and yellow flower-print sundress that deepened her already dark complexion. Bill wondered if there might be a little Mexican blood mixing with the Texan flowing in her veins.

“I’m in the process of doing so, but I’d like to get into specifics with you about your experience in raising your younger brothers.”

They talked for about half an hour. Bill was impressed with Sara’s easy familiarity with the ins and outs of child rearing. But what came through more strongly than ever was her desire for a child, her need for one.

And then the inevitable occurred: Danny arrived.

He skidded to a halt when he saw her. A big smile, tiny white teeth—

“Hiya, Sara.”

She seemed to glow at the mention of her name.

“You remembered!”

“Course I did. I’m smart.”

“I’ll bet you are! What did you learn in school today?”

Once again Bill watched in amazement as Danny stood calmly before her with his hands clasped behind his back. No hand holding this time; no contact at all. Yet he stood still and answered all her questions, even going so far as to elaborate on his friends and some of the games he liked to play.

And Sara …

Bill saw the light in her eyes, the warmth in her expression as she focused on Danny and made him the center of her world for those moments. He sensed the deep yearning within her and allowed himself the possibility that he had made a match—a miraculous one.

Danny turned to him.

“I like her. She’s niiiice.”

“Yes, Danny. Sara is very nice.”

“Can I live with her?”

The question took Bill by surprise. The title of an old song flashed through his brain: Am I That Easy to Forget? But he ignored the hurt and concentrated on Danny. He had to be very careful here.

“I don’t know, Danny. We’ll have to look into that.”

“Can I pleeease?”

“I don’t know yet, Danny. I’m not saying no and I’m not saying yes. There’s lots of things to be done before we come to that.”

“Can I visit, maybe?”

“We’ll look into that too. But Sara and her husband and I have many things to discuss first. So why don’t you get washed up for dinner and let us get to work.”

“Okay.” Hope shone like a beacon behind his eyes as he turned back to her. “See ya, Sara.”

She gave him a hug, then held him out to arms’ length.

“See ya, Danny.”

He trotted off down the hall.

“I think you’ve made a friend,” Bill told her.

“I think so too,” she said, smiling warmly. Then she gave Bill a level look. “But will that friend be allowed to become my son, Father Ryan?”

“If I’ve learned one thing in this job, Sara, it’s never to make a promise I’m not absolutely sure I can keep—not to the adult applicants, and certainly never to the boys. But we’re off to a good start. Let’s see where we can go from here.”

Her eyes widened, her voice was suddenly small and husky. “You mean you’ve reconsidered?”

When he nodded she lowered her face into her hands and began to sob. The sight of her tears moved Bill and confirmed his growing conviction that he was doing the best thing for Danny.

Only a tiny squeamish part of him remained unconvinced.

SEVENTEEN

1

The reference checks went smoothly. Both Herb and Sara had excellent academic records at the University of Texas, he in accounting, she in early education. Their credit record was excellent. The home inspection was perfect—a two-story center-hall colonial in a quiet residential neighborhood in Astoria where the Loms were active in the local parish. Bill went so far as to call Sara’s old pastor in Houston. Father Geary knew Sara Bainbridge—her maiden name—and remembered her as a sweet, wonderful young woman; Herb came from a wealthy family and wasn’t quite the churchgoer Sara was, but the parish priest considered him a good man.

The whole process went swimmingly. The weekend visits came off without incident, and Danny’s stays were stretched to a week at a time. He loved it. And he loved Sara. He seemed totally taken by her, completely infatuated. He’d still visit Bill’s office on a daily basis, still sit on his lap, still disrupt the Saturday night chess games. But all he talked about was Sara, Sara, Sara. Bill thought she was a fine woman, exceptional even, but God he was getting sick of hearing about her.

By late fall Danny was no longer the same Danny who’d torn around St. F.’s all summer. Slowly, in fits and spurts, Bill had seen a definite change taking place. Over the course of the investigative and processing procedures Bill had noticed a gradual deceleration. Not a slamming on of the brakes; more like a truck whose driver was slowly, systematically downshifting as he progressed from the freeway toward a school traffic zone. The motor was still revving high, but the speed was falling off. The nuns who taught him in second grade said he was much less of a discipline problem these days, and that his lengthened attention span was resulting in improved school work.

Almost miraculous. Almost too good to be true.

And that bothered Bill a little. In his two decades with St. F.’s he’d rarely seen an adoption go so smoothly. And so when he lay in bed at night, alone with the dark, the lack of glitches would wake that nagging little voice and spur it to whisper its nebulous doubts in his ear.

That was why he was almost relieved when the first little glitch reared its head during the week before Christmas.

Herb had been pushing to finalize the adoption by Christmas, his reasoning being that he wanted to usher in the new year with the three of them together as a family. Bill didn’t doubt that, but he had an inkling that with Herb’s background in accounting he was well aware that Danny was good for a full year’s deduction as a dependent if the adoption became official any time before midnight December 31.

Which was okay with Bill. Raising a child in New York City was hellishly expensive and parents deserved any financial break they could get. That wasn’t the glitch.

The glitch was Danny. The boy was having second thoughts.

“But I don’t want to go,” he told Bill one evening during the week before Christmas.

Bill patted his lap. “Why don’t you hop up here and tell me why not?”

“Because I’m scared,” Danny said as he settled into his usual spot.

“Are you scared of Sara?”

“No. She’s niiice.”

“How about Herb? Are you scared of him?”

“No. I’m just scared about leaving here.”

Bill smiled to himself and gave Danny a reassuring hug. He was almost relieved to hear of the boy’s misgivings. They were common, perfectly normal, and expected in Danny’s case. After all, St. F.’s had been his home longer than any other place in his lifetime. The residents and staff were the only family he’d known for two and a half years now. It would be cause for concern if he weren’t suffering a few pangs of separation anxiety.

“Everybody’s a little scared when they leave, Danny. Just like they’re scared when they come here. Remember when Tommy left last week to go live with Mr. and Mrs. Davis? He was scared.”

Danny twisted around to look at him.

“Tommy Lurie? No way! He’s not scared of nothing!”

“Well, he was. But he’s doing fine. Wasn’t he back just yesterday telling everybody how great it was?”

Danny nodded slowly, saying, “Tommy Lurie was afraid?”

“And don’t forget, you’re not moving far away. You can call me whenever you want.”

“Can I come back and visit like Tommy did?”

“Sure can. You’re welcome here any time you want to come and the Loms can bring you. But pretty soon you’ll be so happy and busy with Herb and Sara you’ll forget all about us here at St. F.’s.”

“I’ll never do that.”

“Good. Because we love you too. The Loms love you. Everybody loves you. Because you’re a good kid, Danny.”

That was Bill’s message to all the boys at St. F.’s, most of whom were basket cases in the self-esteem department when they arrived. From the moment they stepped through the front door Bill pounded home his message: You are loved here. You have value. You are important. You’re a good kid.

After a while a fair number of them came to believe they were worth something.

The message was more than mere rote in Danny’s case. Bill was going to miss him terribly. He felt as if he were giving away his own son.

So he sat there with his heart breaking as he held Danny on his lap and told him of all the wonderful times he was going to have with the Loms, of how Bill was going to send a message to Santa Claus to let him know Danny’s new address and make sure he brought Danny lots of extra good stuff for Christmas.

And Danny sat, smiling as he listened.

2

Danny was quiet the rest of the week. But on Christmas Eve, as the final documents were being signed, he began to cry.

“I don’t want to go with her!” he sobbed, tears spilling from his eyes onto his cheeks.

Sara sat by Bill’s desk; the battered valise holding all of Danny’s worldly possessions rested by her feet. Bill glanced up and saw her stricken expression. He turned and squatted next to Danny.

“It’s okay to be a little scared. Remember that talk we had? Remember what I told you about Tommy?”

“I don’t care!” he said, his voice rising in the suddenly silent office. “She’s bad! She’s mean!”

“Come now, Danny. There’s no call for that kind of—”

The boy threw his arms around Bill’s neck and clung to him, trembling.

“She’s going to hurt me!” he screamed. “Don’t make me go! Please don’t make me go! She’s going to hurt me!”

The outburst shocked Bill, but there was no denying Danny’s genuine terror. He was literally quaking with fear.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sara rise to her feet and step toward them. Her eyes were full of hurt.

“I—I don’t understand,” she said.

“Just some last-minute jitters,” Bill told her, trying to assuage the pain he saw in her eyes. “Coupled with an overactive imagination.”

“This seems to be more than just a case of simple jitters.”

Gently, Bill pushed Danny to arms’ length and held him there.

“Danny, listen to me. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. But you must tell me about these terrible things you’re saying. Where did they come from? Who told you these things?”

“No one,” he said, blubbering and sniffling.

“Then how can you say them?”

“Because!”

“Because isn’t good enough, Danny. Where did you get these ideas?”

“Nowhere. I just … know!”

Sara stepped forward. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out and placed her hand on Danny’s head, gently smoothing his perpetually unruly blond cowlick.

“Oh, Danny. I would never hurt you. How can you possibly think such a thing?”

Bill felt Danny stiffen at Sara’s touch, then relax; saw his eyes roll upward for a heartbeat, then focus again. He stopped sobbing.

“You’re going to be my little boy,” Sara was saying in a soothing, almost mesmerizing voice as she stroked his head. “And I’m going to be your mother. And together with Herb the three of us will make a wonderful family.”

Danny smiled.

In that instant Bill was nearly overcome by an almost uncontrollable urge to call the whole thing off, to wrap Danny protectively in his arms, chase the Loms from his office, and never allow them to cross the threshold of St. Francis again.

He buried the impulse. It was just the father-son thing rearing its selfish, possessive head. He had to let go of this boy.

“You’re not really afraid of me, are you, Danny?” Sara cooed.

He turned and looked up at her.

“No. I’m just scared of leaving here.”

“Don’t be afraid, Danny, my dear. It’s supposed to snow tonight, which means tomorrow will be a white Christmas. I promise you this Christmas will be utterly unforgettable.”

Bill felt an unaccountable chill ripple across his shoulders, but he forced himself to let go of Danny and guide him toward Sara. As Danny’s arms went around her hips and Sara’s arms enfolded the boy, Bill felt his throat constrict. He turned away to hide the tears in his eyes.

I have to let go!

3

“I’d better take a raincheck, Nick,” Bill said into the phone. “It’s snowing like crazy.”

Nick’s voice was tinny over the wire, and genuinely annoyed.

“Since when did a little white stuff ever bother you? Either you get yourself over here now or, snow or no snow, I’m coming over there and dragging you back.”

“Really, Nick. I’m good where I am.”

“The Quinns will be hurt if you don’t show up. And besides, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to be alone on Christmas Eve—especially this Christmas Eve.”

He understood and appreciated Nick’s concern. He’d always spent part of Christmas with Mom and Dad. But this year …

“I’m not alone. I’m going to spend it with the boys. Which reminds me that I’ve got to check on them right now. I’ll see you Saturday night. A Merry Christmas to you, and to the Quinns.”

“All right,” Nick said resignedly. “You win. Merry Christmas, Father Bill.”

Bill hung up and walked down the hall to check on the kids. The dormitory was quiet. Excitement had filled these halls all week, rising ever higher with the decorating of the tree, reaching a fever pitch here a couple of hours ago as he’d overseen the hanging of the stockings by the old never-used fireplace in the dining hall downstairs. But all the boys were in bed now and those who weren’t already asleep were trying their best to doze off. Because everybody knew that Santa didn’t come until the whole house was sleeping.

Christmas. Bill’s favorite time of year. Being around the boys that made it so for him. They were so excited this time of year, especially the little ones. The bright eyes, the eager faces, the innocence of their euphoric anticipation. He wished he could bottle it like wine and decant off a little now and then during the year to get him through the times when things got low and slow.

God, he remembered periods since the fire last March when he could have used a couple of bottles of the stuff. Tomorrow was a milestone of sorts, a dread marker along his personal road: the first December 25th in his life when he wouldn’t be able to call his folks and wish them a Merry Christmas.

An aching emptiness expanded in his chest. He missed them, more than he’d ever thought possible. But he’d weather tomorrow. The boys would carry him through.

Satisfied that everyone was asleep or very nearly so, Bill padded downstairs and began unloading the gifts from a locked pantry closet. Most of them had been donated by the local parishioners and wrapped by the sisters who taught the orphans at Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school next door. Good people one and all, pitching in to see that none of the boys went without a couple of presents on Christmas Day.

When the gifts were arranged under the tree Bill stepped back and surveyed the scene: A scraggly-limbed balsam laden with a motley assortment of hand-me-down ornaments and garish blinking lights stood guard over piles of brightly wrapped boxes, each tagged with a boy’s name. He smiled. Bargain-basement decor, to be sure, but the real giving spirit of Christmas was there. It looked as if Santa had risked a hernia on his trip to St. F.’s this year. Bill was beginning to feel a bit of the old Christmas excitement himself, looking forward to tomorrow morning when he’d be standing in this same spot and overseeing the frenzy of paper-tearing as the over-excited boys unwrapped their gifts with trembling hands. He could hardly wait.

He unplugged the tree lights and climbed the stairs. Halfway up he heard his office phone ringing. He ran for it. If this was Nick again—

But it wasn’t. It was Danny. And he was hysterical.

“Father Bill! Father Bill!” he screeched in a high-pitched voice bursting with terror. “You gotta come get me! You gotta get me outta here!”

“Calm down, Danny,” he said, keeping himself calm with an effort. Even though he knew it was just another adjustment terror, the real fear in the boy’s voice was sending his own adrenals into high gear. “Just calm down and talk to me.”

“I can’t talk! He’s gonna kill me!”

“Who? Herb?”

“You gotta come get me, Father! You just gotta!”

“Where’s Sara? Put her on and let me speak to her.”

“No! They don’t know I’m on the phone!”

“Just get Sara—”

“No! Sara’s gone! There ain’t no Sara! He’s gonna kill me!”

“Danny, stop it!”

“Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease!” He broke down into sobs but his words were still intelligible. “Father, Father, Father, I don’t want to die. Please come and get me. Don’t let him kill me. I don’t want to die!”

The fear, misery, and abject terror in Danny’s voice tore at Bill’s heart. He was going to have to abort the adoption, cancel the whole thing. The boy simply was not ready to leave St. F.’s.

“Put Sara on, Danny … Danny?”

The line was dead.

Bill yanked open his file drawer and looked up the Loms’ number. His hand was shaking as he punched it into the phone. A busy signal buzzed in his ear. He hung up and went to dial again, then stopped. If the line was busy, maybe Sara or Herb was trying to call him. If they both kept dialing, neither of them would get through. He sat back and made himself wait. And wait.

The phone didn’t ring.

He forced himself to wait a full fifteen minutes. It seemed like forever. Finally, he’d had it. He snatched up the receiver and dialed their number again.

Still busy. Shit!

Bill slammed the phone down and wandered around his office, walked the halls. Over the course of the next half hour he called the Loms’ number a couple of dozen times, and each time the line was busy. Over and over he told himself there was nothing to worry about. Danny was in no danger. It was just the boy’s imagination, his damned overactive imagination. Sara and Herb would never harm him, never allow anything bad to happen to him. Danny had just worked himself up into a panic and Sara had probably calmed him just as she had this afternoon.

But why couldn’t he get through on the damn phone? An idea struck him and he called the operator. He told her it was an emergency and asked her to break in on the line; she came back and told him there was no one on the line. Nothing but dead air.

Had Danny left it off the hook? That had to be the answer.

But Bill took no comfort in the explanation. He pulled on his coat, grabbed the car keys, and headed for the street. He knew he’d never sleep until he’d actually spoken to Danny and made sure he was all right. Imagined fears were just as frightening as real ones. So no matter how certain he was that Danny was in no danger, he had to be sure that Danny knew it. Then maybe he could rest tonight.

He drove through a beautiful night—snow falling on a gentle slant, the flakes flaring as they passed through the cones of illumination under the street lamps. The sounds of the borough, already subdued because it was Christmas eve, were further muffled by the inch or so of white insulation that had already fallen. A white Christmas.

Bill wished he had time to appreciate the scenery but the inner urgency to reach the Loms’ house overrode the aesthetics of the night.

He guided the old station wagon down the Loms’ street, past snow-capped houses trimmed with strings of varicolored lights, then pulled into the curb before number 735. The house was a two-story colonial dark stone with a big front porch and a garage on the side. The locals called it Menelaus Manor. It had an unsavory history, but what did a house’s history matter? People‘s histories mattered.

The place lay dark before him. No Christmas trim, no lighted windows. As he hurried up the walk to the front door, he noticed how the perfect the layer of snow was unmarred by a single footprint.

He stepped up on the front porch and pressed the doorbell button. He didn’t hear any chime within so he used the brass knocker. Its sound echoed through the silent night. He rapped it again. Twice. Three times.

No answer.

He turned and stared back at the yard. One set of footprints, no tire tracks from the garage. They had to be home.

He saw a woman walking her dog down the quiet street. She stopped and turned his way. Both she and the dog seemed to be staring at him. It gave him the creeps, but not as much as this dark house.

He stepped back off the front porch and looked up at the second story. The house remained silent and unlit.

Bill was worried now. Really worried.

What the hell was going on?

He tried the front doorknob and it turned. The door swung inward. He called out a few hellos but no one answered, so he stepped inside, still calling out.

Standing in the dark foyer, lit only by the glow from the street lamp outside, Bill realized it was as cold inside as out. And the house felt … empty.

A terrible, inescapable sense of dread crept over him.

My God, where are they? What’s happened here?

And then he realized he was not alone. He almost cried out when he glanced to his right and spotted the faintly limned figure sitting in a chair by the living room window.

“Hello?” Bill said, his hand searching for the light switch. “Herb?”

He found the switch and flipped it. Yes … Herb. Sitting square in a straight-backed chair, staring into the air.

“Herb? Are you all right? Where’s Danny? Where’s Sara?”

At the mention of her name, Herb’s head turned to look at Bill but his eyes never seemed to settle on him, never seemed to focus. After a few seconds, he returned to staring into the air.

Bill approached him cautiously. A deep part of him knew something awful had happened here—or possibly was happening still—and screamed to turn and run. But he couldn’t run. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave this place without Danny.

Danny’s voice echoed in his head. He’s gonna kill me!

“Herb, tell me where Danny is. Tell me now, Herb. And tell me you haven’t done anything to him. Tell me, Herb.”

But Herb Lom only stared upward and outward at a corner of the ceiling.

Upstairs … he was staring upstairs. Did that mean anything?

Turning on lights as he moved, flipping every switch he passed, Bill found the staircase and headed for the second floor. Dread clawed at his throat as he called out the only names he could think of.

“Danny? Sara? Danny? Anyone here?”

Again Danny’s voice through the phone. Sara’s gone! There ain’t no Sara!

The only reply was the creaking of the stair treads under his feet and the faint howl from the uncradled telephone receiver on the table in the upper hall.

He stopped and called out again, and this time he heard a reply—a hoarse whisper from the doorway at the top of the stairs. Unintelligible, but definitely a voice. He ran toward the dark rectangle, lunged through it, fumbled along the wall with his hand, found the switch …

… light … a big bedroom … the master bedroom … red … all red … the rug, the walls, the ceiling, the bedspread … didn’t remember it being so red … Danny there … by the wall … naked … his head lolling … so white, so white … on the wall … arms spread … nails … in his palms … in his feet … face so white … and his insides … hanging out …

Bill felt the room lurch as his legs went flaccid under him. His knees slammed on the floor but he barely noticed the pain as he fell forward onto his hands and gripped the sticky red rug, retching.

No! This can’t be!

“Father Bill?”

Bill’s head snapped up. That voice … barely audible …

Danny’s eyes were open, staring at him; his lips were moving, his voice was raw skin dragging through broken glass.

“Father, it hurts.”

Bill forced his legs to work, to propel him across the red room. So much blood. How could one little boy hold so much blood? How could he lose it all and still be alive?

Bill averted his eyes. How could he be so cut up? Who would—?

He’s gonna kill me!

Herb. It must have been Herb. Sitting downstairs in some sort of post-epileptic funk while up here … up here …

And where was Sara?

Sara’s gone! There ain’t no Sara!

The nails. He couldn’t think about Sara now. He had to get the nails out of Danny’s hands and feet. He looked around for some way to remove them but all he saw was a bloody hammer. Bill fixed his eyes on the boy’s bloodless face, his tortured, pleading eyes.

“I’ll get you free, Danny. You just wait here and—” God, what am I saying? “I—I’ll be right back.”

“Father, it hurts so bad!”

Danny began screaming, hoarse, raw-throated wails that chased after Bill, tugging at the very underpinnings of his sanity as he raced downstairs. He pounded into the living room and hauled Herb from his chair. He wanted to tear him in half and he wanted to do it slowly, but that would take time, and he didn’t think Danny had much of that left.

“Tools, fucker! Where are your tools?”

Herb’s unfocused eyes stared past Bill’s shoulder. Bill shoved him back into the chair which flipped backward with Herb in it. He landed in a twisted sprawl on the floor and stayed there.

Bill ransacked the kitchen, found the door to the cellar, and ran down the steps, fearing all the while that somewhere along the way he’d trip over Sara’s remains. He was sure she was dead. He found a toolbox sitting on a dusty workbench. He grabbed it and raced back up to the second floor.

Danny was still screaming. Bill took the biggest set of pliers he could find and began working on the nails, removing the ones from the feet first, then moving up to the hands. As his ghastly white little body slumped to the floor, Danny’s eyes closed and he stopped his hoarse, breathy, barely audible screams. Bill thought he was dead but he couldn’t stop now. He pulled the spread from the double bed and wrapped the boy in it. Then he headed for the street, carrying Danny in his arms, racking his brain for the whereabouts of the nearest hospital.

Halfway to the car Danny opened his eyes and looked up at him and asked a question that shredded Bill’s heart.

“Why didn’t you come, Father Bill?” he said in a voice that was almost gone. “You said you’d come if I called. Why didn’t you come?”

4

The next few hours were a blur, a montage of white streets seen through a fogged windshield, of battling skidding tires, and locking wheels, of bouncing off curbs and near misses with other cars, all to the accompaniment of Danny’s nearly voiceless screaming … arriving at the hospital, one of the emergency room nurses fainting when Bill unfolded the bedspread to reveal Danny’s mutilated body, the ER doctor’s blanching face as he said there was no way his little hospital could give this boy the care he needed … the wild ride in the rear of the ambulance, racing into Brooklyn with lights flashing and sirens howling, skidding to a stop before Downstate Medical Center, the police waiting for them there … all their grim-faced questions as soon as Danny was wheeled away to surgery.

And then came the whippet-thin, chain-smoking detective with yellow stains between his right index and middle fingers, thinning brown hair, intense blue eyes, intense expression, intense posture, everything about him aggressively intense.

5

Renny had got a look at the kid in the ER.

Twenty-plus years on the force and he’d never seen anything even remotely like what had been done to that kid. Turned his stomach upside down and inside out.

And now his chief was on the phone telling him he could pack it in until the day after tomorrow.

“I’m gonna stick with this one, Lieu.”

“Hey, Renny, it’s Christmas Eve,” Lieutenant McCauley said. “Unlax a little. Goldberg’s taking eleven to seven and what the hell is Christmas to Goldberg? Leave it to him.”

No way.

“Tell Goldberg to cover everything else on eleven-to-seven. This one’s mine.”

“Something special about this one, Renny? Something I should know?”

Renny tightened inside. Couldn’t let McCauley know there was anything personal here. Just play the cool, calm professional.

“Uh-uh. Just a child abuse case. A bad one. I think I got all the loose ends within reach. Just want to tie them up good before I call it a night.”

“That could take a while. How’s Joanne gonna handle that?”

“She’ll understand.” Joanne always understood.

“Okay. You change your mind and want to pack it in early, let Goldberg know.”

“Right, Lieu. Thanks. And Merry Christmas.”

“Same to you, Renny.”

Detective Sergeant Augustino hung up and headed for the doctor’s lounge he had commandeered. That was where they were holding the guy who’d brought the kid in. He said his name was Ryan, claimed he was a priest but had no ID and the sweatsuit he was wearing didn’t have a Roman collar.

Renny thought about the kid. Hard to think about much else. They didn’t know anything about him except what the so-called priest had told him: His name was Danny Gordon, he was seven years old, and until this afternoon he’d been a resident of St. Francis Home for Boys.

St. Francis … that had grabbed Renny. The kid was an orphan from St. F.’s and someone had cut him up bad.

That was all Renny had to hear to make this case real personal.

He’d left a uniform named Kolarcik on guard outside the lounge. Kolarcik was on the walkie-talkie as Renny approached in the hallway.

“They picked up the guy in the house,” Kolarcik said, thrusting the handset toward Renny. “Everything there’s pretty much like Father Ryan described it.”

We don’t know for sure he’s a priest yet, Renny wanted to say but skipped it.

“You mean the guy was just sitting there waiting to be picked up?”

“They say he looks like he’s in some sort of trance or something. They’re gonna take him down to the precinct house and—”

“Bring him here,” Renny said. “Tell those guys to bring him here and nowhere else. I want to get a full medical on this guy while he’s fresh … just to make sure he’s not suffering from any unapparent injuries.”

Kolarcik smiled. “Right.”

Renny was glad to see that this particular uniform was on his wavelength. No way that fucker in Queens was going to take a walk on a psycho plea, not if Renny had anything to say about it.

He opened the door to the lounge and took a look at the guy who said he was a priest. Big, clean cut, square jaw, thick brown hair, wide shoulders. Good-looking guy, but at the moment he looked crushed by fatigue and pretty well frayed on all his edges. He sat hunched forward on the sagging sofa, a cup of Downstate’s bitter, overheated coffee clasped in his hands. His fingers trembled as he rubbed his palms against the cup, as if trying to draw warmth from the steaming liquid on the other side of the Styrofoam. Fat chance.

“You connected with St. Francis?” Renny said.

The guy jumped, like his thoughts had been a thousand miles away. He glanced at Renny, then away.

“For the tenth time, yes.”

Renny took a chair opposite him and lit up a cigarette.

“What order you from?”

“The Society of Jesus.”

“I thought the Jesuits ran St. Francis.”

“Same thing.”

Renny smiled. “I knew that.”

The guy didn’t smile back. “Any word on Danny?”

“Still in surgery. Ever hear of Father Ed? Used to be at St. Francis.”

“Ed Dougherty? I met him once. At St. F.’s Centennial. He’s gone now.”

The guy had said the magic words: St. F.’s. Only someone who’d lived there called it St. F.’s.

Okay. So probably he really was Father William Ryan, S.J., but that didn’t absolutely mean that he had nothing to do with what had happened to that kid. Lots of bent priests around.

“Look, Detective Angostino, can we make small talk later?”

“It’s Augustino, and there’s no small talk and no later in something like this.”

“I’ve told you, it was Herb. The husband. Herbert Lom. He’s the one. You should be out—”

“We’ve got him. We’re bringing him down here for a check-up.”

“Here?” Ryan’s fatigue seemed to drop away from him in an instant. His eyes came to blazing life. “Here? Give me a few minutes alone with him in this little room. Just five minutes. Two.” The Styrofoam cup suddenly collapsed in his hand, spilling hot coffee all over him. He barely seemed to notice. “Just one lousy minute!”

Okay. So the priest was either a great actor or had nothing to do with hurting the kid.

“I want you to tell me the whole story,” Renny said.

“I’ve done that twice already.” The fatigue was back in Ryan’s voice. “Three times.”

“Yeah, but to other people, not to me. Not directly. I want to hear it myself, from you to me. Right from the moment these people stepped into St. F.’s until you arrived here in the ambulance. The whole thing. Don’t leave anything out.”

So Father Ryan began to talk and Renny listened, just listened, interrupting only for clarifications.

None of it made much sense.

“You mean to tell me,” he said when the priest had finished, “that they had this kid in their home for weekends, whole weeks at a time, and never laid a finger on him?”

“Treated him like a king, according to Danny.”

“And then as soon as the adoption is official, the guy slices the kid up. What’s the story there? What’s it mean?”

“It means I screwed up, that’s what it means!”

Renny saw the tortured look in Father Ryan’s eyes and felt for him. This guy was hurting.

“You did all the routine checks?”

The priest jumped up from the sofa and began pacing the length of the small room, rubbing his hands together as he moved back and forth.

“That and more. Sara and Herb Lom came up as white as that snow falling outside. But it wasn’t enough, was it?”

“Speaking of this Sara—any idea where she is?”

“Probably dead, her body hidden somewhere back at that house. Damn! How could I let this happen?”

Renny noticed that he wasn’t passing the buck, wasn’t blaming anyone but himself. Here was one of the good guys. Weren’t too many of those around.

“No system is perfect,” Renny said in what he knew was a pretty lame attempt to console the poor guy.

The priest looked at him, sat back down on the sofa, and buried his face in his hands. But he didn’t cry. They sat that way in silence for a while until a doctor in surgical scrubs barged in. He was graying, in his fifties, probably robust looking when he hit the golf course, but he was pasty faced and sweaty now. Looked like he’d been on a week-long bender.

“I’m looking for the man who brought Daniel Gordon in. Which one of you—?”

Father Ryan suddenly was on his feet again, in the doctor’s face. “That’s me! Is he all right? Did he pull through?”

The doctor sat down and ran a hand over his face. Renny noticed that it was shaking.

“I’ve never seen anything like that boy.”

“Neither has anyone!” the priest shouted. “But is he going to live?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t mean his injuries. I’ve seen people mangled in car wrecks worse than that. What I mean is he should be dead. He should have been dead when he was wheeled in here.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t,” Ryan said, “so what’s the point of—?”

“The point is that he lost too much blood to have survived. You found him. Was there much blood there?”

“All over. I remember thinking that I never knew the human body could hold so much blood.”

“That was a good thought. Was he bleeding when you found him?”

“Uh, no. I didn’t think about it then, but now that I look back … no. He wasn’t bleeding. I guess he’d just run out of blood.”

“Bingo!” said the doctor. “Exactly what happened. He ran out of blood. Do you hear what I’m saying: There was no blood in that boy’s body when he got here! He was dead!”

Renny felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten. This doc was sounding crazy. Maybe he’d been on that bender after all.

“But he was conscious!” Ryan said. “Screaming!”

The doctor nodded. “I know. And he remained conscious through the entire operation.”

“Jesus!”

Renny felt like someone had just driven a fist into his gut.

Father Ryan dropped back onto the sofa.

“We couldn’t find any veins,” the doctor said, talking to the air. “They were all flat and empty. You see that in hypovolemic shock, but the child wasn’t in shock. He was awake, screaming in pain. So I did a cut-down, found a vein, and canulated it. Tried to draw a blood sample for typing but it was dry. So we started running dextrose and saline in as fast as it would go and took him upstairs to start suturing him up. That was when the real craziness started.”

The doc paused and Renny saw a look on his face that he’d occasionally seen on older cops, thirty-year men who thought they’d seen everything, thought they were beyond being shocked, and then learned the hard way that this city never revealed the full breadth of its underside; it always held something in reserve for the wise guy who thought he’d seen it all. This doc probably had thought he’d seen it all. Now he knew he hadn’t.

“He wouldn’t go under. Hal Levinson’s been my anesthesiologist for twenty years. He’s one of the best. Maybe the best. He tried everything he had—from pentathol to Halothane to Ketamine and back and nothing would put that kid under. Even a high-level spinal block wouldn’t dent him. Nothing worked.” His voice began to rise. “You get that? Nothing worked!”

“So—so you didn’t … operate?”

The doc’s expression became even bleaker.

“Oh, I ‘operated.’ I went into that kid and put everything in his belly back the way it was supposed to be, then I closed him up. And I closed up the holes in his hands and feet too. And he jerked and writhed with every suture and so we had to tie him down. Yeah, he’s all back together. He’s up in Recovery now but I don’t know why. He doesn’t need to recover from the anesthesia because none of it took. He’s got no blood and I can’t give him any because we can’t get a sample to type. He should be dead but he’s up there screaming with pain but making no sound because his vocal cords are shot to hell from all the screaming he’s already done.”

Renny watched in shock as tears began to form in the doctor’s eyes.

“I sewed him up but I know he’s not going to heal. He’s in pain and I can’t stop it. The only thing that’s going to help that child is dying and he’s not doing it. Who is he? Where did he come from? What happened to him? Are there any medical records on him anywhere?”

Ryan snapped his fingers. “Here! He had a full neurological work-up right here just last year—through the child study team.”

The doc dragged himself wearily to his feet. His expression was even bleaker than before.

“You mean I’m going to find this kid in medical records? That means he really exists and this isn’t just a nightmare?” He sighed heavily. “Maybe they typed his blood.”

As he turned to leave, Ryan grabbed his arm.

“Can I see him?”

The doc shook his head. “Not now. Maybe later. After I see if I can get some blood into him.”

As he stepped out the door, Kolarcik stepped in.

“They just brought in the guy from the house.”

“Lom!” The priest leaped forward. “Let me—”

Renny put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. Gently.

“You stay put for now, Father. I’ll want you to ID him, otherwise you stay here.”

“If he looks like Teddy Roosevelt, you’ve got him. But tell me something. Am I under arrest?”

“No. But you’re up to your neck in this, so for everybody’s sake, stay put.”

“Don’t worry about that. As long as Danny’s here, I’m here.”

Renny had no trouble believing that.

6

The handcuffs spoiled the picture, but this guy Herbert Lom really did look like Teddy Roosevelt. Only the glasses were missing. And he was either completely whacked or was putting on the best damn show Renny had ever seen.

Renny seated himself opposite Lom. The guy’s eyes were focused somewhere off in space, like on Mars maybe.

“Your name is Lom? Herbert Lom?”

“Don’t waste your breath, Sarge,” said the uniform who had brought him in, a cocky brat named Havens. “No one could get a word out of him over at the station. His wallet says he’s Lom, though.”

“Were you at the house?”

“Nah. Wasn’t my shift.”

“Anybody tell you about the scene?”

Havens shrugged. “Said the upstairs bedroom was practically painted with blood.”

Just like Father Ryan had said. Renny gave Lom’s clothes a careful visual going over.

“These the clothes he was wearing when they found him?”

“Yeah. You don’t think we changed him, do you?”

Havens’s mouth was going to buy him big trouble someday, but not from Renny. Not tonight. He was too concerned with why there was no blood on Lom’s clothes or hands.

“Forensics go over him?”

“Yeah. Scraped his fingernails, vacuumed his clothes, the works.”

“He’s been Miranda’d?”

“About three times, in front of witnesses.”

“And he hasn’t asked for an attorney?”

“He hasn’t even asked to take a pee. He don’t speak and don’t do a goddamn thing you tell him to, but watch this.”

The cop pulled Lom to his feet and he stood there without moving. He pushed him back into the chair and he stayed seated. He got Lom up on his feet again and pulled him forward. After a couple of stumbling steps he began to walk in a straight line. The cop let him go and he kept on walking, right into a wall. Then he stopped walking and stood with his face against the wall.

“Guy’s a fucking robot.”

Renny didn’t argue. He had Kolarcik bring Father Ryan down from the doctor’s lounge.

“This him?”

Father Ryan’s gentle features twisted into a snarl.

“You filthy—!”

He lunged for Lom’s throat and it took everything Kolarcik and the other uniform had to hold him back. Lom didn’t even flinch.

The cop was right: Lom was like a fucking robot.

“I’ll put that down as a positive ID,” Renny said. “In the meantime, Father, would you mind returning to the lounge?”

As the priest was led away, Renny turned to the uniform.

“Take our friend down to the Emergency Room and have them give him the once-over. I don’t want anyone saying we didn’t see to his medical needs while he was in custody.”

He glanced at his watch. Two a.m. Christmas already. And he hadn’t called Joanne yet. There’d be hell to pay for that.

He hurried to a phone.

7

The ER doc caught up to Renny in the hall about half an hour later.

“Hey, Lieutenant—”

“It’s Sergeant.”

“Okay—Sergeant. Where the hell did you find that guy?”

This doc was young, in his thirties, had long dark hair, an earring on the right, and a neat beard. Looked like a rabbi. The nametag on his white coat said A. Stein, M.D.

“Lom? We’ve got him for attempted murder. Maybe murder too, if we ever find his wife. So … why are you shaking your head?”

“There’s no way your Mr. Lom is going to stand trial for anything.”

Renny’s stomach gave a lurch at the note of finality in Stein’s voice.

“He died?”

“Might as well have. He’s as good as brain dead.”

“Bullshit! He’s faking it, acting like he’s got that disease, cata—cata-something.”

“Catatonia. But he’s not catatonic. And he’s not faking. You can’t fake what he’s got.”

“So what’s he got?”

Stein scratched his beard. “I’m not sure yet. But I’ll tell you one thing: His neurological exam puts him on a level somewhere between an earthworm and a turnip.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Renny said acidly. “You’ve been a big help. Now find me a specialist, one who knows that a guy who walks around ain’t brain dead. Maybe then I can get a real exam done.”

Stein’s reddening face told Renny he’d scored with that one. Stein grabbed him by the arm.

“Okay, Sergeant Wise-ass. You come with me. I want to show you a few things.”

Renny accompanied him to a curtained-off cubicle in a rear corner of the ER where Herbert Lom lay on a gurney. Alone.

“Where’s Havens?”

“The cop? I sent him for coffee.”

That pissed Renny off. “You left a suspect here alone?”

“Mr. Lom’s not going anywhere.” Stein pulled a penlight from his coat pocket and stepped around to the far side of the gurney. “Come on over here and take a look at this.”

Renny stepped closer and stared down at Lom’s impassive face.

“Look at his pupils. Look how wide they are?” Stein flashed the beam of his penlight into each eye, back and forth, one then the other. “See any change in them?”

The pupils didn’t move a hair.

“Fixed and dilated,” Stein said. “Now watch this.”

He touched his finger to Lom’s left eyeball. Renny flinched but Lom didn’t. He didn’t even blink.

“You don’t need a medical degree to know that’s not normal,” Stein said. “Now check this out. Watch his eyes.”

He grabbed Lom’s head with both hands, one at the chin and one at the crown, and rotated it back and forth a few times, then moved it up and down like a nodding marionette. Lom’s eyes never moved in his head; his gaze remained fixed straight ahead, staring whichever way he was turned.

“We call that ‘doll’s eyes.’ It means his brain’s in deep shit. He’s got no higher brain function—nothing above the brainstem, if that much. He’s a turnip.”

Renny already knew the answer, but had to ask: “And he couldn’t be faking it?”

“No way.”

“How about drugs? What’d the blood tests show?”

Stein looked away. “We didn’t do any.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve got a guy you’re calling brain dead and you haven’t checked to see if he’s full of H or blow or ice?”

“We couldn’t get any blood out of him,” Stein said, still looking away.

An icy-fingered hand began a slow walk down Renny’s spine.

“Oh, shit. Not another one!”

“You know about the kid too?” Stein was looking at him now. “I guess everybody in the hospital’s heard. What the hell’s going on, Sergeant? Somebody brings in a bloodless mutilated kid who can’t be anesthetized, and you cops bring in this … this zombie with no pulse, no blood pressure, no heartbeat, yet he sits, stands, and walks. I couldn’t find any blood anywhere in him—I even stuck his femoral artery, or at least where I thought his femoral artery should be. We cathed his bladder for urine but wound up with a dry tap. This is getting scary!”

“Maybe he’s brain damaged,” Renny said, shaking off the chill. He’d heard enough Twilight Zone bullshit for one night. “Can’t you x-ray his head or something?”

Stein brightened.

“We can do better than that. We can get an MR—and we can get it stat.”

Renny stayed with the inanimate, staring Lom while Stein rushed off to set up the study.

“You’re not fooling me, pal,” he whispered as he leaned over him. “I’m going to break up your little game and see you pay for what you did to that kid.”

Renny almost jumped back when Lom’s mouth twisted into a toothy grin.

8

Renny was still shaky as he sat outside the Magnetic Resonance Imaging room. Lom’s grin had lasted only an instant before collapsing back into the slack expression he’d worn all night, but that had been long enough to convince Renny that he had a supreme con artist on his hands here.

Which was just great. As if this case weren’t already twisted enough, he had to have some Houdini-type trance artist as a prime suspect.

Stein came down the hall and dropped into the seat next to him. He was carrying a pair of x-ray films. He didn’t look so good but he managed a smile.

“Standing guard?”

“Actually, I’m sitting.”

Renny had stationed himself here when Lom was wheeled in and he’d sit here until he was wheeled out again. Only one way in or out of Magnetic Imaging and this was it. He was here to see to it personally that Lom didn’t pull anything cute—like a disappearing act. Renny would have been inside, right next to the MR machine, except that they’d wanted him to remove anything that contained any iron and leave it outside. Something about a magnetic field or something. That meant stripping off his pistol and his badge; they’d even told him he’d have to leave his wallet outside because the field around the MR machine would scramble the magnetic strips on his credit cards.

Sounded like Star Trek stuff to Renny, but he wasn’t going anywhere around Lom unless he was fully armed. So he’d camped outside.

“I’m telling you, Sergeant, Mr. Lom is not going to take a walk. Anywhere.”

“And I’m telling you he grinned at me. He’s playing you for a sucker, Doc.”

“Uh-uh. That was a random muscle twitch.”

Renny was about to suggest another muscle Stein could twitch when the MR technician stuck his head out the door.

“Yo! Doctor Stein. We got ourselves a little problem in here.”

Renny was on his feet, reaching for his Glock. Knew it!

“Where is he? What’s he doing?”

The tech was a skinny black guy sporting short dreadlocks. He looked at Renny as if he was nuts.

“Who? The patient? He ain’t doing nothin’, man. Be cool. It’s the computer. It’s puttin’ out some weird shit.”

As Stein followed the tech into the control room he glanced back over his shoulder at Renny.

“Coming?”

Renny was about to tell him that he’d already seen enough weird shit for one night, then decided that a little more wouldn’t make much difference.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

He followed them to the control console with its rows of monitors. He watched Stein lean forward and stare at one of the screens, saw his face go slack and fade to the color of the eggshell wallpaper behind him.

“You’re kidding, right?” Stein said. “This is bullshit, Jordan. If you think this is funny—”

“What’s wrong?” Renny said.

“Hey, man,” the tech told Stein. “If I could make it show that kinda shit just for fun, you think I’d be workin’ this shift?”

“What the hell’s wrong?” Renny demanded.

Stein sagged into the chair before the console.

“That’s Mr. Lom’s head,” he said, pointing to the screen before him. “A side view. A sagittal cut through the center of his head and neck, top to bottom, right between his nostrils.”

Renny could see that. The nose was toward the right side of the screen, the back of the head toward the left.

“Looks like one of those sinus medicine commercials.”

Stein laughed. The sound had a slightly hysterical edge to it. “Yeah. And his sinuses look fine. But something’s missing.”

“What?”

Stein tapped the screen with the eraser end of a pencil, indicating the big empty space behind the nose and sinuses.

“There’s supposed to be a brain here.”

That cold hand did an encore down Renny’s spine; this time it was dancing.

“And there’s not?”

“Not according to this. No sign of a spinal cord either.”

“Then your machine’s fucked up! He’d—he’d be dead!”

“Tell me about it.” Stein turned to the technician. “Slide him farther in and get the chest cavity.”

The tech nodded and threw some switches. Before too long, an empty circle lit on the screen.

Jordan the technician said, “Shit, man! Where’s his lungs? Where’s his fucking heart?”

“That’s what I said when I saw these.” Stein handed Jordan the x-rays he’d been carrying. “I was trying to tell myself they’d pushed the tube too high but I didn’t really believe it.”

“Shit!” Jordan said as he held the x-rays up to the recessed fluorescents overhead.

“What’s wrong?”

Renny knew he sounded like a broken record but found himself unable to say anything else. He was completely in the dark here.

Jordan held the films up for him. Renny had no idea what he was supposed to see.

“What?”

“Empty, man,” he said. “The guy’s whole chest is fucking empty!”

Renny was starting to feel a little sick.

“Aw, come on!”

“He’s not kidding,” Stein said. “Just for the hell of it, Jordan, let’s get a look at the abdomen.”

Jordan did some more fiddling at the console and soon another image filled the screen. Stein stared at it, then rotated his chair to face Renny. He wore a crazy smile and his eyes looked as if they were receding toward the back of his head.

“He’s hollow! No brain, no heart, no lungs, no liver, no intestines! He’s completely hollow! A walking shell!” He got this thousand-mile stare. “‘We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men…’”

He started to laugh and Renny found that almost as frightening as what he was saying.

“Hey, easy, Doc.”

“Easy my ass! We’re talking about some sort of zombie here! It can’t be! It’s crazy! It can’t fucking be!”

The monitoring room was silent as the three of them sat and stared at each other.

“What we gonna do with this guy?” Jordan said.

“He’s a murder-one suspect,” Renny said.

Jordan smiled. “Try him and fry him.”

“Not in this state anymore. Besides, with all the bullshit that’s going down here tonight, he might walk.”

The thought of that twisted Renny’s insides. Nobody should get off on a head-case plea after what he did to that kid.

“He’s not walking anywhere tonight,” Stein said. He turned to Jordan. “Wheel him out of there. I’m taking him back to the ER and no one—” He glared at Renny. “No one is moving him anywhere else until I’ve got plenty of witnesses to what’s going down here.”

As long as Lom remained in custody, Renny didn’t care where he was kept. And when all this was over, maybe a few questions would get answered.

Like where was Mrs. Lom?

9

The waiting was killing Bill. The waiting and the incredible story Danny’s surgeon had told. No blood? No anesthesia? Awake during the surgery? Feeling everything? How could that be?

He shuddered. What was happening here? This kind of brutal crime wasn’t supposed to make sense, but what had been done to Danny—what was still being done to him, apparently—went beyond madness into—what? The supernatural?

Poor Danny! God, he wanted to see him, be with him, find some way to comfort him. Only one thing restrained him from making a scene and demanding, as his legal guardian—some guardian!—to be taken to him. The last words Danny had spoken to him in that almost-gone voice still echoed in his mind. Each syllable drove a nail into a different corner of his skull.

Why didn’t you come, Father Bill? You said you’d come if I called. Why didn’t you come?

“I did come, Danny!” he said aloud around the sob crammed into his throat. “I did! I just came too late!”

And then the phone rang. One ring that wouldn’t stop. He’d never heard a phone ring like that. Was that the way hospital phones worked? On and on it went. Bill looked around, wishing someone would answer it. But he was alone in the doctors’ lounge, as he had been all night.

And then it occurred to him that maybe it was for him. Maybe Danny was out of Recovery and they wanted him upstairs. But wouldn’t they tell the cop outside first?

No matter. He had to stop that ringing. He crossed the room and lifted the receiver.

“Doctors’ lounge.”

He heard a child on the line, a small boy, his voice pitched somewhere between a scream and a sob. Bill recognized it immediately.

Danny’s voice.

“Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father, I don’t want to die. Please come and get me. Don’t let him kill me. I don’t want to die!”

“Danny?” Bill’s voice rose to a shout. “Danny, where are you?”

The voice started again.

“Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father, I don’t want to die. Please come and get me…”

Bill tore the receiver away from his ear. The horror of the call was submerged in an overwhelming sense of deja vu. And then he remembered that this wasn’t the first time for this call. Danny had cried and screamed those same words last night when he’d called from the Loms’ house. His last words just before the phone went dead. His last words …

… just before Herb had—

Bill couldn’t finish the thought. He slammed down the phone and headed for the door to the hall. Some sick bastard had recorded the call and was playing it back. Someone in the hospital. That could only be one person.

The cop named Kolarcik was sitting outside. He jumped to his feet as Bill stepped out in the hall.

“Whoa, Father! You can’t leave the lounge, not until the sarge says so.”

“Then find him! I want to go see Danny! Now!”

As the cop fumbled for his walkie-talkie he glanced up the hall.

“Hey, here he comes now.”

Bill saw Sergeant Augustino and two other men, one white, one black, wheeling a fourth down the hall on a gurney. Their expressions were grim and their eyes held a strange look. As he started toward them Bill wondered what could have happened to make all three men look so strained.

“Sergeant, I want to—”

And then he saw who was on the gurney—the filthy, perverted son of a bitch who’d mutilated Danny.

Herb Lom.

Rage like a cold black flame blasted through him, igniting him, consuming him, propelling him out of control. Bill just wanted to get his hands on Lom. He lunged forward.

“You bastard!”

He heard shouts, cries of surprise and warning, but they might as well have been coming from the moon. Kolarcik, Augustino, the two men with him had disappeared as far as Bill was concerned, leaving only him, the hallway, and Lom. And Bill knew just what he was going to do: Yank Lom from the gurney, pull him to his feet, and slam him against the nearest wall; and when he’d bounced off that wall he’d fling him across the corridor against the opposite wall, and then he’d do it again and again until there was nothing left of either the walls or Herb Lom, whichever came first. Somehow, it was a beautiful thought.

With his fingers hooked into claws he brushed off the hands that tried to stop him and dove at Lom, reaching for the front of his mint green hospital gown. His hands slammed down against Lom’s chest—

—and kept on going.

With a sickening crunch Lom’s chest cavity gave way like weak plaster and Bill’s hands sank to their wrists into the man’s chest cavity.

And good God it was cold in there! Far colder than ice … and empty!

Bill yanked out his hands and backpedaled until he hit the wall where he stood and stared at Herb Lom’s chest, at the concavity in his hospital gown that dipped deep into it. He glanced around at Sergeant Augustino and the two men with him. They too were staring at Lom’s chest.

“My God!” Bill said. His hands were numb, still aching with the cold.

Kolarcik skidded to a halt beside him and gaped at the gurney, gasping.

“Father! What did you do?”

And then Lom’s body started to shake. Little tremors at first, as if he had a chill. But instead of subsiding they became steadily more pronounced, growing until his whole body was spasming, shaking, convulsing so violently that the gurney began to rattle.

Then Lom seemed to collapse.

Bill noticed it first in his chest wall. The depression in the hospital gown began to widen as more of the green material fell into his chest cavity like Florida real estate dropping into a giant sinkhole. Then the rest of his body began to flatten under the gown—his pelvis, legs, arms. They all seemed to be melting away.

Good Lord, they were melting away! A thick brown fluid began to run out from under the gown and drip off the edges of the gurney. It steamed in the air of the hospital corridor. The stench was awful.

As he turned away, gagging, Bill saw Lom’s head collapse into a mahogany puddle on the pillow and begin to stream toward the floor.

EIGHTEEN

1

Three days in hell.

That poor kid had spent the three days since Christmas Eve in unremitting agony, writhing and turning in his bed. His voice was gone but his open mouth, tight-squeezed eyes, and white, twisted features told the whole story of what he was feeling.

A story Renny could not bear to hear. And though he came by the hospital often he could not bring himself to enter that room more than once a day, or stay more than a moment or two.

But the priest, Bill Ryan—Father Bill as Renny had come to think of him—he stuck by the kid’s side, sitting by the bed like some guardian angel, holding his hand, talking and reading and praying into ears that weren’t listening.

“They say his mind’s gone,” Father Bill told Renny and Nick on the morning of the fourth day.

This fellow Nick was some sort of scientific professor at Columbia and homely as all hell. He’d been in and out, hanging with the priest since Christmas night. Renny learned that the prof was a former St. F.’s orphan too. Good to see an orphan kid go from nothing to being a hotshot scientist. And seeing as they had St. F.’s in common, the prof was all right in Renny’s book.

The three of them were sipping coffee in the parent lounge of the pediatric wing where Danny had one of the few private rooms. Late morning sunlight poured in through the wide picture windows and glared off the remnants of the Christmas snow on the rooftops around them, warming the room until the heat was almost stifling.

“I’m not surprised,” Nick said. “And your mind’ll be gone soon as well if you don’t get some rest.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“He’s right, Father,” Renny said. “You’re heading for a breakdown at about ninety miles an hour. You can’t keep going like this.”

The priest shrugged. “I can always catch up. But Danny … who knows how much time he’s got left?”

Renny wondered how much time Father Bill had left before he collapsed. He looked like hell. His eyes were sunken halfway into his head, his hair was a rat’s nest from running his hands through it every couple of minutes, and he needed a shave. He looked like an escapee from the drunk tank.

And Renny was feeling like one. He hadn’t had much sleep himself. Seemed like he’d been on a treadmill since Christmas Eve, which wasn’t sitting well at all with Joanne. Bad enough he’d missed Christmas morning—good thing they didn’t have any kids or he’d really be in the doghouse—but he’d also missed Christmas dinner at his in-laws. Not that he didn’t like his in-laws—they were okay folks; just that he was in deep shit with the department. A suspect in an attempted murder case had been transferred to him at Downstate, and a few hours later all he had in custody was a pile of stinking goo.

Renny’s stomach gave a little heave at the memory. Over the past three days he had endlessly replayed the scene in the corridor in his mind, but no number of viewings could add any sense or reason to what had happened. One moment he had a human suspect, the next he had some lumpy brown liquid. Thank God there’d been witnesses else no one would have believed him. Hell, he’d been there and had seen the whole thing and still didn’t quite believe it himself.

And no matter who he talked to he couldn’t get an explanation. None of the docs in this entire medical center could make any sense out of the MR images or the chest x-ray, or what had finally happened to Lom’s body. In fact there seemed to be a kind of doublethink going on. Since they couldn’t explain it, they were sweeping it under their mental rugs. He’d overheard one of the medical bigwigs saying something like: Well, since what they say happened is obviously impossible, their memories of the incident must be faulty. How can we be expected to come up with a rational explanation when the primary data is faulty and anecdotal?

It was a different story down at the one-twelve. The precinct had transferred a suspect to Renny and now the suspect was gone. A pile of goo was not going to be able to go before the grand jury for indictment. So they needed a new suspect. The hunt was now on for the missing wife. And Renaldo Augustino knew he’d better find her if he wanted to hold his head up again in the squad room.

So: Joanne was barely speaking to him at home, his name was mud down at the precinct, and Danny Gordon was still in agony here in the hospital.

Renny wondered why he stuck with this job. He had his twenty years. He should have got out then.

“Are they saying Danny’s gone crazy?” Renny said to Father Bill.

“Not so much crazy as shutting down parts of his mind. The human mind can experience only so much trauma and then it begins to draw the blinds. The doctors say he’s not really experiencing pain on a high level of consciousness.”

“That’s a blessing,” Renny said. “I guess.”

The priest gave him a sidelong glance.

“If they know what they’re talking about.”

Renny nodded tiredly. “I hear you, Padre.”

None of the doctors seemed to know what they were doing in Danny’s case. They trooped in and out of that room, new bunches every day, about as much help explaining what was happening with the kid as they’d been explaining what had happened to Lom. Lots of talk, lots of big words, but when you cleared away all the smoke, they didn’t know diddly. At least they couldn’t write Danny off as a goddamn faulty memory.

Nick the professor sighed with exasperation.

“You both realize, don’t you, that what’s supposedly happening with Danny is impossible. I mean, it can’t be happening. They say they’re putting blood and other fluids into Danny and it’s simply disappearing. That’s patently impossible. Fluid is matter and matter exists. What goes in as fluid may come out as gas but it just doesn’t just disappear. It has to be somewhere!”

Father Bill smiled weakly. “Maybe it is. But it’s not in Danny.”

“Wasn’t he worked up here before?”

“Completely. Everything one hundred percent normal.”

Shaking his head, Nick glanced at his watch and stood.

“Gotta run.” He shook hands with the priest. “But I can be back tonight if you want me to spell you with Danny.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be all right.”

Nick shrugged. “I’ll come back anyway.”

He waved and left. Renny decided he liked Nick. But he still had to wonder a little. Like, what was the relationship between Nick and Father Bill? An unmarried guy still visiting the priest who took care of him as a kid? What kind of a relationship could they have had when Nick lived at St. F.’s that would hold up after all these years. Renny remembered Father Dougherty from his own days at St. F.’s. He couldn’t imagine wanting to pay that cold fish a visit every week, even if he were still alive.

He canned the thought. Just his policeman’s mind at work. You got so used to seeing the slimy side of people that when it didn’t hit you in the face you went looking for it. But he could see that Father Bill might be a pretty regular guy when he wasn’t under this kind of stress, someone you might want to be friends with, even if he was a priest.

“How about Sara?” the priest said when Nick was gone. “Anything on her?”

Renny had been dreading that question. Father Bill had asked it every day, and until this morning the answer had been an easy no.

“Yeah. We got something. I sent for a newspaper clipping and a copy of her senior page in the U. of T. at Austin yearbook. They arrived today.”

“Her yearbook? How can that tell you anything?”

“I do it routinely, just to make sure that the person I’m looking for is really the person I’m looking for.”

The priest’s expression was puzzled. “I don’t…”

Renny pulled the folded sheets from his breast pocket and handed them over.

“Here. They’re Xeroxes of Xeroxes, but I think you’ll see what I mean.”

He watched Father Bill’s eyes scan the top sheet, come to a halt, narrow, then widen in shock. Renny had had almost the same reaction. The yearbook picture of the Sara Bainbridge who later married Herbert Lom showed a big, moon-faced blonde. The second sheet was a newspaper clipping of a wedding announcement with a photo of the same big blonde in a wedding gown.

Neither of them bore the remotest resemblance to the woman in the photo the priest had given Renny from the St. Francis adoption application.

Father Bill flipped to the second sheet, then looked up at him with a stricken, befuddled expression.

“But this isn’t…”

“Yeah. I know.”

The priest dropped the sheets and staggered to his feet.

“Oh, my God!”

He turned and leaned against the windowsill and stared out at the Brooklyn rooftops in silence. Renny knew he’d just been socked in the gut so he let him have his time. Finally he turned back.

“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

Renny felt an impulse to say, Yeah, you did. But he knew it was just his own anger looking for a convenient target. As a cop he’d had his share of times as the target for that kind of anger from citizens and he wasn’t going fall into the trap himself. Besides, what was the point of kicking a decent man when he was down?

“You got taken. She assumed the real Sara’s identity. You followed the routine and she slipped through. And didn’t you tell me you even went so far as to call the woman’s old pastor?”

A mute nod from the priest.

“Okay. So how were you to know that the two of you were talking about different people?”

But Father Bill didn’t seem to be listening. He started talking to the air.

“My God, it’s all my fault. If I’d done my job right, Danny wouldn’t be all cut up like that. He still be in one piece back in St. F.’s.”

“Aw, don’t start with that bullshit. It’s her fault. Whoever took the real Sara’s place is to blame. She’s the one who took the knife to Danny.”

“But why? Why all the subterfuge, the elaborate plotting, and most likely the murder of the real Sara?”

“We don’t know that.”

True. They didn’t know that. But Renny felt it in his gut: the real Sara was dead.

“Why, dammit? Just to mutilate a small boy? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I stopped expecting sense a long time ago.”

“And what about Herb?”

“At this point I can go either way on Herb,” Renny said with a shrug, trying not to remember what the man had looked like the last time he’d seen him. “But my gut instinct is that Herb was a victim too.”

The priest’s eyes were bleak as he looked at Renny.

“So then it’s Sara—the bogus Sara—we’re after.”

“Right. And we’ll find her.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” the priest said softly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before he could answer, a doctor walked into the lounge, one of the nameless, faceless white coats that had been trooping in and out of Danny’s room for days.

“Excuse me. Father Ryan? I want to discuss some procedures we’d like to do on the Gordon boy.”

Renny saw the priest’s body tense, like an animal ready to spring.

“Tests? More tests? What about his pain? All you do is tests but that child is still in agony in there! Don’t come to me with more requests for tests until you’ve healed his wounds and stopped his pain!”

“We’ve tried everything we know,” the doctor said, “but nothing works. We need to test—”

Father Bill took two quick steps toward the doctor and grabbed the lapels of his white coat.

“Screw your tests!” His voice was edging toward a scream. “Stop his pain!”

Renny leaped from his seat and pulled the priest off the doctor. He shooed the doctor out of the lounge and got Father Bill into a chair.

“Cool it, Padre. Just cool it, okay?”

A nasty thought slithered through Renny’s mind. In a crime with no witnesses, the first suspects should be the people closest to the victim. He remembered how everyone he’d interviewed at St. F.’s had commented on how attached Father Bill had been to little Danny. What if he’d been too attached? What if the thought of giving the kid up for adoption had been too much for him? What if—?

Jesus! Knock it off, Augustino! This is one of the good guys here. Save it for the street slime.

“Why don’t you go home,” he told the priest. “You’re cracking up from spending too much time in that hospital room.”

The priest looked away. “I can’t leave him. And besides, his room is the only place I know without a phone.”

Oh, yeah. Another sign that Father Bill might be cracking under the weight of all this craziness. He kept talking about these phone calls he was getting from Danny where the kid was screaming for help, begging him to come get him. A sure sign that—

The priest jumped as the lounge phone began to ring.

“That’s him!” he said hoarsely, staring at the phone as if it was going to bite him.

“Yeah? How can you tell?”

“That’s the way it rings when it’s Danny.”

The phone did sound weird. One long, uninterrupted ring that kept going. But weird ring or not, Renny knew it wasn’t Danny Gordon on the phone. He snatched it up.

“Hello!”

A child’s voice, terrified, screaming.

“Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father, I don’t want to die. Please come and get me. Don’t let him kill me. I don’t want to die!”

Renny felt his heart begin to thud in response to the anguish in that little voice. It made him want to run out the door and find him, help him, wherever he was.

But he knew where he was. Danny was down the hall, in bed, hooked up to half a dozen tubes and monitors.

“Is that you, lady?” he shouted into the phone. “This is Detective Sergeant Augustino, NYPD, and you just made the biggest mistake of your life!”

The line was dead. He depressed the plunger and dialed the operator. After identifying himself he asked her to ID the call that had just come through to extension 2579. She checked and said she could find no record of an outside call to that extension within the last half hour. He slammed the phone down.

“She’s somewhere in the hospital!”

“What?” The priest was back on his feet, his eyes wide.

“That wasn’t an outside call, which means it had to originate in-house. She’s probably sitting in some corner playing her tape into the phone.”

“You mean it sounded like a tape to you?”

“Come to think of it … no.”

Father Bill was suddenly running down the hall.

“Danny! She’s here to finish him off!”

Renny followed him. He hated the thought of entering Danny’s room, of hearing Danny’s sound, his voiceless scream, like air escaping a punctured tire. Endlessly. It never stopped. The whole time you were in there it went on and on and on. He didn’t know how Father Bill stood it. But he followed the priest into the room. He’d go anywhere, to hell itself to catch the bitch who’d done this to that kid …

But Danny was just as they’d left him, twisting and writhing in open-mouthed agony. Renny could bear only a moment or two, then he had to flee, leaving Father Bill alone.

2

Bill seated himself beside the bed, pulled a Rosary from his pocket, and began fingering the beads. But he didn’t say the usual Our Fathers and Hail Marys. He couldn’t find the words. His mind was saturated with Danny’s ungodly torment.

Ungodly. A fitting adjective. Where was God when Bill needed Him? When Danny needed Him? Where had He been Christmas Eve? On vacation?

Or is He out there at all?

Such a question would have been unthinkable a few days ago. But Bill had run out of excuses.

And he knew them all. All the gentle explanations of why bad things happen to good people, and why even the most devout, most sincere, most selfless prayers often go unanswered. He knew how events often seemed to conspire to work against the best people, against the best things they tried to achieve. But that didn’t mean there was a Divine Hand at work, moving people around, shaping events, checking off names of those who could go on living and those whose time was up.

As Bill saw it, death, disease, rape, murder, accidents, famine, plague—they all had earthly causes, and therefore had earthly solutions. As God’s creatures we were expected to find those solutions. That was why he equipped us with hands, hearts, and minds.

Neither God nor the mythical Satan were the cause of our woes; if the culprits weren’t ourselves or other people, they were time, circumstance, or nature.

Or so Bill had thought.

How did he explain what had happened—what was still happening—to Danny?

From everything Bill knew, from everything he had seen during the past few days, the answer was None Of The Above.

None of the above.

Sure, blame whoever had posed as Sara for taking a knife to Danny. She started it all. But what about the rest of it? The endless pain, the wounds that refused to heal, the unresponsiveness to anesthesia, the transfusions—almost fifty liters had been poured into Danny since his arrival—that seemed to be sucked down some black hole never to be seen again. What of them? Danny wasn’t eating; his kidneys weren’t functioning, so he was putting out no urine; his heart was beating but had no blood to pump; his lungs moved air, but only to fuel that ghost of a scream. It was impossible for him to be alive—every doctor who’d seen him had uttered those same words at one time or another.

Impossible … but here he was.

And what of Herb Lom? A hollow man—not just spiritually, but without internal organs or a nervous system—who had dissolved when Bill punched a hole in his chest.

Good God!… the hole in his chest … the cold … the stench … the slime …

As much as his faith resisted it, as much as his mind saw it as a surrender of the intellect, he could not escape the feeling, the overwhelming belief that something supernatural was at work here.

Something supernatural … and evil.

And Danny was the target.

Why Danny? What had this child ever done to deserve this living hell? He was an innocent, and he was being put through unimaginable torture by a force beyond nature. Something dark and powerful had taken hold of him and was thumbing its nose at the laws of God and man and nature, keeping Danny beyond the reach of humanity’s most advanced medical science.

And deep in his gut Bill knew that the torture would go on as long as Danny lived.

Where there’s life, there’s hope.

Bill had lived by that neat little aphorism for nearly all of his adult life. He’d believed it.

But no more. Poor little Danny’s case broke that rule. As long as he remained alive, Danny had no hope of relief. His life would go on—

No. Not life. Existence was a better term. For what Danny had now was not life. His existence would go on as it had since Christmas Eve—unhealed wounds, unremitting pain, with no hope of relief.

At least not from anything in this world.

Bill pocketed the Rosary and said a silent prayer of his own.

Help him, Lord. Something beyond the natural is causing his torment and so only something else beyond the natural can save him. That’s You, Lord. We can bounce back from any blow Your world hands us, but we are helpless against the otherworldly. That’s why Danny needs You to step in on his behalf. Not for my sake—put his wounds on me, if that will do it. I’ll gladly take them. Just don’t let him suffer anymore. If there’s something that can be done that’s not being done, let me know. Tell me and I’ll do it. No matter what it is, I’ll do it. Please.

Danny’s rasping screams ceased and he opened his eyes.

Bill froze and watched as Danny’s eyes stared about the room, searching, finally stopping when they found Bill. He grabbed the boy’s hand and squeezed.

“Danny? Danny, are you there? Can you hear me?”

Danny’s lips moved.

“What?” Bill leaned closer. “What is it?”

The lips moved again. A whisper escaped.

Bill moved closer still. The breath from the parched tunnel of Danny’s throat was sour as Bill put his ear almost against the dry lips.

“What, Danny? Say it again.”

“Bury me … in holy ground … It won’t stop … till you bury me…”

NINETEEN

1

How long could a week be?

Bill Ryan pondered the question as he swung into one of Downstate’s parking lots. As the guard passed him through, a couple of rag-wrapped derelicts hurried toward his car, shouting and waving. They didn’t appear to be the typical window-washing winos; they almost seemed to have been waiting for him. Bill drove on. No time today to figure out what they wanted.

He left the station wagon in one of the handicapped spots and entered the hospital through an employee entrance.

“Evening, Father,” said the smiling uniformed black woman inside the door. “Happy New Year.”

Bill could not bring himself to say those words. No way was the year that started tomorrow going to be a happy one.

“Same to you, Gloria.”

Only a week here and already he was something of a fixture. The security people knew him, he was on a first-name basis with most of the nurses on all three shifts on Danny’s floor, and the walks he took to stretch his legs between vigils at Danny’s bedside had familiarized him with most of the building that housed Pediatrics. All in one week. One endless week. Thank God Father Cullen had been available to fill in for him at St. F.’s.

But if the seven days between Christmas and New Year’s Eves had been an eternity for Bill Ryan, he knew it must have been longer by an unholy factor for poor Danny.

Bury me … in holy ground … It won’t stop … till you bury me …

Danny’s eyes had closed after speaking and his silent screams began again. He hadn’t spoken since. But those words, those words had tormented Bill for days, echoing through his mind every waking minute. Yes, he had asked God for guidance that day, but the advice he’d received was unthinkable.

Or so it seemed at first.

Things had changed since then. Bill was convinced now that modern medicine offered no hope. The doctors were helpless against whatever force had Danny in its grip. And during the span of Danny’s hospital stay that helplessness had wrought a slow but unmistakable change in those doctors. Bill has seen their attitude mutate from deep concern for a savagely brutalized child to bafflement, and from bafflement to cold clinical fascination with a scientific oddity. Somewhere along the line Danny had stopped being a patient and become an experimental subject.

An it.

Bill thought he could understand them. The doctors were in the business of curing illness, treating disease, healing wounds, providing answers. But they could not heal Danny, could not help him in the slightest, could provide no answers to Bill’s questions. Danny’s condition confounded their skills and training, spat on their professional pride. And so the doctors pulled back and switched gears. If they could not help Danny, they would learn from him.

Bill could see it in their flat eyes when he spoke to them: Danny the boy had become Danny the thing. They wanted to experiment on Danny. Sure, they called their plans “testing” and “exploratory surgery,” but their real aim was to get inside him and find out what was going on in there.

So far, Bill had been able to stand in their way. But all that would change the day after tomorrow. The head nurse on days had told him that by mid-morning on January 2 the hospital would have a court order making Danny a ward of the state and giving it legal guardianship over him. The hospital would then have carte blanche; the doctors could experiment on him to their hearts’ delight. He’d be the subject of clinical conferences; they’d bring in all the residents and show them The Boy Who Should Be Dead. And when Danny finally died—when would that be? Five years? Ten? Fifty? Never?—what would they do? Bill envisioned Danny pickled in a jar where generations of fledgling doctors could view his still-unhealed wounds. Or maybe his remains would be put on display like the Elephant Man.

Uh-uh. Not if Bill had anything to say about it.

Word of the court order had spurred him to a decision. The unthinkable became the inevitable.

The nurses at the charge desk on Peds waved hello as Bill passed. He returned the greeting and stopped.

“Where is everybody?”

“Light shift tonight,” said Phyllis, the head nurse on 3-to-11. “Wait’ll you see eleven-to-seven—that’ll be a real skeleton. Everyone wants to party.”

Bill was glad to hear that. He’d expected it, but it was good to have it confirmed.

“I can understand that. It’s been tough around here.”

Her face lost some of its holiday cheer. “How about you? We’re all getting together at Murphy’s after we get off. If you want to come over—”

“Thanks, no. I’ll stay here.”

He would have stopped for a longer chat but didn’t dare. The phone calls were coming more frequently now. If he spent more than a few minutes within ten feet of a phone, it began that unearthly ring … and the terrified voice … Danny’s voice.

He continued down the hall and found Nick sitting outside Danny’s door reading one of his scientific journals. He looked up at Bill’s approach.

“Anything?” Bill said.

He knew the answer but he asked anyway.

Nick shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Thanks for spelling me.”

He squinted up at Bill. “You were supposed to go home and sleep. Did you?”

“Tried.” He hoped he could get away with the lie if he limited it to a monosyllable.

“You look more exhausted than before you left.”

“I’m not sleeping well.” That was no lie.

“Maybe you should get a sleeping pill or something, Bill. You’re going to come unglued if you keep this up much longer.

I’m unraveling even as we speak.

“I’ll be all right.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I am. Now you get going. I’ll take it from here.”

Nick rose and looked closely at Bill.

“Something’s going on that you’re not telling me.”

Bill forced a laugh. “You’re getting paranoid. Go to the Physics Department party tonight and have a good time.” He stuck out his hand. “Happy New Year, Nick.”

Nick shook his hand but didn’t let go.

“This has been one hell of a year for you, Bill,” he said softly. “First your parents, then this thing with Danny. But you’ve gotta figure things can’t get worse. Next year has to be better. Keep that in mind tonight.”

Bill’s tightening throat choked off anything he might have said. He threw his arms around Nick and held on to him, fighting down the sobs that pressed up through his chest. He wanted to let it all out, wanted to cry out his misery and fear and crushing loneliness on the younger man’s shoulder. But he couldn’t do that. That luxury was not for him. He was the priest. People were supposed to cry on his shoulder.

Get a grip!

He backed off and looked at Nick for what might be the last time. They’d been through a lot together. He’d practically raised Nick. He saw that the younger man’s eyes were moist. Did he know?

“Happy New Year, kid. I’m proud of you.”

“And I’m proud of you, Father Bill. Next year will be better. Believe it.”

Bill only nodded. He didn’t dare try to voice belief in that fiction.

He watched Nick disappear down the hall, then he turned toward Danny’s door. He hesitated as he always did, as anyone would before stepping across the threshold of hell, and sent up a final prayer.

Don’t make me do this, Lord. Don’t ask this of me. Take this matter into your own hands. Heal him or take him. Spare us both. Please.

But when he pushed through the door he heard the hoarse, sibilant, whispered moans, found Danny still writhing on the bed.

Closing the door behind him, Bill allowed one sob to escape. Then he leaned against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt more alone than he had ever thought possible—alone in the room, alone in the city, alone in the cosmos. And he saw no choice but to go through with what he’d been planning all day.

He went over to the bedside and looked down at Danny’s thin, tortured, ghastly white face. For an instant the boy’s pain-mad eyes cleared, and Bill saw in them a fleeting, desperate plea for help. He grabbed the thin little hand.

“Okay, Danny. I promised to help you, and I will.” No one else seemed to be able or willing to—not the doctors, not God Himself. So it was up to Bill. “It’s just you and me, kid. I’ll help you.”

2

Bill waited patiently through the change of shift, until the incoming nurses had been briefed on each patient by the outgoing crew. The reports were completed more quickly than usual and, with wishes of a happy New Year to one and all, the 3-to-11 shift was on its way out of the building in record time. Party time.

Bill made some small talk with Beverly, the head nurse on 11 to 7, as she checked Danny’s useless IVs during her initial rounds. Then he waited awhile longer.

At 11:45 he scouted the hall. No one in sight. Even the nurses’ station was deserted. Finally he found them. The entire shift was clustered in the room of one of the older children, a twelve-year-old boy recovering from an appendectomy, all watching as a New Year’s Eve show geared up for the traditional countdown to the drop of the illuminated ball above Times Square.

Bill slipped back to the charge desk and hit the OFF switch on Danny’s heart monitor, then hurried back to his room. Working feverishly, he peeled the two monitor leads from the boy’s chest wall, then removed the IV lines from both arms and let the solutions drip onto the floor. He untied the restraints from Danny’s wrists and slid his painfully thin chest out of the posey. Then he wrapped him in the bed blanket and in an extra blanket from the closet.

He checked the hall again. Still empty. Now was the time. Now or never. He turned back to the bed, reached to lift Danny, then paused.

This was it, wasn’t it? The point of no return. If he carried through his plan tonight there would be no turning back, no saying I’m sorry, I made a mistake, give me another chance. He would be accused of a hideous crime, branded a monster, and hunted for the rest of his life. Everything he had worked for since joining the Society would be stripped from him, every friend he had ever made would turn against him, every good thing he had done in his life would be forever tainted. Was what he was about to do worth all that?

Bury me … in holy ground. The words seared his brain. It won’t stop … till you bury me …

He saw no other way.

He lifted Danny’s writhing, blanket-shrouded form.

Good Lord, he weighs almost nothing!

He carried him along the empty hall to the rear stairway, then down the steps, flight after flight, praying he’d meet no one. He’d chosen this moment because it was probably the only quarter-hour out of the entire year when, unless they were in the middle of a crisis situation, almost everyone’s mind was more or less distracted from his or her job.

When he reached ground level Bill placed Danny on the landing and checked his watch: almost midnight. He peeked out into the hall. Empty. At its end, the exit door. And just as he’d hoped—unwatched. The guard’s seat was empty. And why not? George, the usual door guard on this shift, had always seemed fairly conscientious, but even he’d have to figure that since his job was to screen the people entering the hospital instead of those leaving it, and since no one could get in unless he opened the door for them, what was wrong with leaving his station for a few minutes to watch the ball drop?

Bill lifted Danny and started for the exit. Up ahead he heard voices through the open door of one of the little offices. He paused. He had to pass that door to get out. No way around it. But could he risk it? If he got caught now, with Danny wrapped up in his arms like this, he’d never get another chance.

Then he heard it: the countdown. A mix of voices, male and female, black and white, began shouting.

“TEN! NINE! EIGHT!—”

Bill began to walk, gliding his feet, gathering speed until he was moving as fast as he could without actually running.

“SEVEN! SIX! FIVE!—”

He whisked past the office door, then began to run.

“FOUR! THREE! TWO!—”

As he reached the door he slowed for half a second, just long enough to allow him to hit the lever bar at the same instant the voices shouted, “ONE!”

The noise of the opening door was lost in the ensuing cheers as he rushed headlong into the parking lot. He had parked St. F.’s station wagon illegally, hoping his clergy sticker would buy him some leniency. The last thing he needed now was to find that the wagon had been towed away.

He sighed with relief when he saw it where he’d left it. She was a rusting old junker but at that moment she looked like a stretch limo. Gently, he laid Danny on the back seat and arranged the blankets loosely over him.

“We’re on our way, kid,” he whispered through the folds of fabric.

Then he heard a slurred voice behind him.

“That him? ‘S he the one?”

Bill whirled and saw the two ragmen from this afternoon, one big, the other shorter and slight. How had they got into the lot?

“No, that’s not him,” said the smaller of the two. “Hush up about that.”

The big one stepped closer to Bill and peered into his face. His beard stank of wine and old food.

“You the one?” Another moment of too-close scrutiny, then, “No. He’s not the one.”

He turned and lurched away.

The little one scampered after him for a few steps.

“Walter! Walter, wait!” Then he hurried back to Bill. “Don’t do it!” he said in a harsh whisper. “No matter what you’ve been told, don’t do it!”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said, shaken by the man’s intensity. “I’m in a hurry.”

The little man grabbed his arm.

“I know you! You’re that Jesuit. Remember me? Martin Spano? We met long ago … at the Hanley mansion.”

Bill jolted as if he’d touched a live wire.

“God, yes! What—?”

“Not much time. I’ve got to catch up to Walter. I’m helping him search for someone. Walter was a medic once. He sometimes can cure people but he can’t cure that kid. He can’t cure anybody when he’s drunk and he’s drunk almost all the time these days. But remember what I said. Don’t do it. An Evil power is at work here. It’s using you! I was used once—I know how it is. Stop now, before it’s too late!”

And then he was off, running after his fellow derelict.

Thoroughly shaken, Bill got in the front seat and sat for a moment. Martin Spano—hadn’t he been one of those crazy people who’d called themselves the Chosen when they’d invaded the Hanley mansion back in 1968? Spano had been crazy then and was obviously crazier now. But what had he meant—?

Never mind. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted now. He shook off the confusion and drove out of the lot, forcing a smile and waving as he passed the guard in the booth. He drove north, toward the Bayside section of Queens, toward a place he’d spent much of the early evening preparing for Danny.

3

Renny slammed the phone down and threw off the covers.

“Damn!”

“What’s the matter?” Joanne asked from the other side of the bed.

They’d spent New Year’s Eve at home, catching up on their lovemaking.

“The kid’s gone!”

“The one in the hospital?”

“Yeah.” He pulled on slacks and a sweater. “Danny Gordon. The nurse went in to wish Father Bill a happy New Year and found the room empty.”

“The priest? You don’t think—”

“They were both in the room before twelve, they were both gone after. What else can I think?” He gave her a quick kiss in the dark. “Gotta go. Sorry, babe.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Did she? Renny sure hoped so.

The priest! he thought as he raced toward Downstate. Could he have been the one who cut up on that kid?

Nah! Not possible. No way.

And yet …

Renny thought again about how everyone he’d interviewed at St. F.’s had mentioned good old Father Bill’s attachment to little Danny, like father and son. How Danny would always sit on his lap. What if that attachment hadn’t been entirely on the straight and narrow? You heard tons of stories about fag priests, about priests molesting kids. What if the thought of giving the kid up for adoption had scared him? What if he’d been afraid Danny would talk to his new parents about things he’d had to let Father Bill do to him?

Renny increased his speed. He squeezed the steering wheel as he felt his insides tense up.

What if Danny had told the Loms something on Christmas Eve? And what if in their shock and disbelief, in a misguided attempt to give this wonderful and gracious man an opportunity to defend himself, they’d called Father Bill first instead of the police? And what if he cracked when they told him? What if he said he’d come right over and talk this thing out? What if he went completely berserk in the Lom house?

“Jesus!” he said aloud in his car.

It didn’t explain everything. Nobody—nobody—was ever going to give Renny a satisfactory explanation of what had happened to Herb Lom, so he stuffed that incident into a mental limbo. But the bogus Sara—what was her angle? Was she a red herring? Or was she somehow in league with the priest in some plot to get Danny away from St. Francis to a place where the wonderful Father Bill could have freer and more discreet access to the kid?

And suddenly all the pieces started falling into place.

The priest had spent every waking hour by the kid’s side, even slept in a chair in the boy’s room. Renny had been taken by this show of such deep devotion. But what if it hadn’t been anything like devotion? What if the priest had just wanted to be there when Danny started coming out of it? What if he’d wanted to be the first to know if Danny was going to talk again?

And more: The priest had been fighting the endless round of tests and procedures all the docs wanted to perform on the kid. Renny had assumed it was for the kid’s sake … until now. What if he was really afraid they’d find a way to bring him out of it, or at least get him to the point where he could name his attacker? And now, with the legal machinery moving toward making Danny a ward of the court, the priest was facing certain shutout from having any say in Danny’s care. That might have been the last straw. He must have gone into a panic tonight and took off with the kid.

Maybe to finish him off.

Shit!

Renny swerved into the entrance of one of Downstate’s parking lots and jumped out of his car. A couple of winos were there. They fairly leaped on him.

“He took the boy!” the shorter one said.

“Who?”

“The Jesuit! He took the boy!”

“You saw him?”

Before the little guy could answer, the bigger wino pushed forward.

“Are you the one?” he said, staring into Renny’s eyes.

Renny turned away. He’d heard enough. He flashed his badge at the guy in the guard booth and grabbed the phone. It took a while but he got a line to the desk at his precinct.

“I want an APB on a Father William Ryan. He’s a Jesuit priest but he probably won’t be dressed like one. He’s wanted for kidnapping and for attempted murder. He’ll have a sick seven-year-old kid with him. Get his picture out of the file now and get it to all the papers and all the local news shows. Do the usual bridges and tunnels thing. Have anybody and everybody looking out for a middle-age guy traveling with a sick kid. Do it now. Not ten minutes from now—now!”

Renny stepped out of the booth and slammed his fist against the hood of his car.

How could he have been such a jerk? The cardinal rule in this sort of crime was to put the first heat on the people closest to the victim. The esteemed Father Ryan had been the closest but Renny had allowed himself to be lulled by the Roman collar, by the fact that he’d come out of St. Francis himself. He’d let that bastard priest sucker him in and squeeze him for all he was worth.

I’m so fucking stupid!

Well, no more. Ryan wasn’t getting out of this city tonight. It was New Year’s Eve and the shift was spread a little thin, plus the usual bunch of cops were tied up doing crowd control at Times Square, but Ryan wasn’t getting away. Not if Renny had a damn thing to say about it. The priest had made him look like a jerk, but that wasn’t what really mattered, what really burned him. It was how he’d started thinking of the priest as a friend, someone he wanted to hang out with. And Renny didn’t offer his friendship easily.

He was hurt, dammit!

Something cold and wet landed on his cheek. He looked around. Snow. He smiled. The weatherman had predicted a snowstorm tonight. That was good. It would slow traffic, make it easier to spot a guy and a sick kid trying to leave the city.

We’re gonna meet again real soon, Father fucking Ryan. And when we do you’ll wish you’d never been born.

4

St. Ann’s Cemetery was small and old and crowded, some of the headstones dating back to the eighteenth century. Bill had chosen St. Ann’s because it was out of the way and it was consecrated ground.

… bury me … in holy ground …

Now as he drove the deserted street running along the cemetery’s north wall he wondered if it mattered.

Consecrated ground. What does that mean?

A week ago he’d have had no trouble answering the question. Now the whole concept struck him as senseless.

But then, nothing made sense anymore. His whole world had been turned upside down and ripped inside out during the past week. He could smell the rot in the very foundations of his faith, could feel them crumbling beneath him.

Where are you, Lord? There’s evil afoot here, pure distilled evil that can’t be explained away by happenstance or coincidence or natural causes. This isn’t fair, Lord. Give me a hand, will You?

Only one other time in his life had he come across anything even remotely resembling what had happened to Danny. That derelict … Spano … had reminded him. Back in 1968, in a Victorian mansion on the Long Island Sound … he’d seen Emma Stevens die not ten feet in front of him with an ax in her brain. He’d watched her lie in front of him, as lifeless as the rug that soaked up her blood. And then he’d seen her rise and walk and kill two people before slumping into death once again.

He’d explained that away by telling himself that if doctors had had a chance to examine Emma while she was lying on the rug with the ax protruding from her skull, they would have found that she only appeared dead, and that whatever spark of life was left in her had flared long enough to allow her to finish what she’d started just before she was killed.

But an entire medical center staff had had a week with Danny. They all said he should be dead, but somehow he wouldn’t die.

Just like Emma Stevens. Except that Emma had hung on for only a few minutes. Danny had been going for a week and showed no signs of weakening. He might possibly go on forever.

… it won’t stop … till you bury me …

Bill wondered if there could be a link between what had happened to Emma and what was happening to Danny. Spano the wino seemed to have hinted at that.

He shook himself. No. How could there be? He was grasping at straws here.

He pulled to a stop in the deep shadows under a dead street lamp. Dead because he’d killed it. He’d bought a CO_2 pellet gun yesterday, come out here last night, and shot out the bulb. Took him a whole cartridge before he finally scored a bull’s eye.

And earlier tonight, shortly after dark, he’d returned to this spot with a pick and a shovel.

Bill leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Tired. So tired. When was the last time he’d had two consecutive hours of sleep? Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a little while here he could—

No! He jerked his head up. He couldn’t hide from this. It had to be done and he was the only one to do it, the only one to realize that this was the only thing anyone could do for Danny. No other options. This was it.

He’d heard it from Danny’s own lips.

With that thought to bolster him, Bill put the wagon in gear and drove up the curb and across the sidewalk until the passenger side of the wagon was hugging the eight-foot wall under an oak that leaned over from the far side. He got out, opened the rear door, and lifted Danny out of the back seat. With the boy’s writhing form swaddled in his arms, he stepped up on the bumper, then the hood, then up to the roof. From there it was a short hop to the top of the wall. He swiveled around on his buttocks until his legs were dangling over the inside edge, then dropped to the ground on the other side.

Okay. He was inside. Dark here in the shadow of the wall where the glow from the streetlights didn’t reach, but he knew where he was going. Just a few paces to the left, against the wall. That was where he had spent a couple of hours tonight after darkfall …

… hours … with a pick and shovel …

Oh, God he didn’t want to do this, would have given anything to pass this cup. But no one waited in the wings to take it from him.

Bill paused an instant at the edge of the oblong hole in the ground, then jumped in. When he straightened, the frozen grass on groundlevel was even with his lower ribs. He would have liked the hole deeper, six feet at least, but he’d exhausted himself here earlier digging this far, and had no time left now. This would have to do.

He knelt and stretched Danny’s form out on the floor of the hole. He couldn’t see the boy’s face in the darkness, so he released his writhing body, and pulled back the folds of blanket. He administered the final sacrament, called Extreme Unction when he was in the seminary, now called the Anointing of the Sick. During the past week he had administered it on a daily basis to Danny, and each time it had lost an increment of its meaning. It had devolved to little more than a collection of empty words and gestures now.

Empty … like everything else in his life. All the rules he had lived by, all the beliefs on which he had based his life were falling away. The God he’d placed his trust in had not lifted a finger against the force that gripped Danny.

But he went through the motions. And when he was done, he placed a hand on each side of Danny’s head, cupping his wasted cheeks.

“Danny?” he whispered. “Danny, will this work for you? I know you told me once that it would, but please tell me again. I’m going against everything I’ve ever believed in to do this for you. I need to hear it again.”

Danny said nothing. He remained lost in agony, giving no sign that he had even heard him.

Bill pressed his forehead against Danny’s.

“I hope you can hear me, hope you can understand me. I’m doing this for you, Danny, because it’s the only way to end it for you. All the pain, all the torture will be over in a few minutes. I don’t know how much of you is left in there, Danny, but I know some of you still remains. I see it in your eyes sometimes. I don’t want you to … to die without knowing that I’m doing this to release you from whatever monstrous evil is torturing you. I’m doing it to stop the pain, and to prevent those doctors from making you into some sort of sideshow freak. You know if there was any other way, I’d find it. You know that, don’t you?” He leaned over and kissed Danny’s forehead. “I love you, kid. You know that too, don’t you?”

For an instant, for the interval that falls between a pair of heartbeats, Danny’s pain-writhe paused, his breathy screams stilled, and Bill felt the boy’s head nod. Once.

“Danny!” he shouted. “Danny, can you hear me? Do you know what I’m saying?”

But Danny’s athetoid movements and hissing cries began again. Bill could no longer hold back the sobs. They burst from him and he clutched Danny close for a moment, then he pushed the sobs back down and laid the boy flat again. He covered Danny’s face with the blanket—he couldn’t throw dirt on his face—then pulled himself out of the hole.

He looked around. No one about. He had to work quickly now. Get to it and get it over with before he lost his nerve. He lifted the shovel from where he had left it beside the hole. He shoved it deep into the pile of loose dirt he had pulled from the ground only hours ago. But as he lifted it free, he paused, knees weak, arms trembling.

I can’t do this!

He looked up at the starless, cloud-shrouded night sky.

Please, God. If You’re there, if you care, if You have any intention of taking a hand in reversing the evil that’s being done to this boy, do it now. Under different circumstances I’d consider this an utterly childish request. But You know what I’ve seen; You know what this child has suffered, is still suffering. We’ve witnessed the presence of naked evil here, Lord. I don’t think I’m out of line in asking You to step in and take over now. Give me a sign, Lord.

It began to snow.

“Snow?” Bill said aloud. “Snow?”

What was that supposed to tell him? A snowstorm in July would be a sign. In January it meant nothing.

Except that the ground he had disturbed tonight would go undetected for a long time. Maybe forever.

He threw the shovelful of earth into the hole where it landed atop Danny’s writhing blanket.

There, Lord. I’ve started it. I’ve played Abraham. I’ve raised the knife over the closest thing to a son I’ll ever have. It’s time for you to stop me and say I’ve passed the test.

He threw in another shovelful, then another.

Come on, Lord. Stop me! Tell me I’ve done enough. I’m begging you!

He began shoveling the loose dirt into the hole as fast as he could, tumbling in clumps of frozen earth, kicking little avalanches with his feet, working like mad, whimpering, screaming deep in his throat like some crazed animal, blanking his mind to what he was doing, knowing it was the best and only thing for this little boy he loved, throwing off the clutching, restraining bonds of a lifetime of conditioning, two millennia of beliefs, keeping his eyes averted from the hole even though there was nothing to see within its black, hungry maw.

And then the hole was full.

“Are you satisfied?” Bill shouted at the flake-filled sky. “Can I dig him up now?”

He had dirt left over, so he had to force himself to step onto the fill, to stomp it with his feet, to pack it down over Danny, and then throw some more on top. And still more loose dirt remained, so he mounded some of it and scattered the rest.

And then he was done. He stood there sweating and steaming in the cold as the tiny flakes swirled around him with heartless beauty. He fought a mad urge to start digging again. He threw the shovel over the wall so he couldn’t change his mind.

Done.

With a moan that tore loose from the deepest place within him he dropped to his knees atop the grave and leaned forward until his ear was against the silent earth. Fifteen minutes now. Fifteen at least since he’d smothered that wasted little body. No reprieve now. He had done the unthinkable. But Danny’s pain was over. That was all that really mattered.

Was this the only way? God help me, I hope so!

“Good-bye, pal,” he said when he could speak. “Rest easy, okay? I’m going away for a while, but I’ll be back to visit you when I can.”

Feeling utterly lost and empty, he rose, took one last look, and then climbed the leaning oak and jumped down outside the wall. He picked up the shovel, threw it in the back of the station wagon, and began to drive.

And as he drove, he began to curse. He screamed out his disgust for a God who’d allow such a thing to happen, he cursed the medical profession for being helpless against it, he swore vengeance on Sara, or rather the woman who had usurped the real Sara’s identity. But rising through it all was a tide of loathing, for himself, for everything he had been, for everything he had done in his life, especially what he had done tonight. Self-loathing—it poured from him, it swirled and eddied around him until the inside of the car was awash with it, until he thought he would drown in it.

Somehow he managed to keep driving. Earlier in the evening he’d gone to the bank and emptied out his savings account. He had a few hundred in cash and that was it. He’d have had more if he’d settled his folks’ estate, but he hadn’t pushed on that so it was still pending.

A few hundred wouldn’t take him far, but he didn’t care. He really didn’t have the heart to run. Would have preferred to turn himself in at the nearest precinct house and have done with it. But they’d want to know where Danny was. And they’d keep on him until he told them. And when he finally broke down and told them they’d dig up Danny’s body so a different crew of doctors could take it apart.

Bill couldn’t allow that. The purpose of tonight’s horrors had been to lay Danny to rest, to give him peace.

He didn’t want to face a murder trial either. Too many others, innocent people, would suffer—the priesthood in general, the Society in particular. That wouldn’t be fair. He’d done this on his own. Better to disappear. If they couldn’t catch him, they wouldn’t know Danny was dead. If Bill wasn’t in court and in the papers every day, the furor would die down. People would forget about him and what he’d done.

But Bill would never forget.

He thought of heading for the East River, of locking the wagon’s doors, opening the windows a couple of inches, and driving off one of the embankments. Who knew when they’d find him?

But someone might find him too soon. They might save him. And then he’d have to go through the court scenario.

No. Better for everyone if he kept on the move.

So he drove. The snow accumulated steadily as he wound through the residential streets of Queens, avoiding the area where the Loms had lived, and avoiding the St. Francis area as well. The police would be looking for him now and they’d certainly be watching those two places.

Near dawn he reached the western rim of Nassau County and saw that his fuel was getting low. He found an open 7-11 and filled up at the self-serve. In the store he made himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a buttered bagel. As he was paying the Middle Eastern clerk for everything, he glanced at the little portable TV behind the counter and almost dropped his coffee. His face was on the screen. The clerk saw his expression and glanced at the set.

“Terrible, is it not, when you cannot trust your children to a priest?” he sing-songed in his high-pitched voice. “It is getting so you cannot trust anyone.”

Bill tensed, ready to run, sure the clerk would see the resemblance. But perhaps because the screen was so small, and Bill had been clean-shaven, well rested, and years younger when that photo had been taken, the man made no connection. He shrugged and turned to the cash register to ring up the gas and food.

Then the phone began to ring. A long ring that wouldn’t stop. The clerk dropped the change into Bill’s trembling hand and stared at the phone.

“What on earth?”

Bill too stared at the phone. That ring! He spun and scanned the empty store, then peered through the windows into the snowy dawn. No one else about. He looked back at the phone as the clerk lifted the receiver.

How?

Faintly he heard that familiar, terrified little voice.

“What?” he heard the clerk say. “What are you saying? I am not your father, little boy. Listen to me…”

No one knew he was here, no one had followed him—it couldn’t be!

Unless … unless the caller wasn’t hampered by human limitations.

But who? Who or what was tormenting him, mocking him with Danny’s cries for help?

More evidence that his life had fallen under the thrall of something as evil as it was inhuman.

His heart pounding like an air hammer, Bill hurried for the door. Out—into the snow, to the safe-and-sane interior of the station wagon, and back onto the streets.

He realized that if he was going to remain free he’d have to get out of the city, out of the state, out of the Northeast. But to do that he’d have to go through Manhattan.

No—he could go over the Verrazano Bridge, cut across Staten Island, and slip into New Jersey.

He headed south toward the Belt Parkway.

5

They put the call through to Renny. Some foreign guy, his voice accented but easily understandable.

“Mr. Detective, sir, I believe I have seen this priest you are searching for.”

Renny grabbed a pencil.

“When and where?”

“Not more than one hour ago in the store where I work in Floral Park.”

“An hour! Jesus, why’d you wait so long?”

“I did not know it was him until I come home and see his picture on my TV screen. He did not look the same but I believe it was him.”

Not exactly a positive ID, but it was all they’d had.

“Was he alone?”

“Yes, he was. There was no child with him, at least none that I saw.”

“Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”

“I do not remember.”

“Didn’t you look?”

“Perhaps, but I was too upset by a telephone call that—”

Renny was suddenly on his feet.

“Telephone call? What kind of call?”

The man described a call exactly like the one Renny had picked up in the hospital, same ring, same frightened child’s voice, everything.

What was Ryan up to? And what was the story with the phone calls? Was Ryan making them, using them as a distraction? Or was someone else behind them? Like whoever had posed as Sara.

This whole thing was getting loonier by the hour.

Long Island … hadn’t Ryan grown up on Long Island? Monroe Village or something like that? Maybe that was where he was headed. Headed home.

He reached for the phone.

6

The morning had lightened but the sun stayed locked behind the low-hanging clouds that sealed off the sky and continued to pump the blizzard at the city. The whole world, the very air, had turned gray-white. Bill had the roads pretty much to himself. After all, it was New Year’s Day and snowing like mad. Only crazies and those who had no choice were out. Still, the going was slow and difficult. The Belt Parkway wasn’t plowed and the wagon handled like a barge in a typhoon, slewing this way and that on the curves. He wished he had an SUV, or at least front-wheel drive.

But things improved when he got on the lower level of the Verrazano. Blessedly little snow on the protected stretch of bridge. As he reached the bottom of the span he glanced right just as the storm took a breath. He saw the glowing spires of the Twin Towers and realized he’d never see them again.

Then he was on Staten Island; beyond that lay New Jersey and freedom.

Freedom, he thought grimly. But no escape.

7

“So where the hell is he?” Renny said to anyone who would listen.

He was seated at his desk in the squad room trying to coordinate the search for Ryan. He waited for one of the other detectives seated around him to offer a brilliant answer but they only sipped their coffee and looked at the floor.

All Renny could do was wait. And waiting was pure hell.

They had the Monroe Police force, what there was of it, keeping an eye out for their local boy. Other than that, the bastard could be anywhere on Long Island. Hell, he could have skidded off the LIE and be lying in a ditch freezing to death … and that poor kid freezing along with him. He could—

Connelly rushed through the squad room waving a sheet of paper.

“They think they spotted him on Staten Island!”

Staten Island? Ryan had been spotted in Floral Park before, due east of the medical center. How could they spot him in Staten Island? That was west.

“When?”

“Less than a half hour ago, Island side of the Verrazano. Driving an old Ford Country Squire.”

“They holding him?”

“Well, no,” Connelly said. “Whoever it was slipped through. He was alone. No kid anywhere in sight. Might not have been him. The trooper was pulling him over but got drawn away by an accident.”

“He got away?”

Renny leaped from his chair, spilling his coffee across the top of his drab green desk. He couldn’t believe it. Even though it wasn’t Connelly’s fault, he wanted to strangle him.

“Yeah, but they think they got the island sealed off in time.”

“They think?”

“Hey, look, Renny. I’m only telling you what they told me, okay? I mean, they’re not even sure it was him, but they took precautions, and as soon as they got the phone working, they—”

Renny felt a thrill go through him like an electric shock.

“The phone? What was wrong with the phone?”

“The one in the toll booth. They said there was a hysterical kid on it and they couldn’t get him off it.”

“That was him in the wagon!” Renny shouted. “Goddammit, that was him! We’ve got the son of a bitch! We’ve got him!”

8

Made it!

Bill snatched the ticket jutting from the slot in the machine and started up the southbound ramp of the New Jersey Turnpike. He must have reached the Goethals just in time. He’d been watching in his rearview mirror as much as he dared while the wagon fishtailed up the slippery span. Through the haze of falling snow, as he reached the crest of the bridge, he spotted a group of flashing blue lights converge behind him at its Staten Island base.

If they were confining their search to Staten Island, he was home free. But he couldn’t count on that. So the best thing to do was to put another state between himself and New York. He noticed on his toll ticket that Exit 6 was the Penn Turnpike Extension. That was where he’d go. Take that about a hundred miles into Pennsylvania and leave the car in a shopping mall. Then he’d buy a bus ticket and double back to Philadelphia. From there he’d Amtrak south, all the way to Florida. And after that, who knew? Maybe hitch a ride on a fishing boat to the Bahamas. That would put him less than a hundred miles from Florida but he’d be in a British territory, essentially a foreign country.

He felt so tired. He tried to look to the future but could see nothing there. And he couldn’t look back. God no—not back. He had to forget—forget Danny, forget America, forget the god he had trusted, forget Bill Ryan.

Yeah. Forget Bill Ryan. Bill Ryan was dead, along with everything he had ever believed in.

He had to get away to a place where no one would recognize him, a place where he could lose himself, lose his memories, lose his mind.

A place with no phones.

A heaviness grew in his chest. He was alone now. Truly alone. No one in the world he could turn to. Anything he had ever loved or cared about was either gone or closed to him. His folks were dead; his family home was a vacant lot with a charred spot at its center; he was barred from St. Francis; the Church and the Society would turn him in and disown him if he went to them for help.

And Danny was gone … poor dear Danny was gone too.

Wasn’t he?

Of course he was. Safe and at peace, smothered beneath four feet of frozen, snow-covered earth. How could he be otherwise?

Shuddering, he shook off the horrifying possibility and accelerated, leaving it behind. But its ghost followed him south through the white limbo of the blizzard.

Part III

NOW

JANUARY

TWENTY

North Carolina

Saturday morning and it was top-down weather.

Bill reveled in the warmth of the sun on his shoulders and the back of his neck as he pulled from a parking slot on Conway Street. Warm for late January, even a North Carolina January. He’d just picked up a bargain-priced CD of The Notorious Byrd Brothers and he was itching to play it. How long had it been since he’d heard “Tribal Gathering” and “Dolphin Smile,” tunes they never played on the radio, especially down here.

He pressed the scan button on his radio—one of the old Impala’s few non-vintage accessories—and stopped it when he heard someone singing a plaintive, country-fied version of “Yellow Bird.” A wave of nausea sloshed against the walls of his stomach as he was jerked back to the Bahamas, back to the stretch of lost years he had spent among that cluster of tiny islands straddling the Tropic of Cancer.

He’d arrived in West Palm by train late on January second. First thing the next morning he rented a sixteen-foot outboard, loaded it up with extra gas, and followed one of the tour boats out toward the Bahamas. He ran out of fuel a quarter mile short of Grand Bahama and had to swim the rest of the way in. When he came ashore at West End, he sat on the beach for a while, barely able to move. He was now on British soil, which meant he had to add his native country to the things he had left behind.

Besides his life, he had only one other thing left to lose. He wrote William Ryan, S.J. on the wet sand near the waterline, turned his back, and began walking.

His clothes were dry by the time he reached Freeport.

He experienced most of the next two decades or so through a haze of cheap rum and drugs. Why not? What did he care? He didn’t trust God anymore, at least not the god he’d been raised to believe in. And he didn’t think of himself as a priest anymore either. How could he? He could barely think of himself as human. Not after what he’d done. He’d smothered a child he’d loved more than anything in this world. Buried him alive. No matter that he’d done it out of love, to put the boy out of reach of the forces that were torturing him—he’d done it. He’d dug the hole, and placed the child within, and then he’d filled it.

An atrocity—The Atrocity, as he came to call it. And the memory of the weight of the dirt-laden shovel in his hands, the image of that small, struggling, blanket-shrouded form disappearing beneath the cascades of falling earth, was more than he could bear. He’d had to blot it out, all of it.

He lived in backstreet rooms in Freeport on Grand Bahama, in Hope Town on Great Abaco, in Governor’s Harbor on Eleuthera. His money didn’t last long and he soon wound up on New Providence, bedding down on the sand each night—feeling as hollow as the empty shells washed up by the tide—and during the day wandering Cable Beach selling bags of peanuts or shilling for the ride operators off Paradise Island, getting two bucks a head for every passenger he rounded up for the banana-boats and five each for the parasails, spending it all on anything he could smoke, swallow, or snort to blot out the memory of The Atrocity.

He spent the time stoned or drunk or both. He recognized no limits. Whatever it took, he’d take. A couple of times he overdid it and nearly did himself in. More than once he seriously considered getting together enough stuff for a fatal overdose, but he kept putting it off.

Finally, his body rebelled. Even if his mind did not want to live, his flesh did. And it refused to stomach any more liquor. He sobered up by default. And he found a clear head bearable. The Atrocity had receded into the past. The wounds it had left hadn’t healed, but they had evolved from open sores to a cluster of steadily throbbing aches that flared only occasionally into agony.

And that agony plunged him again and again into the blackest despair. He was in a drugged stupor at the time, so he didn’t remember the first anniversary of The Atrocity, but he’d never forget the twentieth: He’d spent most of that New Year’s Eve with the bore of a borrowed snubnose .357 magnum pressed against his right eyelid.

But he couldn’t pull the trigger. By the time the sun rose on the new year, he’d decided to live a while longer, to see if he could set what was left of his life into some semblance of order.

He found he hadn’t lost his knack with the internal combustion engine, so he managed to land a part-time job at Maura’s Marina on Potter’s Cay under the Paradise Island Bridge. His way with motors soon won him the respect and admiration of boatmen on both sides of the law, so when he began entertaining the notion of returning to the States, he asked the right people for advice and was shocked at how easy it was to buy a new identity.

Born again … as Will Ryerson.

They’d advised him to choose a name close to his own to make it easier to cover slips when speaking or writing the new one. Will Ryerson now seemed more like his real name than Bill Ryan ever had.

But Father Bill wasn’t dead. Despite everything that had happened, the priest part of him still wanted very badly to believe in God. The Jesuit within him still pushed at the envelope of Will Ryerson’s persona. So he’d made concessions to it. He’d begun to say his daily office again. He kept hoping he’d find a way to go back. But how? No statute of limitation on murder.

But during these past three years in North Carolina he had found a new equilibrium. He was not happy—he doubted he would ever be really happy again—but he had come to terms with his existence.

And now, on this sunny Saturday morning, he spotted one of the few bright spots in his life strolling along the sidewalk. A slim, knock-out of a blonde trailing a wake of turned heads. Lisl. And she was alone. She was hardly ever alone anymore. He stopped at the corner, blocking her path as she stepped off the curb.

“Hey, girlie! Wanna go for a spin?”

He saw her head come up, saw her upper lip start to curl as she readied a curt reply, then saw her smile. What a smile. Like the sun burning through low-lying clouds.

“Will! You’ve got the top down!”

“Perfect day for it. I’m serious about the spin. How about it?”

He was hoping she’d say yes. It seemed like an age since they’d had some decent time together to talk.

She hesitated for a second, then shrugged. “Why not? I’d have to be crazy to refuse.”

He leaned over and pushed open the door for her.

“Been a long time, Leese.”

“Too long,” she said, sliding in and slamming it closed.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere. How about the highway? I want to go fast.”

Bill headed out of town, wondering at the perversity of life. Here he was, an aging, shabby, bearded, ponytailed, defrocked priest riding in a convertible under a perfect sky with a beautiful windblown blonde. He felt like the high school burnout who’d just picked up the queen of the prom.

Maybe happiness wasn’t an impossible dream.

“What are you grinning at?” Lisl asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Everything.”

As he was overtaking someone on a bicycle, Lisl said, “Watch out for the geek.”

Bill looked at her sharply. He hadn’t expected a crack like that. Although Bill didn’t know his name, the kid was a familiar sight around town. He’d never spoken to him, but he could tell by his features, by the single-minded intensity with which he pedaled his bike, by his clothing and the incongruous fedora he wore every day, that he was mentally retarded. Bill could imagine the kid’s mother making his lunch, stowing it in that dinky little knapsack on his back, and sending him off every morning. Probably worked at the Sheltered Workshop on the other end of town.

“Get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?”

“Not at all,” Lisl muttered as they passed the kid. “They shouldn’t allow mutants like that on the road.”

“You’re pulling my leg, right? I don’t know that kid, but I’m proud of him. Dressing himself, riding to work, and doing some manual labor probably taxes his abilities to their limit, yet he’s out here on his bike every day, rain or shine, making it to work and back. You can’t take that away from him. It’s all he’s got.”

“Right. Until he has a spasm and gets hit by a car and his folks sue the driver for everything he’s worth.”

Bill reached over and felt her forehead. “You all right? Coming down with a fever?”

Lisl laughed. “I’m fine. Forget it.”

Bill tried to do just that as they hit Route 40 and drove north, sailing along, talking about what they’d been doing, what they’d been reading, but in everything she said he detected subtle nuances of change. This Lisl was different from the woman he’d known for the past three years. She seemed to have hardened in the weeks since her Christmas party, as if she were building up a shell around herself. And all she seemed to want to talk about was Rafe Losmara.

“Any further word from the State Police on that weird telephone call?” he said, as much from a sincere desire to know as from a wish to move the conversation away from Rafe.

“No. Not a word. And I don’t care. As long as I never have to hear that voice again.”

The way she shuddered reminded him of the old Lisl, and that was a relief.

Bill had been shaken up when Lisl told him that the call was being investigated. And he still couldn’t figure out how the North Carolina State Police had connected him with it, or had wound up with that old photo of him. Had to be Renny Augustino’s doing, especially since it sounded like the same photo the New York police had released back when he’d run. That one had been old even back then. Bill was now twenty pounds lighter and ages older than the priest in that photo.

He was different in other ways too. That Christmas week in hell, plus the lost years of living on the edge in the Bahamas, had wrought their own set of changes. He’d hung out with scum during that time and had thought they were too good for him; he’d been cut and he’d had his nose mangled more than once in the drunken fights he’d started. Time had added deep furrows to his cheeks and alongside the scar on his forehead, and a bumper crop of gray to his hair. He usually tied that hair back, exposing the receding hairline at each temple. All that, plus the full beard, made him look more like a heavier-set version of Willie Nelson than the young, baby-faced Father Bill in the old photo. So he shouldn’t have been surprised that Lisl hadn’t recognized him. Yet he was. He wasn’t used to good luck.

Traffic began to slow as the road became more crowded.

“Where’s everybody going?” Lisl asked.

“It’s a warm sunny Saturday. Where else would everybody be going?”

Lisl sank back in the seat. “Of course. Big Country.”

The giant amusement park cum African safari complex had opened a few years ago and quickly became the biggest attraction on the eastern end of the state. The locals loved all the new jobs and the boost to the economy, but nobody liked the traffic jams.

“Want to go? We haven’t been to the safari in a long time.”

“No thanks,” she said with an emphatic shake of her head. “I’m not in the mood for crowds.”

“No,” he said, smiling, “I can see that you aren’t.”

Maybe she had PMS.

They finally came upon one of the contributing factors to the traffic jam—a stalled station wagon, an ancient Ford Country Squire, just like the one St. Francis used to own. The hood was up and a man in jeans and a flannel shirt was leaning over the engine.

As they passed, Bill saw the stricken looks on the faces of the four kids in the back, the naked anger and resentment on the face of the overweight woman in the front passenger seat, and then he got a look at the man staring in bewilderment at the dead engine before him.

Something in the fellow’s eyes caught Bill in the throat. He read it all in a heartbeat—a laborer, not much dough but he’d promised to take the wife and kids to Big Country for the day. A rare treat. And now they weren’t going anywhere. The tow truck and ensuing repairs would probably eat up much of his spare cash. And even if they didn’t, the day would be gone by the time they got rolling again. If the man’s eyes had shown plain old anger or frustration, Bill could have kept going. But what he saw in that flash was defeat. One more footprint on the back of an already struggling ego.

Bill swerved onto the shoulder in front of the wagon.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get this guy going again.”

“Bill, I don’t want to sit here and—”

“Only be a minute.”

He hurried over to the wagon. He knew the Country Squire engine like he knew his Breviary. If it wasn’t anything major, he could fix it.

He leaned on the fender and looked across the engine at a man who was probably twenty years younger but didn’t look it.

“She die on you?”

The fellow looked up at him suspiciously. Bill expected that. People tended to be leery of offers of help from bearded guys with ponytails.

“Yeah. Died while we were stopped during the jam. She cranks but she won’t catch. I’m afraid I don’t know much about cars.”

“I do.” Bill started spinning the wing nut on the air filter hat. When he’d exposed the carburetor he said, “Get in and hit the gas pedal. Once.”

The fellow did as he was told and Bill noticed right away that the butterfly valve didn’t move. Stuck. He smiled. This was going to be easy.

He freed the valve and held it open.

“All right,” he called. “Give her a try.”

The engine turned and turned but didn’t catch.

“This is what it was doing before!” the driver shouted.

“Just keep going!”

And then it caught. The engine shuddered and shook and then roared to life with a huge belch of black smoke from the rear. These engines tended to do that.

To the tune of children’s cheers from the wagon’s rear compartment, Bill ran to his own car, popped the trunk, and got some spray lubricant from his work box. He lubed the hinges on the valve, replaced the hat, and slammed the hood.

“Get that carburetor cleaned and your choke checked out as soon as you can,” he told the man, “or this’ll happen again.”

The fellow held out a twenty to him but Bill pushed it back.

“Get those kids an extra hot dog.”

“God bless you, mister,” the woman said.

“Not likely,” Bill said softly as they pulled away.

He returned the waves of the smiling kids hanging out the rear window, then walked up to his own car.

“There!” he said to Lisl as he started the Impala. “That didn’t take too long.”

“The Good Samaritan,” she said with a sad shake of her head.

“Why not? It cost me nothing but a few minutes of doing the kind of thing I like to putter around with in my spare time anyway, and it literally saved the day for six people.”

Lisl reached over and touched his hand.

“You’re a good man, Will. But you shouldn’t let everyone who comes along take advantage of your good nature. They’ll eat you alive if you do.”

Bill turned off at the next exit, looped onto the overpass, and got back on the freeway heading south toward town. Her attitude baffled him.

“No one took advantage of me, Lisl. I saw a fellow human being who needed a hand; I had no place I was hurrying to, so I lent him one. That’s all. No big thing. I come away feeling a little better about myself, he goes away feeling better about other people. And somewhere inside I have this hope that I’ve started some kind of chain letter: Maybe the next time he sees someone who needs a hand, he’ll stop. That’s what it’s all about, Lisl. We’re all in this mess together.”

“Why do you need to feel better about yourself?”

The question caught him off guard. Lady, if you only knew.

“I … I think everybody does, a little. I mean, how many people don’t feel they could be better or do better? I like to feel I can make a difference. I don’t mean changing the world—although, come to think of it, if you make a change for the better in one person’s life, you have changed the world, haven’t you? An infinitesimal change, but the world, or at least a part of it, is better for your passing.”

He was pleased with the thought.

“If you want to be a sacrificial lamb, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people standing in line for a piece of you.”

“But I’m not talking about sacrifice. I’m talking about simple good-fellowship, acting like just another crewman on Spaceship Earth.”

“But you’re not a crewman. You’re an officer. Think about it, Will. Can any of them do anything—really do anything—for you?”

He thought about that, and was frightened by the answer. Who out there in the world could help him? Was there anyone who could put his life right again?

“No,” he said softly.

“Exactly. Primes stand alone. We’re islands. We have to learn to exist apart from the rest.”

Bill stared straight ahead at the road and thought, Lisl, you don’t want to be an island. I know what it’s like. I’ve been an island, and it’s hell.

And then something she’d said struck a discordant note in his brain.

“Primes? Did you say Primes? What’s that?”

She then launched into this involved dissertation on Primes and “others,” punctuated everywhere with the phrase, “Rafe says.”

“What a load of elitist bullshit!” Bill said when she was through. “Does Rafe really believe that garbage?”

“Of course. And it’s not garbage. That’s your cultural conditioning speaking. Rafe says—”

“Never mind what Rafe says. What does Lisl say?”

“Lisl says the same thing. You and I and so many others have been conditioned to deny who we really are so that we can be more easily used. If you look around you, really look at the world, you’ll see that it’s true.”

Bill stared at her.

“What’s the matter with you, Leese?”

She turned on him, her face contorted with anger.

“Don’t say that to me! My parents always said it and I don’t want to hear it ever again!”

“Okay, okay,” Bill said soothingly, startled by the outburst. “Be cool. I’m not your parent.”

He spent the rest of the ride back to town trying to explain the shortcomings of Rafe’s perverted egoism, how egoism in itself wasn’t wrong, but when it refused to recognize the validity of all the other I‘s around it, the result sacrificed not only logic but compassion as well.

But Lisl wasn’t having any of it. She’d bought completely into Rafe’s philosophy.

Slowly, a deep unease wormed through Bill.

What was happening here? It was almost as if Rafe had been reshaping Lisl from within—right under Bill’s nose.

He saw how it had happened. Someone as vulnerable as Lisl was a sitting duck. A poor self-image, emotionally battered, and suddenly here comes this enormously attractive young man telling her she’s not the ugly duckling she’s always considered herself, but a swan. A little love and affection to ease the deep emotional pains from her divorce; a little tenderness, a little patience, and Lisl opened up to him.

But having her physically wasn’t enough, apparently. He’d gone on to seduce her mind as well. Once her defenses were down, he began to fill the vacuum of her valueless upbringing, whispering a twisted philosophy that offered an easy road to the self-esteem she’d been denied for most of her life. But it was false self-esteem, gained at others’ expense. And during the course of his remodeling job, Rafe had made himself Lisl’s sun; she revolved around him now, her face turned always toward him, only him.

As they pulled into town, Lisl asked Bill to drop her off at the downtown lot where she’d left her car.

“Thanks for the ride, Will. It was great. But I want to get you and Rafe together real soon. He’ll open your eyes. Wait and see—it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

She waved, then turned and headed for her car. Bill felt a terrible sadness as he watched her go.

I’m losing her.

Not losing her body, not her love—they weren’t the important things for Bill where Lisl was concerned—but her mind, her soul.

Rafe. What was he doing to her? His involvement here seemed almost … sinister. But that had to be Bill’s latent paranoia rearing its head. He sensed no plot here. Rafe was simply drawing Lisl into his own warped view of the world. Warped people tended to do that.

But in doing so he was turning Bill’s only friend in the world into a stranger. Bill couldn’t allow that. Lisl was too innocent, too decent a person at heart for him to sit back and watch all that was good within her get sucked down the black hole of a philosophy like Rafe’s.

He had to help her fight back, even if she didn’t want to.

Bill knew he was late coming to the battle. He hadn’t even known it was being waged until today. But he could not sit on the sidelines any longer.

The first order of business was to learn a little more about Rafe Losmara.

TWENTY-ONE

1

Everett Sanders sat alone in his office and chewed his twentieth white grape. He hadn’t been able to find any decent peaches yesterday, so he’d settled for the grapes. He folded the Ziploc bag he’d brought them in and slipped it back into his brown paper lunch bag. He stashed the bag in his briefcase.

There. Lunch was done. Time for cigarette number six. He lit up and reached for his novel of the week. An old one: The Scarlatti Inheritance by Robert Ludlum. He was enjoying it; so much so that he had read well past yesterday’s quota of pages last night. He pulled the little notebook from his breast pocket. Yes, there it was. Last night’s entry. He’d completed today’s quota before he’d finally turned in.

Which left Ev in something of a quandary. Any more reading during his lunch break today would put him farther ahead, opening the possibility of having nothing to read on Saturday. Of course he could always get an early start on next week’s book—usually first opened on Sunday afternoon—but that would move everything out of sequence for the coming week and he might be faced with an even worse problem next weekend.

A domino dilemma. Perhaps a book of short stories might solve the problem … He could sample a few as needed and then—

No. It was novels he liked and novels he would read.

Why not skip reading altogether today? It was Wednesday, after all, and he did have the meeting tonight. If he stayed a little later he could come home and go directly to bed at his usual hour of 11:30, immediately after the late news. All he had to do now was find a way to kill the lunch hour time and he’d be almost home free.

But he had no back-up plan for this lunch hour. That meant free time. Ev didn’t like free time. It wasn’t good for him. He knew from past experience that if he allowed his thoughts to roam free too long, they would roam the wrong way.

He was tempted to turn on his terminal and work on his paper for Palo Alto, but he had allotted time elsewhere in the day for that. He couldn’t do that now.

Ev began to feel the first twinges of anxiety.

He went to the window and looked out to where Lisl used to take her lunch. He hadn’t seen her with the groundskeeper lately. Maybe it was too cool these days for lunch al fresco.

As he smoked his cigarette and stared out at the deserted knoll, he began to experience another reason for avoiding unoccupied time: loneliness. A cluttered day left no time to ponder the emptiness of his existence.

And it is empty, isn’t it?

He sighed as he exhaled the last of his cigarette. But that was how it had to be, at least for the time being. Perhaps in a few years, if he found the right someone, someone who could understand and accept him, he might be ready to make another commitment. He’d be past forty-five then. Kind of late in life to be thinking of marriage again. But other people did it all the time, so why couldn’t he?

Perhaps because his first marriage had been so painful. Poor, long-suffering Diane—what he had put her through. She’d hung on longer than anyone had a right to expect while their marriage had died a lingering death, all because of him. Someday he might have the courage to try again and get it right the second time, but such a thing was impossible now. He still loved Diane.

He lit cigarette number seven and strolled into the hall. He had a sudden craving for human company but did not expect to find it in the department at lunch hour. Most of the faculty retreated to the lounge where they could eat in peace without interruption from students with questions and problems. Still, it was worth a look.

He pulled up short as he passed Lisl’s office. The door was open and someone was in there. He backed up a step. Lisl, working away at her terminal. Industry. He liked that, especially in a woman. He hesitated, then knocked on her doorframe.

“Working hard?”

Lisl turned with a startled expression, then she smiled. She had a wonderful smile.

“Ev! How are you? What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just wandering the halls, looking for someone to talk to. But if I’m disturbing you—”

“Don’t be silly. Come in, come in. Let me exit this”—she pressed a couple of keys and her terminal beeped—”and we’ll talk.”

She motioned him to one of the chairs. She’d lost more weight and was very trim now. Absolutely smashing in her snug sweater and knee-length skirt. Not at all what one would expect in a mathematics professor. That gave Ev a twinge of concern. Lisl’s level of attractiveness bordered on the unprofessional. A student might find it very difficult to concentrate on her words while she looked like that. He wondered if he should mention it to her … purely as a friend. Then again, maybe he should mind his own business.

“So,” he said as he sat down, “working on your paper?”

“Yes. It’s coming along pretty well. How about yours?”

“Oh, I’m bogged down on some of the calculations, but I think it’s all going to work out in the end.”

He wondered what her topic was but knew it wouldn’t be proper to ask. He was sure she’d have a good paper, but he was also sure his would be better. He was very excited about it.

Silence hung between them.

“So,” she said finally, “what have you been up to lately besides your paper? Anything exciting?”

He had to laugh. Exciting? Me? Excitement implied spontaneity, and for Ev spontaneity meant trouble. He had painstakingly arranged his life so as to eliminate the unexpected, structured his days so that each one followed a predictable pattern, so that every Wednesday was just like every other Wednesday. Excitement? He had no room in his life for excitement. He’d made sure of that.

“Well, I’m reading a rather exciting novel at the moment—an oldie but a goodie, you might say. It’s—”

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind him. “Am I interrupting something?”

Ev turned and saw that Losmara fellow Lisl had been keeping company with. He wondered what she saw in him. He was not at all the sort Ev would have matched with her. Too delicate. Lisl seemed the type who’d be more at home with a beefier male, one with more physical presence. But none of this was any real concern of his. Over the years he’d learned to mind his own business.

“Hi, Rafe,” Lisl said. “You remember Doctor Sanders?”

“Of course,” Losmara said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “I’ve been auditing a few of your lectures.”

“Have you now?” Ev said, rising and shaking hands. “I don’t remember seeing you there.”

The young man smiled. “I usually take a seat in a back row. I’m just there to listen, to keep a honed edge on my math. You can’t let your math get rusty in my end of Psych.”

Ev felt his attitude toward Losmara warming. Maybe there was more to him than he’d thought, some real depth behind that dandified, rich-kid appearance.

“I hope they’re useful.”

“They’re telling me what I want to know.”

Ev saw a look pass between Lisl and Losmara and realized he was a fifth wheel here.

“Well, I’ve got some odds and ends to clear up in my office. Nice talking to you, Lisl. And good luck to you, Mr. Losmara.”

They shook hands again and Ev left the two lovers alone. He still didn’t approve of faculty-student affairs, even when there was no academic relationship, but he had to admit that Rafe Losmara’s attitude toward learning indicated that he had the makings of a fine scholar.

2

“You’re auditing Ev’s lectures?” Lisl said after she’d closed her office door.

Rafe smiled. “Know thine enemy.”

“Ev’s not an enemy.”

“You wouldn’t think someone as prissy and ineffective as he could pose a threat, but don’t be surprised when he gets tenure and you’re left out in the cold.”

“He won’t if my paper’s as good as I think it is—as you say it is.”

“The relative quality of your papers is irrelevant. In the end the only thing that will matter is sex.”

“Sex?”

“Yes. He’s a male. You’re a female. He’ll get the post because of his Y chromosome, because of what hangs between his legs.”

“Bull, Rafe.”

He’d alluded to this before but Lisl refused to buy it. Still wouldn’t.

Rafe shrugged. “Suit yourself. Stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. That’s the way Primes always get cheated out of what they deserve—they let the leeches snatch it from under their noses.”

“Ev’s not a leech. He’s one of us.”

“Ev?” He barked a laugh. “Everett Sanders? A Prime? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“He’s got a brilliant mind, Rafe. One of the cleverest mathematicians I’ve ever met. He stands alone, he doesn’t need the approval of the crowd—an island if there ever was one. He’s all the things you say distinguish a Prime.”

“He’s a nonentity, a misfit, little more than an actor.” His voice dripped with scorn. “He plays at being a whiz but he’s nothing more than an accomplished poseur.”

When Rafe got like this—sniping at her opinions, goading her—she could almost hate him.

“You’re not qualified to judge his work,” she snapped.

The remark had the desired effect. Rafe turned to her with raised eyebrows, a smile playing about his lips.

“But I’m not judging his work, Lisl. I’m judging the man. I say he’s one of them, and with a little help from you, I can prove it.”

Lisl took a deep breath. She was almost afraid to hear this.

“What sort of help?”

“His keys. Get me his keys for half an hour and I’ll have what I need.”

“How can I—?”

“Make up a story. You lost your key to the front door of the building or something. Charm him, but get those keys.”

“And what are you going to do with them?”

“Never mind.” His half smile broadened into a grin. “You’ll know soon enough. Do you accept the challenge?”

Without replying, Lisl walked past him, through the door, and down the hall. She knocked on Ev’s open door.

“Ev?” she said as he looked up from his desk. “I left my storeroom key home. Can I borrow yours?”

“Of course.”

He went to the suit coat neatly hung on a hanger behind the door, reached into a side pocket, and produced a jangling ring. He picked out one and held it up for her as he handed her the entire ring.

“This one’s for the storeroom.”

“I’ll get these right back to you.”

“No hurry, Lisl,” he said with a smile. “I trust you.”

Damn, she thought as she thanked him. Why’d you have to say that?

Lisl’s pace was slower as she headed back to her office. She had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, a sudden urge to run back and wrap the key ring in Ev’s bony fingers and tell him never, never, never let her get near them again. But she couldn’t give in to that sort of groundless feeling. What would Rafe think?

Sometimes—and this was one of them—she wondered if she let what Rafe thought matter too much to her. But she couldn’t help it. It did matter. Rafe mattered. And she was so afraid he would find her out, afraid she’d do something to give herself away.

Because she was convinced she wasn’t really a Prime.

Sure, Rafe called her one and didn’t seem to have any doubts about it, but Lisl was riddled with them. She felt like a fake. She’d read where a lot of accomplished people—neurosurgeons, judges, statesmen—felt the same way … felt deep inside that their lives were shams, that their success had been a combination of luck and cleverness and that they were nothing at all like the brilliant individuals people perceived them to be, how they lived in fear of the misstep that would reveal their true nothing selves.

Lisl had experienced vaguely similar feelings all through college and her postgraduate training. The work had been a breeze, her professors had told her time and again what a brilliant mind she had as they’d raved about her papers. Yet deep inside she’d never believed them. Rafe, she was sure, would lay the blame for all her insecurities on the way her parents had treated her, but finger pointing wouldn’t help Lisl get past the idea that all her academic accomplishments were nothing more than a bubble that one day would burst and allow the world to see the naked, frightened, inadequate little girl inside.

She was sure Brian had peeked inside the bubble. That had to be why he’d left her. She wasn’t going to let Rafe find out. She’d go on acting like one of his Primes as long as she could get away with it. It was mostly an attitude, of dividing up the world into people who mattered and people who didn’t, the few worth knowing and the great many not worth thinking about. She’d been practicing. It didn’t come naturally but she was getting the hang of it. And maybe if she acted like a Prime long enough, she’d become one.

So she would let Rafe have the keys, but she wasn’t going to let him pull any of his tricks on Ev. Ev was too nice a man.

She returned to her office and dropped the key ring in his outstretched palm.

“Here they are. But I hope you’re not planning any nastiness.”

Rafe shrugged. “Dirty tricks? They’re fun, but we’ve pulled enough of them on Brian during the last month to carry us the rest of the year, don’t you think?”

Lisl had to smile. Yes, they had indeed. They’d purchased subscriptions to The Advocate and other homosexual publications for his office waiting-room; Rafe had applied for membership in NAMBLA—the North American Man-Boy Love Association—in Brian’s name; and on a couple of occasions they’d sat in his waiting room and slipped samples of hardcore gay pornography between the pages of People and Time and Good Housekeeping. Dr. Brian Callahan’s sexual orientation was now seriously in question among his peers at the medical center.

The piece de resistance had been the sign they had taped to the passenger side of Brian’s black Porsche one night shortly before he’d driven it home from the hospital. In fluorescent orange letters on black paper it had read:

BACK OFF! THIS CAR KILLS NIGGERS WHO TOUCH IT!

It had been dark in the parking lot and Brian had approached on the driver side. He had no inkling of the sign’s existence until he pulled to a stop at a light in the downtown black section and a group of infuriated youths attacked the car. Lisl and Rafe had been following a few car lengths behind. They watched the kids pound on his windows, break off his radio and car phone antennae, and kick dents in his doors and fenders. Lisl had been shocked when she caught herself avidly hoping they’d get a door open and vent some of their rage on Brian himself. The idea that she could hunger for something like that sickened her. Everyone had a dark side, but hers seemed so close to the surface now. That worried her.

But Brian roared off before they could touch him. Before he got away, the kids tore off the sign and shredded it, so no doubt he still was baffled as to what had precipitated the attack on his car.

But she’d noticed him taking a longer, more circuitous route home these days.

“They seem kind of childish now,” Lisl said, worrying anew about the darkness she’d discovered within her.

“That’s because they’ve served their purpose. They taught you that he does not have all the power, that you actually have power over him. You can make his life miserable when you choose and you can leave him alone when you choose. When you choose—that’s the lesson. And now that you’ve learned it we can move on to other things, leaving Doctor Callahan lying awake at nights wondering who, wondering why, wondering what next?”

“I don’t want to leave Ev like that.”

“Don’t worry. We’re just going to do a little snooping on Professor Sanders. That’s all. See what makes him tick.”

“Nothing more. You promise?”

“I won’t need anything more to prove to you that he’s a phony.”

“You’re wrong this time, Rafe. I think Ev is one of those WYSIWYG people.”

“‘What you see is what you get’? There is no such animal. And I’ll prove it to you tonight when we search his apartment.”

Lisl’s stomach lurched. Wasn’t that breaking and entering? And wasn’t that going just a bit too far? Then again, after all their thefts, she couldn’t very well back down now. She couldn’t surrender to Rafe’s theory about Ev. Because she knew he was wrong.

“We can’t do that. Not—not while he’s there.”

“He won’t be. It’s Wednesday night. He goes out every Wednesday night.”

“He does?” She had difficulty imagining Ev going out at all. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll follow him sometime. But tonight we’ll take advantage of his unfailing routine and check out his digs, see what makes him tick.”

“Is this fair, Rafe?”

He laughed. “Fair? What’s fair got to do with it? This is a leech posing as a Prime! We’ve got to set things right.”

“Why do we have to—?”

“In fact,” Rafe went on, beginning to move about the office, slashing the air with his hand, “I’ve got a feeling Doctor Everett Sanders is a fag.”

“Knock it off, Rafe.”

“No. I’m serious. I mean, consider his name—Ev. What normal man lets himself be called Ev? It’s effeminate. And he’s such a priss, so neat and particular. Like a maiden aunt. And have you ever seen him with a woman?”

“No. But I’ve never seen him with a man either. Maybe he’s just asexual.”

“Maybe. But he’s hiding something. You can count on that. Have you seen his CV?”

“No. Why would I—?”

“He graduated cum laude from Emory, worked for a few years, then entered the masters program at Duke, went on for his doctorate, then came here to Darnell.”

“What’s wrong with that? Lots of people work in the real world before going on for postgraduate degrees.”

“Right. But there’s a ten-year blank spot in his curriculum vitae.”

“Ten years?”

Rafe nodded and placed his hands on her shoulders, his fingers brushing the base of her neck, raising delicious gooseflesh along her arms.

“Like he dropped off the face of the earth. He’s not telling anybody what he did with those years, which means he’s hiding something. And we’re going to find out what it is.”

Something occurred to her. “I could say the same thing about you, right? You did years of traveling between high school and college.” She gave him a sly smile. “What were you doing all that time?”

“Becoming me.”

“Maybe Ev was doing the same.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

He began to knead the tense muscles in her neck and shoulders, magically relaxing them. She closed her eyes and reveled in the soothing sensations. As always, Rafe’s touch caused her doubts to dwindle, her fears to fade. Nothing mattered more than keeping him by her side. As she listened to Rafe’s soft voice, she found herself falling in line with his way of thinking. Her interest was piqued now.

What was Ev hiding?

3

Everett Sanders, Ph.D., where the fuck are you?

Renny sat and smoked a cigarette on the stoop outside the apartment house. Waiting. He’d been cooling here most of the day. This guy Sanders had to show up sooner or later. He hoped for sooner.

He was almost out of names. And just about out of hope. He’d checked out all but two of the people on Lisl Whitman’s guest list. If he didn’t hit pay dirt with this one or the final one, he’d be forced to write this trip off as a complete bust. No way. Too much time and money and good will back at Midtown North down the tubes for that. He needed to score here.

More than just a score—he needed to strike it rich. He needed Everett Sanders, Ph.D., AKA Father William Ryan, S.J., to walk up the steps, head bowed, lost in thought. Renny would recognize him in an instant and say, “Hey, Father Bill. How’s Danny doing?” Then he’d land a right hook and knock him back to the sidewalk. And extradition be damned, he’d stick him in his trunk and haul him back to Queens for arraignment.

A dream. A pipe dream.

As he was scuffing his latest cigarette butt into oblivion on the stone stoop, a bony guy in a tan raincoat started up the steps. At first glance he looked older, but close up Renny pegged him at somewhere in his mid-forties. This sallow, bifocaled ghost wasn’t Ryan, that was for sure. And hopefully he wasn’t Sanders either. Because if he was, that left only one more name to check.

“Excuse me,” Renny said, reaching for his badge. He’d been using his NYPD shield but not giving anyone a good enough look at it to realize it had been issued a long way from North Carolina.

The man stopped abruptly and stared at him.

“Yes?” His voice was cool, dry—like the desert at night.

“Would you be Professor Sanders?”

Please say no.

“Why, yes. Who are you?”

Damn!

“I’m Detective Sergeant Augustino with the State Police”—a quick flash of his metal in mid sentence—”and I’m investigating an incident at Doctor Lisl Whitman’s party last month.”

“Party? Incident?” The man’s expression was genuinely confused for a moment, then it cleared. “Oh, you mean the Christmas party. Why would you be investigating her party?”

“There was a sort of obscene phone call and—”

“Oh, yes. I remember her mentioning that. It seemed to have upset her terribly. But I’m sorry—I can’t help you.”

Renny put on a smile. “You may be able to help more than you know. You see, lots of times—”

“I wasn’t there, Sergeant.”

Automatically, Renny looked down at the slip of paper in his hand.

“But your name’s on the list.”

“I was invited but I didn’t go. I don’t go to parties.”

Renny gave Dr. Sanders’s prim, fastidious exterior another quick up-and-down.

No, I guess you don’t.

“Well then, maybe you can help this way.” He pulled the Father Ryan photo from his inner pocket and held it out to Sanders. “Ever seen this guy before? Anywhere?”

Sanders started to shake his head, then stopped. He took the picture from Renny and stared at it, cocking his head this way and that.

“Strange…”

Renny felt his heart pick up its tempo.

“Strange? What’s strange? You’ve seen him?”

“I’m not sure. He looks vaguely familiar but I can’t quite place him.”

“Try.”

He glanced at Renny through the upper half of his glasses.

“I’m doing just that, I assure you.”

“Sorry.”

Twit.

Finally Sanders shook his head and handed the picture back.

“No. It won’t come. I’m quite sure I’ve seen him somewhere but just when and just where I can’t say.”

Renny bit down on his impatience and pushed the picture back at him.

“Take your time. Take another look.”

“I’ve looked quite enough, thank you. Never fear. I never forget a face. It will come to me. Give me your number and I’ll call you when it does.”

Out of habit, Renny reached for his wallet where he kept a supply of cards—New York City cards. He diverted his hand to his breast pocket for his pen and notebook.

“I’m right here in town for the moment.” He wrote down the number of the motel where he was staying. “If I’m not in, leave your number and I’ll get back to you.”

“Very well.”

He took the slip of notepaper and started up the steps toward the front door.

“Sure you don’t want to take another look?”

“I’ve committed it to memory. I’ll be in touch. Good day, Sergeant.”

“Good day, Professor Sanders.”

What a tight-ass.

But Renny didn’t care if Sanders farted in C above high C, as long as he remembered the guy who reminded him of Father Ryan.

He felt a new lightness to his step as he hopped down to the sidewalk and headed for the last name on his list—Professor Calvin Rogers. A wasted trip, probably, but Renny wasn’t leaving anything to chance. After all, look what a five-minute conversation with this Professor Sanders had turned up.

Yeah. Renny had a gut feeling Sanders was going to turn this trip around.

4

“I don’t believe we’re doing this,” Lisl said in a low voice as she followed Rafe into the vestibule of Ev’s apartment building.

“Nothing to it.”

He handed her a shiny new key, fresh cut from Ev’s own this afternoon.

Reluctantly she took it. She had the jitters.

“I don’t like this, Rafe.”

“It’s not as if we’re going to steal anything. We’re just going to look around. So let’s get going. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we’ll be out.”

Unable to argue with the logic of that, and wanting very much to have this over and done with, Lisl unlocked the vestibule door. With Rafe in the lead, half dragging her up the narrow stairs, they climbed to the third floor. Outside apartment 3B, Rafe handed her another key. Her fingers were slippery with perspiration now.

“What if he’s in there?”

“Put your ear to the door.”

Lisl did. “The phone’s ringing.”

Rafe nodded, smiling. “Remember that call I made before we left?”

“When you left the phone off the hook?”

“Right. This is the number I called. There was no answer then, and if it’s still ringing, it means he hasn’t come back while we were in transit.”

Wondering at the deviousness of Rafe’s mind, Lisl checked the hall to make sure no one was watching, then unlocked Ev’s apartment door and hurried inside. When the door was closed behind them, she allowed herself to relax—just a little.

Rafe found the light switch, then the phone; he lifted the receiver long enough to stop the ring, then replaced it.

Silence.

“Now,” he said. “Where do we begin?”

Lisl looked around. Her immediate impression was that nobody lived here. The only personal item was the PC. Remove that and the apartment was like a hotel room after the cleaning crew had passed through—freshly spruced up and waiting for someone to rent it. It wasn’t decorated like a hotel room, not with this motley collection of furniture, but it had that just-cleaned, everything-in-its-place look and feel. She wondered idly if the toilet sported a paper ribbon across the seat.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“We just got here.” He strolled from the front living room to the study at the rear, into the bedroom, and back again. “The man lives like a monk—a neatnik monk with vows of cleanliness and orderliness.”

“Nothing unPrime about that.”

“Yes, there is. It shows an obsessive-compulsive personality. A Prime would be able to overcome it.”

“Maybe he’s a damaged Prime, like me.”

Rafe gave her a long look. “Maybe. But I’ll reserve judgment until after we’ve made our search.”

“All right, but let’s hurry. I don’t want him coming back and finding us here.”

“He won’t. But be careful to put everything back just the way you found it. And let me know when you come across anything that looks like a bank book. We both have a pretty good idea what Darnell is paying him and we know he can live better than this. Where’s his money going?” His grin became wolfish. “Maybe somebody’s blackmailing him.”

Lisl opened the refrigerator. Pitiful. Non-fat yogurt, orange juice, fruit, corn oil margarine, some lettuce, a red pepper, and some low-fat Swiss cheese.

Rafe glanced in over her shoulder.

“He eats like you do.”

“Maybe he’s a health nut—or he’s got a cholesterol problem.”

They began going through drawers. There weren’t many in the apartment, so it wasn’t long before Rafe came across Ev’s financial records. He shook his head and whistled as he paged through them.

“Rent, utilities, and food … rent, utilities, and food … that’s all he uses his money for. The rest is all in CDs and bonds in IRAs and Keoghs. He’s loaded.”

Lisl couldn’t repress a smile of satisfaction.

“There. I told you. He’s a Prime. He’ll be able to retire in another ten years.”

“We’re missing something.”

“Like what?” She was getting annoyed now. “What could we be missing? No drugs or alcohol here, not so much as a bottle of sherry; no gay magazines, no child porn, no notes from a blackmailer. Give it up, Rafe. The man’s clean. And he’s a Prime.”

“We still don’t know where he is tonight, or every other Wednesday night for that matter. Once we know that, I’ll rest my case … or bow to yours.”

“How are we supposed to find that out?”

“Simple. Next Wednesday night we’ll follow him.”

Games … Rafe loved games. But at least following Ev wasn’t illegal—not like snooping through his apartment.

“All right. We’ll do that. But let’s get out of here. Back to my place.” A fiery desire was growing within her. “I know something we can do that’s a lot more fun. And legal too.”

They made sure everything was just as they had found it, then they hurried back to Rafe’s car. Lisl took the lead on the way out.

5

Bill edged his old Impala out of the parking lot and into the flow along Conway Street. Traffic was light and he was in no hurry. He’d just seen a revival of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? for the third time and was in a great mood. Each time he found something new to marvel at. He’d tried watching it at home once on a DVD but it wasn’t the same. When he’d read that The Strand was running a big-screen revival, he’d jumped at the chance for another look.

As he pulled to a stop at a light, he noticed a familiar-looking sports car to his right on the side street, waiting to make a left turn. A Maserati. In the bright, diffused peach glow of the mercury vapor lamps that lined Conway, Bill recognized Rafe Losmara at the wheel, speaking animatedly to someone next to him. Once again Bill was struck by the feeling that they’d met before. Something tantalizingly familiar about his face.

He wondered who Rafe was with. He almost hoped it wasn’t Lisl. He was convinced that Rafe was no good for her, that his twisted values were behind the appalling deterioration in Lisl’s character.

Maybe Rafe was out with somebody else tonight. If so, perhaps Bill could find a way to use that as a wedge between Lisl and him.

All the standard objections rolled through his mind—it’s none of your business, she’s a big girl, a grown woman, you’re not her father, not even her uncle, and even if you were, she has a right to choose her lovers and her values—and he let them roll right out again.

All valid, but his feelings for Lisl overruled them. She was heading for a fall—Bill knew it as sure as he knew his real name—and he wanted to catch her before she did. Because she might not come back from this crash. And if Bill couldn’t save the one friend he had left in the world, he might not come back either.

As the Maserati made the turn and swung around the front of Bill’s car, he recognized Lisl in the passenger seat. He cursed in disappointment and shot one last glance at Rafe.

A wordless cry escaped Bill as the street seemed to tilt under his car. Close-up, in the strange mercury glow that gelled the air, Rafe’s mustache seemed to fade away, and his face … it looked … just like …

Sara!

And then he was past, gone, out of sight, his car a receding blob of red. But the vision remained, floating before Bill’s eyes.

Sara!

Why hadn’t he seen it before? The resemblance was unmistakable. He could be her brother!

What if he was her brother?

But how could that be? And why would he be here? What possible purpose—?

Lisl! Was he going to hurt Lisl like his sister had hurt Danny?

The blare of a horn from behind startled Bill and he looked up. The light was green. His slick palms slipped on the wheel as he pulled over to the curb and shut off the engine.

He sat behind the wheel, trembling, sweating, trying to get a grip as the wild thoughts raced through his head.

Wait. Stop. This was crazy.

Rafe had looked like Sara for an instant. So what? That was scary, but he wasn’t Sara, and the odds of someone related to Sara showing up as a graduate student at the same university where Bill was working under an assumed identity were astronomical.

And yet …

Bill couldn’t shake the feeling that a veil had parted for an instant and allowed him a peek at a deadly secret. He couldn’t ignore it. He had to follow it up. Now. But he couldn’t do it himself. He couldn’t raise his profile. He needed help. But who? How? He searched for a way, a name. And he knew: Nick.

He headed for home and along the way he searched his memory for everything Lisl had ever told him about Rafe. He had it all arranged in his mind by the time he reached his computer.

He sent an email to Nick’s anonymous address.

EL COMEDO—

NEED BACKGROUND CHECK ON ONE RAFE LOSMARA …

He gave as much background as he could, Rafe’s undergraduate school, year of graduation, anything he could remember from Lisl’s glowing rambles about him, but he scrupulously avoided any mention of Rafe’s present circumstances or whereabouts.

Bill closed with a circumspect note that he hoped would spur Nick to dig as deeply and quickly as he could:

… CHECK FOR POSSIBLE RELATION TO THE MISSING MYSTERY WOMAN WE WERE LOOKING FOR LAST TIME WE WERE TOGETHER. CHECK WITH OUR AUGUST FRIEND. MAYBE HE CAN HELP. PLEASE HURRY. URGENT, URGENT, URGENT!

IGNATIUS

Bill signed off and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t have to leave it all to Nick. At lunch break tomorrow he could hit the university library and see if he could get hold of a copy of the Arizona State yearbook from last year.

Probably all a wild goose chase. No way Rafe and Sara could be related. Just a freak combination of light and shadow, nothing more.

Bill couldn’t repress a shudder at the memory of how much Rafe had looked like Sara in that instant.

He picked up his Breviary and tried to concentrate on his daily office.

6

This isn’t working.

Straddling Rafe in the dark of her bedroom, Lisl coiled her arms around his neck and thrust her pelvis down against his. She’d wanted tonight to be different. Insisted, in fact. No belt, no symbolic beating, no taunts, no shouting, no catharsis—just lovemaking, pure and simple. So that was what they had done: strip, turn the lights off, and meet under the sheets.

But it wasn’t working. Rafe had only half his usual tumescence, had even had difficulty penetrating her. Even now, sliding within her, she sensed his softness, his listlessness.

Suddenly she was angry. He wasn’t going to cooperate. Was that how it was going to be? If they didn’t approach sex his way, he’d participate, but just barely? In a sudden burst of fury, she bit him on the shoulder.

Rafe started and groaned in her ear; she felt him harden within her as he began moving more ardently against her. She bit him again, deeper, tasting blood this time. Lisl couldn’t help laughing as she felt him harden further, becoming stiff and straight as a broom handle. And like a witch, she rode him into the night.

FEBRUARY

TWENTY-TWO

1

Everett Sanders stood at the curb along the lower rim of the south parking lot and pretended to be a casual bystander watching three members of the grounds crew replace a section of hose in the underground sprinkler system. But his interest wasn’t casual and he really wasn’t watching the work.

He tried not to be obvious about it, but he wanted to get a close-up look at one of the workers. The one with the beard and the short ponytail. Lisl’s friend.

Ever since that state policeman had shown him the photo, Ev had been plagued by a tantalizing sense of familiarity. He’d always been good with faces—terrible with names, but he never forgot a face. He could run into a student he’d taught for a single semester and hadn’t seen for years and immediately remember the course, the student’s usual seat, and his or her final grade. But he’d be lost as to the name.

So when the policeman had shown him the photo, he’d been positive he’d seen that face before. It had taken him a whole week, but he was now ninety percent sure that the young priest in the photo and Lisl’s groundskeeper friend were one and the same. Lisl and the fellow had lunched together outside last Friday and again yesterday. Ev had used his binoculars to watch him while they sat together under the bare elm but it hadn’t been enough. The man’s end of the conversation had been animated, with much head movement and many hand gestures and Ev hadn’t been able to get a good look.

He had decided yesterday that he would have to get closer to obtain that final ten percent of certainty. For he insisted on being completely sure before he pointed his finger at a man. A little disconcerting to break out of his usual daily routine—especially on a Wednesday afternoon when his time was always tightly budgeted—and wander the grounds looking for a mysterious stranger, but he reminded himself he was doing this to protect Lisl.

He had found him and now little bursts of excitement twitched in his nerve endings as he edged closer. This was almost like private detective work, like being Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe for a day.

He noticed that although the man in question worked well with the others, he didn’t seem completely a part of them. He talked with them, laughed at their jokes, but didn’t seem to truly belong. Ev had the feeling that something within the man kept him one step removed.

Like me.

“You get any closer, mister, you gon’ fall in.”

The voice startled Ev. As the other groundsmen laughed he glanced up and smiled at the big shovel-wielding redhead who had spoken.

“I don’t mean to disturb your work.”

“Oh, you ain’t disturbin’ nothin’. But you sure ain’t helpin’, neither.”

Ev wasn’t sure if there was an undercurrent of hostility in the man’s voice, or if he was just pulling his leg.

“I was just curious as to how deep in the ground you had to lay the hosing.”

“Shoot! Ah don’ know ‘bout you, man, but Ah ain’t abouta lay mah hose in the ground, Ah kin tell you that! Nossir!”

Amid renewed laughter, Lisl’s groundsman looked up at Ev with his clear blue eyes. He was down on his knees, adjusting a coupling.

“Aren’t you Professor Sanders?”

Ev was somewhat taken aback at being recognized.

“Why … yes.”

“I thought so. Well, Professor, down here we don’t have to bury the hose too deep at all. A few inches will usually do. But up where you get a deep freeze, you’ve either got to lay the hose below the frost line or drain the system every fall.”

Ev could tell by the trace of a northern accent in the man’s voice that he knew about cold winters. He studied the face, looking for that last ten percent of certainty, but couldn’t find it. And up close, the nose was all wrong.

The man shot a glance at the redhead.

“I’m surprised at you, Clancy,” he said. “How’d you let that remark about freezing hose get by?”

Clancy smiled. “Ah guess Ah was too shook up thinking ‘bout havin’ to wait till fall to get mah hose drained.”

And in that instant, as Lisl’s groundsman laughed with the others, Everett found what he’d been looking for. It was in the eyes. When he smiled, his lids, eyes, and eyebrows crinkled in a way that was identical to the photo.

“Thank you,” Ev said, hiding his satisfaction.

“You clear on all this now?” Clancy said.

“Yes. I’ve learned precisely what I came to know.”

He hurried back to his office, intent on calling the State Police immediately, but by the time he reached his desk he’d had second thoughts. Everyone had secrets—Lord knew, Everett had his own. Did he have a right to do the State Police’s work for them and expose this man’s?

The question plagued him the rest of the afternoon. He’d almost come to the decision to tear up the slip of paper with the state cop’s name on it when he saw Lisl in the hall. She glanced at him, gave a quick wave, then turned away. She’d been acting that way for nearly a week. Almost as if she were avoiding him.

Had he done something to offend her? He couldn’t think of anything. But seeing her reminded him of just how disturbed this groundsman must be. He remembered how upset Lisl had been by that phone call in the middle of her Christmas party. The memory of her distress the following week angered him.

Perhaps his fingering this man as her tormentor might change her opinion of Ev. He knew she thought of him as a very stiff and very dull man. Which, Ev was the first to admit, he was. He was no fun. But maybe Lisl would warm up to him a little if he did this for her. He didn’t want much. Maybe a smile, a touch on the arm once in a while. He needed a bit of warmth in his life. He’d been too long without it.

A little warmth. That wasn’t too much to ask.

Ev stepped back into his office and dialed the number the detective had given him. A motel switchboard answered—the Red Roof Inn on the edge of town. The operator rang the room half a dozen times, then said that Mr. Augustino wasn’t in. She offered to take a message. Ev told her he’d call back later. He wanted to make sure the detective got the information firsthand.

He closed up his office and took the number with him. He’d call again from home.

2

I must have Lisl on the brain today.

Ev stood at his living room window and looked down on the street. He’d been passing by a moment ago while cleaning up after dinner—eight ounces of baked chicken, a cup of frozen peas, and a small can of corn niblets—and could have sworn he’d seen Lisl passing under the streetlight below. But when he’d looked again, she was gone. Must have been someone else. After all, what would Lisl be doing wandering around down here? She was probably out having dinner with that Losmara fellow. And after dinner they’d probably go back to his place or hers and …

He glanced at the clock on the wall, then at his watch. Both read 7:32. He knew it was the right time because he checked them regularly against the Weather Channel’s clock. Time to go. The meeting didn’t start until eight but Ev always liked to get there early and grab a cup of coffee while the urn was still fresh. Especially since he’d foregone his after-dinner coffees and cigarettes to save them for the meeting. Heavy smoking and coffee drinking were the rule at the meetings, and he didn’t want to go over his daily limits.

The Weather Channel had mentioned a possibility of rain, so he put on his raincoat and stuffed his Totes hat in the pocket. He made a last check of the apartment, made sure all the dinner dishes and utensils were put away, then headed for the street.

As was his custom, he stopped at Raftery’s front window and watched the drinkers inside for exactly one minute. As he was turning away he caught a flash of blond hair down the street. For a moment he thought it was Lisl standing in a doorway. But when he squinted through the darkness for a better look, he saw nothing.

He continued on his way, wondering why Lisl would be on his mind like this. He knew he’d been thinking about her more than usual, but that was because of the photo the detective had shown him. At least he hoped that was why. Ev was well aware of how prone he was to obsession. He didn’t want her to become one. Not Lisl. Not a colleague.

He continued on his way—only a few more blocks to the St. James Episcopal Church. When he got there he bypassed the imposing granite front steps and went around to a small wooden door on the north side.

3

“There!” said Lisl, unable to resist gloating. “There’s his big bad secret! A clandestine meeting in the church basement.”

She rubbed her chilled hands together as they stood in a shadowed doorway across the street from the church. The excitement of following Ev along the darkened streets, of ducking out of sight every time he paused or turned around, had left her feeling a little wired.

She glanced at Rafe who had remained silent since Ev had entered the church.

“Come on, Rafe. Cheer up. Don’t take it so hard because he didn’t sneak off to some gay leather bar. You can’t win them all.”

“What do you think our friend Everett is doing in there?”

“Who knows? Maybe he’s a deacon or something.”

“Has he ever struck you as a religious man?”

Lisl considered that. She couldn’t remember Ev ever referring to God, even once. She didn’t know of many people who got into higher math and still believed in God.

“No. But we both know from last week that his apartment is a model of frugality, sobriety, and orderliness. I don’t think it’s much of a leap to accept him as a churchgoer.”

“Perhaps not. But I’m still not convinced he’s not hiding something.”

“Give it up, Rafe. He’s one of us. He’s a Prime.”

She liked the idea of recognizing Ev as an official member of the club.

“Maybe. But I won’t be convinced until I know what’s going on in there.”

“It’s a church, Rafe.”

“I’m aware of that. But I’m also aware that churches traditionally allow civic and community groups to use their basements and function rooms. I wonder what group is in the basement tonight?”

“What difference does it make?”

“For all we know it could be a self-help group for child molesters or transvestites or—”

“Really, Rafe. Must you?”

She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but she hoped he wasn’t wearing that sardonic half-smile of his.

They stood there in silence for a while and watched other figures approach the church and enter the side door; men outnumbered women three-to-one; mostly middle-aged but a few looked barely out of their teens; some came in pairs but the vast majority arrived alone. By 8:10 the flow stopped.

“Well, what do you think?” Rafe said when it seemed that everyone who was coming had arrived. “I counted a couple of dozen. An unwieldy number for a good orgy.”

“You know, Rafe, you’re impossible at times.”

“I don’t mean to be. I just want to know. Knowledge is power, as they say.”

“Then go over there and find out.”

“No. I want you to go. Because if I come back with a tale of some wild Satanic rites, you’ll think I’m putting you on. You see for yourself and then come back and tell me. Whatever you say, I’ll believe, and that will be that.”

More sneaking around. Lisl didn’t like it, but now her own curiosity was aroused. If Ev wasn’t attending a church meeting in the basement of St. James every Wednesday night, what was going on down there?

“Okay. I’ll take a look. But then that’s it. If it’s nothing screwy, we drop this whole thing and get off the poor guy’s back. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Lisl hurried across the street to the looming shadow of the church and went directly to the door she had seen Ev use. She didn’t pause. If she did she knew she might actually think about the silliness of this whole evening and what she was doing and reconsider it.

She pulled open the door slowly and saw a deserted stairway. She entered and tiptoed down the two flights to the basement. She saw light and heard voices at the end of the hallway and cautiously made her way along until she found the meeting room. The doors stood open, spread wide into the hall like wings. She peered into the room from a safe distance.

Folding chairs were set up in short rows facing the opposite end of the low-ceilinged room. Most of the chairs were occupied and the few people left standing were sliding into the rows to get a seat. Everyone held either a cigarette or a Styrofoam cup of coffee or both. The air was already thick with smoke; clouds of white billowed in the glare of the naked fluorescent bulbs clinging to the ceiling. Ev was seated at the end of the last row. Alone.

Lisl hung back in the dimness of the hall and watched.

A balding man stood at the head of the group. He too had a cup of coffee and a cigarette. He was speaking but the words were garbled. Lisl crossed the hall to hear him. She slipped behind the nearer open door and listened. She had a clear view of Ev through the slit between the wall and the door.

“—the same faces as usual here. Our ‘Regulars.’ But we haven’t heard from some of you in a long time. We all know why you come here, but I think some of you old-timers hang back too much, thinking we know all about you. But we don’t. So how about it? How about one of you founding members getting up and giving us the benefit of your experience?”

He waited but no one moved. Finally he pointed to the back row.

“Everett. How about you? We haven’t heard from you in a long time. How about it?”

Ev stood slowly. He looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat twice before speaking.

“My name is Everett and I’m an alcoholic.”

Knotting the fingers of her hands together, almost as if in prayer, Lisl leaned toward the strip of light before her and listened.

4

Everett was nervous at first. He hadn’t done this in a while, but he was overdue for some testimony.

His nerves eased as he began talking. He knew the patter of his story like he knew basic calculus. He’d told it often enough.

“It started for me when I’m sure it started for most of you—as a teenager. I wasn’t a drunk right away. That took time, and lots of practice. But the warning signs were there, right from the start. All my friends drank now and again when we could liberate some booze from our folks or persuade some stranger to buy us a case of beer, but I always seemed the happiest when we could get some and the most disappointed when we couldn’t.

“And once I started to drink I couldn’t stop. I didn’t realize it then, but when I look back now I can see that even as a kid I didn’t know how to stop. The only thing that kept me from seeing it was the fact that our supply was always limited. Our purloined booze always ran out before I could get myself good and sick.

“My fraternity house at Emory fixed that. We bought beer by the keg and I got thoroughly ripped on a regular basis. But only on weekends, at our parties, where I became something of a legend for the amount of alcohol I could put away. During the week, though, I managed to keep up an A average. I was the envy of my peers—the honor student who could party with the best of them. This was in days when pot became the campus drug of choice. But not for me. I was too all-American for that hippie locoweed.

“Not that I didn’t try it. I did. At one time or another along the way I’ve tried everything. Plenty of times. But I remained loyal to my friend the bottle. Because nothing else could ever find that special spot within me that needed touching. Only booze could reach that place and soothe it.”

He shook his head as he thought of the years that followed. So much pain there. He hated dredging it up, but he had to. That was what this was all about. He couldn’t allow himself to forget the misery he had caused himself … and others.

“You can all guess how the rest of the story goes. I graduated, got a job with a technical firm that had just moved into the Sun Belt, began working in computer technology. In those days it took a roomful of equipment to do what an iPad does today. If I was still with the company today, I’d probably be a millionaire. But the booze used the pressures of the job to tighten its hold on me.

“Then I fell in love with a wonderful woman who was made foolish by her own love for me. Foolish enough to believe that she could be more important to me than my old friend the bottle. Little did she know. We married, started a life together, but it was a menage a trois—my wife, me, and the bottle.

“You see, I still thought of the bottle as my friend. But it was a jealous friend. It wanted me all to itself. And slowly but surely it poisoned my marriage until my wife gave me an ultimatum: her or the bottle.

“Those of you who have been there can guess which one I chose.”

Ev took a deep breath to fill the emptiness inside him.

“After that it was a steadily accelerating downward spiral for me. I lost one job after another. But my superiors always gave me a decent recommendation when they let me go. They thought they were doing me a favor by helping me hide it from the next company that had the misfortune to hire me. This prolonged my intimate relationship with my friend the bottle because it delayed my inevitable bottoming out.

“And did I ever bottom out. I went through detox three times before I finally realized that my friend of “lo” those many years wasn’t really my friend. He had taken over my life and was destroying me. The bottle was in the driver’s seat and I could see that if I didn’t take back the wheel, he was going to run me off a cliff.

“So that’s what I did. With the help of AA, I took back control of my life. Complete control.” He smiled and held up his coffee cup and cigarette. “Well, not complete. I still smoke and I drink too much coffee. But everything else in my life is under strict control. I’ve learned to manage my time so that there’s no room left in my life for booze. And there never will be again.”

He considered mentioning his daily challenge—standing outside Raftery’s Tavern every time he passed and staring in the window for exactly one minute, daring the booze to try and lure him in—but decided against it. Someone else here might decide to try the dare … and lose. He didn’t want to be responsible for that. He figured he’d said enough.

“So that’s it. I’ve been dry for ten years now. I went back to school, got my doctorate, and now I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I’m back in the driver’s seat—for good. Thank you for listening.”

As he sat down to a round of applause, he thought he heard hurried footsteps in the hall outside. He heard the upstairs door slam. Had someone left while he was speaking? He shrugged. It didn’t matter. He’d spoken his piece, done his share. That was what counted.

5

Lisl composed her emotions as she crossed the street. Ev’s story had shocked and moved her. Before tonight he had seemed little more than a collection of compulsive mannerisms. Mr. Machine. Now he was a person, a flesh-and-blood man with a past and a terrible problem, one he had been able to overcome. He’d beaten the bottle, but he didn’t trumpet it around like some recovering alcoholics on the faculty; it was Ev’s private victory, one he’d kept to himself. Lisl was proud of him, and suddenly proud to know him. And if he wanted his past kept secret, it was safe with her.

She stopped on the sidewalk before the shadowed doorway.

“Let’s head back to the car, Rafe.”

He stepped out into the light and looked at her expectantly.

“Well?”

“Well, nothing. It was a prayer meeting, that’s all. Just a bunch of people sitting around reading from the Bible and stuff like that.”

Rafe only stared at her. She hooked her arm through his and started them walking back the way they had come. His voice was very soft when he spoke.

“You wouldn’t be telling me a story now, Lisl, would you?”

“And what if I was? What difference would it make?”

“Primes shouldn’t lie to each other. I’ve always been completely honest with you. I expect the same.”

Fine. Now she was trapped between two guilts: betray Ev’s secret or betray Rafe’s trust. She wished she’d stayed home in bed tonight.

“Can’t we just drop this whole subject? I’ll concede to your position that Ev isn’t a Prime and we’ll let it go at that, okay?”

Rafe stopped and turned her toward him. His intense stare made her uncomfortable.

“You’re protecting him. Don’t do that. He’s one of them. He’s not worthy of your misdirected loyalty. He wouldn’t do the same for you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Rafe sighed. “All right. I’ll take you off the hook you’ve impaled yourself on. I know it’s an AA meeting.”

Lisl was shocked—and furious.

“You know? You’ve known all along?”

“I followed him here a couple of weeks ago.”

“Then why this cloak-and-dagger charade stuff tonight?”

“Because if I’d told you last week that he’s an alcoholic, would you have believed me?”

“Yes,” she said immediately, then thought about it. “No. I guess not.”

“Exactly. That’s why I had to let you find out for yourself. Now there’s no question in your mind that he belongs with them instead of us.”

“On the contrary. The very fact that he’s overcome his alcoholism is proof that he is a Prime. If he weren’t, he’d be drunk in a gutter somewhere instead of on the Darnell faculty.”

They started walking again.

“I don’t know about that. If you think about it you’ll see he really hasn’t beaten his problem with alcohol, he’s merely found a way to hide from it. He’s organized his life in such a way that he never comes within an arm’s reach of liquor, which is why you’ve never seen him at faculty parties. That’s not conquering the problem, that’s running from it. It’s the coward’s way.”

“That’s not fair. Alcohol is a toxin for him. I’ve read that a good percentage of alcoholics have different brain chemistries than the rest of us, and that alcohol does things to them that it doesn’t do to you or me. It’s not cowardice to avoid something that’s poison to your system.”

“If he were a Prime, he’d be able to surround himself with liquor and not touch a drop. Or better yet, he’d be able to control himself—have a drink or two and then switch to ginger ale. But he’s not a Prime.”

“Prime, shmime,” Lisl said, wearying of the subject. “Who cares whether Ev is or isn’t? What’s the point?”

“Very simply, Lisl,” he said slowly, and she could hear real anger in his voice, “the point is this: Everett Sanders is your intellectual inferior, yet he is going to move ahead of you in the department simply because he is a man. It’s the same pattern as always. They move one of their own ahead and leave a Prime behind where they can still get the benefit of your work and brains and innovation yet give the credit and status to a lesser mind. It infuriates me every time I see it happen and I will not permit it to happen to you!”

“Easy, Rafe. You don’t know if that’s going to happen. There’s no sense in getting yourself all riled up when—”

“Lisl, it’s already been decided.”

The words struck her like a blow. She stumbled against Rafe as her feet refused to walk any farther.

“What? How can you say that?”

“I overheard your pal Sanders talking to Doctor Masterson last month—”

“Last month? And you didn’t tell me?”

She could see his face in the glow of the streetlight. His expression was tortured.

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I knew it would hurt you. I … I was afraid it would crush your spirit.”

For the first time since she’d met him, Rafe seemed unsure of himself. And all because of his feelings for her. At any other time it would have warmed Lisl, but the good feeling was swept away by the Arctic wind of her growing anger.

“What exactly did they say?”

“I only caught part of it, but I heard the chairman saying that he hoped your paper wasn’t very good, because if it was he’d have to do some fast talking to explain why he was giving Ev tenure instead of you. He asked Sanders if he had any suggestions on how to let you down easy so you wouldn’t start applying to other universities.”

“What did Ev say?”

“I don’t know. I was too angry to listen. Right after that I started auditing Sanders’s classes. I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what. At least I didn’t then. I know now.”

“What?”

She felt betrayed, hemmed in, and utterly helpless. If Rafe knew a way out, she’d take it.

“Follow me.”

He took her hand and led her across the street. She was surprised to see that they’d reached a familiar apartment building.

“Ev’s place? What are we going to—?”

“Just trust me. You’ll see.”

Using the duplicates of Ev’s keys, he led her inside and up to the apartment.

“Isn’t this a little risky? I mean, he could come back at any minute.”

“Those meetings average a good two hours or more.” He opened the door and led her to the kitchen counter where he turned and faced her. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

“For what?”

Rafe reached inside his jacket pocket and held out a slim glass tube.

“For this.”

She took it and held it up to the light. A test tube filled with clear fluid. It looked like water but Lisl knew it wasn’t. Suddenly she felt uneasy.

“What is it, Rafe?”

“Pull the stopper and sniff.”

She did. There was a very faint odor, too faint to identify.

“I don’t know … “

“Absolute ethanol. Pure alcohol. Nearly odorless, almost tasteless when mixed with fruit juice.”

“Oh, no,” she said as she felt her stomach begin to tighten. “You can’t be serious.”

Rafe went to the refrigerator and brought back an open half gallon of orange juice. He placed it on the counter between them.

“I’ve never been more serious in my whole life. Pour it in, Lisl.”

“No. I can’t do that to Ev!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s poison for him!”

“It’s only an ounce, Lisl. Two tablespoons.”

“That doesn’t matter. Even a drop could start chemical reactions in his brain and knock him off on the wagon. We could be sending him off on a real bender.”

Rafe shrugged. “If that’s what he wants, then so be it.”

“Rafe, it’ll have nothing to do with what he wants—he won’t be able to control it!”

“If he’s a Prime, he will be able to control it. If he’s one of us he’ll be able to shake off two tablespoons of ethanol and stay on track. And if he can do that, maybe he should get tenure. But if he can’t…”

“We could be ruining his life.”

Rafe shook his head. “That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think? He knows the problem. He’s controlled it before. Even if he’s not a Prime, he can control it again. But if he does go on a bender, it will open Masterson’s eyes—and the university administration’s, as well—to the caliber of the man they’ve handpicked for tenure over you.”

“It’s not fair, Rafe.”

Rafe’s eyes grew cold, flinty.

“Fair? What’s fair? You’ve been playing by the rules, devoting your spare time to this paper, thinking you really had a shot at the spot while all the while the choice has already been made. Can’t you just hear Ev going to Masterson and whining, ‘You’re not really thinking of giving the position to her, are you?’ And meanwhile you’re going to Masterson for advice and he’s thinking what a sucker you are! Don’t talk to me about fair, Lisl!”

He opened the mouth of the cardboard container and pushed it toward her.

“Pour.”

“Maybe I should drink it myself—about half a dozen of them would help me right now.”

“No drugs, Lisl,” Rafe said, leaning over her shoulder, speaking softly into her ear. “Nothing to muffle the inhibitions that people like Sanders and Masterson and your parents and all the rest have conditioned into you. You must face those inhibitions, Lisl, and you must subdue them, beat them into the mud until they are powerless to hold you back. You must be strong, you must toss away all excuses. Never blame your actions on outside influences. No excuses, no scapegoats—’It was the drugs,’ ‘It was the booze.’ It must be you and you alone—nothing between you and what you do. And you must be proud, Lisl. No shame. Ever.”

The diamond-shaped opening yawned before her. She tried to be cool, be rational about this, but the thought of Masterson encouraging her to write her paper even though he had already made his decision stoked the fiery anger that had begun to blaze within her. And Ev—Ev was in on it.

With a groan, she upended the tube over the opening.

“Yes!” Rafe said in a harsh whisper.

He took the container, closed the top, and shook the contents. Then he replaced it in the refrigerator.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning to Lisl and taking the empty test tube from her fingers.

Lisl stood there unmoving, feeling numb, queasy.

What have I done?

Rafe took her arm and she allowed herself to be led from the apartment, down the stairs, and to his car. She felt as if she were moving in a dream.

“I want to go back. Let’s pour that juice down the drain and forget about the whole thing.”

“No, Lisl. Remember what I told you. No regrets, no looking back. We make our own rules. We answer only to ourselves.”

“That’s what frightens me the most.”

“You’ll see.” Rafe started the car and pulled into traffic. “This will bring everything into focus for you. You’ve just passed your test of fire. You’ve thrown off one more set of chains. Now comes Everett Sanders’s trial. Now he gets a chance to prove what he’s made of.” He reached over and squeezed Lisl’s hand. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes. Enormously.”

Then why do I feel so ashamed?

TWENTY-THREE

Ev had been feeling strange all day. Slightly woozy, slightly off kilter. Jittery. On edge. Lethargic and yet hyped up. Oddly elated yet all the while suffused with an aura of impending doom.

Sitting at his office desk, staring at the late afternoon sun that poured through the window, he tried to sort out the odd conglomeration of symptoms that had plagued him since he’d left his apartment this morning. But he found it difficult to sort out anything today. His powers of concentration, usually so sharp focused, had all but deserted him.

So uncomfortable. Sweaty one moment, chilled the next. He felt as if his heart were racing yet he’d checked his pulse numerous times and found it chugging in the low nineties—high for him but certainly not extraordinary. He wondered if it could be the start of a virus—February was flu season, after all—but although he felt feverish, he’d stopped by the infirmary and his temperature had been normal.

Blood sugar. Could he be hypoglycemic? Unlikely. He’d had his usual breakfast of o-j, toast with Smart Balance margarine, Fiber One with skim milk, and coffee; his lunch had been the usual tuna fish salad on whole wheat that he had every Thursday. So why would his blood sugar be down? Maybe it was the coffee. Maybe the accumulated caffeine from twenty cups a day for umpteen years was finally catching up to him. He couldn’t think of anything else that would get to him like this.

Maybe his body was telling him it was time to cut down. Perhaps that would salve these jangled nerves.

“Ev? Are you all right?”

He swung about in his chair. Lisl stood in the doorway, a worried look on her face.

All right? Why would she ask that? Was something wrong? Did he look sick?

“No. I’m fine,” he said, hoping he sounded convincing. “Just fine. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to know.” She bit her upper lip. “I mean, you looked a little pale.”

He looked pale? Lisl looked awful. Her face was drawn and haggard, with dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept a wink all night.

Ev rose and approached her.

“I’m fine, Lisl. But what about you? You look—”

She turned and hurried down the hall. Bewildered, Ev stood in his doorway and watched her go. First she was so solicitous about how he felt, then she turned and left him while he was talking to her. She seemed unnerved. The only time he could remember seeing her this upset was back in December when she had told him about that phone call—

The phone call! Had she received another one? Damn it, he’d forgotten to call that detective! What was wrong with him today? As a rule he never forgot things like that. Well, he wouldn’t waste another minute.

He pulled the telephone number from his wallet and dialed it immediately. This time the detective answered when his room was rung.

“Yeah?” said a New York-inflected voice.

“Is this Detective Augustino? This is Professor Sanders. We spoke last week about—”

“Right, right. On the steps. Did you place the guy in the photo?”

“Yes. I believe he’s one of the groundskeepers here at the university.”

“No shit! You’re sure? You’re really sure? What’s his name?”

Ev could almost feel the excitement pouring through the wire from the other end.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” The voice became irate. “What do you mean, you don’t know? What kind of a scam do you—?”

“Listen, Detective. I’ve seen the man around here for years but I simply do not know his name, just as I’m sure you don’t know the name of the janitors who clean your barracks in Raleigh. He’s changed his appearance quite a bit since that photo was taken but I’m convinced he’s your man. Now if this is the sort of thanks I get—”

“You’re right, you’re right,” the detective said through a sigh. “Sorry. Do you know where I can find him?”

“No. But I’m sure if you check with personnel tomorrow they’ll be able to help you.”

“Tomorrow? What’s wrong with today?”

“The administrative offices are closing even as we speak. They reopen at eight in the morning.” Ev found he had no further patience for this obnoxious state cop. “You’re welcome,” he said and hung up.

He felt shaky as he rose and reached for his coat. At least that was over with. He’d be glad to get back home where he had everything under control.

He passed Lisl’s office on the way out but her door was closed. It looked like she’d left for home ahead of him.

Ev felt a mounting anxiety during the bus ride home, an almost desperate desire to reach the far side of his apartment door and lock it. He couldn’t fight the rising fear that something terrible was going to happen if he didn’t.

When he stepped off the bus, he headed for home at double time, but forced himself to stop outside Raftery’s for his daily test of will. He glanced at his watch, then began his one-minute stare through the nicotine-fogged window.

All the regulars were there, lined up on their usual stools at the bar, sipping their Scotches and their gins, talking and laughing. But instead of the disdain he usually felt for such wasted time, money, and liver cells, Ev was overcome by a wave of nostalgia.

Those were the good old days, when he could walk into his neighborhood tavern in Charlotte and be greeted by a chorus of hellos, where he could sit among friends and talk and swear and laugh and drink from late afternoon until the early hours of the morning. The fellowship, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging, for some reason he missed it today more than any other time in recent memory. The longing for companionship was an expanding void within him. If he could only have that back, just for a few hours—

Ev caught himself with his fingers on the brass door handle, pulling it open. He snatched his hand away as if he’d received an electric shock and all but ran for his apartment.

Once inside, with the door safely locked behind him, he slumped in the recliner and panted from the exertion of running up the three flights of stairs. He hadn’t even stopped to pick up his mail.

What’s wrong with me?

It had to be his blood sugar. He could think of no other reason why he should feel so shaky. He had to eat something to get it up.

He went to the refridge and saw the o-j on the top shelf. Wasn’t that what diabetics used when their sugar was low? He grabbed the container, poured himself a glassful, and gulped it down. Then he returned to the recliner and waited. He’d give it twenty minutes to see if it had any effect.

It took only half that. By the end of ten minutes he was feeling much better. Calmer, more relaxed. The near panic of moments ago was almost completely gone.

Amazing what a little orange juice could do.

He went over and poured himself another glassful.

TWENTY-FOUR

1

“Have you seen Ev?”

Lisl froze at the sound of Al Torres’s voice. She’d looked for Ev earlier this morning but his office door had been closed. That wasn’t unusual, though. She knew he had early classes on Fridays.

It had been okay for her to be looking for him. She had a reason. He’d seemed a little strung out yesterday but had been acting perfectly normal; she’d wanted to see if he was any better today.

But no one else should have been looking for him.

Unless …

“No,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on her desktop. “Why?”

“He missed his first two classes this morning. And he didn’t call in. That’s not like Ev at all.”

Oh no, oh no, oh no!

Lisl suddenly wanted to be sick. She tried to speak but no words would come.

Al went on. “Administration wants to know if anybody’s heard from him.”

Lisl could only shake her head and not look at him.

“You okay, Lisl?”

She ventured a glance at him and managed to say, “Not feeling too good.” She wasn’t lying.

“Jeez, no. I guess you’re not. I’ve heard there’s a bug of some sort going around. I’ll bet that’s what Ev’s got. Maybe you’re coming down with it too. Anyway, if you hear from him, tell him to call administration.”

When she heard her office door close, Lisl lowered her face into her hands and began to sob.

What have I done?

She’d spent much of the night in agony, struggling for sleep. She’d lifted the receiver a dozen times to call Ev, to tell him to stay away from his orange juice, to dump it down the sink. She even managed to dial his number once but hung up before the first ring.

How could she tell him? How could she say that when he’d trusted her with his key ring she’d allowed someone to make a copy of his apartment keys, that she’d invaded his home and dosed his orange juice with alcohol. How could she get those words past her lips? Impossible.

She’d even toyed with the idea of calling up and somehow disguising her voice with a handkerchief like they did in the movies, but she didn’t believe that would work.

It had taken her two sleeping pills to get to sleep the night before, and it had taken the same last night, and even then she’d had to placate herself with the thought that if Ev had got through yesterday without going on a bender, he would probably come through this whole ordeal with flying colors. Then she’d be able to thumb her nose at Rafe and this particularly wild theory of his.

Rafe … why had she listened to him? He made her feel so good so much of the time, but every so often he’d convince her to do something that made her feel rotten. And he was so convincing. Everything made so much sense when he was whispering in her ear. Only later did she wish she’d listened to her own heart. She knew he was looking out for her, fighting for her, but Rafe didn’t heed the boundaries that limited most people’s actions. Rafe didn’t seem to recognize any limits.

And apparently neither did she.

Lisl slammed her fist on her desk. She still couldn’t believe she had doctored Ev’s juice. Yet she had. Deliberately. With full knowledge of the threat it posed to that poor man. What had come over her?

But more important now: Where was Ev?

She pulled her address book from her top drawer and looked up his number. She was sure the department secretary and the administration office had already called him but she had to try herself. She dialed and listened to the phone ring on the other end. She didn’t count the rings but it had to be near twenty by the time she hung up.

She rose and was surprised by how wobbly her legs felt. What if Ev had gone out last night and bought a case of vodka? In her mind’s eye she saw him sprawled on his kitchen floor in a drunken stupor, or in a coma from alcohol poisoning.

She had to go over there.

2

Renny wasn’t exactly sure how to handle this. He’d wandered the grounds since eight a.m., searching for someone who looked like the priest, but nobody he’d seen had even come close. And he couldn’t exactly go up to one of these guys and ask, could he?

Then it had occurred to him that he could queer this whole bust if Ryan recognized him.

So now Renny was standing before a counter in the university personnel office, hoping he could bluster his way through this.

“Yes, sir?” said the pert young brunette with the red-framed glasses. “Can I help you?”

Renny did the badge flash.

“Sergeant Augustino, State Police. We have reason to believe that one of your groundskeepers might be a fugitive from out of state. I need to see your personnel records.”

“A fugitive? Really?”

Renny watched as she chewed her lip and glanced around the office. If she was looking for help, there was none to be had. No accident that Renny had chosen coffee-break time to pop into personnel.

“What are we waiting for?” he said.

“Well, I’m not sure. I mean, shouldn’t you have a search warrant or something like that?”

“I have a warrant for his arrest. That enough?”

“Oh, dear.” She looked around again, but the office was just as empty as before. “What’s his name?”

Renny gave her a tired look.

“He won’t be using his real name. Now come on. We’re wasting time.” He leaned forward and gave her a hard look. “You wouldn’t be protecting someone, would you?”

She flushed. “No. Of course not. It’s just…” Her shoulders slumped in resignation. “All right. What records do you want?”

“The groundskeepers.” Hadn’t he just said that? How many could there be?

Renny stood and drummed his fingers on the counter, looking calm and patient, but inside he was screaming at her to hurry her ass before one of her supervisors came back. She went to one desk, then to another, then to a computer, then she disappeared into the back. Finally she reappeared with a small stack of buff folders.

“I brought all I could find. Some of them don’t work here anymore but I brought them anyway.”

According to Sanders, this guy was still on the job. Renny grabbed the stack and opened the one on top. He stifled a curse.

“No photos.”

She shrugged. “Some do, some don’t.”

He flipped through quickly, reading the names, searching for photos: Gilbert Olin, Stanley Malinowski, Peter Turner, Will Ryerson, Mark DeSantis, Louis—

Whoa!

He shuffled back to Will Ryerson. Right age, right height and weight, hired almost three years ago. Will Ryerson … William Ryan. Renny’s pulse ripped into overdrive.

Gotcha!

He memorized the address, then made a show of looking through the rest of the folders. Finally, he slid the stack back to the woman.

“Nope. Doesn’t look like he’s here. Another false lead. Thank you for your help. Have a nice day.”

And then he was out of the office and hurrying down the hall, wondering where he could get hold of a city map and find out how to get to Postal Road.

Got you, you bastard. Got you at last!

3

Lisl started by knocking on Ev’s door, then graduated to banging with her fist. When she got no answer, she fished the key from her purse and unlocked it.

“Ev?” she said, closing the door behind her. “Ev, are you here?”

All was quiet. She looked around the apartment. Ev was nowhere in sight. The place felt empty, but that might not mean anything. With her pulse pounding in her throat, she headed for the bedroom.

God, what if he’s dead? What will I do?

She paused on the threshold of the bedroom, then forced herself to peek inside.

Empty. The bed was made, the spread pulled tight and unwrinkled.

Not sure whether to be relieved or even more upset than she already was, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Where could he be? Everything in the place was perfectly in order, just like she and Rafe had left it Wednesday night—

Except for the kitchen. The orange juice carton sat on the counter, a pulp-streaked tumbler huddled against it. Lisl grabbed the carton. A low moan escaped her when she felt how light it was. In a sudden fit of anger—at Rafe, but mostly at herself—she hurled the empty carton against the wall, then grabbed the glass and did the same. The carton bounced, the glass shattered.

Why did I do it?

Lisl sagged back against the refrigerator and closed her eyes, waiting for an answer. None came. She set her jaw and straightened.

All right. She’d gotten Ev into this, so she had to help him get out of it. But first she had to find him. And she would, even if she had to search every bar in town.

Lisl headed for the door but stopped before she reached it. What if Ev wasn’t in a bar? What if he was in a hospital?

She ran to the phone and called the Medical Center switchboard, a number she still remembered from her days as the wife of an intern.

No … no one named Sanders admitted during the night.

She sighed with relief, then wondered why she should be relieved. At least if he were in a hospital it would mean he was being cared for. If he was lying unconscious in an alley somewhere …

She ran out to comb the nearby bars.

It proved to be slow work, and after covering only three places in the space of an hour and getting nowhere, she realized she couldn’t do this alone. She needed help.

But who? Rafe wouldn’t lift a finger to help Ev. In fact, he might even talk her out of looking for him. She could think of only one person she could count on. But that would mean explaining what she had done. How could she explain the unspeakable?

She couldn’t let anyone else know what she’d done.

Lisl headed for the next bar. Alone.

4

Sick.

Ev felt terrible. Sick to his stomach and sick at heart as he leaned against his apartment door and twisted the key in the lock. He lurched in and staggered the short distance to the recliner. He dropped into its comforting familiarity and closed his eyes.

Off the wagon. He’d fallen off before, but the last time had been so many years ago he’d begun to think he’d never fall off again. He pressed his fists against his eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t allow it. What purpose would that serve? He wouldn’t wallow in self pity or recriminations, or look for someone else to blame. He’d been down those roads before and they were dead ends. He had to make something positive out of this. Everything was a learning experience. What he had to do was turn this episode around and see if he could learn something from it.

Well, the lesson was obvious, wasn’t it? A drunk is a drunk, and no matter how long you’ve been dry, you shouldn’t get too comfortable with your sobriety. Yesterday was a good example of how fast it can desert you.

But why? Why had he gone off the wagon? He’d felt strange all day yesterday—it had been yesterday, hadn’t it? Of course it had. He’d seen the newspaper in the box on the corner. It was Friday afternoon. He glanced at his watch: 4:16. He’d lost almost a whole day to booze. Not the first time for that either.

But what frightened him was how it had come without warning. An odd sensation all day, then he’d come home as usual. He’d been sitting here drinking orange juice, and when he’d finished it, he’d gone out for more. But he never made it to the market. As he passed Raftery’s he’d hesitated only a heartbeat, then he was inside ordering a Scotch.

No warning. One moment outside, the next moment inside, drinking.

But lord how good it had tasted. Even now his mouth watered with the memory of it. One of the few memories left from yesterday. A montage flickered through his brain, a procession of drinks, of buying a bottle, of upending it and gulping it down like a desert wanderer finding a cache of cool spring water.

His next memory was of waking up sick, dirty, aching, shaking in the early afternoon sunlight under a sheet of cardboard behind an appliance store. He still had his wallet so he’d bought himself something to eat and another long procession of drinks—all coffees.

He pushed himself out of the recliner and headed for the bathroom. On the way, something crunched under his foot.

Glass. Fragments of the tumbler he’d used for the orange juice were scattered all over the kitchen floor. The o-j carton was on the floor too. And there, on the wall, a stain, as if someone had smashed the glass against the wall.

Someone. Who? Me?

Who else? The door had been locked when he’d come in. Nothing was disturbed. He was the only one with a key.

He must have come back and gone out again last night. He shook his head. If only he could remember. Scary to lose little pieces of your life.

Despite his throbbing head, he swept up the fragments, put them in the juice carton, and tossed everything into the garbage. Then he continued on to the bathroom for a shower.

Half an hour later, clean, shaved, and wearing fresh clothes, he felt almost normal. He’d go to the Friday night meeting of his AA group, something he hadn’t done in years. He’d find another AA group that met on Saturdays and he’d go to that meeting too. He’d go every night until he was sure he was in control again.

But it was only five o’clock. Hours to go before the meeting. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. What was he going to do till then? He wanted a drink, he craved another damn drink! Good thing there wasn’t any booze in the apartment. He went through the ritual of making himself a cup of coffee and worried about how he was going to stay sober until the meeting. He didn’t have an AA contact anymore—Ev’s had moved away a few years ago and he’d never bothered to get another. He’d thought he didn’t need one.

Work. Work was better than any contact, at least for him. He could lose himself in the calculations for his paper and the time would fly by.

He sat down at his PC and booted it up. He clicked on the desktop shortcut to his paper. A Problem with Shortcut box popped up.

The Item “paloalto.doc” that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so the shortcut will no longer work properly.

His chest tightened. He went directly to the file—

Missing!

This was impossible. Fallout from the binge? Was it there and he simply wasn’t seeing it?

No. Not there.

At least he had a backup on his flash drive. Thank God he was religious about keeping a backup just in case something like this happened.

Shaking now, he fitted the little drive into a port and accessed it.

No file there either!

Oh, no! Oh, please, no!

He did a search of his entire computer. The same result every time: no match. The file—plus the preliminary folder with all his early drafts—was gone! Gone!

He got up and walked around the room. Everything pertaining to his paper had been erased. They’d been his only copies. He’d never put the paper on the university server for fear of someone else opening it and seeing his work before it was finished.

He’d lost everything!

But how? He never left his PC on—a waste of energy—so no one could have hacked into it. And no one had access to the machine.

No one but me.

He stopped in mid-stride. He’d been back here last night—the broken glass proved it. What had he done? Had he accessed his files and wiped them out in some fit of drunken, self-destructive rage?

That was the only answer. Years worth of work—gone! It would take him forever to rework those calculations.

He hadn’t fallen off the wagon and lost a night—he’d lost years!

In a daze, he reached for his coat and wandered toward the door. He had to get out, take a walk, get away from that useless, empty terminal.

Maybe to Raftery’s.

5

Bill rinsed the last of the dirt off his hands and forearms and reached for a paper towel. A good day. Despite Clancy’s constant chatter about his sexual prowess, they’d managed to fix the last of the faulty fittings in the north lawn’s sprinkler system. It would be ready to go when growing season started.

He was just about dried off when Joe Bob stepped into the washroom.

“Hey, Willy! There’s a lady outside wants to see you.”

“Who dat?” Clancy called from across the room. “His momma?”

Amid the laughter, Joe Bob said, “No way. This blonde babe’s young enough to be his daughter. I think she’s faculty. And she’s built like a brick shithouse.”

That description fit only one person Bill knew: Lisl. He wondered what she wanted.

The laughter changed to hoots and catcalls as Bill crossed the washroom toward the door, shaking his head and smiling at their good-natured crudeness. They’d all been half convinced he was a little strange because he never joined in on their “Can-you-top-this” recountings of their sexual escapades. They actually seemed happy for him now, and he couldn’t help being warmed by the groundswell of good feeling, no matter how wrongheaded.

“Didn’t I tell you guys,” Joe Bob said as Will pushed through the swinging door, “it’s always the quiet ones who get the quality pussy.”

He found her outside the garage door. As soon as he saw her tense, pale face he knew something was very wrong.

“Lisl! Are you okay?”

Her eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered as she nodded.

“Oh, Will, I … I’ve done something awful!”

Bill glanced around. This wasn’t the place for her to be telling him about something awful. He took her elbow and guided her toward the parking lot.

“We’ll talk in my car.”

He helped her into the passenger seat. By the time he’d slid in behind the wheel on the other side, she was sobbing openly. He didn’t start the car.

“What is it, Lisl?”

“Oh God, Will, I don’t want to tell you. I’m so ashamed. But I need help and you’re the only one I can turn to!”

Words from the past scrolled through his brain.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …

“It involves Rafe, doesn’t it?” he said, hoping to get her going.

Her head snapped up. She stared at him.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” He didn’t want to tell her that he’d sensed that the garbage philosophy Rafe had been feeding her would lead to trouble. “Go ahead. Let it out. I won’t turn away from you. No matter what.”

He saw gratitude in her eyes, but no lessening of the pain there.

“I hope you feel the same when I’m finished.”

Bill listened with growing horror as Lisl recounted the events of the past week and a half. He almost groaned aloud when she told him about Rafe producing the vial of ethanol. He saw the rest of the scenario in a flash but he had to let Lisl talk it through.

“And now I don’t know where he is,” she said as she finished describing her search of the bars in the areas around Ev’s apartment. Tears were sliding down her cheeks. “He could be anywhere. He could be dead!”

Bill sat behind the wheel and stared straight ahead as he fought to overcome his shock and revulsion. He had to say something—but what? What could he say to ease her pain? And should he even attempt to? What she had done was … abominable.

“What on earth, Leese? What on earth prompted you to do such a thing?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him! I’d never do anything to hurt Ev!”

“How can you say that after spiking his orange juice?”

Her lips quivered. “I was so sure he was a Prime. I thought he could overcome it. I was sure he could. Rafe was putting him down and I thought that would prove to Rafe that Ev was one of us.”

Bill tried but couldn’t neutralize the acid in his voice.

“Who’s us? People who sabotage another person’s life? I don’t think Professor Sanders falls into that group.”

Lisl dropped her head into her hands.

“Please, Will. I need your help. I thought you’d understand.”

“Understand? Lisl, I don’t know if I’ll ever understand what you did. But I will help. For Sanders’s sake, and for yours. Because I still believe in you. And because I hope this will open your eyes to the garbage Rafe has been feeding you. Primes!” Merely saying the word left a sour taste in his mouth. “The whole concept is morally and intellectually bankrupt. And so is Rafe.”

Lisl stared at him. “No. Don’t say that. He’s brilliant. He’s—”

“He’s the reason you’re feeling miserable and why Everett Sanders is out on a tear. Hooking up with that guy was the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

“He’s not all bad. For the first time in my life I felt good about myself.”

“How good are you feeling now?”

She looked away without answering.

“Lisl, it’s false self-esteem when you have to look down on someone else before you can feel good about yourself. Real self-esteem comes from within.”

Lisl’s face hardened for an instant, then crumbled.

“You’re right,” she sobbed. “You’ve been right all along, haven’t you?”

Bill took her in his arms and held her like a crying child. Poor Lisl. She’d been dragged into hell and hadn’t known it. But even worse was the hell she had caused Everett Sanders.

After a moment she straightened.

“Will you help me find Ev?”

“Yes. But first I want to see if I can find out something about Rafe.”

“There’s no time.”

“This will only take a minute.” He started the Impala and threw it into gear. “Just get me to your computer.”

He drove over to the Math building and parked in front. Lisl led him to her office. While she was lighting up her terminal for him, he unplugged her desk phone and looked for a place to put it. All the other offices on the floor were locked up tight. As he held the phone in his sweaty hands, his anger grew. He didn’t have time for this. He opened the window and tossed it out. He watched it bounce and roll on the grass three stories below, then turned and found Lisl staring at him.

“Will? Are you all right?”

“I haven’t been all right for a long time.” He pointed to the computer. “Are we ready to go?”

“All set.”

He took her seat and checked for emails. With Lisl hanging over his shoulder, he found a new message to Ignatius.

TO IGNATIUS:

NOT MUCH AVAILABLE ON THE MAN IN QUESTION YET BUT PROBABLY A PHONY. EXISTS IN ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER BUT NOT IN YEARBOOKS. NOT THE WORST OF IT. WAS DOODLING WITH HIS NAME AND NOTICED IT’S AN ANAGRAM OF SARA LOM. IS THAT WHY YOU WANTED HIM CHECKED OUT?

EL COMEDO

“‘Checked out’?” Lisl said, straightening up behind him. “You were having Rafe investigated?”

But Bill barely heard her. He couldn’t have answered her anyway. His mouth had gone dry. Spicules of ice were crystallizing in each cell of his body, freezing him in position as he stared at the screen.

… Losmara … an anagram of Sara Lom …

He transposed the letters in his mind. Yes. He could see it now. How come he hadn’t seen it before?

He felt as if a vast abyss were opening before him, taunting him, beckoning, offering him all the answers to everything he wanted to know … and to more that he never wanted to know.

Good God, this didn’t make any sense! Rafe was related to Sara—no denying the family resemblance once he’d picked up on it. But why was he using an anagram of his sister’s name? No—not Rafe’s sister. The real Sara Lom had disappeared. Rafe’s sister had appropriated her name. Which made it logical to assume that Rafe was a fake as well. But why? In God’s name, why?

Lisl’s words echoed his thoughts.

“What’s going on, Will?”

“I don’t know, Lisl. But I’m pretty sure of one thing: Rafe Losmara is not who he says he is.”

“You mean he’s an impostor? That’s impossible! You can’t get into a graduate program at Darnell without high GRE’s and some pretty impressive letters of recommendation.”

“What about that kid who faked his way into Harvard not to long ago. Harvard—not a state school. You said he’s a whiz with computers, didn’t you? These big state universities have twenty- to forty-thousand students enrolled at a time. They use computers to keep track of them. I don’t know how he did it. He might have used a phony transcript to transfer in as a senior, attended a few key classes and wowed a few key faculty members, got into the computer and created an impressive academic record, and he was set: In the space of nine months—one academic year—he’s created a completely bogus identity with a three-point-nine grade point and glowing letters of recommendation.”

“But this is all supposition. You’ve got no proof!”

“True. But I know it in my gut. Because I know someone else who was fooled by a scam very much like this one.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

“Will, you’re talking crazy. Why would he go to all this trouble to create a false identity? And what’s this anagram business in that message?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

“So am I!” She picked up her bag and turned toward the door. “I’m going over to Rafe’s right now and—”

“What about Ev?”

She stopped. Her shoulders slumped.

“Oh, God … Ev. How could I forget about Ev?” She turned her tortured face to him. “What’s the matter with me?”

“You’re being torn into little pieces, that’s what’s the matter.” Bill rose and put an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll straighten out the rest of it soon. But first we’ve got to find Sanders. Right?”

She nodded without looking at him. “Right.”

“Okay. Here’s my idea. You start at the north end of Conway Street, I’ll start at the south. We’ll check every bar along the way and meet somewhere in the middle. If we haven’t found him, we’ll start moving in other directions.” He gave her shoulders one final squeeze. “Don’t worry. Together we’ll find him.”

He walked her out to her car and saw her off on her way to Conway Street. As he hurried to his own car, he congratulated himself on becoming such a smooth liar. For he had no intention of looking for Everett Sanders now. Later, yes. But right now he was heading for Parkview Condos.

As he drove, Bill began to sweat. A rank fear-sweat. It poured out of him. He was heading for a showdown with a man who was linked to the woman who’d called herself Sara Lom, the woman Bill had thought he’d never find, the woman who’d mutilated Danny Gordon and left him for Bill to find.

But she’d done more than mutilate the child. She’d left him alive yet placed him beyond the reach of any medical science known to man.

And that was what terrified Bill now, what made the darkness seem to press against the windows of his car. He was heading toward the unknown. Sara and Rafe—or whoever they really were—were linked to something hideous, something unnatural, maybe supernatural. He could almost believe they were linked to Satan himself—but he didn’t believe in Satan. He’d found it difficult to believe in much of anything anymore. But if inhuman evil could be embodied in one being, that being was the woman he’d known as Sara. And by blood or something else, Rafe was related to her.

But he couldn’t allow himself to be afraid. He couldn’t hesitate for an instant in his confrontation with Rafe. He wished he had a gun—something to cow Rafe into telling him what he wanted to know. But he’d have to do it all on his own. And for that he’d need ice in his nerves and fire in his blood.

So he thought about The Atrocity—that cursed Christmas Eve and what Sara had done to Danny, and about the agonies Danny had suffered during the ensuing week.

And very soon the fear vanished. By the time he screeched to a halt before Rafe’s condo it had become a blistering rage.

The Maserati sat in the driveway; the big living room windows were lit. No hesitation, no second thoughts. Bill raced up the steps, didn’t knock, slammed against the door, and burst in.

“Losmara! Where are you, Losmara?”

“Right here,” said a calm, soft voice from the right.

Bill found Rafe sitting on the white sofa in his white living room. He was dressed in the white slacks and soft white shirt he’d worn at the Christmas party. Bill stood over him and pointed a finger in his face.

“Who the hell are you?”

Rafe didn’t even flinch. His right leg was crossed over his left, his arms were spread like wings, resting along the tops the cushions. He looked Bill straight in the eyes and spoke calmly.

“You know very well who I am.”

“No. You’re a phony. You and your sister. Both sickos playing sicko games. But it’s going to stop. And you’re going to tell me how I can find your sister.”

“I have no sister. I’m an only child.”

Bill felt the fury surging higher within him. He wanted to grab Rafe’s throat and rattle him like a rag doll. And maybe he would. But not yet. Not yet.

“Cut the shit. Whatever the game was, it’s up. I’ve found you out. ‘Losmara’ … ‘Sara Lom’—they’re word games. You’re not pulling something here with Lisl like your sister pulled with Danny and me back in New York. I’m stopping it here and now.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Still no sign of alarm, no emotion at all. He hadn’t even asked Bill to leave. “And what do you believe I’m ‘pulling’ with Lisl?”

“You’re destroying her, corrupting everything that’s good and decent in her.”

A smile. “I’m destroying nothing, corrupting nothing. I’ve done nothing to Lisl. I’ve merely offered options. Any choices she’s made are wholly her own.”

“Sure. I’ve heard your options: something bad or something worse.”

Rafe shrugged. “That’s a matter of opinion. But you forget there was always the option of choosing neither. I’ve never forced a thing on Lisl.”

“You were dealing from a loaded deck!”

“I have no intention of wasting my time debating you. But let me point out that one inescapable fact remains: Everything Lisl’s done has been of her own free will. I pointed out certain paths to her, but it was she who chose to set out upon them. Never once did I threaten her—with anything. I did not make her choices; she did. The responsibility for anything she’s done lies with her.”

Bill’s rage was nearing critical mass.

“She was vulnerable! You took advantage of her weaknesses, knocked down her defenses, twisted her up in knots. Then you put that vial of alcohol in her hand in Everett Sanders’s apartment. That was like giving her a loaded gun.”

“But she’s an adult, not a child. And she knew what she was doing when she pulled the trigger. Your outrage is misdirected, my friend. You should be shouting at Lisl.”

That did it. Bill grabbed the front of Rafe’s shirt and yanked him out of the chair.

“I’m not your friend! Now I want some answers and I want them now!”

The phone began to ring. That long, protracted ring. The sound so startled Bill that he released Rafe’s shirt.

Immediately Rafe stepped over to the phone and lifted the receiver. He listened for a second, then turned and extended it toward Bill.

“It’s for you, Father Ryan.”

Bill stumbled back. Danny Gordon’s pleas echoed faintly from the receiver.

“Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease…!”

But breaking through the horror was the realization that Rafe had called him Father Ryan.

“You know?”

“Of course.”

“But how?”

“Does it matter? I think it’s more important that you answer little Danny. He wants you to come help him.”

“He’s dead, you bastard!”

Bill was about to leap at Rafe but the younger man’s condescending smile and slow shake of his head stopped him cold.

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

“Of course he is!”

The infuriating smile continued through another slow shake of the head.

“You may have buried him … but he didn’t die.”

Bill knew it couldn’t be true. He’s lying! He’s got to be lying! But he had to ask.

“If he’s still alive, where is he?”

Rafe’s smile broadened. “Right where you left him.”

Bill’s knees threatened to buckle but he locked them straight. Still, he swayed. He could barely hear his own voice over the roaring in his ears.

“No!”

“Oh, yes. Oh, most certainly yes. For decades he’s been lying in the bottom of that hole you dug for him in St. Ann’s Cemetery. Waiting for you. Hating you.”

Bill stared at Rafe. No reason in the world to believe a single word from this … this creature’s mouth, yet somehow he believed this.

Because in the darkest corners of his soul, within the most obscure convolutions of his brain, in the deepest crevices of his heart had always lurked the faintest suspicion that he had been duped, fooled by the force that controlled Danny’s fate into committing The Atrocity of burying Danny alive in the hope of ending his pain.

Martin Spano’s words that night came back to him now …

Don’t do it. An Evil power is at work here. It’s using you! I was used once—I know how it is. Stop now, before it’s too late!

When Bill would awaken sweating and palpitating in the darkness of his bedroom, it was the memory of that final night that haunted him. But laced through it was the unspeakable possibility that Danny might not have died in that hole. Bill had never faced that fear, but now he had no choice.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

No! It’s impossible!

Impossible … but the impossible had been true when Danny had remained alive and in torment, a bottomless pit for the transfusions and medications being pumped into him. So the impossible could be true now.

He opened his eyes and looked at Rafe.

“Goddammit, who are you. What are you?”

Rafe smiled and suddenly the lights began to dim.

“I’d dearly love to show you. But it doesn’t serve my purpose at the moment. However, I will grant you a brief glimpse.”

The room grew darker and colder, as if some hidden vortex were sucking all the heat and light from the air. And then the black swooped in, a darkness so perfect that Bill’s nervous system screamed as direction went awry, as up and down lost all meaning. But this was not a quiet darkness, not a simple absence of light; this was a devouring of light. A living blackness, a slithering, shuffling, shambling, hungry blackness, ravenous not for his flesh but for his soul, his essence, his very being. As Bill dropped to his knees and hugged the floor, digging his fingers into the pile to keep from tumbling toward the ceiling, a noxious grave-born odor seeped into his nostrils, caressed his tongue—sour, acrid, moist, carrying a hint of putrescence—gagging him.

And then he saw the eyes, hovering before him. Huge, round, the whites like glazed porcelain, the irises crystalline black, but not nearly as black as the bottomless sinkholes into infinity at their center. From those pupils there radiated such palpable malevolence that Bill had to turn away, squeeze his eyes shut to shield himself from the beckoning madness.

And just as suddenly light flared beyond his lids. He opened his eyes. The living room was lit again. He gasped for air. What had just happened? Had he been hypnotized somehow—or was that the real Rafe?

He shook off the body-numbing horror and looked around. Rafe was gone. Bill staggered to his feet and searched from room to room, upstairs and down—Rafe was nowhere in the condo. Shouting Rafe’s name, he stumbled toward the door.

So many questions still unanswered. Who was Rafe? Was he even human? He didn’t seem to be. What was his connection to Sara? How could he possibly know about Danny?

Bill’s numbed mind could barely frame the questions, his tongue couldn’t speak them. And no one was here to answer them.

Danny … alive. It couldn’t be true, but he had to know. Because if by some unholy power Danny was still alive in that grave, Bill couldn’t allow him to stay there a moment longer.

He had to go back. Back to New York, to that cemetery. He had to know!

He ran for his car.

6

The priest almost caught Renny with his pants down—literally.

Getting into Ryan’s house had been easy. The little ranch was set back from the road and surrounded by trees. Completely shielded from its neighbors. Renny broke a pane in the back door, reached through, turned the dead-bolt knob, and he was in. When he saw all the velvet paintings on the walls, the tigers, the clowns, the Elvises, he thought he’d made a mistake. He couldn’t imagine the Father Ryan he’d known going for this stuff. But Will Ryerson had to be Ryan.

Renny used the first hour or so to search the place but found little of interest. Somewhere along the way he noted the absence of a phone. That bolstered his conviction that he was on target—the last time he’d seen him, the priest had been terrified of phones.

He spent most of the remainder of the day sitting around, watching TV, keeping the sound low. He even brewed himself a pot of coffee and made a sandwich from the cold cuts in the fridge. Why not? Ryan wouldn’t be needing them.

But along around five he turned off the TV and seated himself in the front room, his pistol drawn, waiting.

And waiting.

He’d already waited a third of his lifetime for this meeting. He could wait a few more minutes. But these last minutes were killing him, dragging on like slugs on sandpaper.

What’s going to happen here?

After all these years, what was he going to do when he came face to face with the priest? Renny hoped he wouldn’t blow it. He had to keep his cool, because he knew what he wanted to do: nail him to the wall and gut him, just like he’d done to that little kid. But he’d be sacrificing himself then too.

No. He’d decided to play it straight. Arrest him, take him to the state capital, and start extradition proceedings.

Prison was better than anything Renny could do to the guy. And slower. The priest would be a short-eyes to the other cons. As soon as he got to Rikers, he’d find out firsthand about the very special treatment reserved for child molesters by all those guys who practically grew up in prison.

Prison would be much slower. Hell would be a quick little picnic in the shade compared to life in prison for a short-eyes priest.

For the first time since he’d become a cop, Renny was glad New York State didn’t have the death penalty.

As the clock crept toward six and the room darkened, Renny began to get antsy. Barely a fifteen-minute drive from the campus to here. Wasn’t he coming?

And then Renny’s bladder began sending him increasingly urgent messages. Never failed when he’d had too much coffee. He went to the window and peered out at the road. No cars in sight. He chanced a quick trip to the bathroom. He was in the middle of relieving himself when he heard tires crunch to a halt on the driveway gravel. Cursing under his breath, he zipped up and rushed down the hall. As he entered the living room, he nearly collided with someone.

The other man cried out and leapt back.

“Who the hell are you?”

Renny reached for a lamp switch and turned it on.

And gaped. Maybe he had made a mistake. The bearded, silver-haired guy before him looked nothing like Father William Ryan. Had a ponytail, for chrissake! Then Renny took a closer look and recognized him.

Their eyes locked.

“Remember me, Father Bill?”

The guy stared at him, obviously confused, and more than a little frightened by the gun in Renny’s hand. Then the confusion cleared.

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Jesus ain’t gonna help you, you bastard. In fact, I think he’d be the last one who’d want to.”

Renny had expected fear, terror, desperation, pleas for mercy, offers to buy him off. He’d been anticipating them with relish. He did see shock and fear in the priest’s eyes, but it wasn’t fear of Renny. He was afraid of something else. But overriding it all was a look of exasperation.

“Now?” Ryan said. “Now you catch up to me?”

“I may be slow, but I get the job done.”

“I haven’t got time for this now, dammit!”

Renny was shaken for a second or two. Haven’t got time? What kind of a reaction was that? He raised the pistol.

“You know the saying: Go ahead—make my day.”

“Listen, I’ve got to get back to New York!”

“Oh, don’t worry. That’s exactly where you’re going. But by way of Raleigh, first.”

“No. I’ve got to get to New York now.”

“Uh-uh. You’ve got to be extradited first.”

Renny was doing this by the book. He wasn’t about to give some legal snake a chance to screw up this collar. He stared hard at the priest, waiting for the hate to surge up in him, to make him ache to pull the trigger. But it wouldn’t come.

Where was the rage he’d saved and nurtured all these years? Why wasn’t it making him crazy now? How could he look at this sick bastard and not want to kill him on the spot?

“That will take too long,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to go right now.”

“Forget it. You’re—”

The priest turned and headed down the hallway toward the bedroom. Renny hurried after him, aiming his pistol at the back of Ryan’s head.

“Stop right where you are or I’ll shoot!”

“Then shoot! I’m going to New York, and I’m going now. You can arrest me there. That way you won’t have to worry about extradition or any of that.”

Renny watched in a daze as Ryan pulled off his work shirt and slipped into a long-sleeved striped jersey. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. What was Ryan up to? A trick of some sort? He had to be extra cautious now. Ryan was a big guy, and crazy as a loon.

Suddenly he noticed him reaching into a slit in the fabric of his box spring. He cocked his pistol.

“Don’t try it!”

Ryan pulled his hand out and flashed a wad of bills.

“My savings account.”

He grabbed a rumpled sport coat from the closet and brushed by Renny, heading for the living room again.

“Stop, goddammit, or I swear to God I’ll shoot!” He lowered the barrel. “You know what it’s like to get shot in the knee?”

Ryan stopped and faced him. His eyes were tortured.

“Danny’s still alive.”

“Bullshit!”

“Just what I would have said. But the person who told me may know what he’s talking about.”

“Don’t give me that! You snatched him and killed him!”

His eyes turned bleak. “I thought I did. I buried him in St. Ann’s Cemetery in Queens.”

He’s admitting it! He’s confessing to murder!

Now the rage was coming, rising, filling Renny’s mouth with a bitter, metallic taste.

“You bastard!”

“I did it to save him! If I hadn’t, he’d still be in a hospital somewhere with tubes coming out of every orifice, still suffering the torments of the damned with a bunch of white coats clucking over him! You didn’t really think I’d do anything to hurt that boy, did you? He was damaged beyond all hope of repair!”

“Damage you did to him! You were abusing him and you couldn’t let him go, so you mutilated him!”

He watched the priest’s shoulder’s slump.

“Is that the accepted theory?” He shook his head sadly. “I guess I kind of expected that.”

“You got what you deserve, and you’re going to get more—a lot more. And don’t think any bullshit stories about the kid being alive will let you cop an insanity plea. No way.”

Ryan didn’t reply immediately. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then he straightened and looked hard at Renny.

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? We’ll have to go back and dig him up.”

The idea staggered Renny. Was Ryan crazy enough to lead him to the spot where he’d buried the kid? That would clinch the case against him.

The priest picked up his car keys.

“You coming? I’ll drive.”

He headed out the front door. Renny ran after him.

TWENTY-FIVE

Queens, NY

1

He thinks I’m crazy, Bill thought, glancing over at Detective Augustino in the passenger seat. He guided the rental car out of its stall in the Avis garage at LaGuardia and onto the eastbound ramp of the Grand Central Parkway.

Maybe I am.

He’d explained it all to Augustino on the way up. He’d told him about what he had done on New Year’s Eve, and why he had done it. He also told him about Rafe’s resemblance to Sara, about the anagram of the names. But as he listened to himself speak he realized how utterly deranged his story sounded. Even he began to have his doubts, and he’d lived through it.

Danny alive? Why did he even consider it? Even for a second? Of all his ravings, that had to be the most lunatic.

Yet Rafe had told him. Rafe! How could Rafe know anything about it if he weren’t directly involved?

Augustino’s explanation for the whole convoluted mess: “You imagined it all—because you’re nuts.”

Nuts. This wasn’t the first time Bill had considered the possibility, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. But tonight he sensed he was approaching some sort of watershed that would either confirm or confute his sanity.

As he drove through the dark first hours of Saturday morning, he wasn’t sure which he was hoping for.

They found an all-night Shoprite Superstore and bought a pick and shovel in its garden department; they added a flashlight to the bill, then drove the final leg to St. Ann’s Cemetery. Bill cruised slowly along the north wall. They’d long since replaced the bulb he’d shot out all those years ago, but the old leaning oak was still there. The detective had been quiet most of the way, but when Bill drove over the curb and onto the grass, he began shouting.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“This is it,” Bill said, braking and turning the engine off.

“This is nothing! What are you talking about?”

He opened his mouth to speak but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t believe he was back here, actually talking about it with a stranger. A cop, no less. He tried again.

“This is where I buried him.”

Had he? Had he actually done that? It seemed ages ago, a bad dream.

“I thought you said in the cemetery.”

He looked at the detective. “We can’t exactly cruise through the front gate at two in the morning, can we?”

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Augustino said. “I can get an exhumation order—”

Bill shoved the flashlight into his coat pocket, opened the door, and stepped out. He opened the rear door and grabbed the pick and shovel.

“Go ahead. Meanwhile, I’ll be on the other side of that wall, digging.”

In his heart, in his mind, he was sure that Rafe had been lying. He had convinced himself of that during the trip north. But long-suppressed doubts had been set free and were worming through his gut, welling up in the back of his throat. Bill needed to be sure. Waiting for an exhumation order was out of the question. He wanted to put this horror behind him once and for all. Tonight. Now.

He stepped up onto the hood of the car, threw the pick and shovel over the wall, then climbed after them.

2

Renny hesitated as he watched Ryan haul himself up to the top of the wall. This was getting crazier by the minute. He was letting a madman, a defrocked priest who was a child molester and child killer to boot, lead him up and down the East Coast. And now he was supposed to follow Ryan into a deserted cemetery?

I must be crazy.

Especially to go unarmed. He’d left his pistol in Ryan’s car in the airport lot. No choice about that. He wished to God he had it now, or had thought to stop home for his backup, but it was too late to turn back.

“Shit!”

He slammed his fist against the dashboard. Then, muttering a stream of curses, he followed the priest over the wall.

The dark on the other side seemed impenetrable, and for an instant he was mortally afraid. Somewhere nearby was a mad killer with a brand-new pick. He dropped into a crouch, ready for fight or flight.

Then he saw the beam of the flashlight a dozen feet away. Ryan stood there like a statue, shining the light on a patch of ground before him. Renny approached warily.

“This is the spot.” Ryan’s voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.

“There’s no marker. How can you be sure without a marker?”

“I know where I dug it. You don’t forget something like that. And look—no grass.”

Renny stared down at the bare patch of ground. Thick, winter-browned grass surrounded the area, but not here.

“Has this been dug up?” Renny scuffed his feet on the bare earth. “Somebody beat you to it?”

The priest bounced the business end of the shovel off the hard, cold earth.

“Not recently.”

“So there’s no grass there. So what?”

The priest’s voice was barely audible. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this.”

Renny couldn’t see Ryan’s face, but he sensed real fear in the man. Suddenly he became aware of how cold it was here in New York in February. He very much wished he were back in NC right now.

“Let’s get this over with.”

He held the flashlight while the priest did the digging. Tough work breaking through the granite-hard topsoil and at times Renny was tempted to help out, but he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t turn his back on this man and let him turn this spot into a double grave—if indeed it was a grave at all.

The priest made quicker progress in the deeper layers below the frost line. When he got the hole hip-deep, he tossed the shovel aside and sank out of sight.

Renny moved closer. Ryan was on his knees, scooping up the dirt with his bare hands.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to hit him with the shovel.”

He’s not going to feel it, you jerk!

But Renny was struck by the reverence in Ryan’s tone. That little boy seemed to matter an awful lot to him—even dead.

And after twenty-or-so years at the bottom of that hole, Danny couldn’t be anything but dead. But his body could still tell stories. Recovering it would put a whole bunch of nails in Father William Ryan’s legal coffin.

“Almost there,” the priest said, panting. “Just a little bit fur—”

He jerked back.

“What’s wrong?” Renny said.

“Something moved.”

“Come on, Ryan!”

“No … under the dirt there. Something moved. I felt it.”

Renny stepped up to the edge and shone the light into the bottom of the hole. He didn’t see anything moving.

“Probably just a mole or something,” he said, trying to sound calm.

“No.” The priest’s voice so hushed Renny could barely hear him. “It’s Danny. He’s still alive. Oh, God, he’s still alive!”

He began to paw at the earth, frantically.

“Easy, fella. Just take it easy.”

Christ Almighty, don’t go to pieces on me now.

“I feel him!” The priest was shouting as he tossed huge handfuls of dirt into the air, showering Renny and himself with cold, damp earth. “I feel him moving!”

And damned if the dirt in front of the priest didn’t seem to be heaving and rippling, as if something was squirming and struggling beneath it. Renny swallowed what little saliva remained in his mouth. A trick of the light. It couldn’t be anything but—

But then something broke through the surface and writhed in the light. At first Renny thought it was some sort of giant white worm, then realized it was an arm, a thin little arm, twisting and flailing in the air. But not a whole arm. It looked tattered and moth-eaten, the skin stiff and dry, the flesh rotted away in areas to expose the underlying bone.

Renny gagged and almost dropped the flashlight, but the priest kept on digging, sobbing as he clawed at the earth. Finally he uncovered the remnants of what looked like a blanket. He grabbed two fistfuls of the fabric and yanked upward. The material ripped with a soggy sound, the overlying layer of earth parted, and what was left of Danny Gordon sat up in his grave.

Or maybe it wasn’t Danny Gordon. Who could tell? It was child-sized, but whatever it was, it had no business moving and acting alive. It belonged in a grave. It belonged dead.

Renny felt the strength rush out of him as he watched the thing in the jittering beam of the flashlight. Where its head and upper torso were exposed the flesh was as tattered and rotted as the arm that still writhed in the air like a snake. It reached for the priest and Father Bill didn’t hesitate. He took the worm-eaten thing in his arms and clutched it against his chest. Then he raised his head and cried out to heaven in a voice so full of anguish and despair that it damn near broke Renny’s heart.

“My God, my God! How could You allow this? How could You allow this?”

Renny probably would have been able to handle it if he hadn’t seen the eyes. He’d managed okay through the smell, through the sight of a dead thing moving like it was alive, but then came that moment when it turned its face toward the light and he saw the perfect blue eyes, moist, bright, shining, untouched by rot. Little Danny Gordon’s eyes, fully alive and aware in that decaying skull.

Renny’s nerve snapped then. He dropped the flashlight and ran. A part of him hated himself for bolting like a panicked deer, but a larger, more primitive element had taken hold, shrieking in fear, overruling any action but flight. He reached the cemetery wall and leaped but couldn’t get a grip on the top. He caromed off and ran to the leaning tree nearby, scrabbled up its rough bark, swung to the top of the wall, and leaped down, landing next to the rental car. He slumped against the fender and heaved, but nothing would come up. So he stood there panting and sweating, his eyes closed.

He’d been right! The priest had been right! The kid was still alive—buried for all those years and still alive! Decades in the ground! This couldn’t be happening.

Yet it was, dammit! He’d seen it with his own eyes. No question about it—something hellish going on here.

From the far side of the wall he could still hear Father Bill’s voice, ranting at the empty winter sky.

And then he heard something else. Footsteps approaching.

Renny straightened and looked around, stiffening at the sight of a bundled-up figure limping toward him across the frozen ground. A big guy, supporting himself with a cane in one hand while something boxlike dangled from the other and bounced against his leg as he walked.

“Get out of here,” Renny said, his voice tight and raspy. For want of something better to say, he added, “Police business.”

The old man didn’t even slow his pace; unperturbed, he continued forward. When he stepped into the glare from the streetlight, he stopped and stared at Renny. He wore a heavy topcoat. The brim of his hat kept much of his face in shadow, but from what Renny saw of his white beard and lined cheeks, he could tell he was old.

“You’ve opened the grave, I gather.”

Christ, who else knows about this?

“Look,” Renny managed to say, “this is none of your business. If you’re smart, you’ll go back to wherever you came from and stay the hell out of this.”

“You’re quite right about that, but…” He paused and almost seemed to be considering taking Renny’s advice. Then he sighed and held up the object he was carrying. “Here. You’ll need this.”

Renny saw now that it wasn’t a box but a can—a two-gallon gasoline can. Its contents sloshed within.

“I don’t understand.”

The old man jerked his head toward the cemetery.

“For whoever was buried in that unmarked grave. It’s the only way to end it.”

Instantly Renny knew he was right. He didn’t know where this old guy had come from, but he realized this was the solution.

But it meant going back over the wall, seeing that thing that was all that remained of Danny Gordon. He didn’t want to do that, didn’t know if he could.

Quiet now on the other side of the wall. Father Bill was alone in there with that thing that had been—and in a way still was—Danny Gordon. Alone. Because Renny had run out on him.

Renaldo Augustino had never run out on anyone in his life. He wasn’t about to start now.

He grabbed the gasoline can and hopped up on the car hood. As he straddled the top of the wall, he looked back at the old man.

“Don’t go anywhere. I want to talk to you.”

“I’ll wait in your car, if you don’t mind. A friend dropped me here.”

Renny didn’t say anything. He looked down at the dark side of the wall—the last place he wanted to be. But he’d come this far; had to see it through to the end. He slid over the edge and down. As soon as he hit the ground he spotted the flashlight, pointing toward him from where he had dropped it. Setting his jaw, he took a deep breath and hurried toward it on rubbery legs.

3

Bill sobbed as he held Danny’s reeking, squirming remains in his arms. How could this be? Had he been alive—alive but slowly rotting—and in agony all this time? Who or what was responsible for this? Why was something like this allowed?

He heard a sound and stretched to raise his line of sight above ground level. Detective Augustino was returning, carrying something, stumbling toward him on legs that looked ready to give out any second. For an instant he reminded Bill of Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow.

Augustino picked up the flashlight and pointed it into the grave. Bill winced in the brightness.

“Let him go and come out of there, Father,” said Augustino’s voice from behind the light.

Bill was startled by the “Father”—it was the first time the detective had called him that since their reunion a few hours ago. But he wasn’t going to abandon Danny.

“No!” Bill clutched the animate remains of the boy more tightly against him. “We can’t just cover him up again!”

“We won’t just cover him up.” The detective’s voice sounded flat, almost dead. “We’re going to put an end to this once and for all.”

Bill looked down at Danny’s ravaged face and into the tortured blue eyes. If only he could end his pain …

He laid him back and crawled out of the hole. He saw the gasoline can at Augustino’s feet.

“Oh, no.” The response was instinctive, the thought appalling. “We can’t.”

“Look what’s already been done to him. Can you think of anything worse?”

No. He couldn’t. He could barely think at all. Yet somewhere deep inside he knew fire would work. The cleansing flame …

“It’s got to be done,” the detective said. “Want me to do it?”

Bill could hear very plainly in his voice that it was the last thing in the world Augustino wanted to do.

“No. It’s my job. I put him into her clutches; I’ll get him out.”

He grabbed the can and unscrewed the cap. The odor of the fumes set something off within him and he began to cry as he poured the gasoline into the hole.

“Forgive me, Danny. It’s the only way.”

When the can was empty, he turned to the detective. Augustino already had a butane lighter and a sheet from his notebook out. Bill took it from him and paused.

“I can’t do this to him.”

“Then do it for him.”

Bill nodded—to Augustino, to the night, to himself. Then he emptied his mind, flicked the lighter, and lit the paper. As it caught, he dropped it into the hole.

The gas exploded with a wooomp! The heat staggered him back.

No cry from the hole and he could see no movement within the flames. He was grateful for that. But he couldn’t watch. He had to turn his back, walk away, lean against the tree. Part of him wanted to cry, part of him wanted to be sick, but he was tapped out, dry, empty … little more than skin wrapped around a void.

Only anger remained.

What had happened to Danny wasn’t some sort of cosmic accident. It had been done to him. And the ones who had done it were still out there. Bill resisted the urge to scream out his rage at the night; he held it in, nurturing it, saving it for those who were responsible. He swore he’d find them.

And make them pay.

4

Renny stood over the hole until the fire died to a few sputtering flames. Father Bill came up and stood beside him as he played the flashlight beam over the glowing ashes. He glanced at the priest’s face and sensed something scary moving behind those blue eyes.

“Is it over?”

“Yeah,” Renny said. “Has to be.”

Nothing moved down there. Danny Gordon was quiet at last. Little more than his bones left now. The rotted flesh had crisped and fallen away. Renny could see his naked skull, but no eyes. He was gone.

“Peace, kid. Peace at last.” He picked up the shovel. “You want to say a few words, Padre?”

“I’m sorry, Danny,” the priest said. “I’m so sorry.” And then he was silent.

“No prayers?”

Father Bill shook his head. “I’m through with prayers. Let’s cover him up.”

They filled in the hole quickly, then started back toward the wall.

“I suppose you’ll be taking me in now.”

Renny had been thinking about that. His whole world had been turned upside down in the past hour. He’d put his career on the line to bring this man to justice, and now, in the face of what he had just seen, he no longer had the vaguest idea of what would constitute justice. Father William Ryan was not the monster Renny had thought him. But he had nurtured his hatred for the man so long he found it difficult to let go of it now. Yet he had to.

Because everything was different now.

And what did a career mean—what did the law mean—after what had happened to Danny Gordon?

“I don’t know,” Renny said. “You got a better idea?”

“Yeah. Go back to North Carolina and pick up Rafe Losmara and bring him back to my place and keep him there till he tells us what we want to know.”

“And what do we want to know?”

“What the hell was done to that boy!”

“Maybe we won’t have to go to North Carolina to find out. There’s a guy in the car who might have some answers.”

The priest stopped and stared at him.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But he’s the guy who brought the gasoline.”

Suddenly Father Bill was running for the tree. He monkeyed up the trunk and was over the wall before Renny had taken half a dozen steps.

5

Bill approached the car warily, almost afraid of who he might find there—maybe even Rafe Losmara himself. When he peered through the blurry glass he was relieved to see that the man sitting in the back seat appeared to be a lot bigger and older than Rafe. He opened the driver’s-side door and saw by the light of the courtesy lamp that he was much older.

“You brought the gasoline?”

The old man nodded. “I guessed you’d need it.” His voice was dry, leathery.

“But who are you? And how did you know we’d be here? Even we didn’t know we’d be here until this afternoon.”

“The name is Veilleur. The rest is difficult to explain.”

Bill slumped under the weight of what he had done tonight. The fatigue was catching up to him.

“It can’t be as difficult as what we just went through in there.”

“No. I imagine not. But you did the only thing you could. He is at peace now.”

“I hope so,” Bill said as the detective jumped in on the passenger side.

“He is. I can tell.”

Bill studied the craggy face and found that he believed the old man.

“But why? Why did this happen to that little boy? He never hurt anyone. Why was he put through that hell?”

“Never mind the whys for now,” Augustino said, lighting a cigarette. “I want to know who.”

“I have a vague idea as to why,” the old man said. “But I can certainly help with the who.”

Bill twisted around in his seat; he noticed that Augustino did the same. They spoke simultaneously.

“Who?”

“Drive me home first. And on the way, tell me what you know about the one in the cemetery, and what brought you back to him now.”

TWENTY-SIX

Pendleton, North Carolina

Lisl’s feet were killing her. She’d spent the entire night trudging the length of Conway Street and down some side streets as well. Toward the end she’d become desperate and searched through places she had no business even walking by, let alone wandering through. She endured the catcalls, the lewd remarks, the cheap feels. As far as she was concerned, she deserved every one of them.

And where was Will? He’d said he’d be starting at the south end and they’d meet in the middle, but she hadn’t seen him since he dropped her off. She’d gone back to her car and had cruised around, looking for him, but it was almost as if he’d disappeared. She hoped he was all right.

Sometime after midnight, as she was passing near Ev’s apartment house, she looked up at the third floor and saw a light in one of his windows.

He’s home! Thank God, he’s home!

Served her right. Here she was trooping all over town looking for him while he was sitting comfortably at home.

But was he sitting comfortably? Or was he dead drunk? An image of Ev lying on his bathroom floor in a pool of vomit flashed through her brain.

One way to find out was to call. She pulled out her cell phone and, with a shaky finger, punched in 4-1-1. The operator connected her and she listened to the rings.

What she wanted right now was to hear Ev pick up the phone and ask her in a perfectly sober voice what on earth she was doing calling him at this hour. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? She wanted to learn that Ev was fine and that this entire night of anxiety and self-loathing had been for nothing.

Well, not for nothing. She’d learned an awful lesson tonight, and she’d looked inside herself and seen some things she was ashamed of, things she’d have to change.

But she had to talk to Ev first, make sure he was okay. That was top priority now.

But Ev didn’t answer. She looked up and noticed that she was passing a bar called Raftery’s. She’d been in there earlier looking for Ev. So close to his apartment … maybe she should give it another try.

Inside, Raftery’s was dark and smoky and boozy smelling, just like every other place she’d been in tonight. She remembered having high hopes for this place when she’d searched it earlier. It had been packed a few hours ago, but the crowd had thinned considerably now.

As she moved past the bar, still rimmed with drinkers, she spotted a solitary figure slumped in a corner booth. Thinning hair, a slight frame, glasses …

“Ev!”

She practically shouted his name. People stared at her as she pushed her way through the maze of intervening tables.

She’d found him!

But her initial elation was fading as she realized where she had found him, and her awareness of the shape he was in.

“Ev?” She slid into the other side of the booth. “Are you all right, Ev?”

His bleary eyes focused on her through his glasses. For a moment he seemed confused, then his face broke into a smile.

“Lisl! Lisl, what a surprise!” His voice was loud, the words slurred. Her name came out Lee-shul. “It’s so good to see you. Here, let me get you a drink!”

“No thanks, Ev. I really—”

“C’mon, Lisl! Loosen up a little! It’s Friday night! It’s party time!”

Lisl gave him a closer look to make sure this ebullient barfly was really Everett Sanders.

He was.

Drunk as a skunk—and my fault.

She pushed back the self-recrimination. Plenty of time for that later. Right now she had to try to undo some of what she’d done.

“I’ve had enough for the night, Ev. And so have you. Let me take you home.”

“Don’t want to go home.”

“Sure you do. You can sleep it off there.”

“Not home. Don’t like it there.”

“Then we’ll go someplace else.”

“Yeah. Someplace that swings! Not like this graveyard!”

“Right.”

Someplace where we can get you some coffee.

She took his arm and helped him out of the booth. He swayed when he stood, and for a moment she feared he might topple over. But he steadied himself on her. He could barely walk, but together they made it to the cooler, fresher air outside.

“Where’re we going?” he said as she guided him into the passenger seat of her car.

She hurried around and got in the other side.

“To get some coffee.”

“Don’t want coffee.”

“Ev, I want you to sober up. I’ve got to talk to you about some things and I can’t do it while you’re loaded.”

He looked at her groggily. “You want to talk to me? You’ve never wanted to talk to me before.”

The simple statement caught Lisl by surprise. The truth of it touched her as deeply as it cut her. She smiled at him.

“Well, that’s changed as of tonight—along with a lot of other things.”

“All right then. Let’s get coffee.”

She drove to the Pantry on Greensboro Street and ran inside while Ev waited in the car. She got two large coffees to go and hurried back outside. When she got back in the car, Ev was snoring. She tried to wake him but he was out.

Now what?

She could take him back to his apartment but no way could she get him upstairs. Same with her place. She wished Will were here.

She opened her coffee and drank some. It felt good and warm going down. Getting chilly out and she wasn’t dressed for it. Neither was Ev. The only thing to do was drive around with the heater on and keep him warm until he woke up.

She dreaded that moment. Because she was going to have to make a decision about how much to tell him. But until then, she’d keep the car moving.

She put it in gear and headed for the highway.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Manhattan

Bill waited impatiently for the old man to return from his wife’s bedroom. Apparently she was pretty sick. Sick enough to need a full-time nurse. And Veilleur appeared wealthy enough to afford one. Bill knew nothing about the current state of Manhattan real estate, but he knew a top-floor condo overlooking Central Park didn’t come cheap.

During the drive from Queens, Bill had told Augustino and Veilleur everything—from what he’d done New Year’s Eve all the way to Rafe Losmara’s revelation that Danny was still alive in his grave.

The detective came over to where Bill was standing at the window, looking down at the empty, illuminated traverses snaking through the dark of Central Park.

“You know, Father, I think I had you all wrong.”

“Don’t call me Father,” Bill said. “I’m not a priest anymore. The name’s Bill.”

“All right, Bill. Call me Renny.” He sighed. “I’ve spent a lot of years thinking some pretty awful thoughts about you.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

“Yeah. And now I’m thinking some pretty brutal thoughts about this Losmara guy and what I’d like to do to him and his sister—because I don’t think the legal system’s going to be much use here.”

Bill turned toward the bedroom as he heard some high-pitched English words mixed with some other language that sounded East European.

Renny said, “Sounds like Mrs. Dracula—having a nightmare.”

Veilleur returned to the living room then. He eased himself into a chair and indicated the facing sofa for Bill and the detective.

“Sorry for the delay,” he said, “but I wanted to make sure the nurse was in her own room and my wife settled quietly for the rest of the night before we talked.”

“Is she a light sleeper?” Bill asked, more out of courtesy than any real interest.

“Yes. She tends to get her nights and days mixed up.”

Bill started when he noticed the telephone by his elbow.

“That won’t be bothering you anymore,” Veilleur said. “But let’s get back to this young man in North Carolina. You say he calls himself Losmara?”

“Yes. Which is an anagram of Sara Lom, the woman I told you about.”

“Both of which are anagrams of another name.” He smiled tiredly and shook his head. “Still playing games.”

“What’s the other name?” Augustino asked from Bill’s right on the sofa.

“I’d rather not say. Call him the Adversary.”

“Is the other anagram their family name?” Bill said.

“Who?” The old man looked confused.

“Rafe and his sister.”

“There is no sister. Only one—the Adversary. Within certain limits, he can change himself. The one you called Sara and the one you call Rafe are the same person.”

“No.” Bill closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “That can’t be.”

But why not? After what had happened to that hollow thing called Herbert Lom, to Danny, why was he balking at this minor trick?

He opened his eyes and stared into Veilleur’s.

“We’re out of our depth here, aren’t we?”

“This is out of everyone’s depth.”

“What are we up against?”

“The Adversary.”

“And who the hell is that?” Augustino said.

Veilleur sighed. “After what you two have seen tonight, I suppose you’re ready to believe. It’s a very long story and I’m very tired, so I’ll capsulize it for you. The Adversary used to be just a man, now he’s something more. He was born ages ago. As a youth he gave himself over to a power that is inimical to everything we consider good and decent and rational. He became a focus for the hostile forces outside this sphere, and for all that is dark and hateful within humanity. He gains strength from what is worst in us. Like a hydroelectric dam, he stands in the flow of human baseness, venality, corruption, viciousness, and depravity and draws power from it.”

“Power?” Bill said. “Just what does that mean?”

“The power to change things. To alter the world, make it into a place more to the liking of the force he serves.”

Beside him, Bill heard Augustino snort in disgust.

“Gimme a break, will you? I mean, this sounds like fairy-tale stuff.”

“I’m sure you said the same thing when your priest friend here told you that a boy who’d been buried all that time was still alive.”

“Yeah,” Augustino said, nodding slowly and shrugging. “You got a point there. But it still sounds like a Nintendo game. You know, stop the Evil Wizard before he finds the Ring of Power and rules the world. That sort of thing.”

“Except it’s no game,” Veilleur said. “And did you ever consider why that sort of story is so powerful, why it recurs again and again, fascinating one generation after another?”

“No, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“Racial memory. This war has been fought before … and almost lost. With results so devastating, human history had to restart itself. The Adversary keeps trying, though. But he has failed each time because he has always been countered by someone representing an opposing force.”

Augustino snorted. “Come on. The old war between Good and Evil story.”

Bill was tempted to tell him to shut up and let the old man talk.

“Except that the Good here isn’t terribly good,” Veilleur said, seemingly unperturbed by the detective. “It tends to be rather indifferent to our fate. It’s more interested in opposing the other force than in doing anything for us. And when it appeared that the Adversary had finally been stopped for good, the opposing force turned much of its attention elsewhere.”

“When was that?” Bill said.

“In 1941.”

“So how come he’s back?”

“He has a knack for survival and he was very lucky. This is not the first body he’s worn. It’s all very complicated. Suffice it to say that he found a way to be reborn in 1968.”

1968? Why did that year send ripples across Bill’s brain?

“How do you know so much about this?” Augustino said.

“I have been studying him a long time.”

“That’s all fine and good.” Bill wasn’t buying all of this, but the old man had been laying out his story so matter-of-factly that Bill found himself believing him. He should have been writing him off as a kook, but after tonight he wasn’t going to be too quick about writing anything off as too crazy to be true. “But what is he up to? Why pick on Danny? Why pick on Lisl? There’s no road to world domination there.”

“Who can say what goes on in the Adversary’s mind. I can tell you this, however: He receives his greatest satisfaction from human self-degradation. When he can bring out the worst in us, when he can induce us to lose faith in ourselves, convince us to choose to be less than we can be, to choose the low road, so to speak, it’s … I think it’s like a cosmic sort of sex for him. Plus, he grows stronger with each incident.”

Bill couldn’t help but think of Lisl. That certainly sounded like what Rafe—or the Adversary, if Veilleur was to be believed—had been doing to her.

“But why Danny and Lisl? Why would he be interested in them?”

“Oh, I doubt very much that they were his real targets.”

“Then who?”

“Think about it. They were both very close to you. Losing the little boy sent you into a tailspin from which you barely recovered. Might that not happen again if something similar occurred to the young woman in question?”

His heart pounding with sudden horror, Bill straightened up on the couch.

“Oh, no—”

“Yes,” Veilleur said, nodding. “I think you are his target.”

Bill stood. He had to move, had to walk around the room. More craziness. It couldn’t be. But it explained so many things. And there was a hellish consistency to it.

“But why, goddammit! Why me?”

“I don’t know,” Veilleur said. “But I may know someone who does. We can’t talk to her right now. But in the morning, I’ll call her. For now I suggest we all get a little rest.”

Bill continued to prowl the room.

Rest? How could he rest if all Danny had suffered and what Lisl was going through were because of him?

TWENTY-EIGHT

North Carolina

Lisl locked the car with Ev sleeping peacefully inside, and walked into the truck stop. A couple of times during the last half hour he’d stirred and she’d thought he was going to come around, but he never actually opened his eyes. She hoped he woke up soon so she could ferry him back to his apartment and get some sleep herself.

She was beat. Almost dawn now and she was verging on twenty-four hours with no sleep. As an undergrad she’d had no trouble pulling all-nighters at exam time, but that had been over a decade ago. She’d become accustomed to her sleep these days.

If nothing else, the endless drive had given her plenty of time to think. Her thoughts had turned inward and she hadn’t liked what she’d found. How had she become so warped? How had she allowed Rafe to twist her into someone who could pour alcohol into an alcoholic’s orange juice? She hated Rafe for doing that to her. And simultaneously she felt her insides heat with desire at the thought of him.

God, she was a mess. She was going to need help to straighten herself out after this.

But first she had to get Ev straight.

She shivered in the dawn breeze and her hand shook as she reached for the door to the coffee shop. This must have been her eighth stop since leaving the Pantry in Pendleton, and she’d bought coffee at every one. Too little sleep and too much caffeine. Tired and wired. She smiled at the phrase. Not bad. She’d have to remember that.

She wondered how many miles she’d put on her car tonight. She’d swung by Will’s house first. The lights were on, the door was unlocked, but he wasn’t there. So she’d taken 40 north to the Interstate and had cruised 95 ever since. Traffic had been light. She’d set the cruise control on 55 and settled into the right lane. But the truck traffic was picking up now. Good time to head back toward Pendleton.

Breakfasting truckers crowded the counter. She guessed most of them had spent the night in the cabs of those big eighteen-wheelers lined up in the parking lot, but some looked like they’d just come off the road. She’d gained new respect tonight for long-haul drivers.

She was aware of appraising stares from many and even heard a few whistles. She glanced at herself in one of the mirrored walls and saw a pale, haggard-looking woman with circles under her eyes and wind-tangled hair.

They’ve got to be kidding.

Maybe driving all night not only made truckers tired, but desperate and nearsighted as well.

She poured herself a coffee from the take-out pot, added two sugars, and grabbed a wrapped donut. Another whistle followed her out the door after she’d paid.

Halfway to her car, she froze in the middle of the parking lot. The passenger door was open.

But she’d locked the car. As she neared it she spotted a puddle of vomit under the door. The car was empty. Ev was gone.

She set the coffee and donut on the trunk and stepped up on the bumper for a better look. Frantically, she scanned the parking lot but saw no one who looked like Ev. And then, all the way around behind her, she spotted a lone figure, thin, lost-looking, stumbling toward the highway.

She ran after him, shouting his name, and caught up near the edge of the roadway.

“Lisl?” he said, squinting at her in the dim light. He looked dazed, but he didn’t seem drunk anymore. “What are you doing here?”

“I drove you here.”

“You? But how? I don’t remember. And where are we?”

She could barely hear him over the roar of a passing truck, but the confusion in his eyes said it all.

“I found you in a bar. You were…”

She saw his shoulders slump, his head drop until his chin touched his chest.

“I know. Drunk.” With a moan that echoed from the deepest part of him, Ev dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Lisl, I’m so ashamed.”

He began to sob.

The utter misery in the sound made Lisl feel as if someone were tearing her heart out of her chest. She sank down beside him and threw her arms around him.

“Don’t, Ev. Please don’t. It’s not your fault.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He lifted his head and stared out at the thickening traffic.

“I thought I had it licked. I had my life completely under control. I had a career, I was making progress, I was working on a paper, everything was going perfectly.”

“Nothing’s changed, Ev. You still have all that to go back to. You can forget about tonight and pick up things where you left off.”

“No,” he said, still not looking at her. “You don’t understand. I’m an alcoholic. I’ll always be an alcoholic. I thought I had it under control, smothered, locked away, but I can see now that I’ll never really control it. It’s like a ticking bomb that can go off at any time. If I can fall off the wagon like this after all these years, when everything’s going so well for me, what’s going to happen the first time something goes wrong? Don’t you see, Lisl? I’m a slave to this thing! I thought I’d won but I didn’t. I’m a loser! And I’ll go on being a loser! I think I’d rather be dead!”

“No, Ev!” His doomed, hopeless tone frightened her. “Don’t talk like that! You didn’t fall off the wagon, you were pushed. You didn’t lose in a fair fight. You were ambushed.”

Finally, he looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Your orange juice. There was alcohol in it.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s impossible. I bought it at the A and P. There couldn’t be…”

His voice trailed off as he stared at her. Lisl wanted to turn away but couldn’t. She had to face this, and face it now.

“How do you know?”

“I know…” The words clogged in her throat, but she squeezed her eyes shut and forced them out. “I know because I put it there.”

There. She’d said it. The awful truth was out. Now she had to face the music. She opened her eyes and saw Ev staring at her, face slack, mouth agape.

“No, Lisl,” he said in a hushed voice. “You wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that.”

“I did, Ev. And I’m deeply ashamed. That’s why I’m here with you now.”

“No, Lisl. You have too much integrity to do something like that. Besides, you couldn’t have known I was an alcoholic.”

“I did, Ev.” God, she wanted to run down the highway rather than speak these words. “I followed you to a meeting in the basement of St. James. I knew exactly what you were.”

“But how? Why?”

“When I borrowed your keys last week, I … had copies made.”

The shock in Ev’s eyes was quickly fading to hurt.

“You made copies? After I trusted you with my keys? Lisl, I thought you were a friend!”

“Friend?” she said, suddenly overcome by a need to justify herself. “Friend? Do you call someone who has lunch with the department chairman and whines not to let a woman be tenured before him a friend?”

“Me? Lunch with Dr. Masterson? Where did you hear that? I’ve never had lunch with Masterson! I never have lunch with anyone!”

And in that awful instant Lisl knew that Ev was telling the truth. Rafe had lied to her.

“Oh, God, no!” she moaned.

Why? Why would Rafe lie about Ev? Why had he been so intent on turning her against him? She fought an urge to explain to Ev about Rafe, to make him see that it wasn’t her fault, that Rafe had made her do it. But he hadn’t made her do anything. He’d lied to her, but that was beside the point. Even if his stories about Ev had been true, that didn’t justify spiking Ev’s orange juice. No justification for that. What was she going to say? The Devil made me do it? She had no one and nothing to hide behind.

She looked at Ev now and saw the profound hurt in his face. She’d have much preferred anger. Hatred, maniacal rage—she could deal with having angered someone. But not hurt. She felt like crawling away on her belly.

“Lord, what’s wrong with me?” he said.

She searched desperately for a bright side to this.

“But don’t you see, Ev? You can’t blame yourself for falling off the wagon. If you’d been left alone, if I hadn’t planted that bomb in your refrigerator, if you’d been allowed a free choice, you wouldn’t have started drinking again. Don’t blame yourself. It’s my fault, not yours.”

“I almost wish it were my fault,” Ev said in a worn, desolate tone.

“No. Don’t say that.”

He struggled to his feet and she rose with him. He began wandering around her in a jagged circle.

“I don’t have many friends, Lisl. In fact, I don’t have any. I was never good at making them when I was sober. That was one of the reasons I drank. But I thought we were friends, Lisl. Well, not really friends, but colleagues at least. I thought you had some respect for me, some consideration. I never dreamed you’d do something like this to me.”

“Neither did I, Ev. Neither did I.”

“What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so?”

“Oh, Ev, I don’t hate you!”

“Lord, how stupid I was!” His voice was rising. “What an idiot! I trusted you! I … liked you. What a fool! What a goddamned fool!”

“No, Ev! I’m the fool. And I am your friend. I’ll help you get things right again.”

“And what about my work? What about my paper for Palo Alto?”

“What about it?”

“It’s gone. Wiped out! Even my backup files. Wiped out! That was no accident! If you had access to my refrigerator, you also had access to my computer. Lisl, how could you? You could have brushed me aside if you wanted to get to the top. You didn’t have to crush me like some sort of insect!” He stopped moving and put a hand to his face. A muffled sob escaped. “How could I have been so wrong about you?”

Lisl stood straight, silent, stunned. Ev’s paper—gone? Who could have—?

And then she knew. Rafe. He’d spotted Ev’s PC in the apartment. Rafe must have wiped them out. But what could he be thinking? What could be his purpose? Could he believe by any stretch of the imagination that he was helping her?

“Ev, I didn’t touch your files.”

But Ev wasn’t listening. He was wandering away from her, stumbling across the brown grass toward the highway. His words were garbled by the roar of the traffic, but snatches drifted back to her.

“… thought I had it all under control … wrong … fool … actually thought I had something … had nothing … thought I could rely on Lisl at least … didn’t have to squash me … what’s the use … can’t take it anymore … can’t start all over again…”

“Ev! Come back!”

At first she thought he was just trying to get away from her, and she couldn’t say she blamed him. Even she didn’t feel like getting into a car with herself.

Ev looked like he was going to step onto the shoulder and start thumbing a ride. But he didn’t stop there. He kept on walking straight out, into the right lane.

Oh, no! Oh, my God! What’s he doing?

Lisl screamed his name, but if he heard her he didn’t acknowledge it.

She began running after him. By sheer blind luck the right lane had been empty and he’d crossed it unscathed, but now he was stepping into the middle lane and a truck was roaring through the half light from the left. Lisl heard the horn, heard the agonized scream of the brakes blend with her own as the eighteen-wheel juggernaut bore down on Ev’s frail figure. Lisl saw him turn toward the hurtling mass of chromed steel. And in the last instant before it thundered into him, he turned his face to her. For a heartbeat his tortured, miserable eyes locked on hers, and then, amid a spray of crimson, he dissolved into the front grille of the truck.

Lisl could only stand on the shoulder and scream until her voice gave out and the emergency squad came and someone led her away.

TWENTY-NINE

Manhattan

Mr. Veilleur was up at first light, clanking around the kitchen. Bill hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the odors began seeping through the apartment. Eggs over easy, bacon, rye toast, and the best coffee in recent memory. All served by Mr. Veilleur himself.

Veilleur didn’t eat with them. Instead, he put together a breakfast tray and accompanied the nurse to his wife’s bedroom. Bill waited impatiently for his return, looking at his watch, thinking about Lisl, wondering if she’d found Everett Sanders, and what she’d told the poor guy. Bill knew she was probably counting on him for help, but this was more important.

When Veilleur returned to the kitchen half an hour later, Bill cornered him at the sink.

“This person who can tell us what’s going on—when can we see her?”

Veilleur glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ll give her a call in a few minutes.”

“Who is she?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Bill wandered back to where Renny was watching the Good Morning, America and wondered why he couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone.

A few minutes later, Mr. Veilleur stuck his head in the room.

“Mrs. Treece will be over in half an hour.”

Bill asked if he could use the phone. Veilleur told him to go ahead. He was almost afraid to touch it, but he forced his hand to pick up the receiver and put it to his ear. When he heard a dial tone, he had a sudden urge to cry.

Maybe it’s over—really, finally over.

He called North Carolina and got Lisl’s number, then dialed her apartment. He let it ring a good while with no answer. If she wasn’t home, it probably meant she’d found Sanders and had taken him back to his place. He tried information again for Everett Sanders’s number, but again no answer.

He hoped everything was going all right down there without him.

While waiting for this Mrs. Treece to show up, he heard Mrs. Veilleur’s accented voice shouting from the bedroom.

“Glenn! Glenn! Where’s my breakfast? I smell breakfast cooking! Isn’t anyone going to give me any? I’m hungry!”

Bill nodded and listened as Veilleur went in and patiently explained to his Magda that she’d just had breakfast and that lunch was still hours away.

“You’re lying to me!” the woman said. “Nobody’s fed me for weeks! I’m starving here!”

Suddenly Bill knew Mrs. Veilleur’s problem, and the need for a full-time nurse: Alzheimer’s disease. And abruptly Mr. Veilleur changed from a mystery man with a jealously guarded store of arcane knowledge to someone very human coping with a terrible burden.

But why had she called him Glenn? The name on the mailbox downstairs had listed him as Gaston. He shrugged it off. Probably just a nickname.

The doorman called up shortly thereafter to announce that Mrs. Treece had arrived. A knock on the door came a few minutes later and Veilleur opened it.

She was older, of course, much older, her hair white and shorter, her face thinner, lined, but it was her.

“Carol!” Bill said as soon as his throat unlocked. “Carol Stevens!”

The woman stared at him in shock, without the slightest hint of recognition in her eyes.

“No—no one’s called me that for—”

“Carol, it’s me! Bill Ryan!”

And then she knew him. He could see it in the widening of her eyes as the old memories reconciled with the changed man before her. Her lips quivered and she looked as if she was going to cry. She opened her arms and rushed toward him.

“Bill! Oh, my God! It really is you!”

And then his arms were around her, crushing her to him as he swung her off the floor. He heard her sobbing against his neck and felt his own eyes fill with tears.

Finally he let her down but still she clung to him.

“Oh, God, Bill, I thought you were dead!”

“In a way, I was.” Carol … so good to hold her … like being brought back to life. “But not anymore.”

The last time he’d seen her had been when she’d boarded that plane with her father-in-law, Jonah Stevens. That had been right after the other horrors—Jim’s violent death, the bizarre murders in the Hanley mansion, the crazy talk about her unborn child being the Antichrist.

Her child! Carol had been pregnant the last time he’d seen her.

And suddenly a slow chill began to crawl through him. Veilleur had said the woman coming this morning might be able to answer Bill’s questions about what had happened to Danny and what was happening to Lisl. Carol’s child …

Rafe?

He stepped back and looked at her, then at Veilleur, then back to Carol.

“Are you … is she … Rafe’s mother?”

“Who’s Rafe?” she said.

Mr. Veilleur said, “I believe we’ve found your son, Mrs. Treece.”

“Jimmy?” Her fingers dug into Bill’s arms. “You’ve found Jimmy?”

Jimmy. She’d named the boy after her late husband, Bill’s old friend Jim Stevens.

Bill described Rafe to her and she shook her head.

“That doesn’t sound like him.”

“He may have changed his appearance,” Veilleur said. “He can do that to a degree.”

She fished in her purse and came up with a wrinkled photo. She handed it to Bill. His knees weakened as he stared down at a slim, handsome teenage boy who didn’t look much like Rafe. But then again, change a few features …

“What’s he done?”

Bill could barely stand, let alone speak. Still clutching the photo, he stepped back and found a seat. Rafe was Carol’s son? But Veilleur had said Rafe was some sort of evil immortal … the Adversary.

“Someone had better explain this to me.”

Veilleur closed the nurse in the bedroom with his wife, then the four of them seated themselves in the living room. Carol was introduced to Renny. Bill noticed that the detective looked as confused as Bill felt.

“Last night I told you both about the Adversary,” Veilleur said. He took out a piece of paper and wrote a word, then passed it around the table. “This is his real name. Read it but do not speak it.”

“Why not?” Carol said.

“Because he will hear it. And he will come.”

Bill looked at the sheet.

R-A-S-A-L-O-M

What a strange name … but there it was: Sara Lom … Losmara …

Veilleur said, “He was killed—or at least appeared to have been killed—in 1941 at a place called the Keep in a small pass through the Transylvanian Alps.”

“Who killed him?” Renny said.

Bill supposed it was a natural question for a cop to ask.

“I did. The power I had served for so long released me then and so I assumed it was over at last. Apparently I was wrong. Over the past few decades I have pieced together the following sequence of events. It seems that at the time of the Adversary’s death, Doctor Roderick Hanley was successfully growing a clone of himself here in New York. For some reason, perhaps due to something unique about a clone, the Adversary was able to move into the body of the child who would eventually grow up to be James Stevens.”

The name hit Bill like a punch.

“Then it’s true?” Bill said, looking at Carol. “All those stories about Jim being a clone were true?”

Carol nodded. “Yes. All true.”

“But the Adversary could not control the clone’s body,” Veilleur said. “He could use the body as a vessel for his life force and nothing else. He was trapped, an impotent passenger in Jim Stevens’s body—until Jim fathered a child. When that happened, he moved into the new life the instant it was conceived within Carol.”

“All that Antichrist talk!” Bill said, remembering Jim’s violent death and the pursuit of Carol by the Chosen.

Carol shrugged helplessly, almost apologetically. “But I never really believed all the things my Aunt Grace and those awful people with her said about my baby. So I fled with Jonah to Arkansas where Jimmy was born. He was a perfectly normal infant during the first few months, but it wasn’t long before I began to suspect there was something wrong with him, something … malignant about him. I blamed my feelings on all the horrors I’d gone through while I was carrying him, all the terrible things that had been said about him, about him being the Antichrist and all that. But after a while I realized that Jimmy was not a normal child. Physically, he grew and developed at a normal rate, but mentally he was unlike any child who has ever lived.”

She paused and Bill noticed that she shuddered.

“How?” he said.

Staring at the corner of the ceiling as she spoke, she gave a brief summary of fifteen years spent with a child who was never really a child, who had never needed a parent.

“Finally, at age fifteen, he walked out on me. After he was gone, I distributed the balance of the fortune to various charities—I wanted no part of it—and came back to New York. I met a man, we got married, it didn’t work out. Mr. Veilleur contacted me a few years ago. We’ve been meeting and talking about Jimmy. I don’t know if I believe him about Jimmy being this Ra—this Adversary he talks about, but I don’t know if I disbelieve him either. It explains so many of the terrible things that have happened since he was conceived.” She looked at Renny, then at Bill. “But what’s he done to you?”

Bill told Carol about Sara and what she did to Danny; he told her about Rafe and how he was twisting Lisl, and what they had done to Ev.

“But Mr. Veilleur doesn’t think they were his real targets. He thinks Rafe or whoever he is has really been out to hurt me. Is that possible?”

Carol nodded. “He hates you.”

Bill was struck speechless for a moment.

“Me? What did I ever do to him?”

“You almost killed him.”

As Bill listened in awe, she went on to remind him of her botched attempt to seduce him that afternoon in the Hanley mansion, of how the seduction had ended when she’d started to miscarry the child she hadn’t known she was carrying.

“He almost died then,” she said, “and he blames you, Bill.”

“Me? But I had nothing—”

“You had everything to do with it,” Veilleur said. “Mrs. Treece has told me of the incident. It’s plain to me that the Adversary influenced her from within her womb, causing her uncharacteristic behavior. But it was your refusal to yield to her, to hold to your vows—it didn’t matter whether or not the god to whom you made those vows existed, it was your determination to continue on the course you had chosen for your life, toward what you believed was right that caused the near miscarriage.” He shook his head in dismay. “And it was a complete miscarriage of fate that you got her to the hospital in time to save her child. For it is that child who has come back to ruin your life.”

Bill’s mind rebelled against what he was hearing.

“He did that to Danny because I refused her? And now he’s after Lisl for the same reason?”

“I believe he also set fire to your parents’ house,” Veilleur said. “It was no accident that they died on the same date as your friend Jim Stevens. He was sending you a message. You have been the target all along, Father Ryan. You hurt him and he does not forgive.”

“But they were innocent!”

“But so useful. Think: you’d already taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He could not ruin you financially or slaughter your wife and children, so he chose another route of attack.”

“Why didn’t he just kill me?”

“Too quick. No sustenance from that. Physical pain gives him only a fraction of what he derives from psychic pain, from fear, hatred, self-doubt. His purpose appears to have been to destroy you from within. To do that he stripped you of your support system—your family, your friends, your freedom, your religious order, your god, your very identity. He wants you to doubt yourself, to question the worth of your life, the usefulness of continuing it. He destroyed everything that gave meaning to your life, that made you who you are, expecting you to turn against your values and wallow in doubt and misery and self-pity. And then, hopefully, to commit the ultimate act of despair: suicide. He almost succeeded, but you refused to give up. So now he’s returned to finish the job.”

Bill sat there numb, in shock.

“But why is he wasting his time with me? If he’s so powerful, if he’s out to change the world into some awful place, why expend so much effort on me?”

“First of all, he never forgives. He’s immortal, he’s thousands of years old, but he’s still human, and has human foibles. One of his is pettiness. He cannot let go of a slight. Plus, it gives him great pleasure. And in a hellish way it’s a testimony to you that he felt it necessary to level such a devastating assault against you. He must respect your strength of character. He may even fear you. But the real reason he’s taken the time to shatter your life is that he’s afraid to reveal himself just yet. He’s been biding his time, accumulating power while he looks for a way to bring his guiding force—we call it the Otherness—to power.”

“He was afraid of a red-haired man when he was growing up,” Carol said. “But we never saw him. Who was that?”

Veilleur sighed. “Me.”

They all stared at the old man. Finally Renny said what was on Bill’s mind.

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Not as I am today,” Veilleur said quickly, “but as I used to be. I am the red-haired man the Adversary fears—or rather I was. He still thinks I am a vigorous, younger man, brimming with all the power of the Ally, waiting for him to show himself so that I can bring the full weight of that force to bear on him.”

“So,” Bill said. “You were the last to oppose him? Who before you?”

“No one.”

“But you said this has been going on for ages.”

Veilleur nodded.

“Then you’re…” Bill couldn’t grasp it, didn’t want to try right now. “But then who represents this Ally now?”

Veilleur’s expression was bleak.

“No one. Someone waits in the wings, but the mantle has not yet fallen to him. When the Adversary appeared to be dead, the battle appeared to be won, so the Ally receded. And I began to age—not as quickly as everyone else, but the years have taken their toll. The Ally keeps watch, but only out of the corner of its eye, so to speak. The Adversary is trying to trick it by making this realm appear devoid of sentient life, and thus undesirable. If he succeeds, the Ally will turn its attention elsewhere, and that will be catastrophic because, at the moment, this world has no defender.”

Suddenly Bill was afraid—for the world, but especially for Lisl.

“I’ve got to go back,” he said, rising to his feet.

“Bill, you can’t be serious!” Carol said.

Bill felt his fear swell into waves of murderous rage, roaring through him like a storm surge.

“He killed my parents, mutilated Danny Gordon, and God knows what else. I’m not sitting pat up here while he does whatever he pleases with the people I left behind.”

Renny was on his feet too.

“I’ll go with you. I’ve got some unfinished business with this bozo myself.”

“I want to come too,” Carol said. “Maybe I can talk some sense into him.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” she said, her lips trembling. “But I feel I’ve got to try.”

“I believe I’ll come too,” Mr. Veilleur said.

“Are you up to it?”

Bill felt the full intensity of his blue-eyed gaze.

“He has other plans in the works that bode ill for the world. We need a way to frustrate him, slow him down. I have this feeling that you’re a man who can do it. It will be a small victory, but I’d like to see it, and perhaps I can guide you along the way. I’ll have to stay in the background, of course. Under no circumstances must he know about me. Understood?” One after another, he stared at each of them. “If he sees me like this he will know he’s free to make this world—quite literally—a living hell.”

As Mr. Veilleur went to give the nurse instructions as to the care of his wife during his absence, Bill began calling the airlines to check out the flight schedules. He was possessed by a dreadful rising urgency to get back to Pendleton.

THIRTY

North Carolina

1

Ev … gone.

They’d removed what was left of him from the front of the truck, put him on a stretcher, and roared off to the nearest hospital. Lisl vaguely remembered being guided to the back seat of a State Police cruiser which then followed the wailing ambulance.

Before the ride and after, while sitting in the waiting area of the hospital emergency room, she answered countless questions; but now she could remember neither the questions nor her answers. She only remembered that ER doctor coming out and saying what everybody already knew: Everett Sanders was DOA.

She’d prepared herself for the news and so was able to maintain a calm front when it came. They wanted to hold her for observation, saying she looked as if she was in shock, but Lisl adamantly insisted she was okay. Finally they took her back to the truck stop and her car. She drove away and got as far as the next rest area; she pulled in, stopped in a deserted corner of the parking lot, and went to pieces.

Finally, when she could cry no more, when her sob-racked chest and abdomen could take no more, Lisl sat and stared blindly through the windshield. She kept her eyes open as much as possible because every time she closed them she saw the sad, defeated, accusing look on Ev’s face the instant before the truck slammed into him.

Never in her life, not even in the depths she’d plunged to after her divorce from Brian, had she felt so utterly miserable, so completely worthless.

All my fault.

No … not all her fault. Rafe’s too. Rafe had played a major role in Ev’s death. That didn’t exculpate her one bit, Lisl knew, but Rafe more than deserved to share her guilt. He’d erased Ev’s computer files, perhaps the final shove that had sent Ev on that fatal walk onto the interstate. Rafe should know that he’d contributed to a man’s death.

Lisl reached for the ignition key. Her limbs felt weak, leaden, as if they belonged to someone else. She had to concentrate on every movement. She got the car started and headed back to Pendleton.

The sun was unreasonably bright, glaring in her eyes as she drove. Traffic was light but she stayed to the right, not trusting her exhausted reflexes at the higher speeds. The sun had disappeared behind a low hanging sheet of cloud by the time she reached Pendleton and the Parkview complex. She pulled up to Rafe’s condo and didn’t hesitate. She went straight to his front door and pounded on its glossy metal surface. Silence inside. She pulled out her key and unlocked the door.

“Rafe?” She stepped inside. “Rafe?”

She stopped on the threshold of the living room and stared in shock.

The room was empty. Stripped. The furniture, the paintings, even the rugs—gone.

What’s going on?

“Rafe!”

She hurried from room to room, the clack of her shoes on the hardwood floors echoing through the emptiness. Each was the same. All traces of Rafe’s presence had been stripped away.

Except in the kitchen.

Something sat on the counter. Lisl hurried over and found a test tube. She picked it up and sniffed its open end—a trace of the mild odor of ethanol. She knew this tube. The last time she had seen it she had just emptied its contents into Ev’s orange juice.

Weak, numb, feeling lost and very much alone, Lisl turned in a slow circle and stared at the condo’s empty rooms.

Gone. Rafe had packed up and vanished. No good-bye, no note of explanation. Just gone. Not even a snide, nasty note, telling her that she hadn’t lived up to his standards. She would have preferred that to nothing. She now knew what his standards were and she wanted no part of them.

But the test tube transfixed her. To take everything else and leave only that was calculated cruelty. Brilliant cruelty. Hard evidence of what she had done, a reminder that she had made possible everything that had happened.

She stared down at it, then closed her eyes.

Ev’s face stared back at her from the inner surface of her lids.

With a cry she gripped the cowry slung from her neck and pulled, breaking the gold chain. She flung the necklace across the room and fled Rafe’s apartment.

She drove to Will’s place but it was just as she’d left it in the early hours of the morning—empty. At least his furniture was still here, but where was Will? It didn’t look as if he’d been back since her visit.

An awful thought struck her: Was he in on this too?

No, that was too crazy, too paranoid. Indeed, Rafe had something weird going on in his head, but Will wasn’t part of it, she was sure. But where was he?

She gave up and headed for home. On the way, it began to rain.

For an instant, as she entered her apartment, she had the feeling that Rafe might be there waiting for her. But no, it was empty.

Empty … just like her, just like her whole life. She’d never felt so alone, so cut off. If only she had someone she could call, talk to. But she’d never had any really close friends here, and since becoming involved with Rafe, she’d grown away from the few she might have called. And her parents—oh, God, she couldn’t talk to them even about simple things, so how could she discuss this? Will was the only one, and he’d disappeared.

She went into the bedroom and fell across the rumpled sheets. Sleep. That might do it. Just a few hours’ respite from the grief, the guilt, the loneliness. She’d be able to function then.

But function at what? Go back to the Math department? After what she’d done? Slide up in the pecking order with no fuss because Ev was no longer in the way? How could she do that?

Lisl sat up on the edge of her unmade bed and tried to visualize her future, but she saw nothing. It was as if she’d been struck blind. In a sudden panic she reached into her night table for the bottle of Restoril.

Sleep. I’ve got to get some sleep.

But no way was she going to get any with Ev staring back at her every time she closed her eyes.

She took the bottle to the bathroom and swallowed two capsules—twice the normal dose, but she was sure she’d need it. She looked at herself in the mirror, at her hollow, haunted face, her guilty eyes.

You worthless piece of shit!

Amid a rush of fresh tears, she poured a dozen more capsules into her hand and washed them down, then a dozen or so more, and again, until the bottle was empty. It had been almost full—maybe ninety capsules. She dropped it into the sink and shuffled back to her bed to wait for sleep, and for peace, permanent peace. This would fix it. No more guilt, no more pain.

She lay on her back and listened to the rain outside. She stared at the ceiling, forcing her eyes to fix on a crack above her, keeping them open to ward off visions of Ev’s last moment alive.

Finally the growing lethargy tugged on her lids, closing them. As the silent, faceless darkness rose around her, engulfing her like warm water, she embraced it.

Peace.

She thought she heard a noise in the room. She tried to open her eyes but could barely part her lids. Someone was standing over her. It looked like Rafe. He seemed to be smiling, but she could not react. She was floating now, being pulled downstream …

… downstream …

2

As soon as they landed, Bill ran out to the parking lot and drove his Impala back to the terminal where he picked up Carol, Renny, and Mr. Veilleur.

“I want to check out Lisl’s place first,” he said.

Light was fading when he reached Brookside Gardens. He left his three passengers in the car.

“I’ll only be a minute.”

He ran through the downpour to her front door and knocked. When he got no answer, he tried the latch. Unlocked. Bill stepped inside, calling her name. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he had this feeling …

He found her sprawled across her bed. She looked dead. He leaped forward and pressed his hand to her throat. Still warm, and there was a pulse. But she was barely breathing. He shook her but couldn’t rouse her. He ran to the bathroom for some water to splash on her and found the empty pill bottle in the sink. The label read: “Restoril 30 mg.—one (1) at bedtime as needed for sleep.”

“Oh, Lisl! Lisl!”

His heart broke for her. She took things so hard. She probably hadn’t been able to find Ev and had come back here depressed. Probably thought her friend Will had deserted her too.

If I’d stayed here …

No time for this. He had to get help. Bill ran to the phone to call an ambulance. She’d hate being admitted to the hospital where her ex-husband was on staff, but he had no choice.

No dial tone. He jiggled the plunger: dead.

Cursing, Bill ran to the front door and signaled to the car for help. As Renny got out and ran through the rain, Bill returned to the bedroom. He skidded to a halt at the doorway. A man stood by the bed.

Rafe.

“You bastard!” Bill said, starting forward. “What have you done to her?”

Rafe looked at him coldly. No pretense now, no attempt to hide the gleam of icy malevolence in those dark eyes.

He really does hate me!

“As I told you yesterday, Father Ryan—I’ve done nothing. Lisl has done everything herself. I’ve merely offered her” … he smiled … “options.”

“I know all about your ‘options,’ and I’d like to introduce you to a few of mine, but right now I’ve got to get her to a hospital.”

As Bill passed him on his way to the bed, Rafe pushed him back. He was so much smaller than Bill, his physique almost delicate, yet Bill grunted with pain as a crushing impact on his chest sent him staggering back against the wall. He sank to the floor, gasping for breath.

“She’ll be all right,” Rafe said in a bored tone. “She didn’t take enough to kill herself.” He shook his head disgustedly. “Couldn’t even do that right.”

Bill rose to his knees, ready to hurl himself at Rafe, when Renny burst in.

“Hey, what’s going on? What happened to her? And who’s this guy?”

“That’s Rafe Losmara—the one I told you about.”

Renny’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah? The guy who supposedly passed as the broad way back when?”

Bill saw a questioning look pass across Rafe’s face. Veilleur’s warning echoed through his mind. He wanted to warn Renny about saying too much. But Renny had his hands on his hips and was walking around Rafe, studying him.

“Yeah, I can see where he might have been able to pull it off,” Renny said, then looked at Bill. “This is the guy we’re supposed to be afraid of?”

Bill glanced at Rafe to see his reaction—and watched in shock as the mustache above the arrogant smile began to thin, the individual hairs falling out and sprinkling the floor like tiny pine needles from a dying tree. His features softened, became younger, smoother, rearranged themselves ever so slightly until, seconds later, Bill was looking once more into the face of Sara Lom. The face smiled and cooed in Sara’s voice.

“You’re not really afraid of me, are you, Danny?”

Bill could not move. It all slammed back—all the horror, all the grief, the self-doubt, the guilt. He was helpless before this creature.

Then a voice spoke behind him. Carol’s voice.

“Oh, Jimmy! That can’t be you!”

Sara’s sweet face turned rotten, hideous with anger as it glared at Bill.

“Her? You brought her here? How did you find out?”

Bill’s mind was working again, racing. He had to get poor, overdosed Lisl to a hospital—now! But he had to be very careful here. He could feel the naked evil in the room like a cold sickness in his marrow, growing, strengthening, as if layers of insulation were peeling away, setting it free. With each passing minute, Mr. Veilleur’s story was becoming less and less improbable.

“I figured it out,” Bill said quickly, spinning the lie as he sidled toward Lisl’s inert form. “The inexplicable things that happened to Danny and Lom—I knew something unholy was going on. Then I remembered all the Antichrist hysteria about Carol’s baby. You resemble Sara and … I put everything together.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You haven’t put a thing together. I’m not your pathetic Antichrist.”

“I never thought you were,” Bill said as he reached the far side of the bed.

Rafe made no move to block him. He no longer seemed interested in keeping him away from Lisl. Bill knelt beside her and gripped her arm.

Cold! Good God, she was cold! He dug his fingers into her throat, probing for a pulse, but her arteries were still, her waxen tissues inert, doughy … lifeless.

“Lisl?” He shook her. “Lisl!”

Bill pressed his ear to her chest—silence. He pushed back an eyelid—a widely dilated, sightless pupil stared back at him.

“Oh, good God, she’s dead!”

No!

He sagged over her, his forehead resting against her cold skin.

Oh, please, no! Not again!

He straightened and began pounding on the mattress in a wild rage, incoherent curses hissing between his clenched teeth. When he noticed that Lisl’s body had begun to pitch and roll with his pounding, he stopped and let his head slump onto the bed.

He felt so leaden, so useless. His parents, then Danny, now Lisl—all because of him. When was it going to stop?

He glared up at Rafe.

“But you said she hadn’t taken enough to kill her! That she—”

Looking down at him, Rafe still wore Sara’s face as he shook his head and smiled—an infuriating mixture of pity and derision.

“Did you really expect the truth from me, Father Ryan?” he said in her voice. “Won’t you ever learn?”

Bill launched himself from the floor, straight at Rafe, ready to kill. And Rafe/Sara bounced him back. He seemed to do little more than flick his wrist but Bill was sent sprawling again.

“Jimmy!” Carol shouted.

“Yeah, Jimmy,” said Renny, stepping up and standing nose to nose with Rafe, “or Sara or Rafe or Rasalom or whatever the fuck you call yourself, you’re under arrest—”

Rafe’s face began to change again as he grabbed Renny by the throat and lifted him off the floor.

“What did you call me?”

Bill saw the shock and fear in Renny’s mottling face. He shook his head.

“Only a handful of people know that name! Who told you?” The new face turned fearful as he looked around. “Not him! Tell me it’s not him!”

Renny shook his head again.

Bill heard Rasalom—he began thinking of Rafe as Rasalom then—make a noise like a growl, a sound somewhere along the echoing hall between fury and panic. He seemed to expand, grow larger, taller, older.

“Tell me!” He took his free hand and rammed it through Renny’s ribs, sinking it to the wrist in his chest cavity. “Tell me who told you my name or I’ll tear your heart out and feed it to you!”

Bill saw the agony in Renny’s face, saw the life fading from his terrified eyes. He had to know then that he was a dead man, but he offered no answer, made no plea for mercy.

Instead, he spit in Rasalom’s face.

Rasalom staggered back as if he’d been sprayed with acid instead of spittle, but an instant later he’d shaken it off. With a howl of insensate rage, he hurled Renny from him, sending his body spinning, spraying, dappling the walls and ceiling with crimson as he arced over Lisl in her deathbed and thumped to the floor on the far side.

Carol was screaming as Bill regained his feet and ran to the detective’s side. Blood bubbled from the hole in his chest; his eyes were glazing. Bill pressed his hand over the wound to stop the flow of blood, knowing it was useless but trying anyway.

Renny was slipping away right before his eyes. Bill could do nothing but give him something to take with him.

“Renny!” he whispered. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. You hurt him. He can be hurt, and you hurt him!”

A smile wavered on Renny’s blanched lips.

“Fuck him,” he said, then he was gone.

Another one—another good one gone.

Bill straightened up and turned. Rasalom looked huge now, but Bill was too angry to be afraid.

“You bastard!”

As he started toward him, Rasalom grabbed Carol by the throat and held her in the same death grip.

“Is he here?”

Carol! Would he really kill Carol?

“She’s your mother!”

“My mother has been dead for millennia. This”—he lifted Carol clear of the floor as she struggled in his grasp—”was no more than an incubator.”

“We know your name but who … what are you?”

Rafe turned on him, his voice rising, his face changing again. And his eyes—the pupils widened into unsounded darkness, like windows into hell.

“Who am I? Why, I’m you. Or parts of you. The best parts. I’m the touch of Richard Speck, Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Bin Laden in all of you. I am the thousand tiny angers and fleeting rages of your day—at the car that cuts you off on the freeway, at the kid who sneaks ahead of you in line at the movies, at the old fart with the full basket in the eight-items-only express check-out at the supermarket. I’m the locker room residue of the names, the scorn, the pain heaped on all the pizza-faced, flat-chested, pencil-dicked, lard-assed geeks, nerds, and dumbshit bastards who had to change clothes in front of their peers. I’m the nasty glee in the name-callers and the long-suffering pain, the self-loathing, the smoldering resentment, the suppressed rage, and the never-to-be-fulfilled promises of revenge in their targets. I’m the daily business betrayals and the corporate men’s room character assassinations. I’m the slow castrations and endless humiliations that comprise the institution called marriage. I’m the husband who beats his wife, the mother who scalds her child. I’m the playground beatings of your little boys, the back seat rapes of your daughters. I’m your rage toward a child molester and I’m the pederast’s lust for your child, for his own child. I’m the guards’ contempt for their prisoners and the prisoners’ hatred for their guards, I’m the shank, I’m the truncheon, I’m the shiv. I’m the bayonet in the throat of the political dissident, the meat hook on which he is hung, the cattle prod that caresses his genitals. You’ve kept me alive, you’ve made me strong. I am you.”

“Not even close,” Bill said, approaching warily. He wondered if he could instill a little fear into Rasalom himself. “The one you’re looking for is up north, getting ready to crush you!”

Bill crouched to leap as Rasalom poised his free hand over Carol’s chest. Suddenly Rasalom stiffened.

“No! He’s here! He’s—!”

He dropped Carol and brushed by Bill on his way into Lisl’s living room. Bill hurried after but stopped at the doorway. A few feet ahead of him, Rasalom had stopped too, half crouched in a wide-legged stance. In the center of the living room stood Mr. Veilleur, leaning on his cane.

Their eyes locked.

“Can this be you?” Rasalom said in a hushed voice. He began to circle Veilleur as a snake hunter might approach a cobra. “Can this really be you, Glaeken?”

Veilleur said nothing. He stared straight ahead as Rasalom moved behind him. Finally, they stood face to face again. Rasalom’s smile was ugly.

“This explains everything!” he said in a half-whisper. “Since my rebirth I’ve sensed that I’ve had this world to myself. I had no awareness of you. But I didn’t trust my perceptions. You’ve tricked me before, so I was wary. I stayed out of sight, avoided anything that might draw attention to me.” The smile faded. “All for nothing! Decades of soaking up strength for this final confrontation—wasted! Look at you! You’ve been aging since you thought you killed me at the Keep. Glaeken, the great warrior, the Defender of mankind, the wielder of Light against Darkness, of Reason against Chaos, is nothing now but a pathetic old man. This is wonderful!”

As Rasalom edged closer to Veilleur, Bill felt a touch on his arm. Carol was beside him, watching her son in horror. Bill put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He had a feeling something awful was about to happen in the next room. He didn’t want to see, but he could not look away.

“The power’s left you, hasn’t it?” Rasalom’s face was only inches from Veilleur’s. “Which means you’re powerless to stop me. I’m completely unopposed here.”

“There’s still the Lady.”

“Not for long. She’ll be gone by morning.” Rasalom laughed and backed away, spreading his arms. “What an Armageddon this is! Only one army on the field. And it’s mine!”

He stood silent for a moment. Bill watched him stare at Veilleur—or Glaeken, if that was the old man’s real name. The only sound was the gentle patter of rain outside. But a storm grew in Rasalom’s face as it darkened with rage. Suddenly he screamed and lunged at Glaeken, each hand a blur as it knifed toward the old man’s throat. Bill squeezed his eyes shut as Carol buried her face against his shoulder. But when no sound of impact came, he chanced a look.

Rasalom’s fingertips hovered a hairsbreadth from Glaeken’s unflinching skin.

“You’d welcome this, wouldn’t you?” Rasalom said. “Then it would be all over for you. But as much as I would love to reach inside you and rip out your spine one vertebra at a time, it’s not going to be that easy. No, Glaeken. I’m deferring that pleasure. I’m going to break you first. You’ve fought me for ages to protect this so-called civilization of yours, so I’m leaving you alive to watch how quickly it crumbles.” He held a balled fist before Glaeken’s eyes. “Your life’s work—millennia, Glaeken”—he flicked his fingers open and snatched his hand away —”gone! And you’re helpless to stop me. Helpless!”

“No,” Glaeken said, showing no sign of fear. “You are helpless. Because there’s still the Lady.”

Bill had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed to infuriate Rasalom.

A tremor ran through the floor. He looked into Carol’s frightened, troubled eyes and knew she felt it too. The tremor graduated to a shudder. Outside he heard a roaring sound, in the skies, growing louder. Suddenly all the windows exploded inward. Bill dove for the floor, taking Carol with him as a million shards of glass knifed through the air.

From the floor where they huddled, Bill chanced a peek at the two men in the front room. They were barely visible through the tornado of debris that whirled around them. And then came another explosion, this one outward. It slammed Bill’s head against the floor, stunning him for an instant. He was aware of masonry cracking like rifle shots, of wall beams snapping like bones. And then the walls blew out.

When he lifted his head, Bill saw Glaeken and Rasalom standing as they were before. Rasalom turned and looked at Bill, and in that instant he saw what was to come, a world of eternal darkness, a nightmare existence devoid not only of love and compassion, but of logic and reason as well, a nightworld of the spirit.

Rasalom smiled and turned away. He made a mocking bow toward Glaeken, then strode toward the blown-out front wall.

“I’ll be back for you, Glaeken. When your precious civilization is dead and the remnants of humankind are little more than maggots feeding upon its putrescent corpse, I’ll be back to finish this. Once the Lady is gone, watch the skies. It will begin in the heavens.”

And then he disappeared into the rain.

Carol began to sob against Bill’s shoulder. He moved her away from the canted doorway to the ruined living room, away from the bodies of Renny and poor, twisted, tormented Lisl. As she huddled beside him, Carol looked up into his eyes.

“That’s not Jim’s son,” she said with a quaking voice. “That’s not my child.”

“I don’t think he ever was.” Bill held her close as he turned his attention to the old man who still hadn’t moved.

“Glaeken?” Bill said finally. “Is that what I should call you?”

“It will do,” the old man said. “No more need for me to hide.” He swung his cane angrily at the air. “What a fool! What a prideful idiot!”

“Who?” Bill said.

“Me! What was I thinking? I never should have come! Now he knows the truth. He thought he had to worry about me and the Lady. Now he knows it’s only the Lady!”

“Who is the Lady?”

“Someone we must protect at all costs—now, more than ever. I will explain on the way home.”

“But he said ‘she’ll be gone by morning.’ What—?”

Glaeken’s expression was bleak. “She might well be.”

“And if she is? Can he do what he says?”

“Oh, yes.” Glaeken’s blue eyes locked with Bill’s. “From the start he has sought to claim our world for the power he serves, to make it a fit place for the Otherness. So many of you these days think of this world as a terrible, violent place, but it is better now than it has ever been—believe me, I’ve seen the changes. But still more than enough hatred, bitterness, malice, violence, viciousness, brutality, and everyday cruelty exist behind our closed doors to make Rasalom strong enough to convert this world into a place suitable to his sponsor’s needs. He will provide a fertile environment in which to germinate the seeds of evil in all of us. Love, trust, brotherhood, decency, logic, reason—he will sap them from humanity until we are all reduced to tiny islands of wailing despair.”

“But how? Maybe he can cave in these walls, but that doesn’t mean he can wave his hand and turn us all into beasts. We’re tougher than that.”

“Don’t count on it. He will start with fear, his favorite weapon. It brings out the best in some, but in most by far it brings out the worst. War, hate, jealousy, racism—what are they but manifestations of fear?”

Carol lifted her head from Bill’s shoulder.

“And nothing can stop him? You stopped him before. Can’t you—?”

“I’m not quite the same as the last time the Adversary and I met,” Glaeken said with a sad smile. “The Ally is barely involved of late, and it becomes less involved every day.”

“Then there’s no hope?” Bill said.

He’d already been down where there was no hope. He didn’t want to go back there again.

“I didn’t say that.” Glaeken’s blue eyes focused on Bill again. “As long as the Lady survives, there is hope. But she will need help—my help and yours. I think it would be quite fitting if you joined me. And you, Mrs. Treece? May I call on you both should I need you?”

Carol seemed to be in shock, but she managed a nod. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

“Excellent. I have a few other recruits waiting at home.” Glaeken turned toward the door. “Let’s go then.”

“What about … them?” Bill said, glancing toward the bedroom door.

“We’ll have to leave them.”

Lisl … Renny … lying there like slaughtered cattle.

“They deserve better than that.”

“I don’t disagree, but we can’t afford to become involved with the police who are undoubtedly on their way as we speak. They’ll detain us, perhaps even jail us, and we haven’t a moment to lose.”

Reluctantly, Bill was forced to accept the old man’s logic. He and Carol followed Glaeken outside into the rain. Shivering with the chill of it, he glanced up at the low, gray lid of clouds pressing down on them.

In the heavens … Rasalom had said it would begin in the heavens. What would happen up there? He had a feeling that looking up would become a reflex in the weeks to come if something happened to this “lady” he spoke about?

“But what can we do against a power like his?”

“There is someone up north. I’ve been holding him back. I believe the time has come to release the reins.” The old man’s eyes narrowed with anger as he tapped the tip of his cane on the pavement. “’Helpless,’” Glaeken said in a low voice, his blue eyes blazing for an instant. “No one has ever called me that. We shall see how helpless I am.”

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed these works below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.

Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.

The Past

“Demonsong” (prehistory)

“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923-1924)

Black Wind (1926-1945)

The Keep (1941)

Reborn (February-March 1968)

“Dat Tay Vao”*** (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories (1983)

Jack: Secret Circles (1983)

Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)

Year Zero Minus Three

Sibs (February)

“Faces”* (early summer)

The Tomb (summer)

“The Barrens”* (ends in September)

“A Day in the Life”* (October)

“The Long Way Home”

Legacies (December)

Year Zero Minus Two

“Interlude at Duane’s”** (April)

Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)

All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)

Hosts (June)

The Haunted Air (August)

Gateways (September)

Crisscross (November)

Infernal (December)

Year Zero Minus One

Harbingers (January)

Bloodline (April)

By the Sword (May)

Ground Zero (July)

The Touch (ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)

“Tenants”*

Year Zero

“Pelts”*

Reprisal (ends in February)

Fatal Error (February) (includes “The Wringer”)

The Dark at the End (March)

Nightworld (May)

The Secret History will end with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld in 2012.

*available in The Barrens and Others

**available in Aftershock & Others

***available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

Novels of the Secret History**

Black Wind

The Keep

Reborn

Jack: Secret Histories*

Jack: Secret Circles*

Jack: Secret Vengeance*

Sibs

The Tomb*

Legacies*

Conspiracies*

All the Rage*

Hosts*

The Haunted Air*

Gateways*

Crisscross*

Infernal*

Harbingers*

Bloodline*

By the Sword*

Ground Zero*

The Touch

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium

Fatal Error*

The Dark at the End*

Nightworld*

Other Novels

Healer

Wheels Within Wheels

An Enemy of the State

Dydeetown World

The Tery

The Select

Virgin

Implant

Deep as the Marrow

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Christmas Thingy

Sims

The Fifth Harmonic

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft and Others

The Barrens and Others**

Aftershock & Others**

Quick Fixes*

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis:Terminal

*Repairman Jack

**See “The Secret History of the World“.

PRAISE FOR THE ADVERSARY CYCLE

The Tomb

“A riveting combination of detective story and horror fiction … This thriller is fast-action fun!”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Tomb is one of the best all-out adventure stories I’ve read in years.”

—Stephen King

“F. Paul Wilson weaves spells with words.”

—Dean Koontz

“F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack is a cultural icon. If you haven’t crossed paths with him, you’re out of the loop. Get with the program.”

—David Morrell, creator of Rambo

The Touch

“A superior supernatural excursion from the author of The Keep and The Tomb … Hair-raisingly plausible ideas, winningly developed, set in a well-paced, gripping narrative.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“[Not] a horror novel in the usual sense, and variations on this idea have been used before, but rarely with the skill and entertainment value of this fine novel.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

Reborn

“[Reborn has] a brilliantly ghoulish finale.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Fast-paced, violent, provocative.”

—Publishers Weekly

Reprisal

“First-class … Wilson’s most gripping yet, with his strongest characterizations.”

—Kirkus Reviews

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

REPRISAL

Copyright (c) 2005, 2011 by F. Paul Wilson

This revised edition was previously published in 2005 by Borderlands Press.

All rights reserved.

A Tor(r) eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor(r) is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, F. Paul (Francis Paul)

Reprisal / F. Paul Wilson.—1st Tor ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2166-4

1. North Carolina—Fiction. 2. College stories. I. Title.

PS3573.I45695R46 2011

813’.54—dc22

2011024287

First Tor Edition: December 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-9492-7

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the usual crew for their efforts: my wife, Mary; my editor, David Hartwell; Steven Spruill; Elizabeth Monteleone; Blake Dollens; Alex Cameron; and my agent, Albert Zuckerman. And as always, special thanks to Becky Maines.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Nightworld ends the Secret History.

The novel picks up a couple of months after the horrors of The Dark at the End. I hope you’ve read the rest of the Adversary Cycle by now. The two story tracks—Jack’s tale and the Cycle—have merged and this is the grand finale. (See “The Secret History of the World” at the end of this book for how everything fits together.)

I have extensively revised Nightworld since its initial publication in the early ’90s. Jack’s role has been expanded—he is now a major player—but he remains one of many. Characters who didn’t exist when I wrote the original must be dealt with. Nightworld is an ensemble novel with characters drawn from across the Secret History. It ends both narrative tracks, as well as the Secret History itself. More stories remain to be told, but the timeline stops there. I will set no stories after Nightworld.

However …

In response to pleas (and occasional threats) from readers (you know who you are), I’ve agreed to write three more Repairman Jack novels from the period between his arrival in NYC and The Tomb, just to fill in those gaps. They’ll trace how he comes to know Abe and Julio, and how he becomes the guy you meet in The Tomb. After those books, it is over. You will then know all I know about Jack and I’ll have nothing left to say. I need to move on.

—F. Paul Wilson
the Jersey Shore

CONTENTS

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Rasalom went …

Part I: Sunset

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Part II: Twilight

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Part III: Night

End Play

Part IV: Dawn

Friday

The Secret History of the World

Also by F. Paul Wilson

Copyright

Rasalom went to the mountain.

Rasalom is not his birth name, not the one his mother bestowed on him. He discarded that back in the First Age when the Otherness held more sway in this sphere. When he tapped into that mother lode of power and strangeness he took on a new name, a True Name he had protected like a wolverine guarding her young. But the time for secrecy is past. He can now shout his True Name anywhere on the planet and it will not matter.

From here atop Minya Konka, through a break in the clouds, much of what is now called China spreads out four and a half miles below him in the darkness. His birthplace is not far from here. It is bitterly cold on the mountaintop. Gale-force winds shriek and howl as they swirl the frozen air about his naked body. Rasalom scarcely notices. The power within protects him, fed by the delicious woes of the world below.

The horizon brightens. Dawn does not break at this altitude—it shatters. Rasalom stares at the glint of fire sliding into view and focuses the power he has been storing since his most recent rebirth. Eons of frustration fall away as he finalizes the process to which he has devoted the ages of his existence. No gestures, no incantations, just elseness, otherness, vomiting out of him, spreading out and up and around, seeping into the planet’s crust, billowing into its atmosphere, saturating this locus in the multiverse.

Soon all shall be his. No one and nothing opposes him, no power on earth or elsewhere can stop him.

He drops to his knees, not in prayer but in relief, elation.

At last, after so many ages, it has begun.

Dawn will never be the same.

PART ONE

SUNSET

WEDNESDAY

Nicholas Quinn, Ph.D.

Manhattan

On May 17, the sun rose late.

Nick Quinn heard the first vague rumors of a delayed sunrise while filling his coffee mug from the urn in the lounge of Columbia University’s physics department. He didn’t pay them much mind. A screwed-up calculation, a missed observation, a malfunctioning clock. Human error. Had to be. Old Sol never missed appointments. It simply didn’t happen.

But the rumor continued to echo through the halls all morning, with no offsetting rumor of explanation. So at lunch break, when Nick had settled his usual roast beef on rye and large cola on his tray in the faculty cafeteria, the first thing he did was hunt up Harvey Sapir from astrophysics.

Nick looked for the hair. Harv’s hair was always perfect. It flowed back seamlessly from his forehead in a salt-and-pepper wave, so full and thick it looked like a toupee. Close up, if you looked carefully, you could catch a glimpse of pink scalp through the mane. A running joke around the physics department was guesstimating how much time and spray Harv invested in his hair each morning.

Nick spotted him at a corner table with Cynthia Hayes. She was from astrophysics too. The two of them were in deep conversation.

Harv’s hair was a mess.

Nick found that unsettling.

“Mind if I join you?” he said, hovering over the seat next to Cynthia.

Both glanced up and nodded absently, then immediately put their heads back together.

Beneath his uncombed hair, Harv’s face was haggard. He looked all of his fifty-five years and then some. Cynthia too looked disheveled. She was younger—mid thirties—with short chestnut hair and glorious skin. Nick liked her. A lot. She was the main reason he’d put aside his Coke-bottle lenses and got fitted for contacts. Years ago. Still hadn’t found the nerve to ask her out. With his pocked skin and weird-shaped head, he felt like a warty frog with no chance of ever changing into a prince, yet still he pined for this princess.

“What’s all this I hear about the sun being late?” he said after swallowing the first bite of his sandwich. “How’d a story like that get started?”

They both glanced at him again, then Cynthia leaned back and rubbed her eyes.

“Because it’s true.”

Nick stopped in mid bite and stared at them, looking for a smile, a twist of the lips, a hint of the put-on.

Nothing. Two deadpan faces.

“Bullshit.”

Instantly he regretted it. He never used profanity in front of a woman, even though many of them had no reservations about swearing like sailors in front of him.

“Sunrise was scheduled at five twenty-one this morning,” Cynthia said. “It rose at five twenty-six. Five minutes and eight-point-two-two seconds late.”

Her husky voice never failed to give him a warm feeling.

Except today. Her words chilled him. She was saying the unthinkable.

“Come on, guys.” He forced a laugh. “We set our clocks by the sun, not vice versa. If the clock says the sun is late, then the clock needs to be reset.”

“Atomic clocks, Nick?”

“Oh.”

That was different. Atomic clocks worked on nuclear decay. They were accurate to a millionth of a second. If they said the sun was late …

“Could be some sort of mechanical failure.”

Harv shook his head. “Greenwich reported a late rise too. Five minutes and a fraction late. They called us. I was here at four thirty A.M., waiting. As Cynthia told you, sunrise was late here by exactly the same interval.”

Nick felt a worm of uneasiness begin to work its way up his spine.

“What about Palo Alto?”

“The same,” Cynthia said.

“But do you know what you’re saying? Do you know what this means?”

“Of course I know what it means!” Harv said with ill-concealed annoyance. “This is my field, you know. It means the earth has either temporarily slowed its rate of spin during the night or tilted back on its axis.”

“But either would mean cataclysm! Why, the effect on tides alone would be—”

“But it didn’t slow. Not the slightest variation in axial rotation or axial tilt. Believe me, I’ve checked. The days are supposed to be getting progressively longer until the equinox in June, but today got shorter—or at least it started out that way.”

“Then the clocks are wrong!”

“Atomic clocks? All of them? All experiencing precisely the same level of change in nuclear decay at the same time? I doubt it. No, Nick. The sun rose late this morning.”

Nick’s field was lasers and particle physics. He was used to uncertainties at the subatomic level—Heisenberg had seen to that. But on the celestial plane, things were supposed to go like … clockwork.

“This is all impossible!”

Harv’s expression was desolate, Cynthia’s frightened.

“I know,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t I know.”

And then Nick remembered a conversation he’d had with a certain Jesuit a couple of months ago.

It will begin in the heavens …

After years of hiding in the South, Father Bill Ryan had returned to the city, but was still lying low. Only a handful of people knew he was back. After all, he was still wanted by the police.

Poor Father Bill. The years of seclusion had not been kind to him. He looked so much older, and he acted strange. Simultaneously jumpy, irritable, frightened, and angry. And he talked of strange things. No specifics, just cryptic warnings of some sort of approaching Armageddon. Nothing involving Islamic crazies. Something else …

One thing Father Bill had been fairly positive about was where it all would start.

It will begin in the heavens.

He’d told Nick to keep his ears open and to let him know if he heard of anything strange happening in the skies, no matter how insignificant.

Well, something more than strange had happened. Something far from insignificant. Something impossible.

It will begin in the heavens.

The unease in Nick’s spine stopped crawling and sprinted up to the back of his neck, spreading across his shoulders. He excused himself from the table and pulled out his cell phone as he headed for the hallway.

William Ryan, S.J.

“Ask him about tonight,” Glaeken said, close by Bill’s side. “Do they think the sun will set ahead of schedule tonight?”

Bill turned back to the phone and repeated the question. Nick’s reply was agitated. Bill detected a tremor weaving through the younger man’s voice.

“I don’t know, and I’m sure Harv and Cynthia don’t know, either. This is terra incognita, Bill. Nothing like this has ever happened before. All bets are off.”

“Okay, Nick. Thanks for calling. Keep me posted, will you? Let me know about sunset.”

“That’s it?” Nick said. “Keep you posted? What’s this all about? How did you know something was going to happen? What’s it all mean?”

Bill sensed the fear, the uncharacteristic uncertainty in Nick, and wished he could say something to comfort him. But Bill had nothing comforting to say.

“You’ll know as soon as I know. I promise you. Get back to me here tonight. I’ll be waiting for you. Good-bye.”

Bill hung up and turned to Glaeken, but the old man was over by the picture window, staring down at the park. He did that a lot.

Glaeken looked eighty-something, maybe ninety, with white hair and wrinkled olive skin; blue eyes shone above high cheekbones. Though slightly stooped, he was still a big man, and his frame blocked a good portion of the window. Bill had been living here in Glaeken’s apartment building for the past couple of months, helping him with his ailing wife, driving him around town while he did his “research,” but mostly waiting.

A huge apartment, occupying the entire top floor of the building, filled with strange curios and even stranger paintings. The wall to Bill’s left was mirrored and he started at the stranger facing him in the glass, then realized he was looking at himself. He’d shaved his beard and cut his hair. He missed his ponytail and still wasn’t used to seeing himself with bare cheeks. Or looking so old. The hair had been gray for years, but the beard had hidden all the lines in his face.

He moved up to the window and stood beside Glaeken.

The months of waiting since March were apparently over. In a way he was glad for that. But an icy tendril of dread slithered through his gut as he realized he had traded one uncertainty for another. The apprehension of wondering when it would start had been replaced now by a greater worry of what was starting.

“You didn’t seem too surprised,” Bill said.

“I sensed the difference this morning. Your friend confirmed it. The Change has begun its march.”

“You wouldn’t know it from the looks of things down there.”

Across the street and a dozen stories below, the high spring sun spread a palette of greens across Central Park as the various species of trees sprouted this year’s leaf crop.

“No. And you won’t for a while. But now we must lower our watch. The next manifestation will occur in the earth.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. But if he follows his pattern, that is where he’ll make his next move. And when he has reached his full powers—”

“You mean he hasn’t?”

“He must go through a process before his power is complete. Plus, there’s a purpose to playing with the length of our days. It’s all part of his method.”

“Not at full power,” Bill said softly, his mind balking. “My God, if he’s able to alter the time the sun rises when he’s not up to speed, what’ll he be able to do when he is?”

Glaeken turned and pinned him with his deep blue gaze.

“Anything he wants, Bill. Anything.”

“Nick says it’s impossible for the sun to rise late.” Bill knew he was grasping at straws. “It breaks too many physical laws.”

“We’ll have to learn to forget about physical laws—or any laws, for that matter. The ‘laws’ we have created to explain our existence and make sense of the universe around us are about to be repealed. Physics, chemistry, gravity, time itself will be reduced to futile, meaningless formulae. The first laws were broken at sunrise. Many more will follow until they all lie scattered about in ruins. As of this morning, we begin a trek toward a world and a time without laws.”

An old woman’s voice quavered from the master bedroom.

“Glenn? Glenn, where are you?”

“Coming, Magda.” Glaeken gripped Bill’s upper arm and lowered his voice. “I don’t think we can stop him, but we may have a chance to impede him.”

Bill urged his spirits to respond, to lift, to cast off the pall of gloom that enveloped him. But his mood remained black.

“How? How can we hope to stand against a power that can alter the path of the sun?”

The old man’s expression turned stern. “We can’t. Not with that attitude. And that’s just the way he wants us to react—with despair and hopelessness. ‘He’s too powerful. Why even try to resist?’”

“Good question.”

“No.” Glaeken tightened his grip. “Bad question. That way, he’s already won, without a fight. He may win. In fact, I’m pretty sure we haven’t got a chance. But I’ve fought him too long to sit around and simply wait for the end. I thought I could. I wanted to sit this out, sit everything out. That was why I took the name Veilleur. For once I’d be involved in nothing; I’d simply sit back and watch. And I have watched.”

He released Bill’s arm and turned back to the window.

“And all that time I’ve waited for someone to come along and be given the power to stand in Rasalom’s way. I found that someone, but he hasn’t the power. And he’ll not be endowed with that power because Rasalom has succeeded in convincing the Ally that this world is non-sentient—dead. And the Ally has no interest in dead worlds.” He looked at Bill again. “We’re on our own here.”

If he was trying to bolster Bill’s spirits, he’d failed.

“So we’re screwed.”

“So it would seem. But despite my vow, I find I can’t sit by and let everything fall into Rasalom’s lap. I want that bastard to have to work for it. If he wants this world, he’s going to have to earn it!”

Something in Glaeken’s words, his manner, his flashing eyes offered a hint of hope.

“I’m all for that, but can we do enough to let him know he’s even been in a fight?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll see to it.”

Magda’s voice intruded again, trailing in from the bedroom.

“Doesn’t anybody hear me? Isn’t anybody there? Have I been left here alone to die?”

“I’d better go to her,” Glaeken said.

“Can I help?”

“Thanks, no. She simply needs a little reassurance. But I’d appreciate it if you could be around tonight while I go out. I’ve got a little errand I must run.”

“If you need anything, I can—”

“No. I have to meet with Jack.”

Jack … they’d met a few times. Bill had even patched up a wound on the younger man. He and Glaeken had some sort of bond Bill couldn’t fathom. He called Jack his “heir,” but to what?

“Okay. I think I’ll stop in on Carol. To tell her it’s started.”

“Good. Do that. And keep emphasizing to her that none of what has happened or is about to happen is her fault.”

“Will do.” Bill started to turn away, then stopped. “Can we really give Rasalom a fight?”

“If I can gather together the proper elements, we may have ourselves a weapon.”

“Really?” Bill was almost afraid to yield to the hope growing within him. “When do we start this gathering?”

“Tomorrow. Will you drive me out to Long Island? And would you wear your cassock?”

What a strange request. Why did Glaeken want him to look like a priest?

“I don’t have one. I … I don’t believe in any of that anymore.”

“I know. But I must be at my most persuasive. And the presence of a Jesuit at my side might lend some weight to my arguments. We’ll fit you for a new cassock.”

Bill shrugged. “Anything for the cause. Where on Long Island?”

“The North Shore.”

A familiar pang stirred within Bill.

“I grew up in that area.”

“Yes. In the village of Monroe.”

“How did you know?”

Glaeken shrugged. “That is where we’re going.”

“Monroe? My hometown? Why?”

“Part of the weapon is there.”

Bill was baffled. In Monroe?

“It’s just a little harbor town. What kind of weapon can you hope to find out there?”

Glaeken turned and walked down the hall to attend to his wife. He cast the reply over his shoulder.

“A small boy.”

In the East Eighties, Bill knocked on an eighth-floor apartment door. It opened and a slender woman with ash blond hair, fine features, and a pert, upturned nose stared at him. Carol. Their decades apart had been kinder to her than to him. But now her face was tight, her eyes haunted, her usual high coloring blanched. She knew.

“It’s begun, hasn’t it?”

The afternoon sun filled the room behind her with golden light, lending her an almost ethereal quality. The sight of her disturbed once again the old feelings he tried to keep tucked away.

Bill stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him.

“How did you know?”

“I heard about the late sunrise on the radio.” Tears filled her eyes as her lips began to tremble. “I knew right away it was Jimmy’s doing.”

Bill reached out and folded her in an embrace. She trembled as she leaned against him. Her arms locked around his back and she clung as if he were a tree in a flood. Bill closed his eyes and let the good feelings wash through him. Good feelings were so hard to come by these days.

He’d been moving through a black fog since the deadly events in North Carolina.

Three times his world had been all but torn apart.

First, the violent death of his old friend and Carol’s first husband, Jim Stevens, followed by the bizarre murders in the Hanley mansion and Carol’s flight to parts unknown; he’d recovered from that.

Then, years later, his parents’ death in a fire, Danny Gordon’s mutilation and all the horrors that followed, capped by his own flight and years of hiding.

He’d dragged himself from that well of despair and was just settling into a different sort of life when he’d had to face Renny Augustino’s brutal murder, Lisl’s suicide, and the exhumation of Danny Gordon’s living corpse.

Bill wasn’t bouncing back this time. He wasn’t sure he had any bounce left. He’d dragged himself back to New York but it was no longer home. No place was home. In this entire teeming city, Nick Quinn and Carol Treece were the only people left alive from his past that he dared approach.

“You’ve got to call him Rasalom and stop calling him Jimmy. Got to stop thinking of him as your son. He’s not. There’s nothing of you and Jim in him. He’s someone else.”

“I know that,” she said, holding him tighter. “In my mind I know that. But in my heart is this feeling that if I’d loved him more, if I’d been a better mother, he’d have turned out differently. It’s crazy, but I can’t get away from it.”

“Nothing anyone could have done in his childhood would have made the slightest bit of difference. Except maybe strangling him as an infant.”

He felt Carol stiffen against him and was sorry he’d said it. But it was true.

“Don’t.”

“Okay. But stop calling him Jimmy. He’s not Jimmy. Never was. His name is Rasalom and he was already who he was long before he took over the baby in your womb. Long before you were born. He didn’t develop under your care. He was already there. You are not responsible.”

He stood there in the middle of her tiny living room, holding Carol’s thin body against him, breathing the scent of her hair, spying the streaks of gray nestling in the ash blond waves. Trickles of desire ran down his chest and over his abdomen. With a start, he felt himself hardening. He became aroused so easily these days. Sex had been no problem when he’d still considered himself a priest. But now that his lifelong beliefs had been reduced to ashes, buried with the charred remains of Danny Gordon, everything seemed to be slipping out of control. Here he was, his arms wrapped around Carol Treece, formerly Carol Stevens, née Carol Nevins. His high school sweetheart, his best friend’s widow, now another man’s wife. Priest or ex-priest, this wasn’t right.

Gently, Bill put some space between them. Room for the Holy Ghost, as the nuns used to say when he was a kid.

“Are we straight on that?” He gazed into her blue eyes. “You’re not responsible.”

She nodded. “Right. But how can I stop feeling like his mother, Bill? Tell me how I can do that?”

He saw the pain in her eyes and resisted the urge to pull her into his arms again.

“I don’t know, Carol. But you’ve got to learn. You’ll go crazy if you don’t.” They looked at each other for a moment, then Bill changed the subject. “How’s Nelson? Does he know yet?”

She shook her head and turned away.

“No. I haven’t been able to tell him.”

“Don’t you think—?”

“You’ve met Nels. You know what he’s like.”

Bill nodded silently. He’d met Nelson Treece a number of times—he’d even been invited over here for dinner twice—but always as a priest and an old friend of the family. Nelson was a straight arrow, a comptroller in a computer software firm. A man who dotted all his i’s, crossed all his t’s, and whose numbers always added up. A good man, a decent man, an organized man. The antithesis of spontaneity. Bill doubted whether Nelson had ever done anything on impulse in his entire life.

So unlike Jim, Carol’s first husband. Bill couldn’t see Nelson Treece and Carol as a loving couple, but maybe that was because he didn’t want to. Maybe Nelson was just what she needed. After the way chaos had intruded repeatedly on Carol’s life, maybe she needed the structure, stability, and predictability a man like Nelson offered. If he made her happy and secure, more power to him.

But that didn’t make Bill want Carol any less.

“How can I tell him what we know?” she said. “He’ll never accept it. He’ll think I’m crazy. He’ll have me going to psychiatrists. I wouldn’t blame him. I’d probably be doing the same if positions were reversed.”

“But now with the sun playing tricks, we’ve got an indisputable fact on our side. Carol, he’s got to know sooner or later. I mean, if you’re going to be involved—”

“Maybe if he met Glaeken. You know how persuasive he is. Maybe he could convince Nelson.”

“It’s worth a try. I’ll talk to him about it. Maybe tonight—”

“Maybe not tonight. He’s been away on a trip.”

“Since when does he travel?”

“Just the past month or so. The company’s been sending him. And when he comes back he crashes. I don’t think he’s built for travel. It … changes him.”

What was she saying? Or rather, what was she not saying?

“I’m not following.”

A shrug and a shy smile. “It’s nothing. Just stress.”

Bill glanced at his watch. “When’s he due in?”

“Any minute. His flight from Denver should have landed about an hour ago.”

“I’d better go.”

“No, Bill.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Stay. Please.”

Her touch shot a bolus of tingling warmth up his arm.

“I can’t. I’ve got a bunch of errands to run for Glaeken. Now that Rasalom’s made his first move, the old guy’s looking for countermoves. He needs me to be his legs.”

Bill gave her a quick hug and fled the apartment.

He hated lying to Carol. But how could he tell her that it ripped his heart out to see Nelson Treece stroll in the door and give her his usual casual hello kiss? Didn’t Nelson realize what he had? Did he have any idea what Bill would give—do—to take his place?

He had another reason for wanting to leave. He was afraid to get too close to Carol, afraid to care too much. First and most obvious: She was married. But, more important, terrible things seemed to happen to people he cared about. All his emotional investments crashed.

Bill began looking for a place where he could have a quiet beer and sit alone in the dark.

Repairman Jack

Jack sat at his back-against-the-rear-wall table in Julio’s, apart from the evening regulars, nursing a Stella and fuming.

Some low-rent scumbag had tried to put the moves on Gia this morning while she was waiting with Vicky for the school bus. At seven in the morning. Right in front of Vicky.

He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Hoped the creep tried it again tomorrow. He planned to be across the street. Watching. Waiting.

Everything seemed to be going to hell. After a long period of relative peace, the city was becoming unmanageable again. Same all over the world. During the past year or so he’d witnessed a slow unraveling of the social fabric. He had a pretty good idea what was behind it. Or rather, who.

It had started last year with the advent of the Kickers, but had spread from there, going into overdrive since March. As if the worst sensed that something was coming and they’d better grab what they could while they still had time.

Too many people had begun acting as if nothing was beneath them. Rip off an old lady’s handbag or a toddler’s candy bar. No item too small, no deed too low. Everything up for grabs, anything okay if you got away with it—that was the operating ethic.

Mine was anything I could take and keep. If you put something down and left it unguarded, it became mine if I could snatch it and make off with it. Civilized folk were on the run. Those who could afford to were leaving, others were withdrawing, tightening their range of activities, limiting their hours in public. And those unfortunates who had to be out on the streets and down in the subways were fodder. And they knew it.

Like the city had gone back in time to the seventies and eighties.

On the way over tonight he’d passed car after car with “No Radio” signs in the windows. Every street was flanked with them. A symptom of the city-dwellers’ response to the predators. With failing faith in City Hall’s ability to make the streets safe, they retreated. When they parked their cars they removed their satellite units and took them into the steel-doored, barred-windowed fortresses they called home. One more piece of ground surrendered. They’d pulled all their belongings in from the street; after having shrubs and small trees repeatedly dug up and carted off from the fronts of their apartment houses, they’d stopped planting them, and they’d chained—chained—the trunks of the few larger ones that remained.

The Taint was taking over.

It all sickened Jack. He’d had it up to here with watching the good folks retreat. But maybe it served them right. They’d allowed themselves to be disarmed, surrendered all responsibility for their own safety until they’d been reduced to rabbits cowering in their burrows, praying the wolves wouldn’t find them.

Jack sighed and sipped.

“Is this seat taken?”

Startled, Jack looked up and saw Glaeken standing across the table, one big hand holding his cane, the other resting on the back of a chair.

“How do you do that?”

The man could slip through a room like a ghost.

“Years of practice.”

Years … right. More like millennia.

Julio ambled over, wiping his hands on a towel.

“Hey, G. The usual?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

“Comin’ up, meng.”

“Make that two,” Jack said.

Glaeken sniffed the air as he watched the muscular little man hustle back to the bar.

“I do believe he’s managed to find a cologne worse than the last.”

Jack nodded. “I think this one’s Eau du Wet Stray Dog.”

The old man looked older than ever as he dropped into the chair and stared at the tabletop.

“Something wrong?”

Glaeken looked up. “Wrong? Of course there’s something wrong. Have you been in a cave all day?”

The snapping tone was uncharacteristic. Glaeken upset … not good. He never got upset.

“Let’s pretend that’s just where I’ve been. What’s up?”

“The sun rose five minutes late this morning and set ten minutes early tonight.”

The words hit him like a bucket of ice water.

It will begin in the heavens.

Rasalom’s warning back in March.

March … the horror of that night in Glaeken’s apartment. Weezy, Eddie, the Lady …

“Oh, hell.”

“Exactly: Hell. How could you not have heard?”

Jack had glanced through Abe’s newspapers at the shop this morning and spent the rest of the day setting up a fix over in Brooklyn.

“Guess it happened too late for the morning papers and I’m not much for radio and TV.”

“It’s all everybody’s talking about.”

Jack gestured to the crowd of Julio’s regulars, yakking and yukking it up like any other night.

“Not here.”

“This place has its own consensual reality. It doesn’t count. But you know now, and I think you know what it means.”

Jack nodded, feeling a little sick. “He’s started his final moves, his end game.”

“Yes, the Change…”

Why now, damn it? This conflict had been running for ages. Why did the final showdown have to come at a time when Gia and Vicky would be caught in the fray?

Julio returned with two pints of John Courage. He’d put it on tap for Jack a few years ago. Jack had moved on to other brews but Courage Amber had become such a hit with the regulars that Julio kept it running with privately imported kegs.

Glaeken lifted the glass with a big, scarred hand, quaffed about a quarter of its contents in one gulp, then loosed an appreciative burp.

“Not as good as when they first made it back in oh-two, but still tasty.”

Jack knew he meant 1902. He leaned forward. “What are our options?”

Glaeken sighed. “I’d hoped not to live to see this day. But ever since … that night, I’ve been doing some research, trying to prepare.”

“And?”

“And I’ve found some of what we’ll need, but not all.”

“What have you got?”

Glaeken leaned back in the chair.

“Nothing yet. One is a person—a boy. I could not very well go to his mother and tell her our story without something tangible—without evidence that I’m not simply a crazy old man. What is happening to the sun will lend credence to what I must tell her.”

Jack shook his head. “If she’s got even one skeptical neuron in her brain, some fluctuations in the sun’s timing aren’t going to be near enough. A cosmic shadow war … that’s going to be one hard sell.”

“Not as hard as the one I’m going to ask of you.”

Jack stiffened. “Don’t like the sound of that. I’m not exactly the salesman type. Who’s the projected sellee?”

“Someone you know: Kolabati Bahkti.”

Kolabati … as much as Jack was devoted to Gia—now more than ever—unbidden memories of Kolabati’s long, dark, slender body occasionally floated back to him.

Glaeken was eyeing him. “I’m trying to locate her.”

“Can’t help you there. Haven’t seen her in years.”

“Oh, I realize that. I’ll find her eventually. And when I do, that’s when I’ll need your help.”

“What for?”

“I need the necklaces.”

“You’re talking plural? As in both?” Jack shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Kolabati will never give them up. Not in a million years. I might talk her out of one, but never both.”

“I’ll need both. And soon.”

“Then forget it. The necklace keeps her alive, keeps her young. She’s on the downslope toward the end of her second century. But she looks only thirty or so. All because of the necklace. You think she’s going to give that up?”

“That’s why I’ve come to you. So you can convince her once I’ve located her.”

“She’ll die without it.”

“I have faith that you’ll return with both necklaces.”

Jack stared at him. “You asking me to kill her?”

“I hope it won’t come to that.”

“But if it does?”

Glaeken didn’t blink. “Then I’ll leave that decision to you.”

“News flash,” Jack said, feeling a burst of heat. “That’s the kind of decision that never was and never will be anybody else’s.”

“Of course. But will you go to her when I find her?”

Tough question.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On where she is. If she’s still in New York, sure. I’ll do my best.”

The thought of facing Kolabati … they had a history, but he’d locked it away. He didn’t want her thinking he was back looking for a key.

“And if she’s not nearby?”

“Well, then … I don’t know.”

Glaeken spread his hands. “With the stakes what they are, how can you refuse?”

“Because of the stakes—because I have no idea what Rasalom’s got planned. If Bati’s back in India, I’ll have to leave Gia and Vicky here. What if the Change kicks in full speed while I’m away and I can’t make it back?” The thought of those two facing the apocalypse without him … He shook his head. “Can’t risk it.”

“They can stay with me.”

“Oh, swell. You’re right in Rasalom’s crosshairs—numero uno on his extermination list. That would really put my mind at ease.” He noted Glaeken’s steely gaze. “Don’t take that personally. It’s just that I don’t consider camping out on a firing range the best way to keep from getting shot.”

Glaeken sighed. “Point taken. But you can’t believe you’re the only one who can protect them.”

“That’s not the point. When they need me, I want to be there.”

“Short term, that makes sense, but in the long term Kolabati’s necklace might be a greater help to them.”

“‘Might’ be.”

“Yes. Might be. I can offer a little hope, but sadly, no guarantee. You must—”

Jack raised a hand. “Let’s table this for some other time. If you find her and she’s living in Hoboken, then this is all wasted air: Of course I’ll go.”

“And if she’s in India?”

“Isn’t there another way? What about the Compendium?” Immediately Jack wished he hadn’t brought that up.

Glaeken lowered his gaze. “We lost our interpreter.”

The words were a gut punch, bringing back the aching sense of loss he’d managed to hide from … well, most of the time.

“I miss her, Glaeken.” His throat felt thick.

“So do I. The Lady too.”

“Yeah. The Lady too.”

He did miss the Lady, but nowhere near the way he missed Weezy. A hole in his life. Not the gaping chasm the loss of Gia and Vicky would leave, but a hole nonetheless.

“They made the ultimate sacrifice. So … if Kolabati’s back in India?”

Jack’s teeth clenched. “I told you—”

“Will you reconsider if Central Park shrinks?”

“Sure.” That seemed a safe bet. “If you find her in India or someplace else on the far side of the globe, I’ll go see her when Central Park shrinks.”

“Fine,” Glaeken said, nodding. “It’s a deal then.”

“Deal.”

“Wonderful.”

The old man finished off his Courage, rose, and dropped a Hamilton on the table.

“My treat. See you soon.”

As Jack watched Glaeken make his way to the door, he thought about Kolabati and wondered how she was. Where she was. And what she was up to these days.

Kolabati

Maui—upcountry

The wind stopped.

Kolabati put down her book and rose from her chair. Not sure at first what had happened, she took her coffee cup and stepped out on the lanai where she stood for a moment, listening. Something was wrong. Too quiet. In her time on Maui she could not remember a truly silent moment. She had no neighbors to speak of, at least none within shouting or even bullhorn distance, but even when the birds and insects were silent, the Maui breeze whispered. Child of the tireless trade winds rolling from the northeast, its constant sussurrant undertone varied in pitch but never ceased—perpetual, interminable, timeless, relentless.

But it paused now. The ceramic wind chimes hung silent on the corners of the unscreened lanai. The air lay perfectly still, as if resting. Or holding its breath.

What was happening? First the news of the late sunrise this morning, and now this.

Kolabati looked down the slope of Haleakala past the rooftops of Kula to the valley spread out below in the late afternoon sun. A gently curved, almost flat span between the two volcanic masses that defined the island of Maui, the valley’s narrow waist was checkered with the pale green squares of sugar cane, the darker green of pineapple plants, the rich red-brown of newly tilled earth, and the near black of a recently burned cane field. She spent part of each day out here staring across the valley at the cloud-capped West Maui Mountains, waiting for her daily rainbow, or watching the cloud-shadows run across the valley floor thousands of feet below. But no shadows ran now. The streaming trade winds that propelled them had stalled. The clouds and their shadows waited.

Kolabati waited too. The air should have grown warmer in the wind’s absence, yet she felt a chill of foreboding. Something was wrong. The Maui breeze occasionally changed its pattern when the kona winds came, but the air always moved.

Krishna, Vishnu, she said, silently praying to the ancient gods of her youth, please don’t let anything spoil this. Not now. Not when I’ve finally found peace.

Peace. Kolabati had searched for it all her life, and it had been a long life. She looked thirty, perhaps a youngish thirty-five, yet she had been born in 1848. She had ceased counting her birthdays after the one hundred fiftieth.

A long time to be searching for contentment. She thought she’d found a chance for it a few years ago with a man named Jack but he had spurned her and the gift of longevity she’d offered him. She’d left him sitting in a pool of his own blood, dying. He was probably dead, and the thought saddened her. Such a vital man …

But I’m different now.

The new Kolabati would have stayed and helped Jack, or at least called a doctor for him despite the cruel things he had said to her.

Maui had worked a change in her. Maui and Moki. A place and a man. Together they had given her what little peace could be found in this world.

Here on Maui, clinging to the breast of the world’s largest dormant volcano, she had all the world within reach. If she tired of watching the valley below, cloud-dappled on sunny days, lashed by rain and speared by lightning when storms marched through, she could travel to the mountain’s windward east coast and visit the jungles above Hana; farther around on the south slope she could pretend she was in the savannas of Africa or the plains of North America, grazing cattle and all; or she could travel across the valley and wander among the rich Japanese and American vacationers in the resorts at Ka’anapali and Kapalua, or travel into the Iao Valley and beyond to the rain forests of the second wettest spot in the world, or return to Haleakala itself and walk the floor of its desolate crater, wandering among its thousand-foot cinder cones and imagining she was exploring the surface of Mars.

Wonders were close at hand too. Directly below the lanai her silversword garden grew. She had transplanted the seedlings culled during her explorations of Haleakala’s slopes and was perhaps unduly proud of her collection of the rare spiky clusters. Each would grow for twenty years before producing its one magnificent flower. Kolabati could wait. She had time.

She glanced down at the cup in her hands. Oh, yes. And coffee from the big island’s Kona Coast—the richest coffee in the world. She sipped.

No, she could not see herself tiring of living here, even if she didn’t have Moki. But Moki was here, and Moki gave meaning to it all.

She could hear him in the back now, working in his shop. Moki—her kane, her man. He carved driftwood. Together they would scour the beaches and the banks of Haleakala’s countless streams and waterfalls, searching for branches and small trunks, the long-dead pieces, bleached and hardened by time and the elements. They’d bring these gnarled, weathered remains back to the house and set them up around Moki’s workshop. There he would get to know them, live with them. And gradually he would spy things in them—the wrinkles around the eyes of an old woman’s face, the curve of a panther’s back, a lizard’s claws. When he’d spied the form hiding within, he would bring his small ax and array of chisels into play, working on the wood and with the wood to expose the hidden form to the light of day.

Moki was modest about his art, never taking credit and refusing blame for the nature of the works he produced. His stock phrase: “It was already there in the wood; I simply cleared away the excess and set it free.”

But he deserved far more credit. For Moki wasn’t content to leave his work as simple sculptures. They were Hawaiian wood carved by an almost full-blooded Hawaiian, but that wasn’t quite Hawaiian enough for Moki. When each was finished he shipped it to the big island and carried it to the fiery mouth of Kilauea, the active crater on the southeastern slope of Mauna Loa. There he trapped some of the living lava, poured it into a shape that complemented his sculpture, allowed the lava to cool to a point where it wouldn’t damage the wood, then set his sculpture into the gooey stone.

Kolabati had first seen Moki’s work with its intricate cuts and swirls and unique lava-rock bases in a Honolulu gallery. Fascinated, she had asked to meet the artist. She commissioned a piece and visited Moki many times during its fashioning. She found herself as taken by the man as by his work. His intensity, his passion for living, his love of his native islands. He was complete. In that sense he reminded her a little of her dead brother, Kusum.

Moki wanted her, but he didn’t need her, and that made him all the more attractive. Theirs was a relationship of passionate equals. She didn’t want to own Moki, didn’t demand all his passion. She knew some of that had to be funneled into his art and she encouraged it. To dominate him, to possess him would risk destroying a wild and wonderful talent. By demanding all of him, she would wind up with less than she had begun with.

Moki needed his art, needed to be Moki, and very much needed to be Hawaiian. He would have loved to have lived and worked on Niihau, the forbidden island, oldest of the Hawaiian chain, but had not been able to wrangle an invitation from the last of the purebred Hawaiians living there in the old, primitive ways. Like most Hawaiians, Moki was not purebred—traces of Portuguese and Filipino slunk through his bloodline.

But he remained pure Hawaiian in his heart, dressing the part around their hale or house, speaking the old language and teaching it to Kolabati.

His pieces, the graceful and the grotesque, were scattered about the islands, in galleries, museums, corporate offices, and on every available surface in their house. Kolabati loved the clutter, which was unusual for her. As a rule she preferred an ordered existence. But not in this case. The clutter was Moki. It put his stamp on their home, made it truly theirs. No other place on earth was quite like it.

Kolabati did not want that to change. For the first time in her many years the nattering inner voice of dissatisfaction had fallen silent. For the first time she no longer hungered for new people, new sensations, new feelings, the Next New Thing. Continuity counted most now.

“Bati! Hele mai!”

Moki’s voice, calling from his workshop, telling her to come to him. He sounded excited. She started toward the rear of the house but he was already coming her way.

The old Kolabati used to tire of a man after two weeks. They were all the same; so few had anything new to offer. But even after more than a year with Moki, the sight of him still excited her. His long, wild, red-brown hair—he was considered an ehu, a red-haired Hawaiian—his lean, light brown, muscled body, and his eyes as dark as her own. An artist, a sensitive man, as attuned to the mysteries of the wood he worked as to the mysteries within her own psyche. And yet he still retained an untamed quality, as witness the brief, loincloth-like malo he wore now. No two days were alike with Moki.

Which was why Kolabati called him her kane and allowed him to wear the other necklace.

And she loved his lilting accent.

“Bati, look!”

He held out his left palm to her. A ragged red line ran across it.

“Oh, Moki! What happened?”

“I cut myself.”

“But you’re always cutting yourself.”

She looked at the cut. It was barely bleeding. He’d done worse to his hands before. What was so special about this?

“Yes, but this was a deep one. I slipped badly. I thought the chisel went halfway through my palm. Blood started spurting a foot into the air—and then it stopped. I squeezed it for a few minutes, and when I checked again, it was half healed. And in the time it took me to come in from the workshop, it’s healed even further. Look at it. You can almost see it closing before your eyes!”

He was right. Kolabati watched with uneasy fascination as the wound stopped oozing and became shallower.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“I don’t know.”

He touched the necklace around his throat—a heavy chain of sculpted iron, each crescent link embossed with pre-Vedic script; centered over the notch atop his breastbone lay a matched pair of bright yellow elliptical stones, like thumb-sized topazes, each with a black center. Moki’s necklace perfectly matched her own. They’d belonged to her family for generations … since before history.

“You said these things would help heal us, keep us young and healthy, but I never—”

Unease tugged at her. “They don’t work like this. They’ve never worked like this.”

The necklace could heal illnesses, prolong life, stave off death from all but the most catastrophic injuries. But it worked slowly, subtly. The healing of Moki’s hand was crude, garish, like a sideshow trick.

Something was wrong.

“But they work like this now,” Moki said, a wild light in his eyes. “Watch.”

That was when she saw the wood knife in his other hand. He jabbed it through the skin on the underside of his left forearm and into the tissues beneath.

“No! Moki, don’t!”

“It’s all right. Just wait a minute and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Wincing with the pain, he dragged the blade upward until a four-inch wound gaped open. He watched the blood spurt for an instant, then squeezed it shut. He smiled crazily at her for a moment or two as he pressed the skin edges together, then he released it.

The wound had stopped bleeding. The edges were adhering as if they’d been sutured. And the wild light in his eyes had brightened.

“See? The necklace has made me almost indestructible. Maybe immortal. I feel like a god—like Maui himself!”

Kolabati watched in horror as Moki cavorted about the great room. First the sun, then the wind, and now this. She could not fend off the feeling of impending doom. Something was happening, something had gone terribly awry, and the necklaces were responding. Their powers were increasing, as if in preparation for … what?

And then she heard it—the ceramic tinkling of the wind chimes on the lanai. She turned and hurried to the railing. Thank the gods! The wind! The wind was back!

But the wrong wind. This blew from the west. The trade winds came from the east, always from the east. Where did this wind come from? And where was it blowing?

At that moment Kolabati knew beyond a doubt that the world was beginning a change. But how? And why?

Then she felt rather than heard a deep seismic rumble. The lanai seemed to shudder beneath her feet.

Haleakala?

Could the old volcano be coming to life?

THURSDAY

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: Hey! What’s going on up there, man? It says here sunrise was late again this morning. C’mon, sun! Get your act together. You were fifteen minutes late this morning. Get a new alarm clock already!

The Village of Monroe

Bill barely recognized his hometown.

He stared in awe as he cruised Monroe’s morning-lit harbor front behind the wheel of Jack’s Crown Victoria, borrowed for the trip. New condos crowded the east end, the trolley tracks had been paved over, and all the old Main Street buildings had been refurbished with nineteenth-century clapboard façades.

“This is awful,” he said aloud.

In the passenger seat, Glaeken straightened and looked around.

“The traffic? It doesn’t look so bad.”

“Not the traffic—the town. What did they do to it?”

“I hear lots of towns are trying to attract tourists these days.”

“But this is where I grew up. My home. And now it looks like a theme park … like someone’s idea of an old whaling village.”

“I never saw a whaling village that looked like this.”

Bill glanced at Glaeken. “I guess you’d know, wouldn’t you.”

Glaeken said nothing.

Bill drove on, shaking his head in dismay at the changes. At least they’d left the old bricks on Town Hall, and hadn’t changed the high white steeple of the Presbyterian church. He noticed with relief that Crosby’s Marina was still there, and Memison’s was still in business. Some of the old town was left, so he didn’t feel completely lost.

But he’d come here today hoping for a burst of warmth, for a sense of belonging, a place to call home. He knew now he wasn’t going to find it in Monroe.

Still, better than sitting around waiting, letting the unease within bubble and stew. Probably nothing he could do would block out the growing dread, especially after hearing that sunrise had been even later this morning.

“I still don’t know why you need me along, other than as a driver.”

He was uncomfortable wearing a cassock and collar again. The clothing fit, but only physically. He no longer considered himself a priest, not in his mind, not in his heart, not in his soul.

“Your mere presence will help me.”

“But you’re going to do all the talking and what am I going to do? Stand around and look holy?”

“You may say anything you wish.”

“Thanks loads. But I’ll be afraid to open my mouth because I don’t know what’s going on. You’re playing this too close to the vest, Glaeken. You ought to know by now you can trust me. And maybe if I knew a little bit more about what we’re doing here, I might be able to help.”

Glaeken sighed. “You’re right, of course. I don’t mean to keep you in the dark. It’s just habit. I’ve kept so many secrets for so long…” His voice trailed off.

“Well?”

“We’ve come to Monroe for the Dat-tay-vao.”

Bill had to laugh. “Well! That clears up everything!”

“The name is Vietnamese. In truth, the Dat-tay-vao has no name. It is an elemental force, but it has wandered around Southeast Asia for so long that it’s convenient to refer to it by the name the locals have used for centuries.”

“Dat-tay-vao.” Bill rolled the alien syllables over his tongue. “What’s it mean?”

“Loosely translated, ‘to lay a hand on.’ There’s an old Vietnamese folk song about it:

It seeks but will not be sought.

It finds but will not be found.

It holds the one who would touch,

Who would cut away pain and ill.

But its blade cuts two ways

And will not be turned.

If you value your well-being,

Impede not its way.

Treat the Toucher doubly well,

For he bears the weight

Of the balance that must be struck.

It has better meter in the original language.”

“A bit ominous, don’t you think?”

“The song is a celebration and a warning. Twice a day, for an hour or so at a time, the one who possesses the Dat-tay-vao—or is possessed by the Dat-tay-vao, depending on how you look at it—can heal wounds, clear cancers, and cure illnesses with a touch.”

Not too long ago, Bill would have scoffed. Today he remained silent, listening. His scoffing days were over.

“The Dat-tay-vao came to Monroe last year and became one with a local physician, Alan Bulmer.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar. Wasn’t he associated with Doc Alberts for a while?”

“Possibly. He’s on his own now. Out of practice since the Dat-tay-vao enabled him to heal with a touch.”

“That’s it—People did an article on him last summer.” He remembered leafing through the issue during a work break at Darnell U. “Hinted that he was a charlatan.”

“He wasn’t. And isn’t. His cures were very real. He lives now with Sylvia Nash and her adopted son.”

“Out on Shore Drive, you said?

Glaeken nodded. “Two ninety-seven.”

“The high-rent district.”

The old Hanley mansion was out on Shore Drive too. Bill repressed a shudder as memories of the horrors he’d witnessed there in 1968 flashed within his brain like distant lightning.

“The estate is called Toad Hall.”

“Never heard of it. Must be new.”

But as soon as he saw Toad Hall, Bill knew that it wasn’t. Only the brass plaque on the right-hand brick gatepost was new. He recognized the place as one of the Preferred North Shore’s most venerable mansions: the old Borg Estate. Three acres on the Long Island Sound surrounded by a stone wall and dense, insulating stands of white pine.

He turned into the driveway. The house itself was set far back, close to the water; a many-gabled affair, flanked by weeping willows. He hated the thought of someone renaming the old Borg place, but as he turned off the ignition and heard the briny breeze whisper through the swaying willow branches, he conceded that the new name might be right on target.

He accompanied Glaeken to the front door.

“It’s a household of four,” the old man said as they walked. “Mrs. Nash, Doctor Bulmer, a Vietnamese houseman named Ba Thuy Nguyen, and Jeffrey, Mrs. Nash’s adopted son.”

“You said yesterday we’re looking for a boy. Is he the one?”

Glaeken nodded. “He is. And his mother is not going to like what I have to tell her.”

“Why? What’s he got that—?”

The front door opened as they stepped onto the porch. A tall, gaunt Asian towered in the doorway. This had to be Ba. His age was hard to judge: might be fifty, sixty, maybe older. His high-cheekboned face was expressionless, but his eyes were alert, active, darting back and forth between Glaeken and Bill, picking up details, assessing, measuring, categorizing. Bill knew someone else with eyes like that: Glaeken.

“Yes, sirs.” His voice was thickly accented. “May I be of service?”

“Yes, you may.” Glaeken fished a card out of his pocket. “My name is Veilleur. I believe Mrs. Nash is expecting me.”

Ba stepped aside and ushered them through a marble-tiled foyer and into the living room. Doo-wop was playing softly through hidden speakers. A wave of nostalgia swept Bill away as he recognized “Story Untold” by the Nutmegs. He and Carol had danced to that song at CYO dances in the gym of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, not a mile from here.

Ba’s voice yanked him back to the present.

“I will tell the Missus that you are here. Do you wish coffee?”

They both agreed and remained standing by the cold fireplace as Ba turned and left them alone.

“That’s one powerful-looking fellow,” Bill said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Vietnamese that tall.”

Glaeken nodded. “A one-man security force, I would say.”

A slender woman with short black hair, blue eyes, and finely chiseled features strode into the room. She wore loose black slacks and a white blouse buttoned all the way to her throat. She moved with complete self-confidence.

“I’m Sylvia Nash. Which one of you is—?”

“I’m Veilleur,” Glaeken said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “And this is Father William Ryan.”

Her handshake was as cool as the rest of her. A striking woman.

Bill was making connections now. He’d heard of her. Greg Nash’s widow. Bill had gone to high school with Pete Nash, Greg’s older brother. Greg had been in the Gulf War. He’d come back in one piece, but then he’d been killed trying to break up a convenience store robbery. Sylvia had become a renowned sculptress. And obviously a very successful one if she could afford this place.

“Please sit down,” she said, gesturing to the couch. She seated herself across from them. “You said you had something of a personal nature to discuss with me. I hope that wasn’t a scam to get in here and try to sell me something.”

Bill glanced up at Ba as he returned with a silver coffee service set on a huge silver tray; he pitied anyone who tried any tricks in this house.

“I assure you I have nothing to sell,” Glaeken said. “I’ve come to talk to you about the Dat-tay-vao.”

The big Vietnamese started as he was setting down the silver tray. He almost spilled the coffeepot but righted it in time. He stared at Glaeken but his eyes were unreadable. Bill glanced at Sylvia. Her face was ashen.

“Ba,” she said in a shaky voice. “Please get Alan.”

“Yes, Missus.”

Ba turned to go but at that moment a man in a wheelchair rolled into the room. He looked lean, pale, with gray-flecked brown hair and gentle brown eyes. He paused on the threshold, staring at Glaeken, a puzzled look on his face, then he came the rest of the way in. As the wheelchair rolled to a stop beside her chair, Sylvia reached over and grasped the man’s hand. They shared a smile. Bill immediately sensed a powerful bond between these two. Sylvia introduced him as Dr. Alan Bulmer.

“They want to talk about the Dat-tay-vao, Alan.”

Bill felt the weight of Bulmer’s gaze as he stared at them.

“You’d better not be reporters.”

Bill recognized a deep loathing in his tone as he spoke the last word.

Glaeken said, “I assure you, we’re not.”

Bulmer seemed to accept that. The old man had a gift for speaking the truth in a way that sounded like the truth.

“What do you know—or think you know?” the doctor said.

“Everything.”

“I doubt it.”

“I know that your present condition is a direct result of your association with the Dat-tay-vao.”

“Really.”

“Yes. I know that the Dat-tay-vao left Vietnam in late nineteen sixty-eight within a medic named Walter Erskine who couldn’t handle the responsibility and became a derelict alcoholic—”

A flash of memory strobed Bill’s brain. Years ago … the parking lot of Downstate Medical Center … two winos, one was Martin Spano, the other a bearded stranger named Walter … Walter was a medic once … repeatedly asking, Are you the one? Could it have been…?

“—but before he died, Erskine passed the Dat-tay-vao on to you. You used the power of the Dat-tay-vao to cure a great number of people—too many people for your own good. As a result—”

Bulmer looked uncomfortable as he held up his hand.

“Okay. Score one for you.”

“May I ask if you regret your time with the Dat-tay-vao?”

Bulmer paused, then: “I’ve thought about that a lot, believe me. It left me half vegetable, but that appears to be only temporary. With therapy I’m working my way back to full function. My arms and hands are as good as they ever were, and my legs are starting to come around. The Dat-tay-vao helped me cure—cure—a hell of a lot of people with an incredible array of illnesses—acute, chronic, debilitating, life-threatening. And in the process Sylvia and I found each other. A year or two of rehab is a small price to pay for that.”

Bill knew then and there that this man operated on a different plane from most—and he liked him enormously for it.

“May I ask then—?” Glaeken stopped speaking and looked to his right.

A small boy stood in the living room entryway. He looked about nine; a round face, curly blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He reminded Bill of another child from what seemed like another epoch … Danny.

The child’s gaze roamed over the occupants of the room … and came to rest on Glaeken.

“Hello, Jeffy,” Sylvia said. She obviously didn’t want him listening to this. “Is anything wrong?”

“I came to see who was here.”

He walked past Bulmer and his mother and stopped before Glaeken where he sat on the couch. For a long moment he stared almost vacantly into the old man’s eyes, then threw his arms around Glaeken’s neck and hugged him.

Sylvia found herself on her feet, stepping toward Jeffy and Mr. Veilleur who was returning the hug, gently patting the boy’s back. This wasn’t like Jeffy at all. He was usually so shy. What had got into him?

“Jeffy?” She restrained her hands from reaching for him. “I’m very sorry, Mister Veilleur. He’s never done this before.”

“Quite all right,” Veilleur said, looking up at her over Jeffy’s shoulder. “I’m rather honored.”

He gently pulled Jeffy’s arms from around his neck, engulfed one of the child’s little hands in his own, and patted the couch cushion next to him.

“Want to sit here between me and Father Bill?”

Jeffy nodded, his eyes huge. “Yes.”

He snuggled between them.

“Good.”

Sylvia sat again but remained perched on the edge of the chair. She tried to catch Jeffy’s attention but he had eyes only for Veilleur.

This whole scene made her uneasy.

“He used to be autistic,” she said.

Jeffy had made such strides since his sudden release from autism, but he was still backward socially. He was learning, but remained unsure how to act, so he wasn’t comfortable with strangers. Until now, apparently.

“I know,” Veilleur said. “And I know that Doctor Bulmer’s final act with the Dat-tay-vao was to cure Jeffy.”

Sylvia glanced at Alan. His expression mirrored her own alarm and confusion. How did this stranger know so much about them? It gave her the creeps.

“All right,” Alan said, shrugging resignedly. “So you do know about the Dat-tay-vao. But I’m afraid you’re too late. I don’t have that power anymore. The Dat-tay-vao is gone.”

“The Dat-tay-vao has left you,” Veilleur said, “but it is not gone.”

Sylvia sensed Ba stiffen where he stood behind her. Why was he suddenly on the alert?

“That may be,” she said. “But I still don’t see what we can do for you.”

“Not what you can do for me—for everyone. We are entering a time of great strife, of darkness and madness. The days are getting shorter when they should be lengthening. The Dat-tay-vao can help forestall that. Maybe even prevent it.”

Sylvia glanced at Alan again. He nodded imperceptibly. This poor old man had blown a few fuses. She darted a glance at the priest—a good-looking man, older than Alan, with graying hair, a scarred face, and a nose that looked as if it had been badly broken. She wondered if he’d ever been a boxer. She also wondered how he could sit there with a straight face. Unless he was as crazy as the old fellow. Ever since yesterday’s news of the sun’s erratic behavior, the kooks had been coming out of the woodwork, predicting the end of the world and worse. And to think she had let two of them into her house.

And then she saw something flash in the priest’s eyes. A look of tortured weariness, as if he’d seen too much already and was dreading the time to come.

“But I told you,” Alan said. “The Dat-tay-vao is gone.”

“Gone from you, yes.” Veilleur put his arm around Jeffy. “But it hasn’t traveled far.”

Sylvia shot to her feet, fighting the panic vaulting within her. She let anger take its place.

“Out! I want you out of here! Both of you. Now!”

“Mrs. Nash,” the priest said, rising. “We mean no harm—to anyone.”

“Fine. Good. But I want you both to leave. I have nothing to say to either of you, nothing more to discuss.”

The priest pointed to Veilleur. “This man is trying to help you—help us all. Please listen to him.”

“Please leave now, Father Ryan. Don’t force me to have Ba eject you.”

She looked at Ba. Over the years she’d learned to read his usually expressionless face. What she saw there now was reluctance. Why? Did he want them to stay? Did he want to hear them out?

No. It didn’t matter what Ba wanted in this situation. She had to get them out of here. Now.

She strode through the foyer and opened the front door. With obvious reluctance, the old man and the priest made their exit. On the way out, Mr. Veilleur left a card on the hall table.

“For when you change your mind,” he said.

He sounded so sure, she found herself unable to frame a reply. As she slammed the door behind them, she heard the sound of Alan’s wheelchair rolling toward her.

“Kind of rough on them, weren’t you?”

“You heard them. They’re crazy.” She stepped to one of the sidelights flanking the front door and watched the old man and the priest stand by their car in the driveway. “They might be dangerous.”

“They might be. But neither of them struck me that way. And that old fellow—he knew an awful lot about the Dat-tay-vao. All of it accurate.”

“But his end-of-the-world stuff … about a time of ‘darkness and madness.’ That’s crazy talk.”

“I recall someone who reacted exactly the same way when I told her that I had the power to heal with a touch.”

Sylvia remembered how she’d thought Alan had gone off the deep end then. But this was different.

“You weren’t talking about doomsday.”

The priest and the old man were getting into the car.

“True. But something’s happening, Sylvia. It’s spring, yet the days are getting shorter, and the scientists can’t say why. Maybe we are heading for some sort of apocalypse. Maybe we should have listened a little longer. That man knows something.”

“He doesn’t know anything I care to hear. Certainly not doomsday nonsense.”

“That’s not what you’re afraid of, is it, Sylvia?”

She turned and faced him. She still wasn’t used to seeing Alan in a wheelchair. She refused to become used to it. Because Alan wouldn’t be in it forever. The Dat-tay-vao had left him in a coma last summer, but he had fought back. And he was still fighting. That was why she loved him. He was a fighter. His will was as strong as hers. He’d never admit defeat.

“What do you mean?”

She knew exactly what he meant, and because of that she had trouble meeting his gaze.

“We’ve skirted around this for months now, but we’ve never really faced it.”

“Alan, please.” She stepped up beside the wheelchair and ran her fingers gently through his hair, then trailed them down to his neck, hoping to distract him. She didn’t want to think about this. “Please don’t.”

But Alan wasn’t going to be put off this time.

“Where’s the Dat-tay-vao, Sylvia? Where did it go? We know it transferred from Erskine to me as he died. We know I still had it when it cured Jeffy of his autism. But when I came out of the coma in the hospital, it was gone. I can’t cure anymore, Sylvia. The tide comes in and my touch is no different from anybody else’s. So where’d it go? Where’s the Dat-tay-vao now?”

“Who knows?” she said, angry that he was pushing her like this, forcing her to face the greatest fear of her life. “Maybe it died. Maybe it just evaporated.”

“I don’t believe that and neither do you. We’ve got to face it, Sylvia. When it left me it went to someone else. There were only three other people in the house that night. We know you don’t have the Touch, and neither does Ba. That leaves only one other possibility.”

She wrapped her hands around his head and pressed it against her abdomen.

No! Please don’t say it!

The possibility had kept her awake far into so many nights, and it skulked through her dreams when she finally did manage to drop off to sleep.

“You saw how Jeffy responded to Mr. Veilleur. He’s attuned to him. So am I, I think. I just didn’t happen into the living room earlier. I was drawn. And when I saw that old man I felt this burst of warmth. I can only guess at what Jeffy felt.”

She heard a noise over by the window and looked.

Jeffy was there, pressing his face and hands against the glass.

“I want to go with him, Mom. I want to go!”

Bill was disappointed and found it difficult to hide his irritation. This whole trip had been for nothing.

“Well,” he said, glancing at Glaeken, “that was a fiasco.”

The old man was staring out the side window at the house. He did not turn to Bill as he spoke.

“It didn’t go quite as I’d hoped, but I wouldn’t say it was a fiasco.”

“How could it have gone worse? She kicked us out.”

“I expect resistance from the people I must recruit. After all, I’m asking them to believe that human civilization, such as it is, is on the brink of annihilation, and to put their trust in me, a perfect stranger. That’s a difficult pill to swallow. Mrs. Nash’s dose is doubly bitter.”

“I gather you think this Dat-tay-vao is in Jeffy.”

“I know it is.”

“Well, then, I think you’ve got a real selling job ahead of you. Because it’s pretty clear that not only does that woman not believe it, she doesn’t want to believe it.”

“She will. As the Change progresses she will have no choice but to believe. And then she will bring me the boy.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t wait too long.”

Glaeken nodded, still staring at the house. “Let’s hope that the Dat-tay-vao and the other components are enough to make a difference.”

Bill fought the despondency as he felt it return.

“In other words, all this—everything you’re trying to do—might be for nothing.”

“Yes. It might. But even the trying counts for something. And I met the boy today. Contact with him will help me locate someone I have been searching for. That was a good thing.”

“He took to you like I’ve rarely seen a child take to a strange adult.”

“Oh, that wasn’t Jeffy himself responding to me. That was the Dat-tay-vao within him.” Glaeken turned from the window and smiled at Bill. “We’re old friends, you see.”

Over his shoulder, in the window next to the mansion’s front door, Bill spotted the little boy’s face pressed against the glass, staring at them.

WFAN-AM

Well, for those of you keeping track, the sun set early again tonight. Should’ve gone down at 8:06 but it was gone by 7:35. That means the lights’ll come on a little earlier tonight here at Citi Field as the Mets meet the Phillies. A lot of our listeners are concerned as to how all this will affect the playing season …

The First Hole

Rasalom stands on the plot of grass in the heart of the city and looks up at the surrounding buildings. Their lights blot out the wheeling stars overhead, nearly blot out the rising moon. He stares at the top-floor windows of a particular building in the nearest row to the west. Glaeken’s building. Glaeken’s windows.

“Do you see me, old man?” he whispers to the night. “Or if your feeble, failing eyes can’t penetrate the shadows, do you at least sense my presence? I hope so. I began in the sky where all could see. Now I move to the earth. Here. Under your nose. I don’t want you to miss a thing, Glaeken. I want you front-row center from the overture to the final curtain.

“Watch.”

Rasalom spreads his arms straight out on each side, forming a human cross. The left is truncated, missing the hand, but that is only temporary. He faces his right palm down. With a basso rumble, the ground begins to fall away beneath his feet, plummeting as if dropped from a cliff. But he does not fall. The opening widens beneath him yet he remains suspended in air as more earth, tons of earth crumble and tumble …

… down …

… down …

… out of sight.

Yet there is no sound of any of it striking bottom.

And when the hole has reached half of its intended width, Rasalom allows himself to sink into the abyss. Slowly. Gently.

“Do you see me, Glaeken? Do you SEE?”

Manhattan

The city was getting nuttier by the minute.

Jack ambled past the darkened Museum of Natural History and headed south on Central Park West. On the corner of 74th a bearded guy dressed in sackcloth stood holding a placard. Straight out of a New Yorker cartoon. His laboriously hand-printed sign bellowed “REPENT!” in giant letters at the top followed by a biblical quote so long you’d have to stop and read for a good three minutes before you got it all.

Yeah, the world might be coming to an end, but spring had sprung, and spring meant baseball, and the start of the baseball season meant it was time once again for the annual Repairman Jack Little League Park-a-Thon. Time to stroll Central Park and tempt the muggers out of hiding so they could give to the local Little League equipment fund. Give till it hurt.

Come to think of it, he’d met Glaeken during last year’s Park-a-Thon.

As he crossed CPW he heard a deep rumble. Thunder? The sky was clear. Maybe a storm was gathering over Jersey.

He entered the Park at 72nd Street, got on the jogging path, and continued south. A young teenage couple, certainly not seventeen yet, appeared, faces pale and strained, running like the girl’s father was after them. They weren’t joggers—weren’t dressed for it. In fact, they seemed to be buttoning up their clothing as they ran.

Jack stepped off the path to let them pass.

“S’up?”

“Earthquake!” the boy said, his voice a breathless whisper.

Jack walked on. He’d heard of making the earth move—he’d had it move for him a couple of times—but it was nothing to panic over. The quake in 2011 had been a nonevent.

Half a minute later another guy ran by and said the same thing.

“Where?” Jack hadn’t felt anything.

“Sheep Meadow!”

“But what—?”

The guy was gone, running like a madman.

Curious now, Jack broke into a loping run and cut off the jogging path. He skirted the lake until he reached the wide expanse of grass in the lower third of the park called the Sheep Meadow. He’d heard that real sheep used to graze these fifteen acres as late as the 1930s. In the wan starlight he could make out a ragged, broken line of murmuring people rimming the area. And smack in the center of the meadow, what looked like a pool of inky liquid. But nothing reflected off its surface. A huge circle of empty blackness.

Tar?

Jack paused. Something about that black pool raised his hackles. An instinctive fear surged up from the most primitive parts of his being. He’d experienced something similar when he’d seen his first rakosh. But this was different. This was a hell of a lot bigger.

He forced his feet to move, to carry him toward the pool. He could make out the figures of a couple of people at the edge and they seemed all right, so he guessed it was safe.

As he neared, Jack realized it wasn’t a pool at all. A huge sinkhole, a good hundred feet across, had opened in the middle of the meadow.

He skidded to a halt on the grass.

A hole …

He had a bad history with holes in the earth during the past couple of years. One in Monroe had almost swallowed him, and another in Florida had released some nasty creatures into the Everglades. Both had been connected with the Otherness, and now the Otherness was on the march.

Maybe this was something else, something innocent.

Yeah, right.

Two guys there ahead of him stood on the edge, laughing, jostling each other. Jack could see they were young, dressed head to toe in black, with spiky hair. He stopped behind them. No way he wanted to get that close.

One of the guys on the rim turned and spotted him.

“Hey, dude, c’mon up here. You gotta see this. It’s fuckin’ awesome, man!”

“Yeah!” said the other. “The mother of all potholes!”

They started laughing and elbowing each other again.

Wrecked.

“That’s okay. I can see all I want from here.”

Which was mostly true. In the wash of light from the tall buildings ringing the lower end of the park, Jack could make out a sheer wall on the far side of the hole leading straight down through the sod, the topsoil, and the granite bedrock. The edge of the hole was clean.

He’d seen pictures of sinkholes before on the news, from places like Guatemala where the underground water had been tapped out. But he’d never seen one so perfectly round. This looked like it had been made with a King Kong cookie cutter. Manhattan’s bedrock—he could almost hear his dear, lost Weezy correcting him that it was called “schist”—was near the surface here. Could sinkholes occur in solid granite? Didn’t think so.

Otherness … definitely the Otherness.

The two kids were still fooling around, dancing on the edge, playing macho games. Jack was moving to his right, away from them, trying to position the light-bleed from Central Park West behind him for a better look, when he heard a yelp of terror.

He saw one of the kids leaning forward over the edge, his arms windmilling. Even from Jack’s distance it was plain he was overbalanced and no longer fooling around, but his buddy only stood beside him, laughing at his antics.

His laughter died with the first kid’s scream as he toppled headfirst into the hole.

“Jason! Oh, shit! Jason!”

He lunged for his friend’s foot, missed it, and Jason disappeared into the blackness. His scream was awful to hear, not merely for the blood-chilling terror it carried, but for its length. The cry seemed to go on forever, echoing up endlessly from below as Jason plummeted into the depths. It never really ended. It simply … faded … out …

His friend was on his hands and knees at the edge, looking down into the blackness.

“Oh, fuck, Jason! Where are you?” He turned to Jack. “How deep is this fuckin’ thing?”

Jack didn’t answer. If this one held true to the others he’d seen, it was bottomless.

He stepped to within half a dozen feet of the kid, got down on his belly, and crawled to the edge. He’d seen light deep down in the others—not a bottom, just light … a hazy violet glow. Maybe he’d see that—

Vertigo hit him like a gut punch as he peeked over and saw nothing but impenetrable blackness.

Jack closed his eyes and hung on. And as he did he thought he could still hear Jason screaming down there … way, way down there … fading …

He felt a slight breeze against the back of his neck. Air was flowing into the hole. Into the hole. That meant it had to go somewhere, be open at the other end. He had a good idea where that might be.

And then the earth began to slide away beneath his fingers, beneath his wrists, his forearms. Christ! The rim was giving way.

Jack rolled to his left and back, away from the edge, but he wasn’t fast enough. A Cadillac-sized wedge of earth gave way and crumbled beneath him. He slid downward toward the black maw. With a desperate, panicky lunge he managed to grab a fistful of turf and hang on. His feet kicked empty air and for one breathless moment he felt eternity beckoning from below. Then the toes of his sneakers found the rocky wall. He levered himself up to ground level and scrambled away from the edge as fast as his rubbery knees would carry him.

When he’d gone a good fifty feet he heard a terrified cry and risked a look back. Jason’s buddy had stayed behind and the edge had given way under him. Most of his body had dropped into the hole. Jack could see his head, see his arms and hands tearing at the grass in a losing effort to hold on.

“Help me, man!” he cried in a voice all tears and terror. “God, please!”

Jack started to unbutton his shirt, thinking he might be able to use it as a rope. But before he was halfway done, a huge clump of earth gave way beneath the kid’s hands and he was gone, leaving behind only a fading high-pitched wail.

More earth sloughed off and fell away, narrowing the distance between Jack and the edge. The damn hole was getting bigger.

He looked around. The few people who had been scattered around the perimeter of the Sheep Meadow were now fleeing for the streets. Good idea, Jack thought. A fine idea. He broke into a headlong run and followed them.

And as he ran it occurred to him that a big chunk of Central Park was missing. What was it Glaeken had said last night?

Will you reconsider if Central Park shrinks?

Sure, he’d said.

Jack didn’t remember his high school geometry, so he couldn’t even guess the surface area of that hole, but a helluva lot of the Sheep Meadow was missing. Which meant the park was smaller by that many square feet.

… if Central Park shrinks …

Jack picked up his pace. How had Glaeken known?

He shook his head. Stupid question.

Arms limp at his sides, Rasalom floats within a tiny pocket in the bedrock, a pocket he has made. When he descended approximately a hundred feet into the pit, he stopped and hovered as a passage into the stone opened before him. He followed it to this spot.

Yesterday he began the Change without. Now to begin the Change within.

He hesitates. This is a step from which there is no return. This is a process that once begun cannot be reversed, cannot be halted. When it is complete he will have a new form, one he will wear into eternity.

He will be magnificent.

Still he hesitates. For the shape of his new form will not be of his own choosing. Those above—those puny, frightened creatures milling on the surface—will determine his countenance. He shall be an amalgam of all that they fear. For as their fear feeds him, so shall it shape him. His form shall be the common denominator of all that humanity loathes and dreads most, the personification of all its nightmares. The deepest fears from the darkest recesses of the fetid primordial swamps of their hindbrains. Everything that causes the hairs at the back of the neck to rise, makes the flesh along the spine crawl, urges the bowels and bladder to empty. He shall be all of them.

Fear incarnate.

Rasalom’s body tilts until he is floating horizontally in the tight granite pocket. He spreads his legs and rams his feet against the stone wall. He screams as they fuse with the living rock, screams as all the fears, the angers, the hatreds, hostilities, violence, pain, and grief from the city surge into him. He stretches his arms and fuses his right fist and the stump of his left wrist to the stone, and screams again. A scream of ecstasy as new power surges through him, but a scream of agony as well. For now the Change within has begun.

He swells. His skin stretches, then splits along his arms and legs, tears from his genitals to his scalp. As he continues to swell, the skin sloughs off and falls to the floor of the stone pocket like a discarded wrapper.

As the night air caresses his raw flesh, Rasalom screams again with what remains of his mouth.

FRIDAY

In Profundis

WNYW-TV

—the sun’s behavior continues to baffle astronomers, physicists, and cosmologists. We’ve been informed that it rose at 5:46 this morning, late again, this time by almost nineteen minutes.

And from Central Park, startling news of a huge hole opening in the Sheep Meadow during the night. We have a camera crew on the scene and you’ll see live footage as soon as it is available …

Manhattan

Glaeken stood at the picture window and looked down on the hole. Flashing red lights lit the tardy dawn as police cars and fire trucks ringed the lower end of the park. A barricade had been set up around the entire Sheep Meadow to keep out the curious throngs. Television vans and camera trucks spewed miles of cable and aimed lights that lit the area to noon brightness. Dominating the center of the scene was the hole. It had grown to two hundred feet across and stopped.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of it—just for a moment. He swayed with fatigue. He ached for sleep, but when he lay down it spurned his bidding.

So tired. He’d thought he’d freed himself from this, escaped the burden of responsibility for this war. But it wouldn’t go away. Only when his successor was empowered would he truly be free.

Jack was the successor, the Heir. The Lady had known it, and Glaeken had no doubt of it. Even Rasalom knew.

Under the old rules—when the Ally was still present—the succession would have occurred automatically with Glaeken’s last breath. But now, with the Ally turned away, his death would accomplish nothing.

He needed the weapon.

He’d expected some difficulty in reassembling its components, but the task was proving to be more formidable than he’d imagined.

The weapon would empower Jack and pass the reins to him.

That was the hope: first the weapon, then the succession, then the battle. A battle that, from the looks of things, would be lost before it was begun. But he had to go through the motions, had to try.

Behind him he heard Bill hang up the phone and approach the window. Glaeken opened his eyes and rubbed a hand across his face. Had to appear calm and in control at all times. Couldn’t let them see the doubt, the dread, the desperation that nipped at his heels. How could he exhort them to maintain belief in themselves if he didn’t set the example?

“Finally got through to Nick,” Bill said, coming up beside him. “He’s on his way down to the park with a team from the university.”

“What for?”

“To find out what caused the hole.”

“I can save him the trip. Rasalom caused the hole.”

“That’s not going to do it for Nick.” He gazed down at the park. “I guess this is what you meant when you said his next move would be in the earth.”

Glaeken nodded. “And its placement is not random.”

“Really? Central Park has some significance for Rasalom?”

“Only so far as Central Park is located right outside my window.”

Going to rub my face in it, aren’t you, Rasalom?

“It doesn’t look real,” Bill said. “I feel like I’m in a movie looking at some sort of computer-generated effect.”

“It’s quite real, believe me.”

“I do. They’ve got close-ups on the TV, by the way. Want to take a look?”

“I’ve seen others like it close up before, although never one this big.”

“You have? When?”

“Long ago.” Ages.

“How deep is that thing?”

“Bottomless.”

Bill smiled. “No. Really.”

Apparently he’d misunderstood, so Glaeken spoke slowly and clearly.

“There is no bottom to that hole, Bill. It is quite literally bottomless.”

“But that’s impossible. It would have to go all the way through to China or whatever’s on the other end.”

“The other end doesn’t open on this world.”

“Come on. Where then?”

“Elsewhere.”

Glaeken watched the priest’s eyes flick back and forth between him and the hole.

“Elsewhere? Where’s elsewhere?”

“The place has no name. We call it the Otherness, but I don’t believe there’s any way to describe in human terms what the other end of that hole is like.”

“I believe I’ll change and go down there for a closer look.”

“No need to rush. The hole isn’t going anywhere. And it’s only the first.”

“You mean there’s going to be more?”

“Many. All over the world. But Rasalom has honored me by opening the first outside my front door.”

“I’ll see if I can hook up with Nick down there and find out what he knows.”

“Just be sure to be back before dark.”

Bill smiled. “Okay, Dad.”

“I’m quite serious.”

His smile faded. “Yeah. I guess you are. Okay. Back before dark.”

Glaeken watched Bill hurry to his room. He was fond of the man. He couldn’t ask for a better houseguest. Always willing to help around the apartment or with Magda when the nurse wasn’t around.

As if sensing her name within his thoughts, Magda called from the bedroom.

“Hello? Is anybody there? Have I been left alone to die?”

“Coming, dear.”

He took one final look at the hole, then headed down the hall.

He found Magda sitting up in her bed. She’d been losing weight and her eyes were starting to retreat into her skull. Her face was as lined as his, her hair as white. But her brown eyes were bright with anger.

“Who are you?” she said, switching to her native Hungarian tongue.

“I’m your husband, Magda.”

“No, you’re not!” She spat the words. “I wouldn’t marry such an old man like you! Why, you’re old enough to be my father! Where’s Glenn?”

“Right here. I’m Glenn.”

“No! Glenn’s young and strong with red hair!”

He took her hands in his. “Magda, it’s me. Glenn.”

Terror flashed across her face, then her features softened. She smiled.

“Oh, yes. Glenn. How could I have forgotten? Where have you been?”

“Right in the next room.”

Her expression hardened as her eyes narrowed.

“No you weren’t! You’ve been out seeing other women! Don’t deny it! You’re out with that nurse! Don’t think I don’t know what the two of you are up to when you think I’m asleep!”

Glaeken held her hands and let her ramble on. He wanted to cry. After two years he’d have thought he could have adapted to anything, but he couldn’t get used to Magda’s dementia. None of her ravings were true, yet Magda fully believed the delusions floating through the expanding vacuum of her mind, truly meant the hurtful things she said as she spoke them. They never failed to cut him deeply.

Oh, Magda, my Magda, where have you gone?

Glaeken closed his eyes and recalled her as she had been when they’d met in 1941. Her soft, even features, her fresh pale skin, glossy chestnut hair, and wide dark eyes filled with love, tenderness, and intelligence. It was the love, tenderness, and intelligence he mourned for most now. Even after her physical beauty had faded, his love for her had not. For she had remained Magda the poet, Magda the singer, Magda the mandolin player, Magda the scholar who so loved art and music and literature. Her compendium of Romanian Gypsy music, Songs of the Rom, was still in print, still gracing the shelves of finer bookstores.

Three years ago she started to slip away, infiltrated and irreversibly replaced by this mad, incoherent stranger. Her mental status deteriorated first, but soon she became physically enfeebled as well. She could not get out of bed by herself now. That made caring for her easier in a way because she could no longer wander at night. In the early stages of her decline Glaeken had found her searching the street below, calling for their pet cat, dead since 1962. After that he’d had to deadbolt the apartment door and remove the knobs from the stove to prevent her from cooking “dinner” at two in the morning.

The old, buried Magda occasionally flickered back to life. She couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast—or if she’d even had breakfast—yet now and then she’d recall an incident in their life together from thirty or forty years ago as if it were yesterday. But instead of buoying Glaeken, the brief lapses in her dementia only deepened his despair.

It wasn’t fair.

Glaeken had known and loved so many women through the ages, yet each relationship had ended in bitterness. Each love had, in her own way, ended up hating him as she grew old while he stayed young. Finally he had found Magda, the one woman in his seemingly endless life that he’d be allowed to grow old with. And they’d had a glorious life, a love that could not be tainted even by the pain of these past few years.

Maybe it was for the best. Magda would spend her final days immune to the horror stalking the world. Her body was as vulnerable as everybody else’s, but her mind was impregnable to reality.

He glanced over and saw that she’d fallen asleep again. This was her pattern—a reversal of day and night. Catnaps throughout the day, awake most of the night. Even with the hired nurse and Bill to help, Glaeken existed in a state of constant exhaustion. His heart went out to all the unfortunate spouses of Alzheimer’s patients throughout the world who did not have his financial resources. Unless they had a large family of willing helpers, their lives were an endless nightmare.

Nightmare … soon everyone across the globe would know what it was like to live a nightmare.

Gently he laid Magda’s head back down on the pillow and tucked the covers in around her. He would not allow a deterioration of her brain to lessen his commitment to her. If their conditions were reversed, she’d be at his side whenever he needed her. He was sure of it. And he would do no less.

All morning he had debated whether or not to warn the media about the hole. Finally, he’d decided against it. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself. Besides, they’d write him off as just another doom-monger. The end result would be the same: They’d have to learn the hard way.

CNBC

—on the commodities exchanges, due to uncertainties about the upcoming growing season, prices are up sharply, especially October beans and orange juice futures, in brisk trading around the globe …

Nick felt someone tugging at his arm. Reluctantly, he turned away from the hole to face one of the park cops.

“You Doctor Quinn?” the guy said, shouting over the rattle and roar of the generators.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Got a priest back in the crowd says you asked him here to say some prayers.”

“Priest?” Nick said, baffled. “I didn’t ask for any—” And then he knew. He almost laughed in the cop’s face. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been waiting for him. Can you bring him over?”

The cop turned and waved to someone along the barricade. Nick saw a lone figure in black break from the crowd and approach at a quick walk.

He shook Father Bill’s hand when he arrived. He’d seen the priest a couple of times since his return from North Carolina but still couldn’t get used to how he’d aged during his years in hiding. Before he disappeared, Nick had got to the point where he’d been calling the priest simply “Bill,” but since his return he’d fallen back into the practice of prefixing the name with “Father.” He pointed to the cassock and Roman collar.

“I thought you weren’t going to wear that anymore.”

“So did I. But I’ve decided the uniform has its uses. Especially when you want special treatment in a crowd.”

“So what are you doing here?”

Father Bill smiled. “I came to perform the exorcism. To close this thing up.”

“Very funny.”

The smile faded. “Seriously, Nick. I would like to get a close-up look at the hole.”

“Sure. But stay on the platform. The dirt tends to crumble at the edges.”

Nick felt the excitement build all over again as he led Father Bill to the edge of the wooden platform. He still couldn’t get over it. Something like this—a mysterious two-hundred-foot-wide hole appearing here, practically in his backyard. It was wonderful.

They stopped at the railing and looked down. He heard Father Bill catch his breath.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Nick said. “I can’t believe my luck. And that’s all it is. Luck. If I’d been out getting coffee when the boys from geology called this morning, someone else might have picked up the phone and he’d be calling the shots here now instead of me. Being in the right place at the right time. That’s all it takes.”

But Father Bill said nothing. He seemed to be mesmerized by the hole.

Nick knew what the priest was feeling. He’d looked down into that opening a good hundred times since he’d arrived and still couldn’t shake how unnatural it seemed.

The walls did it. Too sheer. They didn’t look fallen away—more like scooped away. He could see the layers of earth and schist stacked like the cut edge of a trifle. When he’d first looked down he’d expected to see a sort of inverted cone with a rubble-filled bottom. But he couldn’t see the bottom. The hole was much deeper than he’d imagined. Half a mile down, he guessed. Maybe deeper. Straight down into darkness. Maybe when the sun got higher they’d be able to see more, but right now it was night down there.

Nick had visited the Grand Canyon last summer and still remembered the vertigo he’d experienced standing at the edge of the lookout for the first time. The giddy, vertical descent of these walls gave him a similar sensation. But he’d been able to see a ribbon of water at the base of the Grand Canyon. Here, with the gentle downdraft flowing around him, he could see only blackness.

The downdraft had bothered him at first. Where could it be going? Then he realized that the air was probably sinking into the cavity at the edges, and then reversing and flowing out straight up through the center. Like the bubbles in a glass of Guinness. That had to be the explanation. It couldn’t all be flowing continually downward. It had no place to go.

He straightened and turned to the priest.

“Well? What do you think of our little sand pit?”

The priest tore his gaze away and looked at him. He looked frightened.

“How’d it get here, Nick?”

“Don’t know. That’s for the geology boys to figure out. But already people are making comparisons to those crop circles in England. The tabloids will have a field day. I think The Light has got its whole staff here already.”

“Any idea how deep it is?”

“We don’t know yet. Geology rigged up a sonic range-finder first thing this morning and pointed it at the bottom, but couldn’t get a reading.”

“No bottom?” The priest’s voice suddenly sounded a little dry.

Nick laughed. “Of course there’s a bottom. It’s just that echoes from the side walls were interfering with the readings. Geology was stumped, so they called physics—moi. We could wait till the sun hits zenith and do a sight measurement, but why wait? We’ve got a new laser that’ll bounce a beam off the bottom and give us a distance reading accurate to within a centimeter.”

Father Bill was staring into the hole again as he spoke.

“I have it on good authority that it’s bottomless.”

“Well, it is deep, but not that deep. Guarantee it.” And then a thought struck him. “This authority wouldn’t be the same one that told you about something happening ‘in the heavens’ now, would it?”

As Father Bill nodded, Nick felt a cold weight settle between his shoulder blades. He gestured toward the hole.

“Come on, now. Bottomless? You can’t really believe that.”

“I never believed the sun would be rising progressively later each day in mid spring either. Did you?”

“No, but…”

Bottomless? No way. Patently impossible.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and found one of the grad students.

“We’re ready to shoot.”

“Great.” He turned to Father Bill. “The laser’s set. Wait here. In a few minutes we’ll have a reading from the bottom—wherever it is.”

Bill watched a moment as Nick hurried away toward some odd-looking contraption suspended on a boom over the hole. He was proud of him. He’d come a long way from the bratty little nine-year-old orphan he’d played chess with back in his early days at St. Francis Home for Boys. He was mature and self-assured—at least in the field of physics. He wondered how he was faring socially. Bill knew Nick was more than a little self-conscious about his appearance—the misshapen skull from when he was abused as an infant, the old acne scars. But worse-looking men had found the girl of their dreams and lived happily ever after. He hoped that would happen for Nick soon.

He turned back to the hole and stared into its black depths.

What was that Nietzsche quote? If thou gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

That was how he now felt—as if he were gazing inward at his own reclusive darkness. The abyss expanded before him, beckoning. What mysteries, what horrors were sequestered in those misty, chaotic depths? For an instant he was gripped by a mad impulse to step off the edge and let himself fall. If it was truly bottomless as Glaeken had said, he would keep falling. And falling. Imagine the vistas, the wonders he’d see. What would he find? Himself? An endless voyage of self-discovery. How wonderful. How could anyone resist? How on Earth could anyone with an iota of character refuse? How—?

“Better be careful, Father.”

The voice jolted him out of the reverie. To his horror he found himself sitting astride the platform railing, readying to swing his other leg over. The depths loomed below. With a convulsive lunge, he hurled himself back onto the platform and squatted there panting, sweating, and shaking. He looked up and saw one of the city workers standing nearby, looking down at him.

“You okay, Father?”

“I will be in a minute.”

“Hey, I din’t mean t’scare ya, but I mean we built that railing as sturdy as we could, but it ain’t gonna hold a guy your size, know what I mean?”

Bill nodded as he rose shakily to his feet.

“I realize that. Thanks for the warning.” Thanks more than you know.

The workman waved and ambled off, leaving Bill alone on the platform. He pulled himself together and moved away from the edge.

What had happened a moment ago? What had he been doing sitting on that railing? Had he actually been readying to jump? What could he have been thinking?

Or had he been thinking at all? More like reacting—but to what? To the abyss?

He shuddered. Maybe coming down here hadn’t been such a good idea. He’d now seen the hole up close. He could watch further developments from Glaeken’s window or on the tube. He looked around for Nick and saw him walking his way, his expression troubled.

“What’s wrong, Nick?”

“‘Technical difficulties,’ as they say on TV. We’ll have it straightened out in a few minutes.”

Bill watched Nick’s face closely. His upper lip was beaded with perspiration.

“You didn’t get the reading you expected, did you.”

“We didn’t get any reading. A glitch in the receiver, that’s all.”

Bill allowed himself a quick shot of relief. He wanted very much for Nick to find the bottom of that hole. He wanted Glaeken to be wrong, just once. Not out of animosity or envy, but because Glaeken had been right about everything so far, and everything he was predicting was bad. Bill felt he’d be able to rest a little better at night if just once Glaeken was proven wrong.

And then a thought struck him like an icy wind, carrying off any sense of relief.

“Wait a minute, Nick. You said you didn’t receive any signal. Isn’t that what would happen if the hole was bottomless?”

“It’s not bottomless, Fa—”

“Isn’t that what would happen?”

“Well … yes. But that’s not the only reason. There are scores of reasons why we wouldn’t get a signal back.”

“But one of them is that the beam didn’t find anything to bounce off, and so therefore it never came back. Am I right?”

Nick sighed. “Technically, yes, but…” Suddenly he sounded tired. “But the hole’s not bottomless. It can’t be. Nothing’s bottomless.”

One of the grad students rushed up to Nick with a green-striped printout. Bill could tell from Nick’s expression that he didn’t like what he saw there. He handed the slip back to the student.

“Do it again. And do it right.”

“But we are,” the student said, looking offended. “Everything checks out a hundred percent. The beam and the receiver are working perfectly.”

Nick tapped the printout. “Obviously not.”

“Maybe something down there’s absorbing the beam.”

“Absorbing the beam,” Nick said slowly. He seemed to like the idea. “Let’s look into that.” He turned to Bill. “I’m going to be tied up for a while, Father, but hang around. We’ll crack this yet.” He winked and walked away.

At midafternoon Bill headed back to the apartment to grab a bite and make a pit stop before Nick started his descent.

He had to hand it to Nick—he was as inventive as he was stubborn. Wouldn’t admit defeat. When he’d learned of a working diving bell on display down at South Street Seaport, he made a few calls and arranged to rent it. His plan was to get in that thing and ride it as far into the hole as the cable would allow, then take another laser reading from down there. Bill wanted to be back in time to see him off.

He had to fight through the crowd on Central Park West. The area around the lower end of the park had become an impromptu street festival. Well, why not? The sun was out and the area was jammed with curious people. Anyone with anything to sell, from hot dogs to shish kebab, from balloons to knock-off Rolexes was there. The air was redolent of an array of ethnic foods wide enough to shame the UN cafeteria. He spotted someone hawking “I saw the Central Park Hole” T-shirts, still wet from the silk screener.

In the apartment he found Glaeken, as expected, at the picture window.

“What have they decided down there?” the old man said without turning.

“They’ve decided that due to various technical glitches they can’t figure out how deep it is at this time.”

Even at noon, with the sun shining directly into the hole, they hadn’t been able to see the bottom. The blackness had been driven farther down, but it remained, obscuring the bottom.

Now Glaeken turned. His smile was rueful.

“They’ve constructed these fabulous instruments for exact measurements, yet they refuse to believe the data they’re receiving. Amazing how the mind resists the truth when the truth conflicts with preconceptions.”

“I can’t really blame them. It’s not easy to accept the impossible.”

“I suppose. But impossible is a useless word now.” He turned back to the window. “What’s that they’re rigging up?”

“A derrick. Nick’s going down into the hole to—”

Glaeken spun and faced Bill, his eyes wide.

“You’re talking about your young friend? He’s going down into the hole?”

“Yes. As soon as the bell is set up.”

Glaeken grabbed Bill’s upper arms. His grip was like iron.

“Don’t let him do it. You’ve got to stop him. Don’t let him go into that hole!”

The look on his face made Bill afraid for Nick. Very afraid. He turned and ran for the door. Out in the hall, he pressed the elevator button. When the doors didn’t open immediately, he ran for the stairs. No time to wait. He made it down and out to the street in a few minutes, but there his progress came to a grinding halt. The crowd had grown even thicker. Pressing through them was like wading through taffy.

He fought a rising panic as he roughly pushed and shoved people aside, leaving an angry wake. He hadn’t waited around to ask Glaeken what might happen to Nick down in that hole. The look on the old man’s perpetually deadpan face told him more than he wanted to know. He’d never seen Glaeken react that way.

As he inched toward the Sheep Meadow he remembered Nick saying how lucky he felt to be here. But Bill couldn’t help thinking about the awful fates that had befallen all those other people he cared about.

His gut writhed with the thought that perhaps luck had nothing to do with it.

“Lights, camera, action!” Nick said as the diving bell lurched into motion.

Dr. Dan Buckley gave him a wan smile and gripped one of the hand rungs. Buckley was an older gent from geology, balding, white-haired, sixty at least. He had his camcorder hooked up and directed out one of the forward ports; a digital Nikon hung from his neck. He was sweating. Nick wondered if Buckley was prone to panic attacks. The bell, named Triton, was the size of a small, low-ceilinged bathroom. Not a happy place for a claustrophobe.

His stomach did a little spin as the bell swung out over the hole. He’d never liked amusement park rides and this was starting out like one.

He peered through the aft port to his right to double-check the laser range finder mounted there. Everything looked secure. He glanced out the other port toward the crane and the crowd of cops, workers, various city officials, and the other members of the teams from the university. He saw Father Bill push his way to the front and start jumping and waving and shouting. He’d been late coming back but at least he’d made it. Nick was glad to have him here to see this. He waved back and gave him a thumbs-up through the glass, then settled down for the ride.

This was great. This was fabulous. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

“All set in there?” said a tinny voice from the speaker overhead.

“All set,” Nick said. Buckley echoed the same.

A sick second of free fall, then they were on their way, sinking into the depths on a steel cable. The sunlight changed to shadow. The alternating floodlights and spotlights ringing the bell’s equator were already on, illuminating the near wall. Buckley pressed his camera against his porthole, snapping shot after shot of the passing strata with his Nikon.

“Can you hear us up there?” Nick said.

“Loud and clear, Triton,” came the reply. “How’s it going?”

“Smooth as can be. And fascinating. The city ought to consider buying this rig and making it into an amusement ride. Might keep taxes down.”

He heard appreciative laughter from above and smiled. That sounded pretty cool and collected, didn’t it? He hoped so. Cynthia Hayes was up there, watching and waiting with the others from the department. He hoped she’d heard it, hoped she was impressed.

This little jaunt was going to make a name for Nicholas Quinn, Ph.D. The press would see to that. A mob of reporters was waiting up top, and he knew as soon as he stepped out of the bell they’d be all over him with a million questions. He’d be on all the news shows tonight, both the early and late. Maybe even the networks. Most guys in his spot—Nick could think of three from his own department right off—would be figuring out how they could parlay this into a major step up in their career. He almost laughed at his own narrow vision. He was wondering how to parlay it into an opportunity to ask Cynthia out. If he was famous, how could she say no?

The intercom popped him out of a Cynthia daydream.

“You’re at the halfway mark, Triton. How’re you doing?”

Halfway. They had ten thousand feet of cable up there. Almost a mile down and still no bottom. This was incredible.

“Fine,” Nick said. “Can you still see us?”

“Yeah, but you’re just a little blob of light down there now.”

What could have caused a hole like this? Could it be natural? Something extraterrestrial maybe? Say, that was a thought. It did seem like an artifact. What if—?

Buckley’s voice drew him back to reality again.

“Can we get these lights any brighter?” he said to the intercom.

“They’re at max. What’s the problem, Triton?”

“The wall’s fading from view.”

“You’re out of sight now. Want to stop?”

Nick looked out his port. Black out there. The beams from the floodlights didn’t seem to be going anywhere; the blackness swallowed the light within a few yards of the bulbs. The spots weren’t doing much better—bright shafts poking a dozen or so feet into the darkness and then disappearing.

No, wait—ten feet into the darkness. No …

Nick swallowed hard. The darkness was edging in on the lights, overcoming, devouring the illumination.

“What’s wrong with the lights?” Buckley said, his voice tremulous.

“I don’t know.” His own voice didn’t sound too steady either.

“They’re losing power.”

Nick didn’t think so. The darkness … something about it was overpowering the light, gobbling it up. Something thick and oily about it. The blackness seemed to move out there beyond the ports, almost seemed alive. Alive and hungry.

He shook himself. What kind of thinking was that?

But this blackness was certainly unusual, and probably the reason the laser signal had never returned. He smiled. Bottomless indeed! This weird old hole was deeper than it had any right to be, but it wasn’t bottomless.

“We need more power to the lights!” Buckley said to the intercom.

Pure black out there now. All illumination was gone.

“You got it all, Triton. If there’s an electrical problem we’ll bring you back up and try again tomorrow.”

“Not till I get at least one reading off the laser,” Nick said.

He started flipping switches on the controls and noticed that his hands were trembling. Had the temperature dropped? He glanced at Buckley as he fastened a flash attachment to his camera.

“You cold?”

Buckley nodded. “Yeah, now that you mention it.” His breath steamed in the air. “You get your reading, I’ll try a couple of flash shots through the ports, then we’ll get back upstairs.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

Nick suddenly wanted very much to be out of this hole and into the sunlight again. He adjusted the laser settings, triggered it, and waited for the readout. And waited.

Nothing.

Buckley tried a few flash photos out his port while Nick rechecked his settings. Everything looked fine.

“This is useless!” Buckley said, irritably snatching his camera away from the glass. “Like black bean soup out there.”

Nick glanced out his port. The blackness seemed to press against the outer glass, as if it wanted to get in.

Nick fired the laser again. And again nothing. Nothing was coming back. Damn! Maybe the laser wasn’t getting through the blackness or maybe the hole was indeed bottomless. Right now he was too cold to care.

“That does it,” Nick said. “I’m through. Let’s get out of here.”

“Take us up!” Buckley shouted.

“Say again, Triton,” said the speaker in the ceiling. “We’ve got static on this end.”

Buckley repeated the message but no reply came through. The bell did not halt its descent.

Nick was frightened now. The walls of the Triton seemed to close in on him. And it was colder. And …

… darker?

“Did the lights just dim?” Buckley said.

Nick could only nod. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth.

“Take us up, goddammit!” Buckley screamed, banging on the steel wall of the bell with his fist. “Up!”

“Okay, Triton,” came the matter-of-fact reply. “Will do.”

But they didn’t stop, didn’t even slow their descent. They continued down, ever downward.

And it was getting darker by the second.

“Oh, my God, Quinn!” Buckley said in a hushed voice teetering on the edge of panic. “What’s happening?”

Finally Nick found his voice. He tried to keep it calm as the cold and the darkness grew … and Buckley began to fade from view.

“I don’t know. But one thing I do know is we’ve got to stay calm. Something’s wrong with the intercom up there. But they’ve got only so much cable. They can send us down just so far, and then they’ll have to bring us up. So let’s just be cool and hang in there and we’ll be okay.”

Darkness had control of the Triton now, within and without. Nick couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He was losing his sense of direction, of up and down. His stomach threatened to heave.

“Quinn?” Buckley’s voice seemed to come from some point outside the walls of the bell. “You still there?”

Nick forced a laugh. “No. I just stepped outside for a cigarette.”

And suddenly he sensed more than darkness between them. Something solid. An entity, a presence. Beside him, around him, touching him. And it was cold and evil and filled Nick with an unnameable dread that threatened to kick his bowels loose in his pants. He wanted to cry, he wanted Father Bill, he wanted to go home, he wanted the drugged-up mother who’d tried to kick his head in when he was three months old, anything but this!

And then Buckley’s flash went off and they both screamed out their souls when they saw what had moved in to share the bell with them.

“Everything’s fine. Don’t reel us in yet. Play the cable out to the end.”

Bill heard the voice over the loudspeaker and froze. That wasn’t Nick’s voice. And it wasn’t the other scientist’s either. It was a new voice—different.

He scanned the faces in the control area. No one was reacting. Someone replied, “Okay, Triton. Will do.”

What was wrong with them? It was a different voice! Couldn’t they hear that?

Something familiar about it too. He’d heard it before, but where? The answer was tantalizingly close. And then he heard it again.

“That’s it,” said the loudspeaker in that same voice. “Just keep us going down.”

Suddenly Bill knew. And the realization nearly drove him to his knees.

Rafe! It was Rafe’s voice! Rafe, Jimmy Stevens, Rasalom, whatever his name was, it was him! The one Glaeken called the Adversary. The one who was shrinking the daylight, who’d dug this huge wormhole in the earth. He’d tortured Bill for years in many forms and many voices, and the voice on that speaker was the one he’d used as Rafe Losmara. No mistake. Its sound still echoed through his dreams. Rasalom was controlling that diving bell—and God knew what he was doing to Nick!

Bill forced his wobbly legs into a run toward the control area.

“Bring them up! Bring them up now!”

The scientists and technicians started at the sound of his shouts. They looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Who the hell are you?” someone said.

“A friend of Nick Quinn’s. And that wasn’t his voice just then. Couldn’t you hear that?”

“Of course it was Nick’s voice,” said a thirtyish woman with short brown hair. “I’ve worked with him for years and that was Nick.”

Beside her, an older man with perfectly combed hair nodded in agreement.

“That was Nick, all right.”

“I’m telling you it wasn’t. Reel them back up, dammit! Something’s happening in there! Get them up!”

Someone grabbed his arms from behind and he heard a mix of voices talking over and under each other: Who is he?… Get security … Says he’s a friend of Nick’s … I don’t care if he’s Quinn’s mother, get him out of here!

Bill was hustled away from the control area. The security guards were going to take him back to the edge of the Sheep Meadow but he pleaded with them to let him stay near the hole, swore that he wouldn’t say another word or go near the control area again. The Roman collar and cassock paid off again. They let him stay.

But it was torture to stand there and listen to that voice tell them to send the bell deeper and deeper into the hole. Did it sound like Nick to everyone else? Was he the only one who could hear the Rafe voice? Why? Another game being played with his head?

He wanted to scream, to charge the derrick cab and wrest the controls from the operator and drag that bell back up to the light. But he had about as much chance of succeeding in that as he had of leaping to the far side of the hole itself. So he stood among the crowd of privileged onlookers and silently endured the clawed terror that lacerated the inner walls of his heart.

Finally, the cable reached its end. No matter what the voice told them now, the bell could descend no farther.

But the voice was silent.

Bill noticed a flurry of activity in the control area. He sidled in that direction through the crowd. He intercepted a student hurrying away from the area and caught his arm.

“What’s happening?”

“The Triton—they’re not answering!”

Bill let him go and stood there feeling cold and frightened and useless as the derrick reversed its gears and began to reel in the Triton. The rewind seemed to take forever. During the interval an ambulance and an EMS van roared into the Sheep Meadow with their howlers going full blast. Finally the bell hove into view again. When it was swung away from the hole and settled onto the platform near the edge, the people from the control area surged toward it.

Bill pushed his way to the front of the crowd until his belly pressed against one of the blue “Police Line” horses that rimmed the area. He stood next to a dark-haired man in a white suit who carried a walking stick wrapped in some sort of black hide. Together they watched the workers spin the winged lug nuts on the hatch, swing it open, and peer inside.

Somebody screamed. Bill clutched the rough wood of the horse and felt his heart double its already mad pounding. A flurry of activity erupted around the bell, people grabbing their phones, frantically waving the EMS van forward.

Good God, something had happened to Nick! He’d never forgive himself for not getting here in time to stop him.

A pair of EMTs, stethoscopes around their necks, drug boxes and life packs in each hand, rushed forward as a limp figure was eased through the hatch. Bill craned his neck to see through the throng. He sighed with relief when he saw that the injured man was white-haired and balding. Not Nick, thank God. The other one. They stretched him out prone on the platform and began pumping on his chest.

But where was Nick?

Bill spotted more activity around the hatch. They were carrying—no, leading—someone else out. It was Nick. Nick, thank God! He was on his feet, coming out under his own steam.

Then Bill got a look at his face. Red—blood on his face, on his lips, dribbling down his chin. He’d cut his lower lip—looked more like he’d chewed it. But it was Nick’s eyes that drove the air from Bill’s lungs in a cry of horror. They were wide open and utterly vacant. Whatever he’d seen down there, whatever had happened, it had driven away all intelligence and sanity, sent it fleeing into the deepest, most obscure corners of his mind.

“Nick!”

He bent to slip under the barricade but one of the security cops was watching him.

“Stay back there, Father!” he warned. “You come through there an’ I’ll have to toss you in the wagon.”

He ground his teeth in frustration but straightened up behind the barricade. He’d be no help to Nick in jail. And Nick was going to need him.

“Do you know him?” the white-suited man next to him said with a slight German accent.

Bill only nodded and stood quietly as they led the stumbling, drooling young man to the waiting ambulance. Those mad, empty eyes. What had he seen down there?

And then, as Nick came even with him, his eyes suddenly focused. He turned his head to stare at Bill. Then he grinned—a wide, bloody-mouthed rictus, totally devoid of humor.

Bill started in horror, pressing back against the people behind him. And then as suddenly as it had appeared, the grimace was gone. The light faded from Nick’s eyes and he stumbled away toward the waiting ambulance.

“Most entertaining,” said the man in the white suit, then turned and walked away.

Bill fought an urge to take a swing at him. Instead, he watched, weak, trembling, as they loaded Nick in the back of an ambulance. Then he fought through the crowd and began to follow the rig on foot as it headed east across the grass. Finally he saw the name on its side: Columbia-Presbyterian. He ran for Fifth Avenue, looking for a cab to take him to the hospital, all the while fighting the feeling that he’d lived through this horror once already. He didn’t know if he could survive a second round.

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: Bad news from Central Park, folks. Those two guys who went down into that big hole in a diving bell ran into some trouble.

JO: Yeah. One of them had a heart attack and the other got pretty sick. They’re saying they think there was some problem with the air supply. We’ll let you know more about it as soon as we hear.

FREDDY: Right. Meanwhile, here’s a classic Beatles tune for all those people working out there in the Sheep Meadow.

<cue “Fixing a Hole”>

“When’s this other guy arriving?”

“I’m not sure,” Glaeken said.

He looked up from the couch to where Jack stood at the picture window staring out at the park. Everyone who came to this apartment was drawn to that window, including Glaeken himself. The vista had always been breathtaking. With that hole in the Sheep Meadow now, it had become captivating.

Jack wore slightly wrinkled beige slacks and a lightweight Jets shirt hanging down to the tops of his thighs—loose, Glaeken knew, to hide the pistol holstered in the small of his back. Average height, brown hair with a low hairline, and deceptively mild brown eyes. You would not pick him out of a crowd; in fact his manner of dress, his whole demeanor was geared toward unobtrusiveness. This man could dog your steps all day long and you’d never notice him.

Glaeken liked Jack. More than liked. He’d known him only a year or so but felt a rapport with him on a very fundamental level. Perhaps because Jack reminded him of himself in another era, another epoch, when he was that age. A warrior. He sensed the strength coiled within the man; not mere physical strength, although he knew plenty of that hid in his wiry muscles, but inner toughness, a resolve to see a task through to the end. He had the strength, too, to question himself, to examine his motives and actions and wonder at the wisdom, the sanity of the life he had chosen for himself.

The Heir.

But he saw a downside to Jack taking his place. He was unruly and untamed. He recognized no master, no authority over himself. He followed his own code. And he was angry. Too angry, perhaps. At times the cold fire of his rage fairly lit the room.

Still, Glaeken desperately needed his services. Jack was the only one in this world who had any chance of retrieving the ancient necklaces. Glaeken knew he had to be at his most convincing here.

“How long are we going to wait for him?” Jack said, turning from the window.

“He should be here. I have a feeling he might have been delayed by a sick friend.”

Glaeken had watched on TV as the diving bell returned from the depths. It continually amazed him how much one could experience through television without ever leaving the living room. When the first footprints were stamped into the surface of the moon, he had been there watching via television, just as he had been watching an hour or so ago when Bill’s friend and the other scientist had been removed from the bell. The other man, a Dr. Buckley, was dead of cardiac arrest, and Dr. Quinn had been rushed to an emergency room in shock. Glaeken assumed that Bill had followed.

Too bad—for Bill’s friend, and because Glaeken had wanted Bill present.

Jack dropped into a chair opposite Glaeken.

“Let’s get on with it. You mentioned the necklaces again. You’re not still set on getting hold of them, are you?”

“Yes. I’m afraid they’re an absolute necessity.”

Jack jumped from the chair and stepped to the window again.

“Well, the damn park is smaller, isn’t it? I mean, it’s lost whatever amount of surface area that hole swallowed, so it has shrunk, just like you said.” He turned and stared at Glaeken. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Yeah. Right. But you’re going to need more than a lucky guess to find Kolabati and those necklaces.”

“I’ve learned exactly where she is.”

Jack sat down again.

“Where?”

“She’s living on Maui, on the northwest slope of Haleakala, above Kula. And she has both necklaces with her.”

He shook his head. “Too far.”

“You can make the round trip in two days. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can be back.”

He drummed his fingers on his thighs. “I don’t know…”

“Jack—”

“How’d you find out? Two nights ago you hadn’t the faintest idea where she was.”

“I ran into an old acquaintance who happened to know.”

“How convenient.”

“Not really. I sought out this acquaintance.”

Glaeken allowed himself a tight little smile and said no more. Let Jack assume that the acquaintance was a person. The truth was that when he had touched that boy Jeffy yesterday, he made contact with the Dat-tay-vao, and in a flash that contact revealed the whereabouts of the necklaces. For the Dat-tay-vao always knew their location. They had been intimately linked once. He hoped, with the cooperation of men like Jack, he could soon reunite them.

“And you want me to go there and convince Kolabati to give them up so she can turn into an old hag and die.”

“I want you to get them. Simply get them.”

“Killing her is out.”

“Even if it means the destruction of life as we know it?”

“If she were doing the destroying it would be a different story. No problem. But her life’s on the line too.”

Glaeken pointed to the window. “That hole out there is only the first. Many more will follow—countless holes. Sooner or later one of them will bring about the death of one you love. Those necklaces will go a long way toward stopping that.”

Jack blew out a breath. “You don’t have to remind me. But putting a bullet through her brain and then looting her body?” He shook his head. “Can’t see it.”

Glaeken hadn’t liked mixing Gia and Vicky into the conversation, but he wanted to see how Jack would react. He was pleased. Jack had lines he wouldn’t cross. Now to try another tack.

“You’ve been known to steal things back for people, I believe?”

Jack drummed his fingers on the arms. “On occasion.”

“Very well: Those necklaces—or rather, the metal they were made from—originally belonged to me.”

Jack shook his head slowly. “I know for a fact that those necklaces date from pre-Vedic times, and that they’ve been in her family for generations. And believe me, hers is a family with long generations.”

“Still, it is true. The source material was stolen from me long, long ago.”

Jack rubbed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it. “Yours, huh. Well, you do have a few years behind you.”

“A few. I need that metal.”

“Is this like the metal in the katana?” The word seemed to taste bad to him. “That belonged to you too originally.”

Glaeken understood Jack’s reaction. That blade had killed the Lady and Weezy and her brother as well.

“Yes, and we need it too. But though its metal is not of this Earth, it lacks qualities unique to those necklaces.”

After a lengthy pause, “All right, I’ll think about that angle. I’m not committing to running off to Maui yet, but in the meantime I could use some detailed drawings of the necklaces.”

“You know what they look like.”

“Yeah, but I might have to flash them around. Got any?”

“I can have them for you tomorrow.”

Jack rose from the chair. “Let me know.”

“It’s almost sundown,” Glaeken said as Jack headed for the door. “Go straight home.”

He smiled. “Why? Vampires on the loose?”

“No. Worse. Do not go out after dark, especially near that hole.”

Jack waved as he went out the door.

Glaeken hoped he heeded. He truly liked the man; and he needed him. He didn’t want him hurt.

De Profundis

WNYW-TV

This is Charles Burge reporting live from the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. It’s been quiet here since the tragedy this afternoon, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. If you look behind me you’ll notice that the crowds are gone. That’s because along about 5:30 or so, the downdraft that’s been flowing into the hole changed to an updraft. And boy, let me tell you, it doesn’t smell good here. A rotten odor permeates the air. Anyone who doesn’t have to be here has gone. And I’ll be going too. See you in the studio soon, Warren.

Washington Heights

“Physically, he checks out fine,” the neurology resident said. “Overweight, cholesterol and triglycerides on the high side, otherwise all his numbers, scans, and reflexes check out.”

Bill swallowed and asked the dreaded question that had plagued him since he’d seen Nick’s blank expression and empty eyes. It reminded him too much of a similar sight years ago.

“He’s … he’s not hollow, is he?”

The resident gave him a funny look. “Hollow? No, he’s not hollow. Where’d you get an idea like that?”

“Never mind. Just a recurring nightmare. Go on.”

“Right. As I was saying, he checks out physically, but”—he waved his hand before Nick’s unresponsive eyes—“the Force is definitely not with him.”

The nametag read R. O’Neill, M.D. He wore an earring and his hair was braided at the back.

Not exactly Marcus Welby, Bill thought, but he seemed to know what he was about.

“He’s in shock,” Bill said.

“Well … shock to you isn’t shock to me. Shock to me means he’s prostrate, his blood pressure’s hit bottom, his kidneys are shutting down, and so on. That’s not our friend here.”

Bill glanced over to where Nick sat on the edge of the bed. The emergency room physicians and the consultants had unanimously recommended that, at the very least, he be kept overnight for observation. The university had wrangled a private room for him, very much like a sitting room, with a small picture window, a sofa, a couple of chairs, and of course a hospital bed. Nick looked a lot better. His lower lip had been sutured; he’d been cleaned up and fitted into a hospital gown. But his eyes were still as vacant as a drive-in theater on a sunny afternoon.

“What’s wrong with him, then?”

“Hysteria? Acute withdrawal? That’s for the psych boys to figure out. I’m here to say it’s not medical, not neurological. It’s the windmills of his mind—they aren’t turning.”

“Thank you for that astute observation. How about the other man who went down in the bell with him?”

Dr. O’Neill shrugged. “Haven’t heard a thing.”

Nick said, “He’s dead, you know.”

Bill started at the sound. Nick’s eyes weren’t exactly focused, but they weren’t completely empty. And he wasn’t grinning as he had before when they were leading him to the ambulance. His expression was neutral. Still, the sound of Nick’s voice, so flat and expressionless, gave him a chill.

“Great!” said Dr. O’Neill. “He’s coming around already.” He picked up Nick’s chart and headed for the door. “I’ll make a few notes and let psych know.”

Bill wanted to stop him, make him stay, but didn’t know how. He didn’t want to be alone with Nick.

“Doctor Buckley’s dead,” Nick repeated.

Bill came around the bed and stood before him—but not too close.

“How do you know?”

Nick’s brow furrowed. “I just do.”

The fact didn’t seem to bother Nick and he sat silent for a long moment. Abruptly he spoke again in that affectless voice.

“He wants to hurt you, you know.”

“Who? Doctor Buckley?”

“No. Him.”

The room suddenly seemed cooler.

“Who are you talking about? The one you … met down there?”

A nod. “He hates you, Father Bill. There’s one other he hates even more, one he wants to hurt more than you, but he hates you terribly.”

Bill reached back, found a chair, and lowered himself into it.

“Yes, I know. I’ve been told.”

“Are you going to stay with me tonight?”

“Yes. Sure. If they’ll let me.”

“They’ll let you. It’s good that you’re going to stay tonight.”

Bill remembered the bespectacled nine-year-old orphan who used to be afraid of the dark but would never admit it.

“I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

“Not for me. For you. It’s going to be dangerous out there.”

Bill turned and looked out the window. The sun was down, the city’s lights were beginning to sparkle through the growing darkness. He turned back to Nick.

“What do you—”

Nick was gone. He was still sitting on the bed, but no longer there. His eyes had gone empty and his mind had slipped back into hiding.

But what of his mind? What did it know about Rasalom? And how did it know? Was Nick somehow tapped into a part of Rasalom as a result of whatever happened in that hole?

Bill shuddered as he rose and gently pushed him back to a reclining position on the bed. He didn’t envy Nick if that were true. Simply to brush the hem of that sickness would mean madness …

And that was precisely where Nick was now, wasn’t he?

Bill stood over the bed, wondering if he should stay. How much could he do for Nick? Not much. But at least he could be here for him if he came around again, or came out of this mental fugue and wanted to know where he was and what had—

Something went splat against the window.

Bill turned and saw what looked like a softball-sized glob of mucus pressed against the outer surface of the glass. It began to move—sideways.

Repulsed but curious, he stepped closer. As he neared he heard an angry buzzing. The glob appeared to be encased in a thin membrane, red-laced with fine, pulsating blood vessels. It left a trail of moisture as it slid slowly across the glass. But the buzzing—it seemed to be coming from the glob.

Bill picked up a lamp from an end table and held it close to the window. He spotted a fluttering blur on the far side of the glob. Wings? He angled the lamp. Yes, wings—translucent, at least a foot long, fluttering like mad. And eyes. A cluster of four black, multifaceted knobs at the end of a wasplike body the size of a jumbo shrimp, lined with rows of luminescent dots. Eight articulated arms terminating in small pincers stretched across the mucus-filled membrane.

“What the hell?” Bill muttered as he followed its progress across the pane.

He’d never seen or heard of anything like this creature. He felt his hackles rise. This thing was alien, like something out of an H. R. Geiger painting.

It reached the end of the picture pane and slid over the frame toward one of the double-hung windows that flanked it. Bill realized with a start that the side window was open. He was reaching out to close it when the creature lunged toward him. Bill snatched his hand away and watched as it buzzed furiously against the screen, as if trying to squeeze itself through the mesh. A foul, rotten odor backed him up a step. He slammed down the inner sash and watched through the glass. The creature hung on another minute or so, then dropped off, swooping away into the night, leaving a wet spot on the screen that steamed slightly in the cooling air.

Shaken, Bill shut the other double-hung and turned down the lights. He pulled a chair up next to Nick’s bed and readied himself for a long, uncomfortable night. He’d decided to take Nick’s advice and stay. At least until sunrise.

WFPW-FM

—now official that the sun set early for the third day in a row. It dropped below the western horizon at 7:11 P.M., robbing us of nearly two hours of daylight. The scientific community is becoming increasingly alarmed about the environmental effects of the shortened days. In a statement …

Sutton Square

Gia kissed him at the door to the town house.

“Sure,” she said with a sardonic smile. “Eat and run.”

Jack returned the kiss and ran his fingertips through her short blond hair.

“I’ve got an appointment at Julio’s.”

Her clear blue eyes flashed. “A new customer?”

“An old one.” She opened her mouth to speak but he pressed a finger across her full lips. “We just need to settle up.”

She kissed his finger and pulled it away.

“I was just going to say that Vicky wants you to stay.”

Vicky. The other bright spot in his life. The skinny little ten-year-old who’d wormed her way into his heart years ago and refused to leave.

“Really?” Jack slipped his arms around her waist and pressed her slim body against him.

“I wish you’d stay too.”

He ran his hands over Gia’s back and noticed the tight muscles. He knew she was a high-strung sort, but tonight she seemed unusually tense.

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t know. I feel jumpy. Like something’s going to happen.”

“Something already has. You saw the news: The sun set even earlier and a big chunk of Central Park fell all the way to hell.”

“That’s not it. Something in the air. Is it what I saw in the coma, do you think?”

“I hope not.”

Ever since the near-fatal accident last year she’d become … he guessed “sensitized” was the best word for it. She’d seen a landscape of the future while she was out, and it had ended in impenetrable darkness this spring.

“Don’t you feel it?”

Jack did feel it. A pervasive imminence in the still darkness at his back. The very air seemed heavy, pregnant with menace.

“It’s probably all these strange things that’ve been happening.”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to be alone with Vicky tonight. Can you come back later?”

“Sure. Be glad to. I shouldn’t be too—”

“Jack-Jack-Jack!”

Over Gia’s shoulder Jack could see Vicky running down the hall, a piece of paper in her hand. She had her mother’s blue eyes and her late father’s brown hair, tied back in a long ponytail that flicked back and forth as she ran. Bony limbs and a dazzling smile that could pull Jack from his blackest moods.

“What is it, Vicks?”

“I drew you a picture.”

Vicky had inherited her mother’s artistic abilities and was increasingly into drawing. Jack took the proffered sheet of paper and stared at it. A swarm of tentacled things filled the air over the Manhattan skyline. It was … disturbing.

He smiled through his discomfiture. “It’s great, Vicks. Is this from War of the Worlds?”

“No. It’s raining octopuses!”

“Yeah … I guess it is. What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, wrinkling her brow. “It just came to me.”

“Well, thanks,” Jack said, rolling it up into a tube. “I’ll add it to my Victoria Westphalen collection.”

She beamed and flashed him that smile. “Because it’s going to be worth a lot when I’m famous, right?”

“You got it, kid. You’re gonna help me retire.”

Jack gave her a kiss and a hug, then another quick kiss for Gia.

“Be back later.”

Gia gave his hand a squeeze of thanks, then he was out on the street, walking west.

As he headed up 58th, Mr. Veilleur’s final words of the afternoon echoed in his head.

Do not go out after dark, especially near that hole.

Why the hell not? The warning was like a waving red flag. And since he’d have to pass the park on his way to Julio’s …

Ernst Drexler smiled as he turned off Allen Street toward the Order’s downtown Lodge.

The last twenty-four hours had been quite entertaining. Quite entertaining indeed. Not if you didn’t understand the portent of the events, of course. Then you were baffled, perhaps even frightened. As well you should be.

No doubt about it—the Change had begun.

Ernst had been anticipating it since the death of the Lady. Two uneventful months had passed, leaving him wondering at the delay. But he supposed these things took time. The One had to give the Enemy time to conclude that sentience here had died and to move on to greener pastures, so to speak. Maybe the stars had to align or the spheres of the multiverse had to rotate into a certain configuration. Who knew? All that mattered was that it had begun.

The One’s time, the Order’s time, and most important, Ernst’s time was at hand.

He just wished he’d been given some warning.

He’d consulted the head of the High Council as soon as he heard about the late sunrise. But the Council had been given no prior notice either.

Despite the One’s saying he would not be contacting him if his plans bore fruit, the lack of warning bothered Ernst.

He replayed the moment on that frigid night back in March when he had dropped off the One in midtown, near Central Park. He remembered his words exactly.

Events will reach a head in the next few hours or days or … they will not. If they go our way, phones and money will be irrelevant. If they do not, you will hear from me.

If they go our way … Ernst had spent the ensuing weeks clinging to that pronoun.

The brothers of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order had spent millennia manipulating people and events to maintain a certain level of chaos to pave the way for the Change. Ernst’s own father had been instrumental in fomenting much of the turmoil of the first half of the twentieth century. Of all living brothers, certainly no one had provided the One more personal service toward bringing the Change than Ernst Drexler. He’d been the One’s go-to guy, as Americans liked to put it.

Ernst hadn’t done it out of the goodness of his heart. He and the upper echelons of the Order expected to be rewarded in the world that followed the Change.

If they go our way …

Our way …

Yet not one word from the One since that night. He certainly hadn’t been shy about contacting Ernst before that. Oh, they’d had a minor falling out, but that fence had been mended. He’d—

A bird buzzed past his ear.

Buzzed? Since when do birds buzz? It was sailing down the street toward the Lodge, and he got a better look at it as it slowed and banked around a streetlight. Not a bird. Something else, something insectoid, with four diaphanous wings and a pendulous translucent sack for a body.

When it completed its turn he realized it was coming back his way, heading straight for his face. Ernst ducked to the right and swung his cane as it passed. He might be well into his seventh decade, but he’d remained trim and agile. The silver head made a direct hit on the middle of the thing’s back, damaging two of its wings with a satisfying crunch.

It caromed off a nearby car and dropped to the sidewalk where its remaining wings buzzed in a furious attempt to fly again but succeeded only in propelling it off the curb. Ernst stepped closer but couldn’t make out more details in the shadowed gutter.

Nasty, aggressive thing. He stabbed it with the end of his cane, puncturing its sack. Clear fluid oozed from the wound. Ernst was about to stab it again when another buzzed past.

Deciding he might be better off inside, he hurried the rest of the way to the Lodge. As he neared he was surprised to see the front steps deserted. Ever since the Order had allowed Hank Thompson to use it as a headquarters for his Kicker movement, the front steps had become the smoking area for his followers, giving the stately, granite-block building the appearance of some sort of halfway house for paroled felons rather than a branch of the world’s oldest fraternal order. Ernst didn’t like Thompson, loathed his scruffy retinue, and had been opposed to allowing them use of the downtown Lodge.

He had to admit that the group had come in handy at times, but still …

When he reached the steps he glanced up at the second floor and noticed that the hurricane shutters Thompson had installed a couple of months ago on the windows of his quarters had been lowered. Another reason to dislike Thompson: He’d defaced this historic building.

As Ernst hurried up the steps he noticed a splash of fresh blood on the stone balustrade. And below that, among the cigarette butts littering the steps, a trail of blood leading to the heavy front doors. He pushed through them into the marble foyer.

“Close it!” said a familiar voice. The man himself, Hank Thompson, stood to his right, peering through one of the doorway’s narrow sidelights. “Close it right now!”

Ernst ignored him, of course. Instead he strode a few steps farther into the lobby. The trail of blood led to a dreadlocked Kicker sitting on the floor against the far wall while a couple of his fellows ministered to him.

An entry door slammed behind him. He turned to see Thompson staring at him. Tall, lean, and shaggy-haired as usual, but his customary insouciance had vanished. He stood there tense, pale-faced, and wide-eyed.

“What’s it like out there?” he said, pointing to the doors.

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“The birds! They’re attacking!”

Ernst assumed he was referring to that thing that had come at him. A bit unsettling, yes, but Thompson looked nearly unhinged.

“Well, I saw some strange-looking—”

Thompson stepped closer. “You weren’t attacked? Kewan was out there on a cigarette break, minding his own business, when this thing swoops down and takes a chunk out of his shoulder.”

Ernst had had to deal with Kewan from time to time, and had found him brighter than he looked, despite his ridiculous hair.

Thompson leaned even closer and lowered his voice. “You think this is how it starts, with the birds turning on us?”

“Are you referring to that du Maurier story?”

Thompson made a face. “Who’s that?” He shook his head. “Whatever. You think this is it? I mean, first that hole, now—”

Ernst nodded. “Yes, I believe the Change has begun.”

Thompson kept his voice low but was speaking through his teeth. “Then what’s the idea of attacking us? We’re on his side! We helped him get here!”

Yes, Thompson and his Kickers had been useful in bringing down the Internet, but the end result had fallen short of everyone’s expectations. Especially the One’s.

“You didn’t really believe your followers would get a pass, did you?”

“Well…”

“Only you and I and a few others will be exalted. The rest…” He shrugged.

Ernst doubted that Hank Thompson himself would be spared, but didn’t say that. He still might have his uses.

“It’s just like that dream I’ve been having. But I’m prepared. I’m protected. Ain’t no birds getting to me.”

With that he turned and hurried up the stairway to the upper floors. To his quarters, no doubt, to huddle behind his storm shutters and steel door.

They won’t save you, Ernst thought.

Only those selected by the One to assist in his domination of the post-Change world would avoid the coming horrors. Ernst would be in that number. He had to be. How many people in this world did the One know by name? Barely a handful. And Ernst was one of them.

He glanced down and noticed something different about the distal end of his cane. He raised it for a closer look. The black rhinoceros hide that wrapped the shaft was missing near the tip—right where it had been splattered by fluid from the ruptured sack of that strange insect. It appeared to be eaten away, as if by acid. How odd.

He headed toward his office to call his car. The One might know his name, but Ernst did not want to venture unprotected into this night.

The party was over.

The area around the Sheep Meadow looked virtually deserted. Only a few workers and security people about.

Maybe it was the smell.

Jack caught his first whiff as he passed the Plaza. Something rotten, putrid. He wasn’t the only one. The hotel guests emerging from their cabs and limos, or strolling down the steps from the entrances, wrinkled their noses as it struck them. He’d thought maybe a nearby sewer had backed up, but the odor had grown stronger as he entered the park.

It lay thick in the air of the Sheep Meadow.

Banks of floodlights lit the hole and the surrounding area like home plate at Yankee Stadium. As he watched he thought he saw something like a pigeon fly up from the hole, darting through the light and into the darkness beyond. But it moved awfully fast for a pigeon.

Jack spotted a middle-aged woman crossing the grassy buffer zone that had been cordoned off to separate officialdom and the hoi polloi; he moved laterally to intercept her.

“Is that stink coming from the hole?” he said as she ducked under the barricade. The answer was obvious but it was a good opener.

She wore a plastic badge that flopped around as she walked. Her first name looked like “Margaret”; he couldn’t make out her last but he caught the words “Health” and “Department” above it. Her tan slacks and blue blazer had a distinctly masculine cut.

“It’s not coming from me.”

Ooh, a friendly one.

“I hope not. Smells like something crawled into my nose and died.”

She smiled. “That pretty well captures it.”

“Seriously.” Jack matched her stride as she headed toward the street. “When did it start? There was a downdraft into the hole last night.”

She glanced sideways at him. “How’d you know about that?”

“I was here when it opened.”

“We already have plenty of witnesses. If you want to make a statement—”

“I’m just curious about the stink.”

“Oh. Well, the downdraft became an updraft shortly after sunset. We started noticing the odor about an hour later. It’s almost unbearable at the edge.”

“I thought I saw something fly out of there a few moments ago.”

Margaret nodded. “There’ve been a few. We’re toying with the idea of trying to net one. We think they might be birds that flew in during the day. Maybe the smell is driving them out. But don’t worry. It’s not toxic.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Believe it. We’ve checked it out eight ways from—”

Screams and shouts rose from behind them. They both turned. Jack saw a flock of birdlike things swarming in the air over the hole. No … not just swarming—swooping and diving at the people working along the perimeter.

“Oh, my God!” Margaret said and started running back toward the hole.

Jack kept pace. He wanted to get a closer look—but not too close. Those birds appeared to be going crazy, like something out of the Hitchcock movie.

When they got to within fifty yards of the hole Jack realized they weren’t birds.

“Whoa!” He grabbed Margaret’s arm. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

She pulled away.

“My reports! All my test data! They’ll be ruined!”

Jack slowed his pace and hung back as she ran off toward one of the control tents. His gut crawled as he remembered another hole, in the Everglades, and what had flown out of it.

So he stood in the shadows and tried to identify these things filling the air … more like insects than birds. They must have come out of the hole. He sure as hell hadn’t seen anything like them around New York.

Two kinds darting around on dragonfly wings. Both had strips of neonlike dots along their flanks. They looked like those weird deep-sea fish that show up every so often in National Geographic, the ones from miles down where the sun never shines. Only these were right here in Central Park.

One sort looked like a balloon filled with clear Jell-O, and appeared too heavy and ungainly for flight, the other—

“Oh, Christ!”

The things from the Florida cenote … that young girl Semelee had called them chew wasps—mostly mouth, little more than giant, fanged jaws attached to lobster-sized, wasp-waisted bodies.

Screams of pain and terror snatched his attention from the air to ground level. Suddenly everything looked red in the false daylight of the lamps. Jack dropped to a frozen crouch when he saw what was happening along the periphery of the hole. The things weren’t just buzzing the folks stationed there, they were on the attack. People scattered in all directions, swatting at the air like picnickers who’d disturbed a hornets’ nest.

But hornets would have been a blessing. The jawed things were like airborne piranhas, swooping in, sinking their teeth into an arm, a leg, a neck, an abdomen, ripping a mouthful of flesh free, and then darting away. Blood spurted from a hundred wounds.

Amid the melee Jack saw a bald-headed man go down kicking and screaming under a dozen chew wasps; a second dozen joined the first, and then more until they covered him like ants on a piece of candy.

Instinctively, Jack pulled his Glock and stepped forward to help, then stepped back. He’d seen those things in action before—nothing he could do. He watched helplessly as the man’s screaming and kicking stopped, but the feeding went on.

He turned, ready to head for the street, when he noticed a bloated, distorted, vaguely human shape stumbling through the shadows in his direction. It gave off hoarse, high-pitched, muffled noises as it approached, its arms outstretched, reaching for him. At first Jack thought it was another sort of monstrosity from the hole, but as it drew nearer he noticed something familiar about the swatches of tan fabric visible on its legs.

Shock slammed him like a truck. Margaret—from the Health Department. But what—?

The other things from the hole, the ones with the Jell-O sacks—she was covered with them. Wings humming, sacks pulsating, a good thirty or forty of the creatures clung to every part of her body. Jack leapt to her side. The Glock was useless—might do as much damage to her as the things stuck to her—so he holstered it and began tearing at the things, grabbing them by their wings and ripping them off, starting with the pair that clung to her face.

Her scream of agony tore through the night and he stared in horror at the bloody ruin of her face. What was left looked melted, or corroded by acid. Her cheeks were eaten away, so deeply on the right that he spotted the exposed white of a tooth poking through.

He stepped back and looked at the two creatures squirming and writhing in his grasp, raking at his hands with their tiny claws. Their sacks were no longer clear, but red—with Margaret’s blood.

He hurled them to the ground and stomped on them, rupturing their sacks. Crimson mucus exploded, smoking where it splattered his pants and sneakers, eating through the fabric and bubbling the rubber. Jack danced away from the mess and turned back to Margaret.

She was gone. He looked around. She couldn’t have got far. Then he saw her, a still form facedown on the grass. He crouched beside her. As he reached toward her, one of the sack things lifted off her back, leaving a bloody patch of exposed ribs, denuded of flesh and muscle, and fluttered toward Jack. He tried to bat it away but it latched onto his forearm like a lump of epoxy glue. And the pain! Scalding—like boiling acid poured on his skin. It took Jack by surprise and he shouted with the sudden agony. He ripped it off his arm and as it came free he felt a layer of his skin peel away.

The pain drove him nearly to his knees, but he straightened up when he saw one of the chew wasps winging toward him. He swung the sack thing at it, right into its jagged-toothed maw. The pair left a trail of steaming red as they went down in a tangle and rolled along the grass.

Jack glanced back at the perimeter of the hole. Nothing moving there but flocks of chew wasps and jelly sacks swarming in the air. Many of the sacks were bloodred. As he watched, a new drove rose from the hole and circled for a moment, then massed into a rough V-formation and took off toward the East Side like a flying arrowhead.

East! Gia and Vicky were on the East Side.

As the remaining creatures spread out, some heading Jack’s way, he took one last look at Margaret. The sack things were still massed on her. What he could see of her looked deflated, like a scarecrow with the stuffing pulled out.

He headed for the trees, removing his shirt and wrapping it around the raw patch on his left forearm. He spotted the lights of the Tavern on the Green visitor center and veered in that direction. When he reached the driveway, he saw a cab pulling away from the entrance. He flagged it down and hopped in the back.

“Sutton Square—quick! And roll up your windows!”

The driver turned in his seat and stared at Jack’s arm. He was a thin black man with dreads and a thick island accent.

“Wha’ hoppen to you arm, mon? If you in trouble—”

Jack rolled up the window on his right and began to work furiously on the one to his left.

“Roll up your goddamn windows!”

“Look, mon. You don’t come into my cab and tell me—hey!”

Just then one of the chew wasps caromed off the taxi’s hood and slammed against the windshield. Its crystalline teeth worked furiously against the glass, scoring it in a dozen places. A windshield wiper got caught in its maw and was ripped off its base.

It took the driver only a second or two to roll up his window.

“In the name of God, what is that?”

“They came out of the hole,” Jack said, slumping against the seat back and allowing himself a few seconds to regroup. “They’re still coming out of the hole. The park’s loaded with them.”

The chew wasp continued its ferocious, mindless gnawing at the windshield, trying to get through it. The driver stared at it in mute shock.

Jack slapped the back of the front seat.

“Come on! Let’s get out of here. It’ll only get worse. Sutton Square.”

“Yes … yes, of course.”

He threw the cab into gear and hit the gas. The chew wasp’s wings fluttered in the sudden rush of air. It slid off the hood but became airborne, pacing the cab for about fifty yards, butting against the side windows a few times before it gave up.

“Persistent bugger,” Jack said as it finally flew off.

“But what was that, mon? It looked like a creature from hell!”

“It just might be.” He didn’t want to get into explaining the Otherness. “Who knows how far down that hole in the Sheep Meadow goes? Maybe it popped through the roof of hell.”

The driver glanced over his shoulder, real fear in his eyes.

“Don’t say that, mon. Don’t joke about something like that.”

“Who’s joking?”

They raced east on Central Park South. The things from the hole were there ahead of them. People running, screaming, bleeding, dying, cabs careening out of control. Jack’s taxi ran the gauntlet, dodging people and vehicles, screeching to a halt as a driverless Central Park hansom cab bolted in front of them, its horse galloping madly, eyes bulging in pain and terror, a sack-thing attached to its neck. And then they were into the calm and relative darkness of 58th Street.

The driver started sobbing.

“It’s the end of the world, mon! Oh, I know it is! God’s finally had enough. He’s going to punish us all!”

“Easy there. We’re safe for the moment.”

“Yes! But only for the moment! Judgment Day is here!”

He stopped at a red light and fumbled with something on the seat next to him. When his hand reappeared it held a joint the size of a burrito. He struck a wooden match and puffed furiously. As the cab filled with pungent smoke, he passed it back toward Jack.

“Here. Partake.”

Jack waved him off. “No thanks. Gave that up in high school.”

“It’s a sacrament, mon. Partake.”

The last thing Jack needed now was to get mellow. He wanted every reflex at the ready. And he wanted to beat those things to Gia’s place.

“The light’s green. Let’s go.”

Two minutes later he was flipping the driver a ten and leaping to the front door of the town house. He rang the bell and slammed the brass knocker. Gia pulled the door open.

“Jack! What—?”

“No time!” He brushed by her. “Get the windows! Close and lock them, all of them! Vicky! Help us out!”

After a flurry of running and slamming, all floors were sealed up tight. Jack checked and rechecked each window personally. Then he gathered Gia and Vicky in the library.

“Jack!” Gia said, clutching a very frightened Vicky against her. “You’ve got to explain this!”

Over dinner he’d wanted to tell her what Glaeken had said, but had kept mum because of Vicky. He gave them a sanitized rundown of what had happened since he’d left here a short while ago, editing out the more horrific details for Vicky’s sake.

Gia pulled Vicky even closer. “What does it mean?”

He thought of what Glaeken had said about hundreds, thousands of these holes opening up all over the world.

… the end of life as we know it …

But he couldn’t say too much in front of Vicky.

“The guy I’ve been telling you about—”

“The Adversary?”

Jack nodded. “He’s making his move.”

“Oh, dear God!”

“What is it, Mommy?” Vicky said.

As Gia tried to soothe her, Jack remembered how that flock of hole creatures had zoomed off so purposefully eastward. They hadn’t come to Sutton Square. Must have continued farther on. Where were they headed? Queens? Long Island?

Monroe, Long Island

“Mommy! Look at this bug!”

Sylvia heard Jeffy calling her from somewhere in the house. She tamped down the fresh soil around the roots of one of her bankan bonsai—the one with the quadruple-curved trunk—and followed the sound of his voice from the greenhouse to the kitchen, wiping the dirt from her hands as she moved. Bugs in the kitchen? She didn’t like the sound of that. She noticed an unsettling odor as she approached.

She found a plate of cookies half eaten on the butcher-block kitchen table. Gladys, the cook and housekeeper, always left Jeffy a snack before she went home. The boy was standing at the back door, pointing up at the screen.

“See it, Mom? It looks like a giant booger!”

As much as Sylvia hated to admit it, Jeffy was right. What appeared to be a big glob of mucus with legs and buzzing wings was clinging to the outside of the screen.

She heard a growl. Old Phemus, their one-eyed mongrel, was crouched by the dishwasher, ears back, tail tucked under him, snarling at the thing on the screen.

“I know what you mean, old boy,” she said, patting his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that either.”

As bizarre as the thing was, Sylvia was almost glad to see it. This was one of the few times since yesterday morning that Jeffy had shown interest in something besides that Mr. Veilleur. He’d talked about the man incessantly since his visit. He seemed infatuated with him, repeatedly asking when he was coming back or when Sylvia could take him to see the old man. Sylvia kept putting him off, saying “We’ll see” instead of “No,” hoping the boy’s fixation would pass. In the meantime, any distraction was welcome.

Sylvia wrinkled her nose. Whatever this creature was, it stunk. A part of her immediately loathed the thing, but curiosity edged her forward. Some of its mucus appeared to be oozing through the mesh of the screen. She leaned closer and heard Phemus whine.

“It’s all right, boy.”

She reached out a finger to—

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back. She whirled and saw Ba. Sylvia stared in shock at the giant Vietnamese. He never touched her, not even to help her out of the car. He looked paler than usual, and he was sweating.

“Ba? What’s wrong?”

“Please, Missus, no. Terrible sorry, but mustn’t touch.”

“I wasn’t going to touch it, just get a better look.”

“Please—let me close the door.”

“What is it, Ba? I’ve never seen anything like it before. Have you?”

“No, Missus, but is an evil thing. You can tell by the smell.”

The smell was bad, that was for sure, but if odor were a worthy criterion, Limburger cheese would be evil too. Ba was obviously concerned, though, almost frightened. Sylvia had to respect that. Any overt sign of emotion from this man was an extraordinary event, not to be taken lightly. And for him to show fear … almost unthinkable. Sylvia was suddenly a little afraid herself.

“Very well, Ba,” she said, stepping back. “We’ll lock up if you think it best.”

He smiled with relief. But as he reached for the door to swing it closed, something crashed into the screen. Another bug, but this one was different. A vicious-looking thing that seemed to be all mouth, its jaws lined with hundreds of transparent teeth that looked like tiny glass daggers. Some of those teeth had thrust through the screen on impact. The creature gripped the metal mesh with its tiny claws and began chewing, ripping an ever larger hole.

Ba slammed the door shut just as the head poked through.

“My God! What are those things?”

“What are what?” Alan said as he rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen.

“Tooth bugs and booger bugs!” Jeffy whimpered.

Sylvia felt him press against her leg, clinging to it. He seemed afraid now. She smoothed his blond hair and offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Don’t be afraid, Jeffy. They can’t get in here.”

“Yes, they can! They want to eat me!”

Just then another of the toothed insects buzzed against the screen of the casement window over the sink as Alan was passing. He stopped his chair and stared.

“What the—?”

As it began to chew at the screen, Ba stepped past Alan and tried to bat it away, but his efforts only seemed to enrage the thing. It buzzed more loudly, attracting another of its kind.

“Close the window!” Jeffy wailed as he trembled against Sylvia’s leg. “Don’t let them get me!”

Alan sat calmly in his wheelchair, staring at the creatures. He had to know he was directly in harm’s way should those things get through, but nothing seemed to frighten him since his recovery from the coma last year. The only concession he made to the things was to pull a dish towel from under the sink and slowly wrap it around his right hand.

Sylvia saw the problem. The casement windows angled outward. If they wound them closed, the two things would be trapped between the glass and the screen and literally pushed into the kitchen. But if more were coming, it might be better to shut them.

Apparently Ba came to the same conclusion. He wound the windows closed on the things. And none too soon—seconds later a third bounced off the glass. The confined space trapped their wings and stopped their buzzing, but not their chewing. What was he going to do with—?

She saw Ba pull open the knife drawer.

“Come on, Jeffy,” she said, turning him away. “Those things haven’t got a chance against Ba and Alan, so why don’t we go upstairs and—”

“I’m scared, Mommy,” Jeffy said. “I don’t want to go upstairs. What if they come in those windows too?”

The upstairs windows—she’d left them open. Such a beautiful day, she’d wanted to air out the house. God, she had to get up there and close them!

“How about the basement?” she said. “No windows down there. Want to wait in the basement for a few minutes while I check upstairs?”

He nodded eagerly. The playroom down there stocked lots of his toys. He’d be safe, and what was more, he’d feel safe.

“Want Phemus to come along?”

“Yes! That way he’ll be safe too.”

Sylvia ushered Jeffy and the dog down the hall to the basement door. When she flipped on the lights, Jeffy pointed down the steps.

“Look, Mommy. Mess is here too!”

She looked and saw the family cat huddled at the bottom of the staircase, its pupils wide, fur standing out in all directions. It looked spooked. Phemus ran down the steps and waited next to Mess.

“Great. Both of your friends will be with you.”

She waited for him to go down but he stopped on the first step and sat on the little landing beyond the door.

“Aren’t you going down?”

He looked up at her with frightened blue eyes. “Close the door and I’ll wait right here.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded solemnly.

“Okay. But I’ll be right back. And don’t you worry about a thing.”

Feeling like some sort of abusive mother locking her child in a closet, she pushed the door closed. The click of the latch echoed in her heart like the clang of a jail cell door. But it was what Jeffy wanted. She’d never seen him so frightened. Granted, those things were vicious looking, ready to grind up anything that got in their way, but what made him think they were after him? A carryover from his years of autism?

She didn’t want to think about that, didn’t even want to entertain the possibility that he might slide back into his former impenetrable state.

She hurried back to the kitchen where she found Alan in his chair by the sink, towel-wrapped fist held before him, and Ba leaning toward the window with a raised meat clever. One of the things broke through the screen just as she arrived. Faster than her eyes could follow, it launched itself into the kitchen with a furious buzz. Alan batted at it with his fist. The thing sank its teeth into the towel and bit. Alan yelped with pain but held his hand steady while Ba’s cleaver whizzed down and sliced through the creature just behind its head. The winged body dropped into the sink, then rose and flapped about the room, dripping orange fluid as it caromed off the walls and ceiling, leaving wet splotches wherever it impacted. Finally it flopped to the floor, twitched a couple of times, then lay still.

The head didn’t relax its grip on Alan’s hand, however. It clung there, its jaws weakly chewing, even in death. Finally it stopped.

Alan leaned in for a closer look. “Where the hell did you come from?”

He pried the head off and dropped it into the sink. It left behind a shredded section of towel. Crimson fluid began to seep through from within.

Sylvia found her mouth parched but she managed to speak.

“Alan? Are you all right?”

He winked at her and smiled. “Sharp teeth on those buggers. Only a scratch, though.” He glanced at the second thing still caught between the screen and the window. “Better take cover before this one breaks through.”

He wrapped a second towel around the first as he and Ba took their positions and waited.

“I’m going upstairs to close the windows,” she told them.

“No, Missus,” Ba said without taking his eyes from the window.

Alan glanced at her. “Don’t risk it alone. Wait till we get this one, then we’ll all go up together.”

She headed for the stairs. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“Sylvia!”

She ignored Alan’s call as she hurried through the front foyer and ran up the curved staircase. The lights were on in the master bedroom where she and Alan slept. She dashed from one window to the next, checking the screens for holes, then slamming them closed. No holes, no booger bugs.

One room down, five more to go.

She hurried down the hall to Jeffy’s room. The door was closed. When she opened it and flipped the switch, nothing happened. The floor lamp in the corner was supposed to come on. Sylvia hovered on the threshold, afraid to enter. She held her breath and listened.

Silence. No … a faint telltale buzzing from the window near the corner. Silhouetted in the moonlight was a translucent globule clinging to the screen. Another booger bug. The one downstairs had seemed harmless enough. And anyway, it was outside.

Telling herself it was safe, Sylvia gritted her teeth and hurried across the darkened room. She was almost to the window when her foot caught on something. She went down on both knees with a bruising thud. She reached back and felt the beveled post of the floor lamp. It had been knocked over somehow. A breeze, or…?

Suddenly afraid, Sylvia scrambled to her feet and fumbled for the lamp on Jeffy’s end table, found the switch, twisted it.

Light. Blessed light.

She peered over at the window. The booger bug was still there alone on the screen, trying to strain itself through the mesh. It looked like it was making some headway too. Part of it seemed to have seeped through—

Her stomach dropped when she saw the jagged edges of the screen. The bug wasn’t seeping through the mesh, it was bulging through a hole. She lunged for the window and slammed down the sash. Then she ran around the bed and closed the window on the other side.

But the question remained: Had anything got in?

She stood and listened again. No buzzing now. She let herself relax. She’d got here in time—just in time. But she had other rooms to secure. Before heading farther down the hall, she picked up the fallen floor lamp—

—and stopped, staring. The lampshade was shredded, as if a teething puppy had been working at it for an hour. She dropped it and spun, her skin rippling with fear. No movement, no sound. But the door was open, and if something had got in, it could get loose in the house if she didn’t close it.

Moving slowly, smoothly, as casually as she could, she stepped toward the door. Her heart thumped madly. If one of those chewer bugs came after her she knew she’d fall apart and run screaming for the hall.

Almost there. Half a dozen feet or so and she’d be home free. She just had to stay calm and—

Sylvia heard it before she saw it. A ferocious buzz from the other side of the bed, a machine-gun rattle of hundred-toothed jaws banging against each other as they chewed the air, then a blur hurtling over the bed toward her face. She ducked but not quickly enough. It caught her hair, twisting her head around with an incendiary blaze of pain from her scalp. She felt a patch of hair rip from its follicles as the thing yanked free and swooped around the room. As she crouched, watching it, she heard another sudden buzz from behind her and instinctively threw herself to the side. A second chewer bug darted past her ear, jaws clicking dangerously close.

Two of them!

She stumbled in a circle, turned, felt something soft press against her calves, and then she was dropping backward onto the bed, landing on her butt. The mad clicking accelerated and the dissonant harmony of the buzzes rose in pitch as they homed in together. Sylvia grabbed Jeffy’s pillow and held it before her. The impact of the two creatures knocked her onto her back amid a squall of feathers. She could feel them wriggling, chewing their way into the pillow. She turned it over, trapping them against Jeffy’s bedspread.

“Got you!” Her cry was an awful sound, tinged with hysteria.

She glanced at the open door. With these things immobilized for the moment, she could make it. But just as she was about to ease her grip on the pillow, a pair of tooth-encrusted jaws burst through the case and snapped at her. She screamed and ran for the door, slipping on the feathers, scrabbling along on her hands and knees until she reached it. She rolled through, stretched up and grabbed the knob, and was just pulling the door closed when the two chewer bugs hurtled through the air above her and dove toward the first floor.

“No!”

And even before they were out of sight she heard an angry shout from Alan in the kitchen. She got to her feet and ran downstairs where she met him and Ba in the foyer. Ba, cleaver in hand, looked like a mad Asian chef.

Alan’s eyes widened when he saw her.

“Sylvia! What happened?” He was staring at her head.

“Why?” She touched the sore spot on her scalp. Her fingers came away wet and red. Some of her skin must have ripped away with her hair. “Two of those things upstairs—in Jeffy’s room. They got away and came down here. Did you see them?”

“No. The second one in the kitchen window got past us. We were just looking for it.”

“Listen, please,” Ba said, holding up his cleaver.

They quieted. A rasping sound … from down the hall … like chisels working wood.

“Where—?” Alan began.

“Oh, God, I think I know!”

She turned and led them toward the cellar door. As she rounded the corner she skidded to a halt and bit back a scream. All three chewers were there, nose-on to the cellar door, gnawing at the wood in blind determination to get through to what lay beyond it.

And from the other side she heard the wail of a child’s small, frightened voice.

“Mommy? Are you out there, Mommy? What’s that noise? What’s happening, Mommy?”

“Get them!” she said in a controlled screech through her teeth. “Get them!”

Ba leapt forward, Alan rolling behind him. Ba cut one in half, then another. As their body parts flopped and flew around, Alan reached out with his towel-wrapped hand and grabbed the third by its tail. He swung it against the floor, smashing its head. Glasslike teeth flew in all directions. The last chewer lay still.

“Get the upstairs windows, Ba,” he said. “I’ll look after the ones down here.”

As the two men hurried off in different directions, Sylvia opened the basement door just enough to slip through and step onto the landing, then quickly pulled it closed behind her.

Jeffy’s face was ashen as he stared up at her.

“Don’t let them get me, Mom!”

She took the boy in her arms and clutched him tight against her. Her mind raced. Jeffy had been right. Those things were after him. But why?

“It’s okay. We’ve killed the bugs and as soon as the house is sealed up tight we’ll get out of here.”

A moment later she heard Alan’s wheelchair on the other side of the door.

“Okay, gang,” he said, pulling it open. “The coast is clear. All the windows are down. No holes in any of the other screens.”

Sylvia stepped out into the hall, carrying Jeffy. Alan was smiling but she noticed that his eyes were apprehensive as he looked at the boy.

“Jeffy, why don’t you and Ba go to the movie room while your mother and I get some hot chocolate. Then we’ll all watch a movie.”

The movie room? It was a converted oversize pantry where they’d set up the giant screen TV. Perfect for movies any time of day because it had no windows. Was that why Alan was suggesting it?

Jeffy let go of her and went with Ba. He no longer looked afraid. What could possibly harm you when Ba Thuy Nguyen was holding your hand?

As soon as Jeffy was out of earshot she turned to Alan.

“What’s wrong?” Dumb question. “I mean, what else is wrong?”

“They’re all over the place, Sylvia,” he said in a low voice. “A huge flock of them swarmed in just as we finished closing up. They’re at every window, trying to get in. Listen.”

She did. And she heard it. A cadenceless tattoo, as if a thousand people were outside bouncing tennis balls off the windows. It congealed her blood to think of how many of those creatures it took to make that kind of noise.

“Who do we call? The police, the fire company, who?”

“All of the above.” Alan grabbed the cordless phone from the counter, listened, then frowned as he put it down. “Phone’s out. Try your cell.”

Sylvia fished it from her pocket but found a two-word message on the display.

“‘No Service.’ How can that be?”

He pointed to the dead creatures on the floor. “How can they be?”

“Then we’re trapped.”

“I think we’re safe for now. We’ll see what the morning brings. But until then, let’s keep Jeffy as calm as we can.”

“They’re after him, aren’t they?”

Alan nodded gravely. “Sure looks that way.”

She bit back a sob as she dropped into Alan’s lap and flung her arms around his neck. So afraid for Jeffy. If anything happened to him …

It took everything to keep from crying.

“Why, Alan?”

“I think Mr. Veilleur might know.”

Sylvia said nothing. Mr. Veilleur … she’d thought of him too. But she didn’t trust him. He was hiding too much. Besides, what could a feeble old man do against these hideous things?

She pulled away from Alan and stood. She took his hand.

“We’ll handle this ourselves. Let’s make that cocoa.”

Ecstasy!

The horror, the pain, the bloodshed, the ravenous, screaming FEAR soaks through from above, filtering down the tissues of the earth, through the living granite into the conduits of Rasalom’s changed being.

His raw flesh has healed now, hardened into a tough new covering. His limbs remain fused to the walls of the granite pocket, reaching deeper and deeper into the rock, sending intangible feeder roots through the surrounding earth, searching for more nourishment. More.

And as he feeds, Rasalom gains mass, grows larger, thicker. The granite walls of the pocket flake away to accommodate his increasing size. The chips slide to the bottom and collect there like shattered bones.

SATURDAY

Daybreak

Monroe, Long Island

It took Sylvia a moment or two to appreciate the silence, but shortly before sunup she realized the incessant beating on the windows had stopped.

She was the first to know because she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Jeffy had dozed off halfway through his umpteenth viewing of The Incredibles. Alan had succumbed a short while later in his wheelchair. Ba had spent much of the night working on some sort of weapon—carving tiny niches into the wood of one of his billy clubs and fixing chew-bug teeth into them with Krazy Glue. But even he dozed now and then. Sylvia had sat by the door of the movie room, keeping it open an inch or two, listening at the gap.

Silence. She was almost afraid to believe it could be true. As she rose from her chair, Ba sprang up, instantly alert.

“Missus?”

“It’s all right, Ba,” she whispered. “I’m just going to take a look outside.”

“I will come.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just be—”

But he was already by her side, peering into the hall. When he was satisfied it was safe, he stepped out and held the door for her. Sylvia sighed, smiled her thanks, and followed him.

She wondered if she’d ever get used to having someone around who was ready at any moment to lay down his life for her. It had all started sometime when her father had recognized Ba in a TV news story about the boat people crossing the South China Sea with nothing but the clothes on their backs. He’d stood out because he towered above his fellow Vietnamese. Dad had dug out a photo and told her about this huge South Vietnamese kid his Special Forces group had trained as a guerrilla, how they’d become friends. The man in the photo and on the tube were the same.

He’d rushed to Manila, brought Ba and his wife, Nhung Thi, back to the States, and found them jobs in the Vietnamese community on the Lower East Side.

Shortly after that, her father died in his sleep. Years later, when Sylvia learned that Nhung Thi had lung cancer, she’d brought her to Toad Hall and paid her medical expenses until her death. Afterward, Ba stayed on as driver, groundskeeper, and one-man security force. Sylvia had told him a thousand times that he didn’t owe her a thing, but Ba didn’t see it that way.

Now, as he glided ahead of her, as silent and fluid as a shadow in the pale light filtering down the hall, his newly customized billy club poised at the ready, she was glad he’d never listened to her.

They entered the dining room and went directly to the windows. Sylvia pulled back the sheers and gasped. The screens hung in tatters, the panes were smeared and fouled, the mullions gouged and splintered.

But no bugs. Not a single chewer or booger bug in sight. As if they’d evaporated in the morning light—or gone back to where they came from.

“Let’s take a look outside.”

He led the way to the front door, motioned for her to stay back, opened it, then slipped outside. A moment later he returned.

“It is safe, Missus, but…”

“But what?”

“It is not nice.”

Sylvia strode to the door and stepped outside. Down the steps, into the driveway, then she turned and faced the house.

“Oh … my … God!”

Toad Hall looked like a disaster area—as if it had sat empty for a decade, then been struck by a hurricane, a hailstorm, a horde of carpenter ants, and a plague of locusts all at once. Besides the shredded screens and splintered mullions on the windows, all the wooden siding looked gnawed. The chewers had left hundreds, thousands of their sharp, crystalline teeth in the wood. They gleamed like diamonds in the morning sun. And the trees—her beautiful willows! Half the branches, the ones facing the house, had been denuded of their leaves, as if the creatures had been so frustrated by their inability to get into the house that they’d attacked the trees in retaliation.

“Why, Ba? Why’d this happen? What’s going on?”

Ba said nothing. He never offered opinions, even when asked. He stood beside her in silence, his tooth-studded club at the ready as he scanned the grounds, his head swiveling in a smooth, continuous motion, like a radar dish.

“Stay here,” she told him. “I want to take a look next door.”

Ba didn’t stay, of course. He fell in behind her.

The stone wall that ran three sides of Toad Hall’s perimeter lay a good fifty yards away. When Sylvia reached it she fitted her foot into a crevice and pulled herself up to where she could see over. She peered through the shrubs at the house next door, a contemporary that had fallen into disrepair for a while after its previous owner, a golden oldies DJ and entrepreneur named Lenny Winter, disappeared. But the new owners had done a complete overhaul. She pushed a branch aside for a better look.

Her stomach turned. The house was untouched. Well, not completely. She noticed a few ripped screens flapping in the breeze, and a wet smear or two on the cedar siding, but nothing near what had happened to Toad Hall. The owners might not be aware of the damage yet.

Weak and shaky, she dropped back to the ground. As she stared again at the violated exterior of her home, Jeffy’s voice echoed in her brain.

They want to eat me!

He was right. They’d concentrated their attack on the house where he lived and they’d come after him when they broke in.

Why? Did it have anything to do with the Dat-tay-vao?

She couldn’t let them hurt Jeffy. She’d risk anything to protect him. Even …

“Ba, do you remember that older man who was here the other day? He left a card on the foyer table. I told Gladys to throw it away. Do you know if she did?”

“No, Missus.”

“Oh. Then I guess I’ll have to wait until she arrives. I may just have to—”

She noticed that Ba was holding out a piece of paper.

“Gladys did not throw it away.”

She took the card. G. Veilleur was embossed at its center.

She looked at Ba and saw only devotion and fierce loyalty in his eyes. But she remembered the fear there last night when he’d pulled her away from that mucus creature. Alan wanted her to contact the old man, and Ba obviously agreed.

Now it was unanimous.

“Thank you, Ba.”

With her heart weighing heavy in her chest, she headed back to the house, hoping her cell phone was working again by now.

WNYW-TV

Hello, I’m Alice Gray, and we interrupt our usual Saturday morning programming to bring you this special news report. Sunrise was late again for the fourth morning in a row. But it never rose at all for many of our fellow New Yorkers. As most of you are no doubt already aware, chaos reigned in Manhattan last night as the midtown area became the set of the world’s goriest horror movie. Except these horrors were real. Real people died, hundreds of them, perhaps as many as a thousand. The police and emergency services are still counting at this time. And these are the killers.

<cue dead insects>

From what we can gather, these creatures flew out of the hole in Central Park and attacked everyone in sight, leaving the streets littered with corpses. They were indiscriminate in their choice of targets, attacking men, women, children, even dogs and cats, creating a reign of bloody terror. But shortly before dawn they fled, forming swarms that streamed along the streets back to here …

<cue Sheep Meadow hole>

Witnesses described the smaller swarms gathering and mingling above the mysterious Central Park hole, swelling to a huge swirling mass before plummeting again into the depths of the earth where they originated.

<back to dead insects>

But what are these things? No live specimens are available, but dead ones abound. It appears that the ones that didn’t make it back to the hole before dawn died in the daylight. People have already begun referring to them as “vampire bugs.” Scientists from a variety of fields—biology, chemistry, even paleontology (that’s the study of fossils)—are working at identifying the creatures and devising ways to combat them. State and federal authorities have already arrived and are conducting studies to find a way to prevent them from getting loose again. Talk of placing a huge metal mesh over the hole is circulating.

<back to Alice>

But that may prove futile. Chilling news just in from Long Island and New Jersey of other bottomless holes, identical to the one in our own Central Park, opening up in a Bayside cemetery, Glen Cove, Hackensack, and other places. These reports are unconfirmed as yet, but we have a team racing to St. Ann’s Cemetery in Bayside at this very moment and will bring you live coverage from Queens as soon as they arrive and set up.…

Gatherings

Manhattan

Glaeken handed the drawings of the necklaces to Jack and watched the younger man study them. These were Xeroxes. He had the parchment originals safely tucked away in a vault.

“Good,” Jack said, nodding appreciatively. “Great detail. Just what I need. Where’d you get them?”

“I’ve kept them in a series of safe places over the years on the outside chance that I’d need them someday. That day is here.”

“Yeah,” Jack said glumly. He rubbed his gauze-wrapped forearm. “I guess it is.”

He rose from the chair and began pacing the living room, folding the drawings into a neat square as he roamed. Glaeken sensed the tension coiled within the man, the frustration boiling just under the skin. Jack was used to solving problems, usually other people’s problems. Now he himself was faced with a problem for which he had no solution.

“It’s like a butcher shop out there. I saw those things come out of that hole last night. And now there’s rumors of other holes opening up all over the place.”

“They’re not rumors. I believe I told you—”

“I know.” Jack slowed and stopped as he passed the window. “I know you told me.” He pointed out toward the park. “Thousands of those holes? Really? Thousands of them?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What’s going to keep one from opening up right under your building and swallowing it up?”

“I doubt very much that will happen. That would be too quick—mercifully quick. Rasalom wants me to witness the death throes of civilization before he comes for me. Besides, those holes cannot open just anywhere. They must locate at specific points in order to connect with the … other place. You’ve seen the map.”

“On the Lady’s back, yeah.”

“Wherever a pair of the crisscrossing lines intersect—”

“But with swarms of those things pouring out through thousands of holes, the whole planet will be overrun. I’m sure we can find ways to exterminate the bugs, but—”

“The belly flies and chew wasps are just the first wave. Worse things are on the way.”

Jack was slowly shaking his head as he stared out the window. “What could be worse than those little horrors last night?”

“Bigger horrors. But only during the hours of darkness. They must return to the holes before sunrise.”

“Swell. I mean, that’s a big comfort, isn’t it, what with the sunlit hours shrinking day by day.” Jack held up the folded drawings. “You’re telling me these necklaces will help close up the holes?”

“They’ll give us a chance. Without them we might as well quit right now.”

“All right.” Jack shoved them into the back pocket of his jeans. “Sounds crazy to me, but crazy seems to be in charge.”

“Very true. But don’t go yet. There are some people I want you to meet.”

“I already know Bill.”

“Not Bill. He’s still with a hospitalized friend. I don’t think he’ll be back today.”

He’d called last night to explain his absence and to relate what had befallen Nick. Glaeken had told him to do whatever he thought best for his friend.

But another call had come this morning—from Sylvia Nash. She told him what had transpired at her house last night. Glaeken had been shaken by the news. He had expected Rasalom’s forces to home in on the Dat-tay-vao eventually, but not so soon. Certainly not on the first night. The news increased the sense of urgency boiling within him.

Mrs. Nash had wanted him to come out to Monroe and see the damage, but Glaeken had refused. He wanted her—no, not her, the boy—here where he could watch over and protect him and the Dat-tay-vao residing within. With obvious reluctance, she had agreed to meet him here today.

“I must tend to my wife for a few moments,” he told Jack. “If the doorman announces a Mrs. Nash or a Mrs. Treece, tell him to send them up.”

Jack tore his gaze away from the window. “What? Oh, sure. Why are they coming?”

“I must explain the situation to them.”

“About the Conflict—the Ally and the Otherness?”

Glaeken nodded. “They need to know.”

“Tough sell.” He glanced out the window. “But after last night, maybe not so tough.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

Jack jerked a thumb toward the rear rooms. “Go do what you have to. I’ll take care of things here.”

Glaeken headed for Magda’s room. He knew Repairman Jack was very good at taking care of things.

WFPW-FM

JO: We’ve had a lot of requests for this next record here on F-Rock’s All-Request Weekend. It’s loads older than the stuff we usually play, but I guess it’s got something to do with what happened last night.

<cue “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”>

Jack wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing at the window, mesmerized by all the furious activity in the Sheep Meadow, when the doorbell rang. He glanced down the hall where Glaeken had gone but saw no sign of him.

Well, he’d said to answer the door, so that was what he’d do.

Jack found the Odd Couple standing in the hall. He didn’t recognize Bill Ryan at first—the Roman collar and priest garb threw him off—as did the funny-looking younger guy with unfocused eyes, a stitched lip, and a dazed look on his puss. And was that drool in the corner of his mouth?

“Jack?” Ryan said. “I didn’t expect you.”

“I didn’t expect to be here.” Jack stepped out of the way.

Bill Ryan was taller than Jack, lots older, but looked fit. His face was battered and haggard and his blue eyes had the haunted look of a guy who’d seen too much of a bad thing.

Jack figured he might have the same look.

He led his shell-shocked companion into the living room and sat him on the sofa. He almost had to bend the guy’s knees to get him to sit. Then he turned to Jack.

“Where’s Glaeken?”

“Back with Magda.” Although he’d met Ryan a few times, he didn’t know much about him. He pointed to the Roman collar. “Is Halloween early or are you really—?”

“The ex kind. You know, I don’t recall ever catching your last name.” He seemed anxious to steer talk away from the priest thing.

“Jack’ll do.” Jack wanted to steer the talk away from names, so he nodded toward the guy on the sofa, and yeah, that was drool on his chin. “What happened to him?”

“That’s Doctor Nick Quinn. He’s one of the scientists who went down into the hole yesterday—the one who survived.”

Jack stared at the man with new respect. “I saw what came out of there last night…”

Ryan put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “I’m afraid Nick saw something much worse.”

“Yeah.” Jack watched the poor bastard stare blindly into space. Went down a rocket scientist, came back a geranium. “I guess he did. Where’d you come from this morning?”

“Washington Heights.”

“How do things look up there?”

“Not too bad. Mostly you’d never know anything happened until you get to Harlem. And even there, you could convince yourself they had nothing more than a bad storm. But from the Nineties down it looks like we had a riot or something. And around here…” He shook his head in dismay. “There’s still blood on the pavement.”

Jack nodded. “It was worse when I walked over from the East Side.”

His gut squirmed at the memory. He hadn’t slept much last night. Spent most of the time standing anxious guard over Gia and Vicky and watching the tube for word from Central Park. The cable news channels talked all night, but without visuals. Camera teams sent to the area were never heard from again. Shortly after sunrise he’d ventured out into the streets. Sutton Square was quiet, and the usual early morning traffic was rolling uptown and down on Sutton Place. No flying monsters anywhere about, so he’d jogged up the incline toward midtown.

Between Madison and Park he came upon police barricades. He slipped past and continued west. Fifty-ninth Street became a nightmare. Deflated, sunken-cheeked, desiccated corpses littered the pavements, body parts were everywhere—a limbless, headless torso on the sidewalk, a leg in a gutter, a gnawed finger atop a mailbox. The closer he got to the park, the thicker the carnage.

Central Park South was the worst yet—dead people, dead horses still harnessed to their carriages, overturned cars, a taxi halfway through the side doors of the Plaza. Every emergency vehicle and meat wagon in the city seemed to have converged on the area to remove the bodies.

Live people were about too. All on their way out. The cops weren’t allowing cabs or civilian vehicles into the area, so the surviving members of the Armani and Prada set were lugging their own suitcases out of the Plaza, the Park Lane, the St. Regis, and the rest and rolling them down the avenues to where they could flag a ride to the nearest airport.

Jack had picked his way through the area and hurried here.

The intercom buzzed then and Ryan answered it. He seemed pretty much at home. The doorman said that a Mrs. Nash had arrived. Ryan looked at Jack questioningly.

“It’s okay,” Jack said. “Glaeken said she’d be coming.”

Ryan said to send her up, then turned and looked back toward the bedrooms.

“Wonder what changed her mind,” he said to no one in particular. Then he shrugged and led Quinn to the kitchen. “I’m going to fix Nick something to eat. Want anything?”

“No, thanks.”

Actually, Jack was hungry but too edgy, too unsettled to eat. Maybe later, at Julio’s, over a pint of brew. A gallon of brew.

The doorbell rang. He opened it. The Addams family stood outside.

At least they reminded him of the Addams family: a slinky brunette in a dark dress, a Pugsley, and an Asian Lurch. But no Wednesday, and that wasn’t Gomez in the wheelchair.

A knot tightened in his chest as he remembered calling Weezy and Eddie Wednesday and Pugsley when they were kids.

Weezy … jeez. Something squeezed inside his chest, then released.

“Is he here?” said the blond kid, his blue eyes wide and bright. He poked his head through the doorway and looked up and down the hall. “He’s here! I know he’s here!”

“Please, Jeffy,” the woman said, placing a hand on his shoulder. She looked at Jack. “I’m Sylvia Nash.”

Jack liked her voice. You could fall in love with that voice. But he was already in love.

“Hi.” He stepped back and made way. “He’s expecting you.” A thought struck. “There’s a sculptress named Sylvia Nash…”

She inclined her head. “That would be me.”

He was impressed. “No kidding. I have one of your pieces. The Chrysler Building bonsai.”

“You do?” She looked surprised. “I’m so pleased.”

“Where’s Mr. Veilleur?” said the guy in the wheelchair as he rolled forward.

Jack pointed toward the living room. “He’s around. Come on in. Have a seat.” Jack wanted to bite his tongue on that one. The guy already had a seat.

And he was staring at him.

“My name’s Alan Bulmer,” he said, extending his hand. “You look familiar.”

Jack shook the hand. Bulmer … the name had a vaguely familiar ring, but not the face.

“Name’s Jack and—no offense—you don’t.”

“I was a physician in Monroe until last summer. Were you ever a patient?”

Jack wondered about that. He’d been admitted unconscious to Monroe Community Hospital as a John Doe a couple of years ago but decided not to mention that. He’d left via a second-floor window to avoid the cop stationed outside his door.

“Don’t get out to Long Island much.”

Jack stood back and watched them as they all trooped toward the living room—all except the big Asian whose eyes never stopped moving. He stayed with the group as far as the end of the hall but halted at the threshold of the bigger room. He gave the living room the once-over, then stepped to the side and stood with his back against the wall, his big hands folded in front of him. The drawstring of a plastic Lord & Taylor’s bag hung from one of his fingers. Out on the street he might have passed as a tourist who’d been shopping, but Jack had spied the billy club handle protruding from the bag.

Jack admired the way he moved—smooth, silent, graceful for a guy his age and size. Everything about him said he’d been trained for hand-to-hand combat and security. As he studied the big guy, he realized the big guy was studying him.

Jack wandered over to where he stood. He put out his hand.

“Name’s Jack.”

The big guy bobbed a quick bow and gave Jack’s hand a brief shake.

“Ba,” he said in a deep voice.

While Jack tried to figure if that was a personal assessment or a name, he noticed that the big guy’s eyes did not stray from the living room for more than a heartbeat.

“It’s safe here,” Jack said. “You can relax.”

Another bob from Ba and a fleeting, yellow-toothed smile. “Yes. I see. Thank you so very much.”

Jack noted with approval that Ba did not relax one bit.

“Where’d you train?”

“In my homeland—Vietnam.”

Jack wondered if he’d been a Cong.

“Army?”

His dark eyes never left the living room. “Help from Special Forces.”

Knew it.

“What’s in the bag besides the billy?”

Ba glanced at him, his eyes searching his face for a moment, then he handed the bag to Jack.

Jack took it and loosened the drawstrings. From its weight he guessed there wasn’t much more inside but checked anyway. He pulled out the club and stared dumbfounded at the hundreds of tiny, gleaming, glasslike teeth protruding from the final ten inches of its business end.

“Jesus. These are chew-wasp teeth.”

Ba said nothing.

Jack gave the club a few short test swings. He’d seen what those little teeth could do. A club studded with them made one hell of a weapon.

“How many did you kill?”

“A few.”

“How about the glob things? Get any of those?”

Ba shook his head.

“Watch out for them.” Jack lifted his partially eaten-away sneaker for Ba to see. “The glop in their bellies does this to rubber. It’s even worse on skin.”

Ba’s eyes flicked to Jack’s bandaged arm, then away.

Jack slipped the club back into the sack and held it out to him.

“Think you could make me one of those?”

Ba pushed the sack toward Jack. “You may have this.”

Reflexively, Jack began to refuse. He didn’t accept gifts from strangers. He didn’t like to be indebted to anyone, especially someone he’d just met. But he caught himself. They’d met only a few moments ago, had spoken only a few words—Ba hardly any at all—yet he sensed a kinship with this man. Something like this had happened only a few times in his life. A good feeling. Ba must have sensed it too. The big guy was making a gesture. Jack could not refuse.

“What about you? Won’t you be needing it?”

“I will make myself another. Many, many teeth where I live.”

“All right. I accept.” Jack hefted the bag and tucked it under his arm. “Thank you, Ba. I have a feeling this might come in very handy.”

Ba nodded silently and watched the living room.

Alan glanced over at where Ba was standing with the dark-haired, quick-eyed man who looked familiar. Something going on between those two, communication on a level he was not privy to. Odd … Ba related to almost no one outside the household.

Alan hauled his attention away from the pair and directed it toward Sylvia and Jeffy.

“He’s here, isn’t he, Mommy?” Jeffy was saying. He was bouncing on the seat cushion, his head swiveling this way and that. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sylvia said patiently. “That’s what we were told.”

“I bet he’s in one of those rooms back there. Can I go back and see?”

“Jeffy, please sit still. It’s very bad manners to go wandering around someone’s house.”

“But I want to see him!”

She put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and hugged him against her.

“I know you do, sweetie. So do I. That’s why I’m here.”

Poor Sylvia. She’d been having such a hard time with Jeffy since Veilleur had shown up two days ago. And now that he was here in the old man’s home, the boy was like an overwound spring.

Alan could understand it. He too felt wired. Maybe it was the stress of last night, maybe it was all the coffee he’d poured down his throat this morning. But he had a feeling those were just a small part of it.

Veilleur was the major factor. For no good reason, something within Alan responded positively—no, enthusiastically—to the man. It had to have something to do with the months Alan had played host to the Dat-tay-vao. After reducing him to a comatose vegetable, the power—entity, elemental force, whatever it was—had deserted him. But it must have left some sort of residue, whether clinging to his peritoneum, coating his meninges, or riding the neural currents along his axons, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he was drawn to that old man, trusted him; he still remembered the warm glow he’d felt at first sight of him.

And if that’s how I feel, what must Jeffy feel?

For Alan had no doubt that the Dat-tay-vao had chosen Jeffy for its new residence.

He saw the priest from yesterday, Father Ryan, walk from the rear of the apartment. Mr. Veilleur followed, wiping his hands on a towel as he entered. At the sight of him Alan felt that warmth again, glowing at his center, seeping through his torso and into his limbs.

And Jeffy … Jeffy was on his feet. He ran to the old man and clasped his leg in a bear hug. Veilleur stopped and smiled down at him as he smoothed the boy’s hair.

“Hello, Jeffy. It’s good to see you again.”

The boy said nothing, merely looked up at Veilleur with glowing eyes.

Alan glanced over at the sofa where Sylvia, alone now, sat with a rigid spine and a tight, tense expression, chewing her lower lip as she watched the scene. Her eyes flashed with hurt—and anger. Alan knew the core of anger that coiled within Sylvia like a living thing. It had been quiescent the past few months, but he vividly remembered how it used to bare its fangs and strike out at the unwary. He sensed it waking and stirring within her now.

His heart went out to her. She had taken Jeffy in when he’d been abandoned at age three by unknown parents defeated by his autism. She had slaved over him with psychotherapy, physiotherapy, nutritional therapy, occupational therapy, butting her head and heart against the unyielding barricades of his autism without ever once entertaining the thought of giving up. And then, a miracle: The Dat-tay-vao smashed through his autistic shell and released the child trapped within. Sylvia at last had the little boy she had been seeking.

But now all that little boy seemed to care about was the mysterious old man who had appeared on her doorstep two days ago.

Alan felt her hurt as if it were his own. He wanted to go to her side and put an arm around her to let her know he understood and was with her all the way, but he couldn’t reach her with his hand, and his wheelchair couldn’t squeeze by the coffee table to where she sat, and these damn legs wouldn’t carry him the lousy half-dozen feet to her side.

His legs. They infuriated him at times. Yes, they were getting stronger—slowly, steadily, he’d progressed to the point where he could stand unsupported for a few seconds. But that wouldn’t help him now when Sylvia needed him. So he had to sit here, trapped in this ungainly wheeled contraption and watch the woman he loved suffer. At times like this he—

A harsh voice broke through his thoughts.

“You!”

Alan twisted in his chair, searching for the source. He saw a tall, stoop-shouldered man with unruly dark hair covering a misshapen skull standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen. His head was in constant motion, twisting back and forth, up and down.

Frozen silence all around. Even Jeffy fell quiet. The room had become a tableau. Finally the newcomer steadied his gaze and fixed it on the man called Jack.

“He hates you!”

Jack didn’t look too worried. “Who?”

“You took his hand!”

“Oh, him.” He shrugged. “It’s mutual. More than mutual.”

Father Ryan came up behind the man and gently took his arm, saying, “It’s all right, Nick. Come back here with—”

“No.” The man snatched his arm out of the priest’s grasp and turned on him. “He hates you too! You almost killed him!”

“Nick—”

He turned again and pointed a trembling finger at Veilleur. “But he hates you most of all! He hates you so! He wants everyone to suffer, but he wants you to suffer the most!” He pointed to his head. “Here!” Then to his heart. “And here! And then he plans to make you suffer the tortures of the damned!”

Alan glanced at Veilleur and saw no sign of shock or fear in his wrinkled features. He looked like a man who was hearing exactly what he’d expected to hear. But his clear blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

“Come, Nick,” Father Ryan was saying, trying to turn the man back toward the kitchen. “You’re making a scene.”

“Let him stay a moment,” Veilleur said, stepping closer to Nick. Jeffy trailed along, clutching his leg. “This is your friend? The one who went into the hole yesterday?”

The priest nodded sadly. “What’s left of him.”

Into the hole? Alan had heard the news reports about yesterday’s tragic expedition. A physicist and a geologist had been lowered into the depths, and the geologist had died in transit. Here was the survivor. What had happened to him down there?

“I’ve seen this before,” Veilleur said to the priest. “On occasion, in the old days, one of the rare persons who survived a trek into a chaos hole returned sensitized.” He turned to the man called Nick. “Tell me, my friend, do you know where Rasalom is?”

Nick stepped over to the picture window and pointed to the park. Alan had wanted to take a look through that window to see the hole from above but it had seemed like such a hassle to wheel his chair around all the furniture.

“He’s down there,” Nick said. “Way down there. I saw him. He opened his heart to me. I … I…” His mouth worked but he seemed incapable of describing what he had seen.

“Why?” Veilleur said. “Why is he down there?”

“He’s changing.”

For the first time, Mr. Veilleur appeared disturbed, and something deep inside Alan quailed at the thought of that man being afraid.

“He’s started his change already?”

“Yes!” Nick’s eyes were wilder than ever. “And when it’s complete, he’s going to come for you!”

“I know,” Veilleur said in a low voice. “I know.”

The light suddenly died in Nick’s eyes. His gaze drifted and his shoulders slumped.

Father Ryan gripped his shoulder. “Nick? Nick?”

But Nick didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alan said.

He hadn’t practiced medicine in over a year but he could almost hear the associations clicking into place. The man had lapsed into an almost catatonic state. Alan wondered if his behavior had anything to do with the cranial deformities he’d noticed. But that was unlikely. And they certainly wouldn’t have sent a schizophrenic down into that hole.

“He’s been like this since yesterday—since he came up from below.”

“Has he been examined by a doctor?”

The priest nodded. “Scads of them. They’re not sure what to do for him.”

“Why isn’t he in a hospital? He should be closely monitored until they work out an appropriate course of therapy.”

Father Ryan looked at him a moment and Alan was jolted by the depth of the pain in his eyes. Then the priest looked away.

“Sorry, Doctor Bulmer, but it’s … it’s been my experience that modern medicine isn’t equipped to deal with Nick’s sort of problem.”

He took Nick’s arm and the younger man docilely followed him into the kitchen, leaving Alan to wonder what sort of hell that priest had been through.

“Well,” Mr. Veilleur said, facing Sylvia and Alan. Jeffy still hung on his leg. “I’m expecting one more person any minute now; then our company will be complete.” He pried the boy loose from his leg. “There now, Jeffy. Be a good boy and sit with your mother.”

Reluctantly, Jeffy complied, seating himself next to Sylvia, but barely glancing at her. His eyes remained fixed on Veilleur.

“I’m glad you decided to come,” Glaeken told Sylvia.

“You didn’t leave us much choice,” she said. “Not after what happened last night.” She frowned. “Strange … you show up at our house Thursday, I kick you out, and on Friday all hell breaks loose.”

“No connection, I assure you, Mrs. Nash. I’m not responsible for the hole or for the chew wasps and belly flies.”

“So you say. But the area around your apartment building this morning looks like a slaughterhouse. And out on Long Island, way out in Nassau County, in the village of Monroe, the same little monstrosities that did all the damage around here swarmed in and attacked one house. Ours. Why is that, Mr. Veilleur?”

“Call me Glaeken,” the old man said. “And I believe you know the answer to your own question.”

Alan caught the slightest tremor along Sylvia’s lips; he noticed her eyes were suddenly moist. He ached for her. What she must be feeling to let even this much through. In all the years he’d known her, Sylvia had never once let her feelings show in public. Around the house she’d let her hair down with the best of them, but in public she was pretty much like Ba.

“Why would anyone want to hurt him?” she said in a small voice.

Alan noted how she avoided saying Jeffy’s name.

The man who wanted to be called Glaeken smiled sadly and ruffled the boy’s hair.

“He’s not the target. It’s what resides within him.”

Sylvia leaned back and closed her eyes. Her voice was a whisper. “The Dat-tay-vao.”

Alan sagged with relief in his chair. Finally, after all these months, she’d admitted it. Now maybe they could get on with the problem of dealing with it.

“Yes,” Glaeken said. “There’s an instinctive enmity between the things from the hole and something like the Dat-tay-vao. That’s why I’d like you to move into this building with me.”

Sylvia looked at him as if he’d just propositioned her. Before she could answer, the doorbell rang.

“Will you get that, Bill?” Glaeken called toward the kitchen. “I believe it’s Mr. and Mrs. Treece.”

Father Ryan came out of the kitchen and headed for the door, tossing Glaeken a baffled look along the way.

An older woman entered, a slender, attractive ash blonde who had an immediate, bright smile for Father Ryan. The woman and the priest seemed to know each other. Alan sensed that they might be more than simply friends.

The priest asked her something but she shook her head. He introduced her around as Carol Treece, then she seated herself on the other section of the angled sofa. The priest stood behind her, but kept an eye on the entrance to the kitchen.

“I was hoping your husband would come,” Glaeken said.

Carol looked flustered as she shook her head. “He was delayed on business … in Denver.”

“Too bad,” Glaeken said. “Well, at least everyone else is here. But before you can fully grasp why you are here, I must give you some background. It’s a long story. Eons long. It begins—”

Suddenly there came screaming outside the window. Glaeken turned and Alan looked with the rest of them.

A woman floated there—portly, middle-aged, dressed in a white blouse and a polyester pantsuit—rising through the air a dozen feet beyond the glass, twisting, turning, kicking, writhing, futilely reaching for something, anything that would halt her helpless ascent. Her face was a study in panic. Her terrified screams penetrated the double-paned windows.

We’re twelve stories up! Alan thought, as everyone but he, Ba, and Nick ran to the windows.

As quickly as she had appeared, she was gone, rising above the glass and tumbling out of sight like a lost balloon.

Sylvia’s face was white, her lips tight; Mrs. Treece’s hands were pressed over her mouth. The one named Jack turned to Glaeken with an uncertain smile.

“It’s a gag, right?”

The old man shook his head. “I’m afraid not. That woman is a victim of another kind of hole that will begin appearing at random intervals and locations—a gravity hole.”

“Can’t we do anything for her?” the priest said.

“No. She’s beyond our reach. Perhaps a helicopter…” He sighed. “But please, all of you, sit down and let me finish. Perhaps it’s a good thing this happened now. It’s no accident that it occurred outside my windows. But even so, what I’m about to tell you will strain your credulity. I had little hope of any of you believing me before now. However, the events of the past two days—the bottomless hole in Central Park, the depredations of the first wave of night creatures, this unfortunate woman outside—I hope they have put you all in a more receptive frame of mind. It is important that you believe me, because our survival, the survival of most of the human race, will depend on the course of action we take from this day forward. And for you to act intelligently and get the job done, you must know what you are up against.”

Alan glanced around the room. At the rear, Ba was listening intently, but the man named Jack looked like he’d heard all this before. Nearby on his right, Sylvia wore her this-had-better-be-good expression. Father Ryan hovered behind the sofa with a faraway look in his eyes; Alan got the impression that he too had already heard what Glaeken had to say. On the far side of the sofa, Carol’s expression mirrored the priest’s.

Then Glaeken began to speak. He told of two warring forces existing beyond the veil of human reality—ageless, deathless, implacable, nebulous, huge beyond comprehension. One inimical to humanity, feeding on fear and depravity; the other an ally—not a friend, not a protector or guardian, an ally simply by circumstance, simply because it opposed the other force. He told of the endless war between these two forces, raging across the galaxies, across the dimensions, across all time itself; of the human named Rasalom who in ancient times aligned himself with the malign force, and of another man, equally ancient, who’d had thrust upon him the burden of bearing the standard of the opposing force. And now the ages-long battle was coming to a close with only one army on the field. The outcome depended on this small group of people collected in this room. Unless they acted to muster an opposing force, all was lost.

Emotionally, Alan believed Glaeken—deep within he felt the truth of what he was saying. Perhaps that too was the result of his entanglement with the Dat-tay-vao.

But intellectually he rebelled.

This was it? Humanity depended on this group gathered here?

He hoped the old man was crazy. Because if not, they were all doomed.

“Why are we so important to these … forces?” he blurted.

Glaeken shrugged. “It’s almost impossible to divine the motives of such entities, but long experience has led me to conclude that we have not the slightest strategic value to either side. We are fought over because we exist. We are a piece on their game board. To win the game, you must have the most pieces—perhaps all the pieces.”

“Then why—?”

“I think we are needed by the side that’s come to be known as the Otherness. It is inimical to everything that gives our lives meaning, that makes life worth living. It thrives on what’s worst in us, feeds on the misery and pain we cause each other. Perhaps it gathers strength from our negative emotions. Or maybe we’re only a potential snack. Whatever, it is here to feed.”

“And this other power,” Sylvia said, leaning forward. “It wants to protect us?”

“Not us, as humans, per se. The Ally power cares not a whit for our welfare. It laid claim to us in prehistory and simply wants to keep us in its collection. Or did. The Otherness needs us, and so is a little more aggressive.”

“Where was this Ally last night?” Alan said.

Glaeken looked away. “Gone.”

“Dead?”

“No. Just … gone. Turned its attention elsewhere. Back in 1941 it thought it had won the little skirmish and pulled back.”

“That’s it?” Alan said. “This Ally or whatever battles for eons, thinks it’s won, then goes ‘elsewhere’? Didn’t it want to hang around and show off the prize, or maybe just gloat a little?”

Glaeken fixed him with his blue eyes and Alan felt the power behind them.

“Tell me, Doctor: In chess, do you really want the other player’s pieces for their intrinsic value? Do you have any plans for those pieces? After you’ve taken an opponent’s knight in a match, do you give it another thought?”

The room was dead quiet for a long, breathless moment.

Glaeken glanced at Mrs. Treece. “You may wonder why Carol is here. In ancient times a man named Rasalom sided with the Otherness and became its agent. In so doing he became something more than human. Eventually, in the fifteenth century, he was imprisoned in Eastern Europe. He should have remained so forever, but the German Army inadvertently released him in 1941. Before he could escape, however, he was destroyed. Or at least appeared to have been destroyed.”

Alan wondered at Carol’s stricken expression, how she wouldn’t look at anyone, as if she feared what Glaeken was about to say next.

“Through luck and unique circumstances, Rasalom was able to incorporate himself into the unborn body of an embryo who would grow to be James Stevens. But Rasalom was powerless within Jim Stevens. He could only watch the world pass by from within Jim’s body … until Jim married Carol and they conceived a child.”

Dear God, Alan thought.

He noticed Sylvia stiffen, saw her suppress a gasp.

Poor Carol.

Glaeken pushed on. “He moved into that child—became that child. For decades after his rebirth he lay low while his new body matured, soaking up power from the world around him, from the wars and genocide in Southeast Asia, from the slaughters in Africa and the endless hatred and bloodshed in the Middle East, and from the countless spites, acrimonies, antipathies, rancors, and casual brutalities of everyday life as well. He has been preparing to make his move, setting the stage by deceiving the Ally into believing our world is dead. A few months ago he discovered he was unopposed here and succeeded in extinguishing the beacon that proclaimed our sentience to the multiverse. Since only sentient worlds have value in the game, the Ally has turned away from us and shifted what little of its attention it focused on us to other realities. Rasalom’s first overt move was delaying the sunrise on Wednesday morning. He has been steadily escalating since then.”

From the back of the room, Jack said, “What he’s telling you is that in the old days we had some heavy backup, but now we’re on our own. This is the Little Big Horn and we’re not the Indians.”

Glaeken’s lips twisted. “You could put it that way. But we might have a chance of calling in reinforcements, so to speak.”

“The necklaces,” Jack said.

Necklaces? Alan thought. What necklaces?

Glaeken nodded. “The necklaces, plus the right smithies, and…” He gestured toward Jeffy. “This little boy.”

“Would you mind being just a little more specific?” Sylvia said. She was speaking through her teeth. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”

Alan’s sentiments exactly.

Glaeken seemed unfazed by Sylvia’s outburst. He smiled her way.

“To put it in a nutshell, Mrs. Nash: We need to let the Ally know that this is not a dead world and that the battle here is not over; that we are still sentient, and that the Adversary is still active and about to take complete control of this sphere. We need to send the Ally a signal.”

“And just how do we do that?” Sylvia said.

“We need to reconstruct an ancient artifact.”

“A weapon?”

“In a way, but what I’m talking about is as much a weapon as an antenna, a focal point.”

“Where is it?” Alan asked.

“It was deactivated more than a half century ago when it supposedly destroyed Rasalom in a Romanian mountain pass outside a place called the keep.”

Alan’s mind continued to rebel against Glaeken’s words, more intensely now than ever, but his heart, his emotions insisted that he believe.

“All right. Suppose we accept all this at face value.” That earned him a sharp look from Sylvia. “How do we go about reactivating the focus deactivated in Romania?”

“We don’t,” Glaeken said. “All the essences that made it a focus were drained off by the act of destroying Rasalom—or what appeared to be Rasalom’s destruction. The remnant of that instrument was reduced to dust when Rasalom started on the path toward rebirth.”

“If it’s gone and we can’t get it back,” Alan said, “why are we talking about it?”

“Because there were two. The other was stolen in ancient times and dismantled—melted down into other things.”

“Oh, jeez,” Jack said. “The necklaces.”

Glaeken smiled. “Correct.”

“What are you two talking about?” Sylvia said. Alan sensed her anger edging closer to the surface.

“The other instrument—the other focus—was stolen and melted down. The melting process dislodged a powerful elemental force within the focus, releasing it to wander free. But a residue of that force remained in the molten metal. The metal was fashioned into a pair of necklaces which have been used for ages by the high priests and priestesses of an ancient cult to keep them well and to prolong their lives.”

“And the elemental force?” Sylvia said, leaning forward, her face pale, her expression tight, tense.

The answer flashed into Alan’s mind. He suspected Sylvia had guessed it as well.

“It wandered the globe for ages,” Glaeken said. “It’s been called many things in its time, but eventually it became known as the Dat-tay-vao.”

Alan thought he heard a faint groan escape Sylvia as she closed her eyes and slipped an arm around Jeffy.

Just then a voice broke through from somewhere in the apartment.

“Glenn? Glenn!” It rose in pitch, edging toward panic. “Glenn, I’m all alone in here! Where are you?”

As Glaeken glanced toward the rear rooms, Alan saw genuine concern and dismay mix in his eyes. This was the first time he had shown a hint of uncertainty. He took a hesitant step in the direction of the cries.

“Let me go,” Father Ryan said, moving from his spot behind the sofa. “She knows me by now. Maybe I can reassure her.”

“Thank you, Bill.” Glaeken turned back to his audience. “My wife is ill.”

“Anything I can do?” Alan said.

“I’m afraid not, Doctor Bulmer, but I thank you for offering.” Alan saw no hope in the man’s eyes as he spoke. “She has Alzheimer’s disease.”

Alan could only say, “I’m sorry.”

But Sylvia shot to her feet. “Now I get it!”

“Get what, Mrs. Nash?” Glaeken appeared confused.

Sylvia was leaning forward, jabbing her finger toward him over the coffee table. Her core of anger had fully uncoiled, baring its fangs, lashing out.

“I should have known! Do you think I’m an idiot? You want Jeffy here so you can use him—or rather use the power you think is in him—to cure your wife!”

“Not at all, Mrs. Nash,” he said softly with a slow, sad shake of his head. “The Dat-tay-vao will not work against a degenerative process like Alzheimer’s. It can cure disease, but it can’t turn back the clock.”

“So you say.”

Then Jeffy tugged at Sylvia’s sleeve. “Don’t yell at him, Mom. He’s my friend.”

That did it. Alan saw Sylvia wince as if she’d been jabbed by a needle.

“We’re leaving,” she said, taking Jeffy by the hand and guiding him away from the sofa.

“But Mrs. Nash,” Glaeken said, “we need Jeffy to reactivate the focus. We need to reunite the Dat-tay-vao and the metal from the instrument.”

“But you don’t have the metal, do you.”

“Not yet, but—”

“Then I see no point in discussing this further. When you’ve located this magic metal, call me. You have my number. Then we’ll talk. Not before.”

“But where are you going?”

“Back home. Where else?”

“No, you mustn’t. It’s too dangerous. It’s better that you stay here. I own the building. You can have your choice of the empty apartments. You’ll be safe here.”

“Here?” She stopped at the door. “This place is practically on top of that hole out there—all but falling into it. I’ll take my chances in Monroe.”

“This place is protected, in a way. It will be preserved until the end. You and Jeffy and your friends can share that protection.”

“Why? What’s so special about this place?”

“I’m here. I’m to be saved until the last.”

… and then he plans to make you suffer the tortures of the damned!

Alan remembered Nick’s words and wondered why the old man didn’t look more frightened.

“Toad Hall will be protected too. Alan and I have already seen to that.”

Alan turned his chair and wheeled it toward Sylvia and Jeffy. He’d been on the phone first thing this morning and called around until he found a contractor who could immediately start installing steel storm shutters. He’d offered a substantial bonus if the job was completed by sundown. Now he wondered if shutters would be enough.

Why not stay here? It might be a good move. Alan felt at home with this group, had a feeling they’d find safety here among this disparate, unlikely crew.

Something going on here. A subtle chemistry, a subliminal bond.

But Sylvia seemed oblivious to all that. When her anger-core broke free and took the helm, she’d dig in her heels and refuse to budge. Alan knew he couldn’t talk to her when she got like this. Nobody could. He’d learned to recognize the signs and—when the storm came—to sit back and let it have its way with her. When the clouds and winds had blown past and she was cooler, calmer, she’d be a different Sylvia, and able to discuss it.

He might be able to change her mind later.

Sylvia’s anger could be inconvenient, frustrating, even infuriating at times, but the anger was part of what made Sylvia who she was. And Alan loved who Sylvia was.

Jeffy, though, clearly wanted to stay.

“I don’t want to go, Mom.”

“Please don’t argue with me, Jeffy,” Sylvia said in a low voice. “It’s time to go home.”

He tried to pull away from her. “No!”

“Please obey your mother, Jeffy,” Glaeken said softly.

The boy abruptly stopped struggling. The look Sylvia threw Glaeken was anything but grateful.

“There’s something you should realize, Mrs. Nash,” Glaeken said. “The creatures that attacked your house last night are active only in the hours between sunset and sunrise. They must hide from the sun during the day. However, as I’m sure you are all aware, the daylight hours are shrinking.”

“But that can’t go on forever,” Alan said. “Can it?”

Glaeken nodded. “The pattern will continue. And accelerate. Sunrise was late again today. Tomorrow it will be even later. Sunset will keep coming earlier and earlier.”

“But if that keeps up…” He looked at Sylvia.

“You see the pattern?” Glaeken said. “Shrinking daylight hours, lengthening periods of darkness. The hole creatures will have progressively longer time for their feedings, and shorter periods when they must be in hiding. And when daylight is gone completely…”

“They’ll never stop,” Jack said in a hushed voice.

Alan knew from looking at him that no matter what terrors he and Sylvia and Ba had experienced last night, Jack had seen far worse.

Glaeken nodded. “Correct. We are headed for a world without light, without law, without reason, sanity, or logic. A nightworld from which there will be no dawn. Unless we do something.”

“Call me when you get the metal,” Sylvia said.

Alan reached out and shook hands with Glaeken as he wheeled past, then guided himself to where Ba stood holding the door.

“Don’t leave,” said a strained voice.

Alan turned at the door and saw that Nick had stepped out of the kitchen. His eyes were bright again, and alive with concern as he stared at Alan.

“Why not?”

“If the four of you leave here today, only three will live to return.”

A chill swept over Alan. He glanced out into the atrium and saw Sylvia, Ba, and Jeffy standing before the elevator. As he watched, the bell dinged and the doors slid open. Sylvia and Jeffy stepped inside. Ba stood waiting, restraining the doors with one of his big hands.

Alan was paralyzed for a moment. The three outside were waiting for him; the four people in the apartment were staring at him. He wanted to stay, but wouldn’t—couldn’t—without Sylvia. And no way was Sylvia moving. Not yet, at least.

He shrugged and flashed what he knew was a weak grin.

“We’ll see about that.”

Then he headed toward the elevator, feeling as if he were rolling himself toward an abyss as deep and dark as the one in the Sheep Meadow outside.

As the door closed behind Dr. Bulmer, Carol said, “I should go too.”

So soon? Bill thought, returning from Magda’s room.

“Why don’t you hang out for a while?”

She shook her head. “I’d better get home. Nelson will be back soon.”

She waved and let herself out. Something going on there. Bill would have followed, but he had Nick.

He guided Nick back into the kitchen. Carol’s behavior disturbed him, but Nick’s even more. He was acting like some sort of Delphic oracle, transmitting threats and predictions from beyond. Was it madness or had his brush with the abyss left him connected, as Glaeken had said, to the chaos encroaching on all their lives?

“Are you trying to frighten people, Nick?”

“No,” he said as he resumed his seat at the kitchen table. His eyes were tortured. “They’re in danger. One of them’s going to die.”

“Who, Nick? Which one?”

If Nick was actually tapped in, maybe Bill could get something concrete out of him before he went catatonic again. Those four people from Long Island—the woman, Sylvia, was a bit of a bitch, but he didn’t want to see harm come to any of them, especially the boy.

“Who’s going to die, Nick? Who’s in danger? Is it Jeffy, the boy?”

But Nick was gone again, his face empty, his eyes blank.

“Damn it, Nick!” Bill said softly. He gave the slumped shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Couldn’t you have held on a few minutes longer?”

No reply, of course.

He felt a surge of anger, but not at Nick. That Nash woman—talking to Glaeken like that. He was only trying to help, and all he was asking was her cooperation to save their own hides. But Bill had to keep reminding himself that the truth was so difficult to accept. He remembered how he’d fought it for years—decades. And Sylvia Nash was afraid of something. He didn’t know what, but was sure he’d seen fear in her eyes as she walked past on her way out.

He heard an amused voice rising in the living room. He went to see what was up.

“Do you hire out?” Jack was saying as he clapped the old man on the back. “I mean, if I ever have guests who won’t leave, will you come over and get rid of them for me?”

Glaeken smiled, and as concerned as Bill was about Carol and Nick and the whole situation, he had to laugh. It felt good, especially since he wasn’t sure when he’d have cause to laugh again.

Preparations

Manhattan

“Well, what do you think?” Thompson said as Ernst accompanied him along Central Park West.

He’d called this morning and asked Ernst to join him to discuss “matters of mutual interest.” Having little else to do, now that the Change had begun, Ernst agreed.

Thompson seemed more composed this morning. Perhaps because the “birds” were gone. But they’d certainly left their mark on this part of the city.

“About what?”

Thompson gestured toward the park. “About this. About everything that’s happening.”

The police weren’t letting anybody into the lower end of the park, and they’d closed off the streets adjacent to it. He and Thompson were able to walk down the center of CPW. But yesterday’s carnival atmosphere was gone. Fewer street vendors cluttered the curbs, and far fewer sightseers milled about. Plenty of curious standing outside the yellow tape, yes, but less noisy and jocular than yesterday.

The hole had been an event. What had issued from the hole had been a horror.

The deadly depredations of what were described as new breeds of insects had been all over the news this morning. The fatalities had been carted away but the damage to the buildings overlooking the park remained in evidence—hundreds, perhaps thousands of torn window screens and even some broken glass. All except one building. Ernst noted the number: 34. It appeared to have suffered not one iota of damage during the night. He wondered why.

The sun was high and warm. His three-piece suit was white, as usual, and reflected some of the heat, but still he wished he’d worn a lighter-weight model.

“We couldn’t have discussed this—whatever it is—in my office at the Lodge?”

Thompson shrugged. “Maybe. But the sun rose even later this morning, and I figure I might as well snag a few rays while I still can.”

Not a bad idea, Ernst supposed.

They passed the barricades and began to see traffic again.

“Well, what’s on your mind?”

Screeching tires and cries of terror brought them up short. Up ahead, a yellow cab began rising off the street, trunk first. The driver opened his door, hung by the seat belt, then dropped to the pavement. A woman and child leaned out the rear window and screamed for help.

“My God!” a nearby woman cried out. “Can’t somebody do something?”

Thompson’s face was a study in vulpine fascination as he watched the cab continue to rise, beginning a slow rotation as it cleared the tops of the surrounding buildings and kept on falling up.

“What the fuck?”

“The laws are changing,” Ernst said, trying to sound calm and composed despite his suddenly dry tongue. “That’s why it’s called ‘the Change.’”

The Order’s lore was skimpy and vague about what exactly would happen during the Change.

Thompson looked at him. “The laws? But—”

“The laws of physics among them.”

Finally the car drifted out of sight past the building tops. Good. Ernst had felt rather ghoulish watching it.

“Stay close to the buildings,” he said as they began to move again. “That way we’ll have something to grab on to if it happens to us.”

Ernst stepped gingerly, wondering if a gravity hole lay in wait a few steps ahead.

Thompson glanced at him as they crossed the sidewalk. “You know what? I don’t care what this One guy promised you, I think he’s gonna fuck us over.”

He had just verbalized Ernst’s greatest unspoken fear.

“He owes us.” He owes me. “He couldn’t have done this without us.”

“Yeah, well, maybe, but even if you get an invitation to the party, I got a bad feeling he’s gonna leave me out in the cold. So I gotta consider all possibilities. If he brings me along, cool. But if not, I need a backup plan.”

Thompson wasn’t educated—high school dropout was probably an overestimation of his level of formal education—but Ernst had come to appreciate his native intelligence, and his particularly well-developed survival instinct. He would probably last longer than most in the post-Change world, but eventually he would succumb, no matter how elaborate his strategy.

Ernst had a simpler strategy if he found himself left behind: a hefty dose of cyanide waited at home.

At Eightieth Street they hurriedly entered the park and walked along the traverse past the budding Shakespeare Garden, keeping close to the trees. The sun shone, birds sang, bees hummed … just another spring day in Central Park. Nothing hinted at the changes Ernst knew were coming.

“Any ideas yet?”

Thompson nodded. “Yeah. Been thinking. If the Change works, things’ll be a mess. But even if it fizzles out halfway through—”

Ernst doubted that. “I don’t think—”

He stopped and jabbed a finger at Ernst. “It ain’t over till it’s over, and I don’t hear a fat lady singing yet. Your One fella’s got people and things working against him, right?”

“I suppose, but they haven’t a chance.”

“So you say, but shit happens on both sides of the fence.” He started walking again. “Here’s my point: Even if the Change stops half done, the world’s gonna be messed up. Whether completely messed up or only half messed up, either way I’m gonna need an edge. Part of that edge is someone taking your back. I got a lotta someones.”

“Your followers … of course.”

“Right. Kickerdom’ll do what I say. But that’s not enough. We’ll need an edge.”

He stopped again, but this time he looked at the sky through the trees.

“What are you getting at?”

Ernst sensed a strange new intensity about Thompson. His eyes had taken on an almost feverish glow.

“Sunlight, Drexie. What needs sunlight—regular, measured doses of sunlight—more than anything else?”

As much as he loathed the insulting nickname, he wondered where this was going.

“I suppose I would have to say plants.”

“Exactly! And right now, in the spring, they need sunlight for sprouting and seedling growth.” He glanced at Ernst. “I worked a farm with my mother when I was little. So, if the daily dose of sunlight gets smaller and smaller over the next few weeks, we’re gonna see huge crop failures all across the globe.”

“When the Change is over, crop failures will be the least of the world’s problems.”

“But even if the Change fizzles, we’ll still be seeing worldwide food shortages, maybe even famine. You agree?”

“Why … yes.”

The realization startled Ernst. He hadn’t bothered to think that far ahead or consider that contingency. Yes … if the One failed, and the Change—to use Thompson’s term—fizzled, billions would starve in the aftermath. Even if the Enemy managed to stop the One, it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

He had to smile through the bitterness: Otherness über alles.

“Damn right, yes. So I figure I’d better start making plans for that. Those who can suss out the future can profit from it.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of the futures market or anything like that.”

“Shit, no. We lose much sunlight for any length of time, I don’t see there even being a stock market. Futures will go through the roof, but what are you going to pay with?”

Ernst saw it all: In the face of worldwide crop failures, money—currency—wouldn’t be worth anything.

“Certainly not money.”

“Damn right. Money’s just paper, and you can’t eat paper. When the crops fail and the grocery shelves are empty, we’re going to see food riots in this city—in every city. The only thing that’ll be worth anything is food. And the guy who’s got the food—and the manpower to protect it—will rule the roost. That’ll be me.”

“That’s your plan?”

He nodded. “Yep. Stock up—canned and bottled stuff, and things that’ll keep a long time, like pasta. Nothing that needs refrigeration. We’ll clean out every store in town.”

“Do you have enough money for that?”

He gave a derisive snort. “Don’t need money. We’ll get a bunch of charge cards and max them out. Buy everything on credit.” He grinned. “Odds are the credit card companies won’t be around to collect.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta get my people to start stocking up.” He grinned again and winked. “Before the hoarding starts.”

CNN

—same in country after country around the globe: gigantic holes, seemingly bottomless, averaging two hundred feet across, opening one after the other throughout the day. The governments of Iran, North Korea, and China deny the existence of any such holes within their borders, but aerial reconnaissance says otherwise. And the question on everyone’s mind: Is each of these holes going to release a horde of vicious creatures like those that were loosed on Manhattan last night? And if so, what can be done to stop them?

In Manhattan, preparations are under way for—

Wait. This just in from the White House: The President has declared a national state of emergency. Repeat: a national state of emergency. Reserve units of the Army are being activated. Congress has called an emergency session.

Jack sat at the counter of the Isher Sports Shop—one of the few places left on the Upper West Side that spelled shop with one P—and watched the people passing by outside. Amsterdam Avenue was sunny and only slightly less crowded than usual for a Saturday afternoon.

Like nothing’s changed.

But everything had changed. They just didn’t realize it yet. Jack had an urge to run out there and start grabbing people by the collar, to shout in their faces that last night wasn’t an isolated incident or bizarre aberration. It was going to happen again. And worse. Tonight.

Abe Grossman, the owner, bustled from the pantry/storage area behind the counter carrying two cups of coffee. He handed one to Jack and perched himself on the stool behind the cash register. Jack sipped and winced.

“Jeez, Abe. When did you make this?”

“This morning. Why?”

“It’s not like wine, you know. It doesn’t get better with age.”

“I should waste it? With a microwave in the back, I should throw out perfectly good coffee because Mr. Repairman Jack suddenly has a delicate palate?”

The stool creaked as he adjusted the two-hundred-plus pounds he packed into a Humpty Dumpty frame. He had receding gray hair and wore his usual black pleated-front pants, white shirt, and black tie. A bit of egg yolk from breakfast yellowed the breast pocket of his shirt; a red spot that looked like strawberry jelly clung to his tie; he had just finished sprinkling his entire shirt-front with bits of finely chopped onion from the fresh bialys Jack had brought.

“Nu?” he said when he was settled on his perch. “What have I been saying for so many years to the accompaniment of your derisive laughter? And now it’s finally happening. The Collapse of Civilization. It’s all going to fall apart, right before our eyes, just as I’ve been saying.”

Jack had expected this. He’d known when he told Abe what Glaeken had said that he’d be in for an I-told-you-so lecture. But he had to let Abe know. He’d been Jack’s friend, confidant, and arms supplier for most of his time in New York City. In fact Abe was the one who’d started calling him Repairman Jack, something Jack wished he hadn’t. He’d come to hate the name.

“No offense, Abe, but you’ve been predicting an economic holocaust. You know, bank failures, runaway inflation, and so on. Remember?”

“And I pretty much got that already when—”

“This is different.”

Abe stared at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “I checked the sun. It doesn’t look like it’s traveling any faster.”

Jack shook his head. “The sun doesn’t move, we do.”

“I know that. But something has to be moving faster. I mean, Earth’s tilt on its axis—that’s what determines the varying duration of daylight through the year. Shorter days would mean we’re either rotating faster or the Earth’s shifted on its axis.”

“All the scientific types say neither has happened.”

“Yet the days are shortening. A paradox already. The impossible is happening. If that’s true, then the impossible—or the impossible-sounding things Glaeken told you—could be true as well.” He looked at Jack. “You really think this could be our last stand? The ‘nightworld’? A real possibility?”

Jack nodded. “But not an inevitability if he can get some cooperation.”

Abe was silent a moment, then, “For some reason, I believe it too. Maybe because I’ve been preparing for this eventuality most of my adult life. Maybe because I’d feel like such a schlemiel if I’d been preparing for such a thing for so long and it never happened. But you know what, Jack? Now that the time has come, it’s not such a vindication. Happy I’m not.”

“You still have that hideaway?”

“Of course.”

Abe, the world’s dourest pessimist, had been preparing for the Collapse of Civilization for as long as Jack had known him. He’d confided in Jack about his refuge in rural Pennsylvania, an overgrown farm with an underground bunker and deep stocks of water, weapons, and freeze-dried food. He’d said Jack was welcome there when the Big Crash came. He’d even told Jack where it was—something he’d never revealed to anyone else, even his own daughter.

“Go there, Abe. Get out of the city and hole yourself up. Today, if possible.”

“Today? Today I can’t go. Tomorrow maybe.”

“Not ‘maybe,’ Abe. If not today, then tomorrow for sure. For sure.”

“You’re really worried, aren’t you. How bad we talking, Jack?”

“Bad like you’ve never dreamed.” Jack stopped and grinned. “Jeez, Abe. I’ve been around you so much I’m starting to sound like you.”

“That’s because you’re part chameleon. But how bad is bad like I never dreamed? I dream pretty bad.”

“Whatever you’ve dreamed, trust me: This’ll be worse.”

Scenes from the bloody carnage around the Sheep Meadow hole flashed before his eyes. And now, more holes. Even if the predators remained limited to the two species he’d seen last night, the city would devolve into a nightmare. But Glaeken was saying the things would get progressively bigger and more vicious.

Jack’s mind shied away from envisioning the holocaust.

“But I’d like to ask a favor.”

“Don’t even ask,” Abe said. “You show up here first thing tomorrow morning with Gia and darling Vicky and we’ll all head for the hills together.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, feeling a burst of warmth for this dumpy gunrunner. “That means a lot. But I won’t be coming along.”

“I should go and you should stay?”

“There’s a chance I can do something about the situation.”

“Ah. The necklaces you mentioned. I remember the one you had. With the pre-Vedic inscriptions.”

“Right. I need to get copies made. I was thinking about Walt Duran. What do you think?”

“Walt’s as good as you could ask. A shtarker in the world of engraving. And he could use the work.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Computers and the new bills are what happened. Putting honest counterfeiters out of business.”

Walt was a stand-up guy, a hard worker. If he’d put his talents to work in the jewelry industry, he’d probably have made more money in the long run and wouldn’t have had to do that stretch in the joint. But even so, Jack wasn’t unhappy to hear he’d fallen on hard times. That meant he could be goosed into high gear by the lure of a bonus for early delivery.

Because Walt was as slow as he was good.

“Okay,” Abe said. “What’s the plan?”

Jack choked down the rest of his coffee and stood.

“You gas up that van of yours and garage it for the night. Pack up your stuff this afternoon and get back here before nightfall. Spend the night in your basement here. No matter what you hear upstairs, don’t come up to have a look. Stay down there. I’ll have Gia and Vicky here right after sunrise. Sound okay?”

Abe frowned. “Sounds like you think things will be going downhill fast.”

“Downhill?” Jack said as he headed for the door. “I think they’re going to run off a cliff.”

Okay, Jack thought as he drove his black Crown Vic from the Lower East Side. Walt Duran is on the job.

Now all he had to do was convince Gia that she had to leave town.

Walt had been glad for the work. Ecstatic, actually. He’d been reduced to living in a tiny overpriced studio. Jack had shown him the drawings, told him he wanted two copies on a one-to-one scale, and given him a down payment so he could go out and get the raw materials. Delivery time was a problem, though. Walt had said no way could he get it done by Monday morning. But when Jack promised a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, Walt reconsidered. Maybe he could have them by then.

Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he cruised along. Getting those necklaces out of Walt by Monday morning would be a breeze compared to getting Gia into Abe’s van tomorrow. And he didn’t have all that much time to persuade her. The afternoon was already on the wane. But if Glaeken was right about tonight being worse than last, maybe he wouldn’t have to convince her. He could let the things from the hole do it.

He swung up toward the park to see how the cleanup was going and was amazed at the transformation. The barricades were still up to keep cars off Central Park South, but the corpses were gone, the wrecked vehicles had been cleared, the pavements washed clean. Cars were restricted, but not pedestrians. A lot of people were about on the sidewalks and the fringe of the park, the curious of all ages, come to see the notorious Sheep Meadow hole and check out the stories of bloody carnage they’d heard on the news.

Jack checked his watch. He had a little time to spare so he double-parked and jogged across the matted grass to get another look at the hole.

The crowd was thick there. Everyone seemed to be watching something going on down by the edge. Over their heads he could see cranes dipping up and down. He wove through the press until he got to a decent-sized tree. He shimmied up the trunk to where he could see the hole.

Its southern half was covered with some sort of steel mesh. Work crews were in the process of screening over the rest of the opening. Jack watched for a moment, then slid back to the ground.

“How’s it going?” someone said.

Jack turned and saw a well-dressed young couple standing nearby with a baby carriage. The guy was smiling warily.

“Better than half done,” Jack said.

The woman sighed and squeezed her husband’s biceps with both hands and looked at Jack with uneasy doe eyes.

“Do you think those things will come back?”

“You can count on it.”

“Will the net work?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe. But this isn’t the only hole.”

“I know,” the guy said, nodding. “But this is the one that counts for us.” He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’m sure we’ll be all right,” he told her.

Jack looked down at the baby in the stroller. Eighteen months at the most, all in pink, sandy-haired, grinning up at him.

“You got a cellar where you live?” he said, staring into those two innocent blue eyes. “Someplace with no windows?”

“Uh, yes we do. There’s a storage area down by the boiler room where—”

“Move in there before sunset. Bring everything you’ll need until morning. Don’t go upstairs until sunrise.”

He tore his eyes away from the child and hurried off.

Gia and Vicky. Dammit, even if he had to sling Gia over his shoulder and dump her in the back of Abe’s van, he’d see them on their way out of town tomorrow morning.

Manhattan

“Yo, let’s get behind granny, here. She’s got next to nothin’.”

Carol turned and saw four scruffy men line up behind her in the checkout lane. All looked to be in their thirties or late twenties and each had a shopping cart stacked high with food. Not individual cans and such, but cases of food. She glanced at her own purchases: a container of blueberries and three nonfat yogurts. With Nelson’s return delayed yet another day, she saw no need in stocking up.

And then the man’s comment struck home.

Granny?

Well, she did have a lot of years on them, but she stayed in shape, exercising regularly, watching her diet. She might be well into her sixties, but her body was trimmer, better toned, and younger looking than a lot of bodies in their thirties. But she was old enough to be their grandmother …

Grandmother … the word expanded in her chest, building a pressure, almost painful. She’d never be a grandmother. She’d been a mother … of sorts. Did she truly deserve to call herself a mother? She’d borne a child, but the child was not hers. Genetically, yes … she’d contributed half of his DNA, but the consciousness within that body had preexisted it—preexisted herself.

“What’re you starin’ at, granny?”

The words startled her. The man directly behind her had spoken. He wore a work shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, no doubt to show off all the tattoos on his muscular arms. She noticed a familiar one in the web between his thumb and forefinger.

She’d seen that around town a lot. Everyone knew it: the Kicker Man.

She hadn’t realized she’d been staring.

“Sorry. And I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“You mean ‘granny’? What? You ain’t?”

“No, I’m not.”

She’d almost said “unfortunately,” but bit it back. God knew what kind of child that man, that creature Rasalom would father.

“But you could be, right?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I could be.”

“Hey,” said the second in line in a low voice. “She ain’t bad lookin’. I guess that makes her a G-MILF.”

They all had a good laugh at that. Carol didn’t get it.

“Anyway,” she said, “I wasn’t staring, just thinking.”

But now she was staring. The man’s cart was stacked with five cases of spaghetti sauce. And the two carts behind him were overflowing with pasta of all shapes, sizes, and brands. Gristede’s carried a lot of pasta, but there couldn’t be much left.

“Italian night?” she said.

The guy laughed. “Not exactly.”

“Did you leave any?”

The second in line—he had the little Kicker tattoo as well—said, “We ain’t leavin’ nothin’ nowhere no how.”

Carol began to count the negatives in that single sentence, but then the cashier began ringing her up. It took only seconds. She swiped her debit card and tapped in her PIN, careful to angle her body so those behind her couldn’t see it.

They seemed friendly enough, but they had a bad reputation. She sensed violence percolating just below the surface.

“Your card was rejected, ma’am,” said the cashier.

Carol heard the Kicker behind her mutter, “Aw, shit.”

“It must have misread it,” she told the cashier. “Clear it and I’ll run it again.”

She did, with the same result: rejected.

The cashier frowned. “‘Insufficient funds.’”

The two words stabbed her. “But that’s impossible! It’s not even ten dollars. There must be—”

“Put it on our charge,” the man behind her told the cashier as he held up a green American Express card.

Carol was not about to let someone pay for her.

“No. It’s all right. I have cash—”

“Sure you do, granny, but the light’s fading and we’re on a tight schedule. You’re holding us up.”

“I can’t allow—”

“You’ll be doing us a big favor by getting the hell out of the way.”

He gathered her blueberries and yogurt and thrust them into the shopping bag dangling from her arm. Then he was pushing her out of the aisle and moving into her place.

“But—”

He waved her off. “Go-go-go. You’re starting to piss me off.”

Carol hesitated, then moved off. The cashier had already turned his attention to the case of tomato sauce being lifted onto his conveyor belt.

As she exited the store, her thoughts turned to the debit card. Insufficient funds? Impossible. Nelson always kept at least a thousand in that particular account—never much more in case someone got hold of the card and PIN and emptied it—but never much less. He’d never let it go empty. Nelson’s numbers always added up. There had to be a mistake. Unless …

She hurried home through the dying light and went directly to her computer, where she logged onto their CitiBank account. When she checked the balance in the debit account it registered $2.27.

She gasped. Someone must have gained access and raided it. And if they breached one account …

A growing sense of dread bloomed to horror as she accessed their other accounts. One after another they showed negligible balances—even Nelson’s IRA. Every one of them cleaned out.

She grabbed the phone and speed-dialed Nelson’s number. He was stuck in Denver. He didn’t answer—probably in a meeting or something—so she left him a frantic message, then searched for the CitiBank customer service number. She’d start there. How could this have happened?

Monroe, Long Island

Sylvia stood in the driveway and watched the workmen swarming along the scaffolding they’d set up against Toad Hall’s west wall.

“I think we’re gonna make it,” said Rudy Snyder as he stood by her side.

Sylvia looked at the sinking sun, the long shadows. The day was ending too quickly, as if winter were approaching instead of summer.

“You promised me, Rudy.” She and Alan had called all along the North Shore this morning and finally had coaxed Rudy out of Glen Cove. “You guaranteed me you’d have every window shuttered before sunset. I hope I’m not hearing the sound of someone beginning to hedge.”

She tightened her fists to hide her anxiety. She didn’t think she could stand another ordeal like last night.

“No way, Mrs. Nash.” Rudy wore a peaked cap with Giants across the front; he was tall and fat, with red hair and a veiny, bulbous nose. When he aided the work crew, he did so at ground level only. “We’ll have them all in, just like I said. But they won’t all be wired.”

“I don’t care about the wiring. You can do that tomorrow. Just get those shutters in good and tight, then pull them down and leave them down.”

“You really think all this is necessary?”

She glanced at him, then away. He thought she was a nut, overreacting to some wild stories out of the city.

“You’ve seen all those little teeth in the siding?”

“Hey, I’m not saying you didn’t have a problem last night, but do you really think they’ll come back again?”

“I know they will. Especially since they don’t have to come all the way from Central Park this time.”

“You mean because of that hole that opened up in Oyster Bay this morning? Whatta y’think’s goin’ on?”

“Don’t you know? It’s the end of the world.” My world, at least.

Rudy’s smile was wary. “No … really.”

“Please finish the job.” She didn’t feel like talking about it. “Seal the house up tight. That will earn you the bonus I promised.”

“You got it.”

He bustled off and began shouting at his workers to get their asses moving.

Sylvia sighed as she stared at Toad Hall. The old place’s carefully maintained look of faded elegance was gone, destroyed by the rolling storm shutters. But they were good, tight, with heavy-duty slats of solid steel. The best. During the day they could be rolled up into the cylinders bolted above the windows; at sunset they’d slide down along tracks fastened to the window frames. They’d be cranked down by hand tonight, but after they were fully wired up tomorrow, Sylvia would be able to roll them all up and down with the flick of a single switch. This particular model was designed to withstand storms of hurricane force. Tonight they were going to have to withstand a storm of a different sort. She prayed they’d be enough.

“The back’s done,” Alan said, rolling toward her. “They’re moving around here to help finish up this side.” His gaze followed Sylvia’s to the anachronisms being attached to Toad Hall. “A shame, isn’t it?”

Sylvia smiled, glad to know their thoughts were still in synch, even after the uncomfortable silence of the ride back from the city. Especially when Alan had told her what that nut had said as they were leaving.

Only three will live to return.

What an awful thing to say.

“I feel like I’m witnessing the end of an era.”

“It might be the end of a lot more than that,” Alan said.

Sylvia felt all her muscles tighten. She said nothing. She knew where Alan was leading and didn’t want to go there. She’d been dreading this conversation since they left Glaeken’s apartment.

“Talk to me, Sylvia. Why are you so angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“You’re coiled like a steel spring.”

Again she said nothing. I’m coiled, all right, she thought, but it’s not anger. I wish it were. I can deal with anger.

“What do you think, Syl?” Alan said finally.

Why couldn’t he let it drop?

“About what?”

“About Glaeken. About what he said this morning.”

“I haven’t had time to think much about anything, least of all that old crank’s ravings.”

“I believe him,” Alan said. “And so do you. I saw it in your eyes when you were listening. I know your expression when you think you’re being bullshitted. You weren’t wearing it back in Glaeken’s apartment. So why don’t you admit it?”

“All right,” she said through tight lips. “I believe him too. Does that make you happy?”

She regretted that last sentence as soon as she said it, but it seemed to roll right off Alan.

“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. So I’ve got to ask you: If you believe him, why did you walk out?”

“Because I don’t trust him. Don’t misunderstand me on that,” she added quickly. “I don’t think he’s lying to us. I think he’s sincere, I … just … don’t think he’s as much in control of his end of things as he thinks he is … or wants us to believe he is.”

“Maybe not. He was trying to sell us—you, especially—on something none of us is prepared to accept. The only reason we can accept it is that we’ve already had our lives turned upside down by something that ninety-nine percent of rational humanity would swear is impossible.”

Sylvia sighed. “The Dat-tay-vao.”

“Yeah. And if he says he needs the Dat-tay-vao to try to close up those holes and keep the days from shrinking to nothing and the world being overrun by those monstrosities from last night, why would you hold Jeffy away from him? Jeffy doesn’t need the Dat-tay-vao.”

“How do you know that?”

“Has it ever treated its carrier well? Look at Walter Erskine. Look at me. Remember the lines from the old song about the one who carries the Touch? ‘… He bears the weight of the balance that must be struck.’”

“But the Dat-tay-vao hasn’t harmed Jeffy.”

“Only because he hasn’t used it—yet. He hasn’t had an opportunity—yet. But what if he does find out, and does begin using it?”

Here it comes. She felt the pressure building up in her, edging past the point of control until she had to say it.

“And what if the Dat-tay-vao’s relationship with Jeffy is different? Special?”

Alan’s puzzled gaze searched her face.

“I don’t—”

“What if the Dat-tay-vao’s presence is keeping Jeffy like he is?” She tried to hold the tremor out of her voice but it grew, lending the words a jittery vibrato. “What if it’s the reason he’s been alert, responsive, laughing, singing, reading, playing with other kids—a normal boy—for the past year? Alan, what if that old man takes the Dat-tay-vao away for his focus or whatever he was talking about and Jeffy goes back to the way he was when I adopted him?” The tremor spread from her voice to her body now. She couldn’t control the shaking in her hands and knees. “What if he becomes autistic again, Alan?”

Sylvia pressed her hands against her face, as much to hide as to catch the tears springing into her eyes.

“God, Alan, I’m so ashamed!”

Suddenly someone was standing beside her. She felt a pair of arms slip around her and hold her close.

“Alan! You’re standing!”

“Not very well, I’m afraid. But that’s not the point. Watching you all morning, trying to figure out what’s going on inside you, and never seeing how frightened you are. Christ, what a jerk.”

“But you’re standing!”

“You’ve seen me do it before.”

“But not without the parallel bars.”

“You’re my parallel bars at the moment. I couldn’t just sit there and watch you go to pieces and spout that nonsense about being ashamed.”

“But I am ashamed.” She twisted in his arms and clung to him. “If Glaeken’s right, the whole world is threatened, billions of people in danger, and here I’m only worried about one little boy. I’m ready to let the whole world take a flying leap rather than jeopardize him.”

“But that’s not just any little boy. That’s Jeffy—your little boy, the most important little boy in your world. Don’t be ashamed of putting him first. That’s where he should be. That’s where he belongs.”

“But the whole world, Alan! How can I say no?” The panic welled up again. “How can I say yes?”

“I can’t answer that for you, Syl. I wish I could. You’ve got to weigh everything. Got to figure that if Glaeken’s right, and he can’t get the Dat-tay-vao for the focus he was talking about, then Jeffy’s a goner along with everybody else. There’s nothing to say that he can’t lure the Dat-tay-vao from Jeffy without harming him. If Glaeken can then turn all these horrors around, Jeffy will have a safer world to live in.”

“But if Jeffy is left in autistic limbo again…”

“That branches into two possibilities. Glaeken succeeds and Jeffy’s back to where he was a year ago and we deal with it and hope for a medical breakthrough in autism. Or Glaeken fails despite Jeffy’s sacrifice.”

“Then it’s all been for nothing.”

“Not necessarily. If nothing else, Jeffy’s relapse into autism will shield him from the living hell Glaeken’s predicting. That might be a blessing.”

She clung more tightly to Alan. “I wish this weren’t up to me.”

“I know. Too bad he’s not old enough to be brought in on the decision.”

Sylvia felt a vibration begin to shimmer through Alan’s lean body. She looked down and saw that his left leg had begun to tremble. As she watched, it began to jitter and shake. Alan reached a hand down to steady it, but as soon as he let go, the tremors started again.

Alan smiled. “I feel like Robert Klein doing his old I-can’t-stop-my-leg routine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Spasm. Happens when I’m on it too long. Used to be in both legs, now it’s just my left. Maybe I could try an Elvis imitation.”

“Stop it. Nobody listens to Elvis anymore.”

“I do. But only his Sun stuff, and pre-Army RCA.”

Sylvia smiled. Alan and his oldies. Part of his therapy after the coma had been to rebuild his doo-wop collection. It had worked miracles with his memory linkages.

“Here. Sit down.”

He eased himself back into the wheelchair. The leg stopped its jittering as soon as he took his weight off it.

“Uh-oh,” Alan said, slapping the still leg. “There goes my new career.”

Sylvia bent and hugged him around the neck.

“Have I told you that I love you?”

“Not today.”

“I love you, Alan. And thanks.”

“For what?”

“For standing up and holding me when I needed it. And for making things clear. I think I know what I’m going to do now.”

“Missus?”

Sylvia started at the sound of Ba’s voice. She wished he’d learn to make a little more noise when he moved about. He was like a cat.

He stood behind her holding the new club he’d been working on most of the afternoon to replace the one he’d given to that Jack fellow. Like its predecessor it was studded with diamond-like chew-wasp teeth.

“Yes, Ba?”

“Where is the Boy?”

Fingers of unease brushed her throat.

“I thought he was with you.”

“He was in the garage with me. He wished to go outside. I knew the Missus and the Doctor were here so…”

Ba’s voice trailed off as he did a slow turn, scanning the perimeter of the grounds.

Sylvia started toward the backyard. She never let Jeffy out alone by the water. Nightmares of dragging the Long Island Sound for his body …

“Maybe he’s—”

“No, Missus. I watched him run around house to front.”

“Maybe he’s inside, then.”

“He is not, Missus.”

The long shadows seemed to be reaching for her. The sun had become a red glow behind the willows along the west wall. The fingers of unease at her throat stretched, reaching toward panic, encircling and squeezing.

Rudy came toward her across the lawn. “We’re done!” he said, grinning.

“Have you seen Jeffy?” she asked. “My little boy?”

“The blond-haired kid? Not for a while. Not for a few hours. But we’ve been kinda occupied with getting those shutters up on time. Now, about that bonus—”

“I’ll pay you everything later—tomorrow. Right now we’ve got to find Jeffy!”

Alan said, “I’ll check the waterfront. Ba, you beat the bushes along the wall. Sylvia, why don’t you check the road?”

As Alan and Ba went their separate ways, Sylvia hurried down the driveway toward the front gate. When she reached the street she stopped, looking both ways, straining to see in the waning light.

Which way?

Shore Drive followed the curve of the sound, running east toward the center of town and west toward Lattingtown and Glen Cove. Instinctively, she started east, toward the pale moon rising full and translucent in the fading light. Jeffy loved the toy shops and video arcades along the harbor front. If he was traveling Shore Drive, that was the way he’d go. She took a few steps, then stopped, suddenly unsure.

If I were Jeffy, she thought, which way would I go?

Slowly she turned and faced the other way, where the sun perched on the horizon, sinking behind Manhattan.

Manhattan … where Glaeken was … where Jeffy and the power within him wanted to be …

She began running west. Her heart was a claustrophobic prisoner, trapped in her chest, pounding frantically on the bars of her ribs. Her eyes roved left and right, scanning the yards along the road. All oversize lots here, with as much frontage along the street as the shoreline. Unlike Toad Hall, most of the other yards were open, their manicured grounds studded with trees and shrubs and free-form plantings. Jeffy could have followed a squirrel or a bird into any one of them.

He might be anywhere.

She slowed but kept moving. She didn’t want to miss him. To her left a battered red pickup truck squealed to a halt on the street. Rudy leaned out the window as the rest of his work crew sped by him in their own cars and trucks.

“Any sign of your boy?”

Sylvia shook her head. “No. Look, we call him Jeffy. If you see him on your way—”

“I’ll send him back. Good luck.”

He sped off and Sylvia, with increasingly frequent glances at the disappearing sun, resumed her search. Before she’d traveled a block—the blocks were long out here—the sun was gone.

My God, my God, she thought, the sun’s down and those horrible insects are probably rising out of that new hole and heading this way right now.

If she didn’t get Jeffy back to the house soon those things would rip him to pieces. And if she stayed out here much longer, she would be ripped to pieces.

What am I going to do?

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: All right, everybody. It’s official—the sun’s gone down early again. It sank outta sight at 6:44. One hour and thirty-nine minutes early. If I were you I’d get off the streets. Now. Get indoors and keep it tuned here. We’ll keep you updated between the greatest songs ever recorded.

<cue: “Frantic Desolation”>

Hank thumbed the DOWN button on the remote and watched his steel hurricane shutters slide down their steel tracks outside his two windows. Then he stepped to his steel door and locked it.

Safe.

The Lodge was built like a fortress with an exterior of thick granite block and stone walls within. Steel and stone—what could be safer?

He owed much of that to the Kicker Man—or rather his more recent Kicker Man dreams. These had come to him months ago, showing the Kicker Man being attacked by birds—or at least what he’d assumed at the time to be birds. Now he knew they were big bugs from hell. Same difference. The dreams had inspired the shutters and the steel door, and they’d keep him safe from any goddamn bugs.

The good old Kicker Man. He’d inspired the book and he’d returned whenever anything heavy was going down. Hadn’t let Hank down yet.

But the food … that was all Hank’s idea.

He sat on his bed and looked around the room. One hell of a busy day. Running in and out with five-gallon jugs of spring water, boxes of batteries, a propane stove, and food, food, food. Cartons of canned goods—stacks of cartons leaned against the walls. It looked more like a warehouse than a bedroom.

After he’d sent his guys out to the grocery stores, he had a better idea. Why think small? Why not go to the source? So he rented a van, looked up a distributor, and really stocked up. Drove it around back of the Lodge and had some of the hangers-on bring it all up here.

Tomorrow he’d send the guys out in an army of trucks and they’d fill the Lodge’s cellar.

But he’d had a second coup today.

He reached under his bed and dragged out a pair of canvas bags. Heavy suckers—almost fifty pounds each. They clinked as they settled on the floor. He pulled one open, reached inside, and pulled out a fistful of quarters.

Yeah. Two whole bags of pre-1964 quarters. Four thousand of them, all solid silver. He’d bought them from a coin dealer on Fifty-sixth. And charged them. He couldn’t believe it. The clueless jerk took Visa for them!

Didn’t anyone get it? If daylight shrank to nothing and things really started falling apart, these coins were going to be like gold, like diamonds. Each of these quarters could be worth fifty dollars apiece in buying power. Precious metals would be what mattered. Gold, silver, gems would replace government paper.

He looked up at the cases of food around him. But food would be more valuable than any metal. Can’t eat gold or silver. In a world without sunlight, where nothing but mushrooms can grow, nothing was going to be more valuable than food. The man with the full larder would be king.

Nightwings

“There they are!”

Bill Ryan focused the binoculars on the hole in the Sheep Meadow. They brought the people below into sharp focus, seemingly within reach, but the people weren’t what interested him.

“Right on time,” Glaeken said from behind his right shoulder.

Bill watched the fluttering things begin to collect under the barrier stretched over the hole, watched them straining upward against the steel mesh. Arrayed against them under the banks of lights was an army of exterminators sheathed in heavy protective gear and masks, wielding hoses attached to tank trucks equipped with high-pressure pumps. At a signal from somewhere, all the nozzles came to life, spewing golden fluid.

“What are they spraying?” Glaeken said.

“Looks like some sort of insecticide.”

Glaeken grunted and turned away. “No toxins are going to hurt those things. They’d do far better with gasoline and a match.” He turned on the TV. “Here. It’s being broadcast. You’ll get a better angle here.”

Bill stepped to his side and watched the scene below in living color. Apparently Glaeken was right: In the telephoto close-up on the screen, the insecticide was having no effect on the steadily increasing number of creatures massed under the mesh, wetting them down and little else. He looked at Nick, sitting on the sofa, staring at the wall, then turned back to Glaeken.

“Think the net will hold through the night?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Glaeken said with his predictable pessimism.

Bill shook his head. Perhaps being pessimistic was being realistic, but he couldn’t suppress the thrill of hope that shot through him when he saw all those monstrosities trapped under the steel mesh.

“Why not? It shows we can contain them.”

“Even as we speak, the holes in Queens, on Staten Island, and out on Long Island are spewing out the very creatures they think they’ve defeated here.”

“Then we’ll cap those too.”

“Bigger things are coming. The speedy little flying things arrive first because they’re the quickest. Then come the slower flying things. Then come the crawlers.”

Crawlers … the very word made Bill’s skin ripple with revulsion.

“Then we’ve bought only a little time here,” Bill said, his spirits palpably sagging.

“They haven’t bought even that. For somewhere along the way … the leviathans will come.”

Bill was about to ask for some elaboration on that when he heard a whining howl from the park, loud enough to be audible through the locked and sealed windows. On the screen he noticed the exterminators and observers start to back away from the hole. The streams from the hoses seemed to be blowing back in their faces.

“Something’s happening.”

He returned to the window with the binocs. Down in the Sheep Meadow, a gale-force wind was roaring from the hole, bulging the heavy steel mesh upward as it crushed the insects against it.

“Looks like the hole is trying to blow the lid off!”

Glaeken came up beside him. “No,” he said softly. “Something’s coming. Something big.”

Bill squinted through the binoculars as the wind howl grew louder. The exterminators had turned off their hoses and were still backing away. As he watched, a number of the steel girders anchoring the mesh at the south side tore from the ground. That end of the mesh began to flap free, releasing a horde of the killer insects. Panic took charge of the Sheep Meadow.

“Big?” Bill said. “How—?”

And then it happened. Something burst from the hole. Something beyond big. Something gargantuan, filling the two-hundred-foot diameter, something dark as the deepest cavern at the bottom of the Mariana Trench at midnight. It rammed through the steel mesh like a night train through a spider’s web and kept hurtling upward, a monstrous, glistening, rough-hewn piling thrusting its seemingly endless length into the darkening sky.

Bill tore the glasses from his eyes and watched as it came free of the hole and continued upward. Awed, he pressed his face against the windowpane and followed its course, wondering how far it could go before it lost momentum and fell back to earth, his mind reeling at the thought of the damage from something the size of a small skyscraper crashing down on the city.

Its rate of rise slowed, then stopped. For an instant it paused, a cyclopean column of black hanging vertically in the air. Then it began to tilt and fall. But as it fell it changed. Huge wings unfolded, unfurling like flags, and spread, stretching across the sky, obscuring the emerging stars. The thing leveled itself and began to glide. It swooped over the park, then banked to the east and was gone.

Thoroughly shaken, Bill turned to Glaeken.

“The leviathan you mentioned?”

Glaeken nodded. “One of them. There’ll be more.”

“But how’s that thing going to get back into the hole at sunrise?”

“They don’t have to. They can keep to the nightside and stay ahead of sunrise as they roam the skies.” He looked up at the stars. “Do you know the constellations?”

“Not really. The Big Dipper, maybe, but—”

“I do. And they’ve changed. Those aren’t the same stars up there as last night.”

Outside, another whining howl began to issue from the hole.

“Here comes another,” Glaeken said.

Part of Bill wanted to pull the curtains, shut off the TV, and crawl under the couch. But another part had to watch. He dragged a chair up to the window and waited in horrid fascination to see what would happen next.

WFPW-FM

Reports are filtering in from around the globe, especially from Europe where nightfall occurs hours ahead of ours. All the new holes that opened during the day are spewing forth swarms of creatures tonight, just like the ones that caused such devastation in our town last night. The reports also describe four species now—two more than we saw around here. Some of the local reports say the infestation is particularly heavy on Long Island …

Monroe, Long Island

Trembling, Sylvia hurried through the growing darkness, crying out, screaming Jeffy’s name. But only the faint echo of her own voice answered. She was panting from the unaccustomed exertion.

Suddenly a red pickup roared around the curve ahead. Rudy—and God, could that be a little blond head peering through the windshield from the passenger seat? Sylvia ran into the street and narrowly missed being hit as the pickup swerved into the curb.

Rudy grinned as he hopped out of the cab and came around the front of his truck. “I hope this is him, Mrs. Nash. ’Cause if he ain’t, somebody’s gonna have me up on kidnappin’ charges sure.”

Sylvia, weak-kneed with relief and fighting tears, said, “No, that’s him.” She pulled open the passenger door and reached for Jeffy. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Found him way down the road there, truckin’ along like he had someplace real important to go.”

She hugged the child against her. “Oh, Jeffy, Jeffy, you had me so worried!”

“I want to go see Glaeken.”

“You can’t right now, honey. We’ve got to get back to the house so those”—what had the old man called them?—“so those chew wasps don’t get us.”

“But Glaeken needs me.”

Sylvia held him tighter. Something unholy about this child’s attraction to that old man.

Rudy laughed. “Kids. Aren’t they somethin’? Who’s Glaeken? A little friend of his? Must really want to see him bad. I damn near had to drag your little guy into my truck to get him back here. I guess you’ve drilled it into him not to—”

Something whizzed between them. Rudy jerked his head back.

“What the hell was that?”

Sylvia cringed and wrapped her arms around Jeffy.

“It’s a chewer bug, Mom!”

Another of the things sailed by. Rudy ducked but not quite fast enough. The creature knocked his Giants cap askew. He took it off and gawked at the piece bitten out of the beak.

“Christ!”

“Run, Jeffy!” Sylvia cried. “We’ve got to get home!”

Rudy grabbed her arm before they could get moving.

“Into the truck! I’ll drive you back!”

Sylvia pushed Jeffy ahead of her into the cab, slammed the door behind her, and rolled up the window. Rudy hopped into the driver seat and yanked on the gearshift. The pickup lurched forward.

“Close your window, Rudy!”

He flashed her a lopsided smile. “It don’t go up.”

“Then I think you’d better plan on staying at our place tonight.”

“Nah! Ain’t no buncha bugs gonna keep me from goin’ home. I don’t care how big they are. They’re only—what the fuck?”

He downshifted and the pickup lurched to a slower speed. They were almost to Toad Hall, but up ahead something was floating across the road—a group of somethings. They reminded Sylvia of the belly flies from last night, only these things were much bigger. Football-sized sacs sat atop their bodies like transparent balloons. Double dragonfly wings jutted from their sides, and long gray tendrils dangled below. They looked like a school of airborne Portuguese men-of-war.

Rudy swerved to try to go around the floating phalanx, but the balloonlike creatures banked toward the pickup. The front tire on the passenger side caromed off the Belgian block curb, violently bouncing Sylvia and Jeffy in the seat, and veering the truck toward the hovering men-of-war.

The pickup slammed into them, splattering the hood and windshield with ruptured sacs, broken wings, and gray fluid.

“Yeah!” Rudy shouted. “That’ll show ’em!”

He hit the windshield wiper switch but the blades were jammed under the debris.

“Damn! Can’t see.”

He slowed the truck to a crawl, stuck his head out the window, and reached around to the windshield.

“No!” Sylvia cried. “Rudy, don’t—!”

His scream cut her off. He jerked his head and arm back but a mass of gray tendrils came with him. They were alive, writhing, twisting, curling, crawling along Rudy’s arm to his shoulder, reaching for his face. Close up like this Sylvia could see the tendrils were lined with tiny suckers, like octopus tentacles, except these were rimmed with tiny teeth, and in the center of each was a pale, curling tongue. The teeth were drawing blood as they moved, and the tongues were lapping it up.

Rudy looked at her, his eyes wide with pain and terror. He opened his mouth, whether to say something or scream again, Sylvia never knew, for another mass of tentacles swept through the open window and engulfed his head, the tips plunging into his mouth and worming into his nostrils. She had one last glimpse of his bulging eyes, and then he was pulled kicking and flailing through the side window.

As Jeffy’s scream mingled with her own, the pickup stalled and jerked dead. Sylvia pulled the handle at her side and kicked the door. As it opened a mass of tentacles and broken wings slid off the roof. The tentacles reached for her as they fell past but she pulled back in time to avoid them. Then, grabbing Jeffy, she leapt out and they crouched beside the front wheel.

The darkening air was alive with flying things and thrummed with the low-pitched hum of their wings as they darted and swooped about the pickup.

Sylvia rose warily and looked about for Rudy. She froze at the sight of a huge, ungainly, twisting shape rising slowly on the far side of the hood—a cluster of a dozen or so men-of-war, their float sacs bumping one another, their tentacles a writhing gorgonian mass, slithering about on—

Sylvia groaned as she recognized Rudy’s boots and denimed legs protruding from the lower end of the mass, his toes dangling three or four feet above the pavement. His head and torso were engulfed in the hungry tangle of squirming, feeding tentacles. As she watched, the legs kicked feebly once, twice, then shuddered and hung limp in the air.

Rudy! Oh, dear God, poor Rudy!

Prompted by the breeze, the floating, feeding mass began a slow drift down the twilit street.

Sylvia swiveled, frantically looking for a hiding place, wondering if they might not be better off in the cab of the truck. Across the street she spotted a corner of the wall that surrounded Toad Hall. Farther down the sidewalk the wrought-iron gate stood open.

Jeffy was still crouched by the tire. She pulled him to his feet and pushed him around the front of the truck ahead of her.

“Run, Jeffy! Run for the wall!”

Crouching over him as a shield, she propelled him ahead of her across the street toward the wall; when they reached its base, they raced for the gate, hugging the stones as they ran. Belly flies and chew wasps circled about with another new species, similar to the chewers in size but equipped with a spear-shaped head. Most were winging toward Toad Hall. Apparently the bugs hadn’t spotted them in the shadows. But that would change once they got through the gate. She and Jeffy would be completely exposed in the open stretch along the driveway between the gate and the willows. But she forced that out of her mind for the moment. She’d worry about it when the time came. First they had to reach the gate.

Something moved in her peripheral vision and she glanced right. Men-of-war, three of them, in the middle of the street opposite the gate, their long trailing tendrils curling and uncurling with hungry anticipation as they glided her way with graceful, deadly purpose.

They’ve spotted us!

Stifling a scream, she caught Jeffy under the arms and lifted him, carrying him ahead of her as she threw every ounce of strength and will into her pumping legs. She had to reach the gate before those things cut her off. Suddenly a belly fly was swooping toward her face. She ducked, stumbled, regained her balance and kept running.

But the men-of-war were closer. They were slow but they had the angle on her. Sylvia moaned softly as she realized she wasn’t going to beat them to the gate.

Only three will live to return.

The words crawled across her mind. Were they going to prove true? Was she the one who wasn’t going to make it? Or would it be Jeffy?

Her limbs responded to the horror of seeing Jeffy end like Rudy and she picked up speed. Her arms were throbbing, her lungs burned with the unaccustomed exertion, her legs wanted to fold under her, but she pushed it.

Almost there!

But so were the men-of-war. Seeing them closing, Sylvia pushed her speed up a final desperate notch. They were so close she could smell their foul carrion odor. The tendrils swept forward through the air, reaching for her. She screamed in horror and despair of making it as she ducked and rounded the gatepost corner with only inches to spare.

A sob of relief was bursting free in her throat when something tangled in her hair and yanked her back. She pushed Jeffy ahead of her.

“Run home, Jeffy!”

He started to obey her, but when he glanced over his shoulder he stopped and screamed.

“Mommy! It’s got you!”

“Jeffy! Run for the house! Please!”

But he stood rooted to the spot, transfixed with horror.

Sylvia reached back and felt a clump of slimy tentacles tangled in her hair, worming toward her scalp. A few wrapped around her fingers and she felt the sharp bite of the suckers, the rasping licks of the tiny tongues before she snatched her hand free. To her right and left she saw other men-of-war sailing her way, their hungry, questing tendrils extended toward her face. She had a sudden vision of herself as a floating corpse like Rudy.

It’s me! she thought. I’m the one who’s not going to make it!

She ducked as they closed in on her, her scalp blazing with pain as the thing in her hair tried to hold her back. The tentacles of the others were only inches away now, reaching for her face. She put her hands up to swat them away but they became entangled and trapped. Frantically she yanked and twisted but couldn’t pull free. She felt the bites, felt her blood flow, felt the tiny tongues begin to lap. But she bottled her screams. She wouldn’t let those tentacles reach into her mouth like they did Rudy’s. As they climbed up her arm, her vision swam, darkened. The earth seemed to tilt under her—

She heard a crunch and suddenly the tentacles sheathing her right hand and forearm loosened their grip. She yanked free and stared.

The creature was sagging toward the driveway, its float sac ruptured, its wings broken and fluttering futilely. And then she realized she was not alone.

“Ba!”

He towered over her in the dimness, his clothes torn and bloody, swinging his razor-toothed billy club. Another crunch and the tentacles clutching her left hand spasmed and loosened their grip enough for her to pull free.

“Hold still, Missus,” he said, and he swung his club at her head.

Sylvia winced instinctively, heard a third crunch behind her, and then her hair was free. Ba pulled her forward. She needed no further encouragement. She picked up Jeffy and started to run.

The air was alive with buzzing, soaring, biting things. Fully alerted to their presence now, the bugs were all around her and Jeffy. Wings brushed her face and hair, jaws clicked on empty air as they narrowly missed her. They’d have had no hope without Ba. He took the lead, running tall, daring the creatures to attack him as he slashed left and right with his club. Sylvia clung to the back of his coat, awed by his reflexes, by the length of his reach, and by his seeming ability to see in the dark. Maybe he struck at the sound of the things. Whatever his method, he was clearing a path for them through the winged horrors.

Almost to the house. Another twenty feet and they’d be at the door. The closed door. What if it was locked?

Where was Alan? Good God, if he was still outside he was a goner, a sitting duck in that wheelchair.

Just then one of the chew wasps whizzed past her cheek and buried its teeth into Ba’s shoulder. He grunted with pain but kept running, kept swinging his club ahead of him and clearing the path. Fighting her rising gorge, Sylvia shifted Jeffy’s weight to one arm and reached up with her free hand; she forced her fingers around the chewer’s body and gave it a violent twist. The body cracked and the teeth came free of Ba’s back as cold fluid ran down her arm.

Ba turned and nodded his thanks, and at that instant, a writhing mass of tentacles dropped onto the back of his neck. He stumbled but managed to hold his balance and keep moving. And then they were at the door, Sylvia pulling whatever tentacles she could reach free of Ba’s neck as he groped for the doorknob. If the door was locked they were doomed. They’d die right here on Toad Hall’s front steps.

But the door opened before Ba reached it. Light flooded out. She had a glimpse of Alan looking up from his wheelchair as he held it open. They tumbled through to the foyer and the door slammed shut behind them. Ba dropped his billy and sank to his knees, clawing at the tentacled monstrosity wrapping itself around his throat. Sylvia put Jeffy down and went to help him but Alan suddenly rolled between them and reached toward the floor.

“Drop your hands a second, Ba.”

As Ba obeyed, Alan lifted the spiked club. He swung at the man-of-war, ripping its air sac and tearing open its body. The tentacles loosened their grip and Ba ripped it free, hurling it to the floor. As it tried to flutter-crawl toward Jeffy across the marble floor, Alan ran it over with the big wheel of his chair. Twice. Finally the thing lay still.

Behind her, Jeffy was sobbing. From somewhere in the basement, Phemus barked wildly.

Ba staggered to his feet. His neck was a mass of blood, his clothing shredded and bloody. He faced her, panting, ragged, swaying.

“You and the Boy are all right, Missus?”

“Yes, Ba. Thanks to you. But you need a doctor.”

“I will go wash myself.” He turned and headed for the guest bathroom.

Sylvia looked at Alan. Tears streaked his face. His lips were trembling.

“I thought you were dead! I knew you were out there and needed help and I couldn’t go to you.” He pounded his thighs. “God damn these useless things!”

Sylvia lifted Jeffy and carried him to Alan. She seated herself on Alan’s lap and adjusted Jeffy on hers. Alan’s arms encircled them both. Jeffy began to cry. Sylvia understood perfectly. For the first time today she felt safe. And that feeling of safety opened the floodgates. She began to sob as she had never sobbed in her life. The three of them cried together.

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre

Night of Bloody Horror (1969) Howco International

Cataclysm

Maui

The moana puka appeared around dusk.

Kolabati and Moki had been standing on the lanai watching the sun sink into the Pacific—earlier than ever. Barely a quarter to seven. They were also watching the airport far below. Kolabati couldn’t remember ever seeing it so busy.

“Look at them,” Moki said, grinning as he slipped an arm around her waist. “The shrinking daylight’s got them all spooked. See how they run.”

“It’s got me spooked too.”

“Don’t let it. If it sends all the Jap malahinis scurrying west back to their own islands, and all the haoles back to the mainland—preferably back to New York, where they can fall into that hole in Central Park—it’s all for the good. It will leave the islands to the Hawaiians.”

She’d been fascinated by the news of the mysterious hole in the Sheep Meadow. She knew the area well. Her brother Kusum had once owned an apartment overlooking Central Park.

“I’m not Hawaiian.”

He tightened his grip on her waist. “As long as you’re with me, you are.”

Somehow his encircling arm was not as comforting as she would have wished. They watched the airport in silence awhile longer, then Moki released her and leaned on the railing, staring out at the valley, the sky.

“Something’s going to happen soon. Do you feel it?”

Kolabati nodded. “Yes. I’ve felt it for days.”

“Something wonderful.”

“Wonderful?” She stared at him. Could he mean it? She’d been plagued by an almost overwhelming sense of dread since the trade winds had reversed themselves. “No. Not wonderful at all. Something terrible.”

His grin became fierce. “Terrible for other people, maybe. But wonderful for us. You wait and see.”

Kolabati didn’t know what to make of Moki lately. His behavior had remained bizarre since Wednesday when the gash on his hand had healed so quickly. At least once a day he’d cut himself to see if the healing power was still with him. Each time he healed more quickly than the day before. And with each healing the wild light in his eyes had grown.

As the daylight began to fade, Kolabati turned toward the door, but Moki grabbed her arm.

“Wait. What is that?”

He was staring east, toward Kahului and beyond. She followed his gaze and saw it. Something in the water. White water, bubbling, roiling. A gigantic disturbance. With foreboding ballooning within her, Kolabati grabbed the binoculars from their hook and focused on the disturbance.

At first all she saw was turbulent white water, giant chop, a chaos of sloshing and swirling. But as she watched, the turbulence became ordered, took shape. The white water began to swirl in a uniform direction, counterclockwise, around a central point. She identified the center in time to see it sink below the surface and become a dark, spinning, sucking maw.

“Moki, look!” She handed him the glasses.

“I see!” he said, but took them anyway.

She watched his expression as he adjusted the lenses. His smile grew.

“A whirlpool! It’s too close to shore to be from converging currents. It’s got to be a crack in the ocean floor. No, wait!” He lowered the glasses and stared at her, his face flushed with excitement. “A hole! It has to be a hole in the ocean floor, just like the one in New York! We’ve got our own hole here!”

Together—Moki with undisguised glee, Kolabati with growing, gnawing unease—they watched the whirlpool organize and expand. The troubles from the outer world, from the mainland, were intruding on her paradise. That could bring only misfortune. They watched together until it was too dark to see, then went inside and turned on the TV to catch what the news had to say about it. The scientists all agreed—the ocean floor had opened in a fashion similar to the phenomenon in Manhattan’s Central Park. Already the locals had a name for it: moana puka—ocean hole.

Moki could barely contain his excitement. He wandered the great room, talking a blue streak, gesticulating wildly.

“You know what’s going to happen, Bati? The water’s going to be sucked down into whatever abyss those holes lead to, and it’s going to keep on disappearing into nowhere. And eventually the ocean level is going to drop. And if it drops far enough, do you know what will happen?”

Kolabati shook her head. She had an inescapable feeling that she was witnessing the beginning of the end—of everything.

“Greater Maui will be reborn.” He went to the doorway that opened onto the lanai and gestured into the darkness. “Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, even little Molokini—all of them were part of Maui before the Ice Age, connected to our island by valleys rather than cut off by channels of sea water. I see it happening, Bati. I see them all joined again, reunited after ages of separation. A single island, as big as the Big Island. Maybe bigger. And I’ll play a part in the future of Greater Maui.”

“What future?” Kolabati said, joining him at the door. “If the Pacific Ocean drops that far we’ll be looking at the end of the world!”

“No, Bati. Not the end. The beginning. The beginning of a new world.”

And then the sky caught fire. All around them, like a sustained flash of sheet lightning, the night ignited. At the far end of the island she saw the Lahaina coast and the Iao Valley of West Maui light up like day. The same with the island of Lanai across the channel. Then a blast of superheated air, choked with flaming debris, roared overhead and to the sides, withering west Maui, searing Lanai, yet she and Moki remained in cool shadow, shielded by the enormous bulk of Haleakala.

“Shiva!” she cried in the Bengali dialect of her childhood. “What are you doing?”

And then came the sound. The floor shook and seemed to fall away beneath her as the night exploded with a rumbling, booming, deep-throated roar that shuddered through her flesh, shook every cell of her body, and rattled the very core of her being.

As she tumbled to the floor she heard Moki’s voice faintly above the din.

“Earthquake!”

He crawled to where she lay and rolled on top of her, using his body to shield her from the shelves and lamps and sculptures crashing down about them.

It went on forever. Kolabati didn’t know how the house’s cantilever supports managed to hold. Any moment now they were going to give way and send the house tumbling down the slope. Only once before in her life—when Jack had borrowed her necklace for a number of hours and all of her years had begun to assert their weight upon her—had Kolabati felt so close to death.

The earth tremors and shudders persisted but became quieter, muffled. Moki lifted himself off her and she struggled to her feet.

“Pehea oe?”

“All right … I think,” she said, not bothering to reply in Hawaiian.

They clung to each other like sailors on a heaving deck. Kolabati looked around. The great room was a shambles. Moki’s sculptures lay all about in pieces, their carved wood cracked and splintered, their lava bases shattered.

“Oh, Moki. Your work!”

“The sculptures don’t matter,” he said, clutching her tight against him. “They’re the past. I would have had to smash them myself. Don’t you see, Bati? This is it! The new beginning I told you about. It’s here!”

He drew her to the trembling lanai where they leaned over the railing and stared up at the dark mass of Haleakala, toward her summit, rimmed now with fiery light.

“Look, Bati!” he said, pointing up the slope. “Haleakala is alive! After hundreds of years of dormancy, she’s come back to life! For me! For us!”

Kolabati pulled away and fled back inside. She flipped one light switch after another but the room remained dark. She picked her way through the debris to the television but could not get it to work. The electricity was gone. At least they had a generator. She hoped it still worked.

“Bati!” Moki called. “Hele mai. Stand with me and watch Haleakala. The House of the Sun has rekindled her fires. She’s calling us home!”

Kolabati stood amid the shambles of their house—their life—and knew that her time of peace had ended, that things would never be the same. She was afraid.

“That wasn’t just Haleakala erupting, Moki,” she said, her voice trembling like the floor beneath her. “Something else happened. Something far more violent and cataclysmic than an old volcano coming to life.”

It’s the end of the world, she thought.

She could feel it in her bones and in the way the ancient necklace pulsed against her skin. The air about her screamed with tortured atman, released in sudden, violent death.

Haleakala had awakened, but what else had happened?

The pain is gone. Only the ecstasy remains. And it grows. The night things run rampant in the dark sectors above. Rasalom senses the delirium of fear and pain and grief and misery they leave in their wake.

And then came the convulsion of death and horror when the Pacific volcanoes roared back to life. The surge was almost unbearable.

As a result, the pace of the Change has picked up. He is so much larger now, and his granite womb has grown to accommodate him. The chips of sloughed stone have disappeared down the hole that opened in the bottom of the chamber. Like the other holes that have opened around this globe, it, too, is bottomless. But it leads to a different place. A place of icy flame. Even now, a faint glow creeps up from the depths.

And the Change … his limbs have thickened, hardened to a stony consistency. His head has drawn into his trunk, concentrating his essence in a soft, bulbous core, a fleshy center in the hub of a four-spoked wheel.

He spreads his intangible feeders farther and farther afield, seeking more nourishment. He can never get enough.

SUNDAY

Sunday in New York

WNYW-TV

And now the news: The sun rose late at 7:10 A.M. this morning and found not only a devastated New York City but the entire world reeling from the events of last night …

Manhattan

What a night.

Jack stood yawning in the chilly dawn outside Gia’s town house. He shivered and tugged the zipper on his jacket a little higher.

Almost June. Wasn’t the weather supposed to be getting warmer?

Across the East River the sun was rising red and quick over Queens. He thought he could almost see it moving. Around him, Sutton Square had never looked so bad. The little half block of town houses hanging over the FDR Drive had been spared Friday, but last night more than made up for it. Shattered glass on the sidewalks, lacerated screens hanging in ribbons from the windows.

The chew wasps and belly flies had been back, but other things—bigger, heavier things—had come as well. Luckily, the louvered wooden shutters flanking the windows of Gia’s town house hadn’t been merely ornamental. They were hung on real hinges and able to swing closed over the windows. The night had been long and tense, filled with hungry, predatory noises, but they’d passed it in safety.

Other places hadn’t been so lucky. Jack was wondering whether he should check out some of the neighboring town houses to see if anybody needed help when he noticed something hanging over the arm of the streetlamp on the corner. Something big and limp.

He took a few steps toward it and stopped when he realized it was a corpse. Female, maybe, but so torn up and desiccated it was hard to tell.

But how had it got there? Twenty feet up. Was there a hole creature big enough to fly off with someone?

Things were worsening faster than he’d imagined.

Jack checked the Glock at the small of his back and the extra magazines in his pockets, then went to check his car. The Vic’s black paint had bubbled off in spots as if it had been splashed with acid, and the windshield was fouled with some putrid-smelling gunk that Jack wiped off with a rag from his trunk.

“Eeeeuuuu! What happened?”

Jack turned and saw Vicky standing in the town house doorway, dressed in bib-front overalls, a flannel shirt, a jacket, and her green-and-white Jets cap. With the little suitcase in her hand, she looked like a country cousin arriving in the big city for a visit. But her blue eyes were wide with shock as she stared at the car’s ruined finish.

“The things from the hole,” Jack said, waving her forward to distract her from the corpse on the lamppost. “That’s why I want you and your mom to leave.”

“Mom still doesn’t want to go.”

“I know that, Vicks.”

Jeez, do I know.

Gia didn’t want to leave the city, thought she and Vicky could weather the wolf just fine in their brick house here on Sutton Square. Jack wasn’t having any of that. He was willing to let her have her way in most anything unless he thought she’d be in danger. He’d been relentless last night, wearing her down until she’d finally agreed to leave the city with Abe first thing this morning.

“Is that why you and Mom were yelling last night?”

“We weren’t yelling. We just had a … difference of opinion.”

“Oh. I thought it was a fight.”

“Your mother and I? Disagree? Never! Now come on, Vicks. Let’s get you settled in the car.”

As Vicky stepped down onto the sidewalk, Gia emerged behind her. She was dressed in jeans and a navy-blue V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt. Her eyes, the same shade of blue as Vicky’s, went as wide as her daughter’s when she saw the street. She ran her fingers through her short blond hair.

“Oh, Jack!”

“I’ll bet this is nothing compared to the rest of the city.”

He put his index finger to his lips and pointed to the body on the lamppost. Gia started and staggered back a step when she spotted it.

“Dear God!”

“Still think you’ll be safe here?”

“We did okay last night.”

Stubborn to the end.

“But it’s going to get worse.”

“So you’ve said—a thousand times.”

“Two thousand times. I get paid to know these things.”

“And you’re sure Abe’s place is better?”

He mimicked Abe’s accent. “Like a fortress it’s built.”

She shrugged resignedly. “All right. I’m packed. Like I promised. But I still think this trip is overkill.”

Jack ducked past her into the house to grab the suitcases before she changed her mind. Everything fit in the trunk with plenty of room to spare. He wondered about the toddler accessories he’d be packing if Emma were with them. A high chair probably. And what else? Toys. Yeah, toys. Toys in a survival bunker.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and climbed behind the wheel. He zigzagged down to 57th Street and started up the long incline toward Fifth Avenue.

Bad, but not as bad as yesterday. Most people—the sane ones, at least—had stayed in last night. Early Sunday morning was about the only time midtown Manhattan could be called quiet, but even fewer cars than usual roamed the streets today. Most of those were either police or emergency vehicles of one sort or another. All the streets were littered with sparkling glass fragments. Here and there along the way he spotted an occasional shrunken husk that had once been a human body. One or two dangled from high places, as if they’d been dropped or thrown there after being sucked dry. Jack kept glancing back at Vicky but she was slumped down in the backseat, engrossed in one of her Nocturnia books, oblivious to her surroundings.

Good. He kept an eye on Gia, as well, watching her expression grow tighter, her face grow paler with each passing block. By Madison Avenue she was ashen. As he pulled to a stop at a red light, Gia looked at him with eyes even wider than before. Her voice was barely audible.

“Jack … I’m … what…?”

She closed her mouth and stared ahead in silence.

Jack said nothing, but he was sure he wouldn’t have any more resistance to the idea of getting out of town.

From the right came a sudden explosion of glass as a display case crashed through a corner jewelry store’s only unbroken window to land on the sidewalk.

A guy with glazed eyes and lank, oily brown hair, sporting a stained black T-shirt and torn jeans, followed it through the hole, laughing as he landed and rolled on the pavement. He was white but wore enough tats and gold chains to qualify as a charter member of the Lil Wayne wannabe club. His fingers were stacked with so many rings he couldn’t bend them. Another guy, heavier but dressed identically and sporting an equal amount of gold, made a more traditional exit through the door. They gave each other a metallic high five. Then they spotted the Vic.

“Hey, man!” the first one said, smiling as he approached the car. Jack spotted the Kicker Man tattoo on his right hand. “It’s a ride!”

The heavier one followed him. “Yeah! Want some gold? We’ll give you some gold for a ride downtown. We got plenty!”

Jack couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeah, right. And like maybe I’ll let you hold my wallet while I drive you around.”

As the looters’ disarming grins twisted into rage, he gunned the car and pulled away through the red light.

Trouble was, Vicky was now sitting up and alert to her surroundings.

“Why didn’t you give that man a ride, Jack?”

“Because he’s one of the bad guys, Vicks. What’s called a looter.”

“But he just wanted a ride.”

“I don’t think so, Vicks. You know those silverfish we find crawling in the bathroom every so often?”

Vicky made a face. “Yuck.”

“Yeah, well, looters are lower than silverfish. When the good folks are occupied fighting fires or helping earthquake or storm victims, looters sneak in and carry off anything that’s not nailed down. Those guys didn’t want a ride; they wanted our car.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Fair’s not a word they care about, Vicks.”

“Look!” she said, pointing to her left as they crossed Fifth Avenue. “More looters!”

She was right. Knots of people were jumping in and out of the broken windows all along Fifth, scampering off through the dim dawn light with jewelry, leather, anything they could carry. Someone had pulled a panel truck up on the sidewalk in front of Bergdorf ’s and was loading it with dresses. As Jack was pulling away, he saw a bearded, professorial type step through the open space that had once been the big front window of a bookstore balancing a two-foot stack of books against the front of his tweed jacket.

“Everybody’s getting into the act,” he said.

Gia looked around. “Where are the police?”

“Stretched pretty thin, I’d guess. At least when the sun’s all the way up these cockroaches will crawl back under the floorboards.”

“It’s been only two days. I never dreamed…” Her voice trailed off.

“What? That things could fall apart this fast? This city’s become a sewer, Gia. During the past year all the garbage wandering around this half of the country seems to have got themselves a Kicker tattoo and ended up here. Its veneer of civilization is now about as thick as the layer of gold on the jewelry they hawk on the streets. A couple of good rubs against your jeans and the base metal shows through.”

“What about neighborliness and hanging together in times of trouble?”

“Maybe they’ll have some of that out in Iowa where you grew up, and maybe there’ll be pockets of it around here, but not enough to matter. The good folks will be driven into hiding and the slime will be free to do whatever they damn well please.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t want to believe that. And it disturbs me to know you believe that.”

Jack shrugged. “In my work, you get to spend a lot of time hip-deep in slime. You—”

“Oh, my God!” Gia cried, craning her neck and staring up through the windshield.

Jack slowed and glanced up. Something bright in the sky. He stuck his head out the window—and stopped the car to stare.

Vicky popped her head out behind him. “Ooooh neeeeat!”

“Jack! What’s happening? What is that?”

“Looks like an apartment building,” Vicky said.

Half a mile up, probably over the West Side Highway or the midtown piers, a building floated in the air. It hung as if suspended on an invisible wire, rotating slowly, its roof canted slightly eastward, its torn underside westward. Light from the rising sun flashed off the few intact windows. Broken-away masonry floated around it. Tiny figures leaned out the windows, waving shirts and towels in panicked attempts to attract the attention of the police helicopters that circled it like flies around a corpse.

“Jeez!” Jack said as he stared upward at the slowly dwindling shape. “It’s still rising.”

Those poor bastards trapped up there were doomed unless they could find a way of transferring to one of the helicopters.

At least now he knew where a lot of the cops were.

“Let’s keep moving,” Gia said, looking around.

Jack hit the gas and they continued west. He refrained from saying I told you so as he ran red lights all the way to Amsterdam Avenue, then raced uptown to the Isher Sports Shop.

Abe stood outside, waiting by his panel truck in front of his store’s smashed windows. So fixated was he on the flying building that he barely noticed their arrival. Jack screeched to a halt a half dozen feet in front of him.

That got his attention.

He cringed. “Gevalt! You’re trying to squish me already?”

He was wearing a black suit jacket; his white shirt and black tie were clean. Obviously he hadn’t had breakfast yet.

“Ready to go?” Jack said, pulling Vicky from the backseat.

“Yes, of course.” Abe gave Gia a hug and Vicky a kiss on the top of her head. “I should want to keep two such beautiful young ladies waiting? Come with me. I’ve got Parabellum, coffee, juice, and not-so-fresh bagels in the front seat.”

He opened the rear doors of the panel truck, then ushered Gia and Vicky around to the front. He returned as Jack was loading the last suitcase into the rear compartment. He pointed a trembling finger at the building in the sky.

“It’s happening like you said, isn’t it?” Abe’s accent was gone. “All rules—man’s and God’s—pffft!”

Jack looked and saw that the building was considerably higher than before. When would it stop rising? Would it stop rising?

“Double-pffft!” Jack nodded toward the shattered storefront windows. “Looters?”

Abe shrugged. “Nothing’s missing. Must have been those flying things. Haven’t seen any looting.”

“Plenty of it going on in the high-rent district. They just haven’t got this far yet.”

Abe thrust a set of keys into Jack’s hand. “Here. These are for the basement. A cannon it’ll take to get in without them. You need anything, help yourself.”

Jack pointed toward the small armory inside the truck.

“You mean there’s something left?”

Jack hefted the keys and stuffed them in a front pocket. “The basement of the Isher Sports Shop was where Abe stocked his weapons—the illegal ones, plus the legal ones he sold illegally. He carried everything from blackjacks to Claymore land mines. Might be handy to have access to that sort of variety.

“I might move in.”

“Be my guest. You have the wavelength written down?”

“Yeah. Got the shortwave set on it. If I don’t hear from you on the cell, I’ll be listening at seven A.M. and seven P.M. Don’t forget to call in.”

Communications were getting iffy, so they’d decided to resort to shortwave radios.

“Don’t worry.”

“Which way you heading out? The Lincoln?”

Abe nodded. “It’s closest. And from what you say, the quicker we get out, the better.”

“You know it. You carrying?”

Abe patted the heavy lump in the right-side pocket of his jacket. “Of course.”

“Good. But maybe I’ll tail you through the tunnel anyway—just in case.”

Abe huffed. “You don’t think I can protect your women?”

“I wouldn’t be sending them off with you if I wasn’t sure of that.”

They stared at each other in silence a few seconds.

“Seems like we should say something here,” Abe said. “I mean, two old friends at the end of the world. One of us should be able to come up with something meaningful.”

“You’re the guy with all the education. You do the honors.”

Abe looked down, then smiled and thrust out his hand.

“See you soon, Jack.”

Jack smiled as they shook hands. That just about said it all.

“Enough of this stuff. Get behind the wheel and I’ll say my good-byes to the ladies.”

After a big hug from Vicky, Jack held Gia in his arms.

“Be careful, Jack,” she whispered in his ear. “And thanks.”

“For what?”

“For making us get out of town. You’re right. The city’s turning ugly. But you watch out.”

He grinned. “Hell, I’m uglier than any city you can name.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about her.”

“Oh.”

He’d told Gia last night about how he was going to try to find Kolabati and snag her necklaces for Glaeken. Gia knew a few things about Kolabati, but Jack had never quite got around to telling her that they’d been lovers for a brief—very brief—time.

“Don’t give me ‘oh.’ You got involved with her before and it almost killed you.”

“That was my choice.”

“She left you to die, Jack. This time she might finish the job.”

“This time is different. I know what she is. I’ll be careful. I’ve got a lot to come back for.”

She kissed him one last time, long and deep, then she got back into the front seat of the idling truck. Jack hurried back to his Crown Vic.

He followed Abe over to West End and then downtown. Along the way, the lights were against them. They’d gone out of synch for some reason and Abe stopped at every red. Jack knew why. He probably had enough weaponry in the back to overthrow a banana republic. He didn’t want to get stopped and searched.

It happened at about where West End starts calling itself Eleventh Avenue. As Abe pulled to a stop at yet another red light, three guys leapt from a doorway and charged the truck, two running around to the driver side, one leaping up and reaching in the passenger window.

One of the guys on the left had a big hunting knife and the other carried a lead pipe. As Abe tried to pull away, the second guy began beating on Abe’s window. Jack was already accelerating when the glass shattered and the guy started swinging the pipe at Abe.

The guy with the knife spotted Jack coming. He leapt out of the way as Jack sideswiped the truck, catching the pipe swinger hard on the backs of both legs. As he was spun and twisted between the two vehicles and tumbled to the pavement, screaming with the agony of two broken legs, Jack swerved at the guy with the knife and caught him head-on with the Vic’s nose. But the car wasn’t moving fast enough then to knock him sprawling. Instead he rolled up and over the hood and windshield and landed on the roof. He had to be hurt but he wasn’t out of action yet. He blindly stabbed his blade through the open window, narrowly missing Jack’s face. Jack ducked and grabbed the swinging wrist, wrenched the knife free, and paused, wondering what to do. Then he heard Vicky scream.

Jack raised his window, trapping the arm below the elbow, then turned the wrist and rammed the blade—honed side down—through the belly of the forearm, between the two bones and out the other side. Above on the roof the guy howled and flopped about and tried to pull his arm free. But the protruding edges of the point and grip caught on the sides of the opening, forcing the cutting edge of the blade to slice farther down his arm. The guy screamed now.

Jack jumped out the passenger side and saw Abe holding his bloody scalp with his left hand, a .45 automatic in his right. Vicky was next to him, crying, but Gia was nowhere in sight.

Jack charged around to the far side and found another guy with a knife, the point against Gia’s throat.

“All we want is the truck,” he said, breathing hard. He wore a clean plaid short-sleeved shirt and beige slacks, white socks and running shoes; he looked almost preppy except for the tattoos on his arms. “Give us the truck and no one gets hurt.”

“We?” Jack said, pulling the Glock from its holster and slowly, methodically working the slide for effect, even though he already had a round chambered. He’d have to play this very carefully. “Us? We and Us are already down. They’re out of the picture. You’re on your own.”

He paused to allow the guy to appreciate the wails and moans from his buddies on the far side of the truck and get a good look at the 9mm semiautomatic in Jack’s hand. He slid farther behind Gia.

“You think you can get away with this?” Jack said softly.

“Yeah. I can get away with anything, man! All the rules are off! Don’t you see that?” He stared for a moment into the sky over Jack’s left shoulder. “We got buildings and people flyin’ off into space during the day and monsters chewin’ up everything in sight all night. I been through detox twice, man, and I ain’t never seen shit like this, even when I was strung out like bubble gum. Anything goes, man. School is out!”

“Not my class,” Jack said. “Let her go.”

The guy pressed the knife blade against Gia’s throat. She winced at the sharp pressure.

“The truck or I’ll cut her, man! I swear t’Christ I’ll cut her fucking throat!”

Jack felt his heart begin to hammer. Gia’s panicked eyes pleaded with him. He gave her a little nod of encouragement as he controlled himself. Had to be cool here. Had to go slow.

But if this bastard so much as broke her skin …

Jack settled the Glock into a two-handed grip and raised it until it was sighted at the guy’s right eye where he peeked out from behind Gia’s ear.

“You’ve been watching too many movies, turkey. This kind of thing doesn’t work in real life. I’ve got a gun and you’ve got a knife. You cut her, you’ve lost your shield.” Jack took a step closer. “Now, so far today you and your buddies have hurt a very good friend, deeply frightened a little girl I couldn’t care for more if she were my own flesh and blood, and manhandled the woman I love.” Another small step closer. “So I’m royally pissed. But I’m willing to work a deal. Drop the knife and you live. I’ll let you walk.”

The guy’s laugh was flat and tremulous as he peeked out from behind Gia’s head to speak.

“Don’t try to bullshit me. I got your bitch here. I’ve got a knife at her neck. I’m callin’ the shots!”

A car came by, slowed for a look, then sped away. Jack slipped forward another step.

“Maybe I didn’t make it clear. Listen again. Drop it, you live. Spill one drop of her blood, you die—slowly. First I shoot off your right kneecap, then your left, then your right elbow, then your left. Then a gut shot. Then I take your knife and start cutting off pieces I decide you don’t need anymore and feed them to you.”

“Jack … please!” Gia said.

“Sorry. Just want to let this guy know what he’s in for.”

“You think that scares me?” the guy said, peeking out again. “I’ll show you how scared I—”

Jack shot him in the eye. His head snapped back, a red mist blooming behind him; his arms flung outward as he lurched back and collapsed on the pavement.

Jack leapt forward and encircled Gia with his arms.

“Don’t look,” he said, watching over her shoulder as a red puddle grew under the guy’s head.

But Gia turned for a quick glance, and just as quickly turned away. Jack led her back to the truck and they spent a few minutes calming Vicky. When mother and daughter were tightly wound in each other’s arms, Jack looked past them to Abe.

“You okay to drive?”

Abe nodded. “Only a scratch. But that guy on your car—what’s his problem?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “Almost forgot about him.”

He went back to his car and found the other knifer lying on the roof, pale, sweaty, looking sick.

“Don’t hurt me,” he said in a weak voice. “I give up.”

Jack wondered how the guy would respond if situations were reversed. How much mercy could he expect from him and his buddies? He decided it didn’t merit much consideration.

He ducked inside the Vic. The driver window and door were smeared with blood.

“You bled all over my car!” Jack shouted.

On the roof he heard a blubbering whimper. Disgusted, Jack yanked the knife blade from the guy’s forearm and lowered the window. A muffled scream from above as he jerked his arm free and rolled off the roof to the street. A couple more cars passed as Jack went to the corner and dropped the knife through a sewer grate, then returned to the truck.

He gave Gia and Vicky one last hug, then slammed the door.

“Better get going, Abe. Traffic’s picking up.”

“Jack,” Gia said as he started back to his car. Her face was pale and tear-streaked as she stared at him through the window. “Would you have let him go if he dropped the knife? You had that look in your eyes, Jack. I’ve seen that look before. I know what it means. Would you have kept your word?”

“Doesn’t make much difference now.”

“I just want to know.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He hoped he was convincing. Because he was anything but sure.

Pulling away from the scene, Jack glanced in the rearview mirror. One of the attackers lay dead in a pool of blood, staring skyward with his remaining eye, another squatted on the pavement, moaning and cradling a bloody arm, while a third crawled toward the curb, dragging his broken legs behind him. Gia’s question echoed in his head then and followed him the rest of the way to the Lincoln Tunnel.

She knew him too well. Why’d she have to ask that question? He didn’t like to think about that sort of thing. It wasn’t necessary. The guy was dead. A part of Jack had taken immense pleasure in blowing his brains out the back of his head. But he’d learned to wall off that part of himself, to refrain from joining the joyous partying in the dark corner behind the wall.

Would he have let the guy go? Abe bloodied, Vicky terrified, a knifepoint jabbed against Gia’s throat—how could he forgive that? Turn his back as the guy who’d caused it all sauntered off unscathed? Jack wasn’t sure. Allowing someone who’d done damage to his friends to walk the streets with no pain or scars to remind him never even to think about doing something like that again … That might be too much to ask.

But if he’d said he’d let the guy go in exchange for dropping the knife, he’d have to do it. Or would he?

All the rules are off, man!

No. Not all of them. Some rules—at least the ones he had some say about—had to stay in effect.

He yawned. He hadn’t had much sleep last night, and he found introspection tough work.

He followed Abe’s truck the rest of the way to the Lincoln Tunnel, watched and waved as it rolled down the ramp into the tiled gullet, then headed crosstown to Walt Duran’s place. He hoped he’d made it through the night okay. And he hoped he was on schedule with his engraving. If not, Jack was going to have to induce him into a higher gear.

WNYW-TV

Ladies and gentlemen, we are interrupting our special report from Central Park with catastrophic news from the Central Pacific. The Big Island of Hawaii is gone. Shortly after sunset, the chain of eight islands that make up our fiftieth state was shaken by a cataclysmic explosion. At that instant, all communications with Hawaii, or the Big Island as it is called, were cut off. The mystery was quickly solved.

<run file footage of Hawaii>

This is how the Big Island looked. A lush volcanic island supporting four thousand square miles of paradise, including the world’s longest steadily active volcano. But now …

<run feed from Honolulu>

… as we see here in a live aerial transmission from our affiliate in Honolulu, the Big Island is no more. Hawaii’s active crater, Kilauea, along with supposedly extinct volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, simply blew up, taking the entire island with them. It is just dawn in the Central Pacific, but even so you can see that nothing remains of the island of Hawaii but a flaming, steaming cauldron of bubbling lava. We can only show you the site of the Big Island’s grave from the west. The plume of smoke, steam, ash, and debris that stretches far into the sky is drifting east. Meteorologists are presently calculating when the ash cloud will hit the West Coast. It is sure to affect weather around the globe.

You can’t see it now but there are reports of a giant whirlpool situated off Maui, north of where the Big Island used to be. The whirlpool is believed to be the result of a hole similar to the one in our own Central Park, opening in the ocean bottom some nineteen thousand feet below the surface. Whether this has any relationship to the Big Island disaster is still a matter of conjecture at this time.

Those flames you see now on the left of your screen are from another volcano. It’s been confirmed that Haleakala, a formerly extinct volcano just seven miles away on the island of Maui, is active again. Although most of its lava flow has been down its eastern flank, away from the heavily populated areas, we’ve been told that the lovely town of Hana is no more. It was completely submerged in an avalanche of lava during the night.

<cut to Alice>

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, the situation is rapidly deteriorating.…

Glaeken stared at the TV screen in dismay, barely aware of the picture. But he was listening intently, hoping for fresh news from Maui. As a geologist came on, spouting his theory of how the hole in the channel between Hawaii and Maui had destabilized the Pacific “hot spot” that had formed the Hawaiian Islands over the ages, Glaeken hit the mute button on his remote.

Apparently the doorman had rung while he’d been intent on the TV—he saw Bill leading a familiar figure into the room.

“Jack! I see you made it through the night. Did you take care of that ‘business’ you mentioned?”

Jack nodded, a bit glumly, Glaeken thought.

“Yeah. All taken care of.”

As Bill returned to the kitchen to finish helping Nick eat breakfast, Jack dropped into a chair.

“Anything I can do?” Glaeken said.

He shook his head. “I sent some people off into the hinterlands. I’m just hoping they get where they’re going without any trouble. The city’s already starting to fall apart.”

“So I’ve heard. I understand the National Guard is on alert but that fewer than half of the Guardsmen are reporting in.”

“Not surprised. Probably want to stay home and protect their own. Who can blame them?”

“You should have had your people stay here. They’re welcome.”

“I thought about that after they left, but I think far from the city might be better for them. However, I’ve got some other friends who could use this place. Good people. You got room?”

“The building’s practically empty.”

“How come? It looks like a prime spot.”

“I’m very choosy about my neighbors. You’ve heard about Maui, I presume?”

“No. What?”

Glaeken capsulized the news reports for him.

“You think she’s still alive?”

Glaeken nodded. “There’s a good chance. She lives on the northwest slope. If she was home…” He asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. “When can you leave, Jack?”

“Tomorrow.”

“No. You must leave today. Every moment counts.”

“No way. I just checked with the engraver. The bogus necklaces won’t be ready till tomorrow morning at the earliest. And I’m not going without them. They’re my ace in the hole.”

Glaeken considered that for a moment. At the rate the situation was deteriorating, tomorrow might be too late. But he didn’t see that he had much choice. He had no way of forcing Jack to leave today.

“I promise—I’ll catch a flight out there first thing tomorrow—soon as those necklaces are ready.”

“That may not be so easy. A number of airlines have grounded all flights.”

“Why? Pilots not showing up?”

“Partly that. But a number of flights have disappeared. I should say, a lot of flights have disappeared. They take off but never land.”

“Swell. What’ve we got now—holes in the sky?”

“No. Leviathans in the air, snatching the planes, pulverizing them.”

“How about the Air Force?”

“According to the reports, surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles are ineffective and interceptor jets are disappearing as well.”

Jack said nothing, simply sat and stared at Glaeken with a skeptical look.

“I’ve seen them,” Bill said, leading Nick in from the kitchen. He sat him in a chair that caught the morning sun. Nick stared emptily at the wall.

“The leviathans?”

Bill nodded. “Big. Big as towns, gliding through the night.”

“At least we’ve got the days,” Jack said. “The daylight time may be shrinking, but maybe Rasalom made a mistake giving us some slack like this.”

“Not at all. The days give us time to be at our worst. A constant onslaught might drive us together, bring out the best in us. But the respite offered by the daylight gives the terrors of the night before and the anticipated terrors of the night to come a chance to work on us. It allows fear to demoralize us. Fear is the key to Rasalom’s power. Fear is the great divider. From war and racism to the mundane vices of greed and gluttony—they’re all rooted in fear. What is religion, after all, but a ritualized response to fear—fear of death, fear of the perversities of luck and happenstance that afflict every life at one time or another?” He pointed out the window. “Fear is rampant out there now. It’s dividing us, hurting us, bringing out the worst in too many of us. It will be the end of us.” He turned to Jack. “That’s why you’ve got to get to Maui and retrieve those necklaces.”

“I’ll find a way,” Jack said softly. “There’s always a way.”

Glaeken wondered even if Jack did find a way to retrieve the necklaces, then what?

Tension rolled out from his chest along his limbs. He flexed his arthritic fingers to disperse it. What indeed? Knowing the source of the metal from which they’d been fashioned, he was almost afraid to be in the same room with those necklaces. What would happen if he touched them? Or even got near? Nothing, he hoped. But he couldn’t risk it. He’d have to keep his distance when and if Jack brought them back.

Jack said, “You know, with the way things are going, I think I’m going to need some backup on the trip.”

Bill said, “I could come along if you wish.”

At first, Glaeken was startled by Bill’s offer. He glanced at the ex-priest and caught a desperate look in his eyes. Desperate for what? And then he understood. Bill felt lost, adrift, already a resident of the land to which most of humanity would soon be emigrating. Poor man. The New York City police records still listed him as a fugitive suspect in a capital crime, he had broken with his church, his family was dead, his last friend was sitting there lapsing in and out of catatonia, and Glaeken suspected that his feelings for Carol Treece ran deeper than he dared admit.

Small wonder he was feeling reckless.

Glaeken hoped Jack had the good sense not to take him up on the offer.

“Uh, nothing personal, Bill,” Jack said after a long pause, “but I’m looking for someone with maybe a little experience in hand-to-hand work.”

“If I were younger…” Glaeken said wistfully.

He remembered times when he had cursed the ages he’d spent in a body in its mid thirties. Now, with the burden of eternity off him, he had moments when he would have relished tight muscles, mobile joints, and a supple back.

“Yeah,” Jack said, smiling. “We’d have made a helluva pair, I think. But I was wondering about Ho Chi Minhzilla. Think he’d be up for it?”

“Ba? I don’t know. I doubt he’d be willing to leave Mrs. Nash unprotected, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I’ll call if you like.”

“Might be better I go in person. Maybe I can sway him with my magnetic charm.”

Bill laughed aloud. Jack gave him a sidelong look.

“Something funny, guy?”

Bill grinned. “I didn’t know what to make of you at first, but I think you’re all right.”

“Which says loads about your character judgment. None of it good.”

Glaeken gave Jack directions to Toad Hall and said he’d call ahead to let them know he was coming.

When he was gone, Glaeken reached for the TV remote control. Before he could resume the audio, Nick spoke.

“They won’t be enough,” he said in his monotone.

Bill squatted before him and looked into his eyes.

“What, Nick? What won’t be enough?”

“The necklaces. They won’t do the job. You’ll need more to make it work. Pieces of something else. Pieces of the rest of it.”

“What does that mean, Nick? Pieces of what?”

But he was gone again. Bill turned to Glaeken.

“Any idea what he’s talking about?”

Glaeken sat numb and cold and sick as he stared at Nick.

“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

WFPW-FM

JO: Well, the news keeps getting worse, folks. Reports from the Midwest and the Plains States say that the nation’s cattle herds were decimated by the bugs last night. Measures are being taken now to protect them but no one knows how successful they’ll be. Our advice: Enjoy your Big Macs and Whoppers today, man, because pretty soon you won’t be able to afford them.

FREDDY: And now, continuing with our F-Rock All-Request Weekend, we’ve got Marvin Gaye asking the question that’s on everybody’s lips.

<cue “What’s Goin’ On?”>

“There!” Thompson said, pointing to the radio. “Am I brilliant or what? Food! Food is going to be the new gold.”

Ernst didn’t come here to listen to Thompson pat himself on the back. He needed help.

“I want to know where you got your storm shutters.”

Thompson grinned. “Why? Want some?”

He hated to admit it, but …

“Yes.”

“After all the stink you made about defacing this wonderful old historic building, now you want them for your office?”

“No … my apartment.”

The grin broadened. “Why? Rough night?”

“You might say that.”

A very rough night.

When buying into his building, he’d opted for one of the lower floors. For safety reasons, he wanted quick access to the outside in case of fire or another emergency. Conversely, if a blackout occurred and the elevators were shut down, he didn’t want a long walk up.

But most of the lower floors had taken a beating last night. The bugs broke through his windows and chased him through the apartment. He had to spend all night in the hall closet with those things right outside the door, clawing, chewing, scratching, trying to get in at him.

Horrifying.

With the dawn—the late dawn—they’d scurried back to their holes, leaving Ernst with a trashed apartment and severely frazzled nerves.

The first thing he’d done was call the head of the Order’s High Council of Seven to see if he’d had any contact with the One. He hadn’t. And he’d sounded as frightened as Ernst felt.

The conclusion was unmistakable: The One was excluding them from the Change. Which meant they would have to fend for themselves, just like the Great Unwashed.

Unfortunately, certain members of the Great Unwashed, like Hank Thompson, seemed better prepared. When Ernst had arrived at the Lodge this morning he’d noticed its smashed windows and torn screens. Every window but two showed damage: the pair that had been protected by hurricane shutters during the night.

“You want the name of my guy?” Thompson jerked a thumb at his own windows. “The one who did these?”

“I would appreciate it.”

“No good. Had a run on them and he’s outta stock.” He grinned. “Which means you’re outta luck.”

“Well, I’m sure if the price was right—”

“Don’t count on it. Pretty much everybody in the place was chased down to the basement last night. Luckily, there’s no windows down there, so they were safe. But come the dawn, those boys were on the phone and could hardly find anyone even willing to talk to them. Everybody’s got the same idea.”

“I’ll find someone,” Ernst said, with more confidence than he felt.

He had to find someone. He could not endure another ordeal like last night. He glanced at his watch. Still early. He had all day. But a day wasn’t what it used to be.

Monroe, Long Island

Sylvia recognized the old man’s voice immediately. A wave of resentment surged through her.

“I hope this isn’t about moving in with you in the city,” she said, controlling her tone. “Pressure tactics won’t work, Mr. Veilleur. I don’t wear down very easily.”

“I’m quite well aware of that, Mrs. Nash. And please call me Glaeken. That’s my real name.”

Sylvia didn’t want to do that. She didn’t wish to be on a first-name basis with this man. So she said nothing.

“I didn’t call to pressure you into anything,” he said after a pause. “I merely wished to inquire as to how you and your household fared last night.”

“We did just fine, thank you.” No thanks to you.

She repressed the urge to tell him that the strange attraction Jeffy had developed for him had nearly cost the boy his life—and Ba’s and her own as well; that if Jeffy hadn’t become so fixated on Glaeken he wouldn’t have wandered off last night. But in the back of her mind she knew Glaeken could crush her with the simple admonishment that a good mother should know the whereabouts of her child. She’d spent most of the night telling herself the same thing, berating herself for letting Jeffy wander off. If only she’d kept an eye on him, Rudy might still be alive and Ba wouldn’t have dozens of ugly wounds on the back of his neck.

“This is a tough old house,” she said. “And with the metal storm shutters we installed yesterday, it’s like a fortress.”

The racket last night had been horrendous. Those things from the hole had pounded incessantly against the shutters until sunrise. Sealed in as they were, the silence from outside had been their only clue that daylight had arrived. She’d greeted the dawn with relief and exhaustion.

“Good,” Glaeken said. “I’m very glad to hear that. I hope your defenses remain as effective against future assaults. But I called for two reasons. The other is to let you know that Jack, the fellow who let you in yesterday, will be stopping by later for a visit.”

“I warned you about pressuring me.”

“Have no fear, Mrs. Nash. He’s not coming to see you. He wishes to speak to Ba.”

“Ba? What does he want with Ba?”

She vaguely remembered the wiry, brown-eyed man Glaeken had mentioned—a rather ordinary-looking sort. She had an impression of him and Ba standing at the back of the living room, speaking together in low tones. So unusual for Ba to speak at all to a stranger that she remembered wondering if they’d met before.

“Perhaps I’d better let Jack explain that himself. Good day, Mrs. Nash.”

WFAN-AM

DAVE: And now our next caller on the FAN sports radio is Rick from Brooklyn. What’s on your mind, Rick?

RICK: Yeah, hi, Dave. I just want to say that I really love your show, and I’d like to talk about the commissioner’s canceling all games indefinitely.

DAVE: What’s wrong with that, Rick?

RICK: It’s not fair to the Mets. They’ve got one of their best teams ever. They was headin’ for the Pennant for sure. I think it’s a dirty trick. And you know what else…?

Monroe, Long Island

Jack arrived in the early afternoon. Sylvia heard him drive up and watched as he got out of a big black car with a damaged paint job and odd reddish stains on the roof and driver door. Since Ba was outside, reinforcing whatever weak points he could find in the house’s defenses, and Alan was in the back tossing a football to Jeffy, Sylvia went downstairs to let him in. He didn’t come to the door, however. Instead, he walked around to the side of the house to where Ba was working.

What on earth could those two have in common? She resisted the temptation to tiptoe to one of the windows and eavesdrop. She’d know soon.

And sure enough, a few minutes later Ba was leading Jack through the back door. Alan rolled in behind them and Jeffy brought up the rear, flipping his football from hand to hand.

“Hi, Mrs. Nash,” Jack said, extending his hand. “We met yesterday.”

She shook it briefly. “I remember.”

“Can we all talk?”

Alan looked at Sylvia and gave her a puzzled shrug. “Why don’t we go into the den,” he said.

Sylvia sent Jeffy upstairs to wash his hands and seated herself where she had a view of the stairway. If Jeffy came down, she’d see him. No wandering off this time. She was determined to know his whereabouts every minute of the day.

Jack seated himself across from her. Ba remained standing near Alan. She sensed his tightly coiled tension.

Jack said, “Do you remember Glaeken talking about a certain pair of necklaces yesterday?”

Sylvia nodded. “The ones supposedly made from the ‘second focus.’”

“Right. Well, he’s located them on Maui, and I’m going to head out there tomorrow to see if I can get them back.”

“I see.” Sylvia kept her tone noncommittal. “What does that have to do with Ba?”

“I’d like him to come along.”

“And what did Ba say?” She suspected the answer but wanted to hear it for herself.

“He refused. Said he couldn’t leave you here unprotected.”

Sylvia turned to him. “Thank you, Ba.”

Ba gave her one of his little bows.

“I respect that,” Jack said, “but I think it’s shortsighted. When the light goes altogether, you’re not going to get a break like this. Those things’ll be at you nonstop. You won’t get a chance to go out and repair the damage and shore up the weak spots. And I don’t care how well fortified you are, Mrs. Nash, sooner or later they’re gonna break through.”

She glanced at Alan, who was nodding silent agreement. And why not? The logic was unassailable.

“You can’t do this alone?”

“I might be able to. I usually work alone, but this is different. Time is critical. I’ve been out in the dark with those things. And I see by Ba’s neck that he has too.”

“So have I,” Sylvia said.

Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? Well then, you know what it means to have someone watching your back.”

Sylvia remembered the tentacles entwined in her hair, pulling her backward …

Repressing a shudder, she said, “How long have you known this Glaeken fellow?”

“We met a little over a year ago. We’ve spent most of our time since then trying to prevent all this from happening.”

“But you failed.”

“I think that’s obvious. But even if I’d known him only a few days, I’d be a believer.”

Reluctantly, Sylvia admitted to herself that she too was becoming a believer.

“When would you be leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning. With any luck I’ll have Ba back on your doorstep sometime Tuesday. Wednesday morning at the latest.”

“Two days at the most. You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure. Either I can get the necklaces back or I can’t. I’ll know fairly soon after I get there.”

“Two nights,” she said slowly. “Ba … maybe you should reconsider.”

“No, Missus. It is too dangerous here for you to stay alone.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alan stiffen—a barely perceptible straightening of his spine that would have passed unnoticed by a stranger. But Sylvia knew him too well. Ba would be devastated if he even suspected that his words had stung Alan. He’d never forgive himself.

“Glaeken’s offer still stands,” Jack told her. “Come into the city. Stay in his building. He was right about his place being spared. He’s practically hanging over that hole and he hasn’t been bothered by a single bug.”

Sylvia shook her head. “Out of the question. Alan and I are quite capable of handling the situation. We won’t be driven from our home by these things.” She turned to Ba. “We’re safe in here, Ba. You saw that last night. Once we locked the doors and rolled down the shutters, we had no further problems. Tonight will be the same. And the night after that. And the night after that.”

“Missus, I am not sure—”

“Neither am I, Ba. We can’t be sure of anything anymore. Except perhaps that the situation will steadily deteriorate until we’re all mad or dead.”

“I vowed to protect you, Missus. Always.”

“I know you did, Ba.”

Sylvia’s heart warmed at his unflagging devotion. But that devotion could be a burden as well as a benefit. She took great comfort in knowing she was protected, but she also had to allow herself to be protected. And that wasn’t always easy.

Pulling away from the snug cocoon of that guardianship, even temporarily, was difficult—akin perhaps to leaving all the windows open in a storm. And knowing the distress it caused in Ba made the move all the more difficult.

She asked Jack, “What will the return of these necklaces do?”

He shrugged. “Only Glaeken knows. Set things right, I hope.”

“If that’s true, Ba … if acquiring these necklaces will help end this nightmare, perhaps you would be adhering closer to the spirit of your vow by going with this man.”

Ba stood silent for a moment, the center of attention. His eyes were tortured.

“Missus…”

“Let’s do it this way,” Sylvia said, lighting on an idea. “We’ll see how tonight goes. If Alan and I need your help to get through, then I’ll ask you to stay. But if it turns out we can handle things ourselves, then I think you should go with Jack.”

“Very well, Missus. If that is what you wish.”

I don’t know what I wish, she thought. But I know we can’t spend the rest of our lives sealed up in Toad Hall.

“That is what I wish.”

“All right!” Jack said, clapping his hands once as he rose to his feet. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning—bright and early.”

Alan said, “It probably won’t be bright and it certainly won’t be early.”

Sylvia watched Jack go over to Ba and extend his hand.

“I respect where you’re coming from, Big Guy, but believe me, this is our only chance to really do something about this—to maybe turn it around and stop it so we can all get back to our normal lives. That’s worth risking a couple of days, isn’t it?”

Ba shook his hand slowly. “I will go with you tomorrow.”

Jack smiled. “Try to control your enthusiasm, okay?”

Then he waved and headed for the front door.

When he was gone, Ba turned to her. “Excuse me, Missus. I have work outside.”

“Of course.”

As Sylvia watched him go, she caught her breath as that recurring phrase slipped into her mind.

Only three will live to return.

“Something wrong?” Alan said.

They were alone now and his gentle brown eyes were fixed on her.

“Is something right?”

“You looked frightened.”

“I was thinking about what that lunatic in Glaeken’s apartment told you and wondering if I was sending Ba to his doom. What if he’s killed on this trip? It will be my fault.”

“I’ve never believed anyone could tell the future,” he said. “And as for fault, that’s a no-win game. If Ba goes off and gets killed, is it your fault? But if you don’t convince him to go and he gets killed around here, then isn’t that also your fault? Neither scenario is anybody’s fault. It’s nothing but a mental trap.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m treating some nut’s rant as if it’s really going to happen. I must be as crazy as he is.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Thanks, Alan. You’re good for me.”

He gave her a kiss of his own. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saying, ‘Alan and I are quite capable of handling the situation.’ That meant a lot.”

So … he had been stung by Ba’s remark.

“Ba didn’t mean anything.”

“I know that.”

“Ba admires you and respects you. He’s forever in your debt for the care you gave Nhung Thi before she died. You’re on his good-guy list.”

“I’d hate to be on his bad-guy list.”

“Ba doesn’t really have one of those. All the people he considers bad guys seem to disappear. And he’d be crushed if he thought he’d offended you.”

“I wasn’t offended.”

Sylvia stared into his eyes. “Truth, Alan.”

“Okay,” he said, glancing away. “That crack about not wanting to leave you ‘alone’ did get to me. I mean, what am I—a houseplant? I know I’m in a wheelchair, but I’m not helpless.”

“Of course you’re not. And Ba knows that too. It’s just that he’s been my self-appointed watchman for so many years, he thinks he’s the only one who can do the job. If I had the Eighty-second Airborne camping in with me, he’d still consider me unprotected if he wasn’t at my side.”

“It’s funny,” Alan said, staring at the wall. “You hear women complaining about being labeled as ‘the weaker sex’ and not being given a chance to prove their competence and equality and maybe even superiority to men. They don’t see the flip side of the coin. The guys are saddled with the macho ethic. We’re expected to be tough, we’re supposed to be able to handle anything, be cool in any situation, never back down, never surrender, never admit we’re hurt, and for God’s sake, never ever cry. It’s not easy to handle even when you’re at the top of your form; but when something happens to knock you off your feet, I tell you, Syl, it becomes a crushing burden. And sometimes … sometimes it’s just plain murder.”

Sylvia didn’t know what to say to that. She simply reached over and held his hand. She hoped that said it all.

Carol was returning from the mailbox—empty. No delivery today, apparently.

The elevator doors opened to reveal a middle-aged couple, each weighted with a pair of suitcases. They looked pale, drawn, shaken. Carol recognized the woman—she’d seen her by the mailboxes a few times.

“Moving out?” she said, stepping aside to let them step out into the foyer with their luggage.

The woman nodded glumly. “My sister’s got a place in the Catskills. We’re going to move in with her until this mess gets straightened out.”

“What happened?”

“We were invaded by the bugs. All the lower floors were.”

“How awful!” Carol said.

She realized then how lucky they were to have an apartment on an upper floor. She’d been in and out of bed repeatedly, checking the windows. A few times she’d found one sort of monstrosity or another clinging to the screens, but for the most part she’d been spared last night. But what about tonight?

“Not as awful as what happened to the Honigs in two-twelve,” her husband said. “Jerry lost his left hand and their little girl got carried off.”

The woman’s brave facade crumbled as she began to sob. “Poor Carrie!”

Carol’s heart went out to the Honigs, whoever they were.

“If there’s anything I can do for them—I mean…”

Her voice trailed off. What could she do? She wasn’t sure how to handle her own problems.

She wished them luck as she stepped onto the elevator and pressed the 10 button. The door closed, leaving her alone with her fears. More like uncertainties. Still no word from Nelson despite dozens of calls. She’d filled his voice mail and now it wasn’t accepting new messages.

The bank had been no help. They said all the transactions had been verified with the proper PINs and phone inquiries. They’d all originated from Atlantic City.

That last convinced Carol that something awful had happened to Nelson. He was—or had been—in Denver, and had never been a gambler. He’d always joked that it made more sense to take your money and simply hand it to a casino pit boss and save everyone a lot of time and effort. He must have been kidnapped or—

The phone rang. She checked the caller ID and knew the number. She snatched it up.

“Nelson!”

A croak: “Carol.”

She barely recognized the voice, but was sure it was Nelson.

“Where are you? What happened?”

“I owe you an explanation. I—”

Her own voice seemed to have a will of its own. “Are you still in Denver? Did you get my messages? What—?”

“Can I get a word in here?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“I got your messages. I’m in Atlantic City. I—”

“Atlantic—!”

“Yes, Atlantic City—and I’m not coming back.”

Carol found herself speechless.

“All my ‘business trips’ to Denver have actually been down here to AC. I … I found someone and I’m going to stay with her. I’ve been a tight-ass all my life. Time to live a little. I emptied my accounts because I need the money.”

“But you—”

“What? You’re going to complain about that? It’s my money. I earned it. And you’ve got plenty of your own. More than you can spend. So I don’t understand all these frantic calls about the accounts.”

She did have more than she could spend—forty million? Fifty? She didn’t know. When he’d walked out at age fifteen, Jimmy—Rasalom—had taken half the fortune he’d amassed, and left the rest. It had kept growing. She’d given millions away to charities, but it kept growing, and growing.

She felt a surge of anger. “I wasn’t worried about the money, I was worried about you!”

A long pause, then, “Well, don’t be. It’s not you. I just don’t want to be married anymore.”

“You could have been man enough to tell me in person!”

He sighed. “I’m sorry about that, but I thought this was just a temporary thing. After all, I’m seventy freaking years old. But when I saw that Central Park hole on the tube, something inside told me it was all over.”

“Oh, give me a break!”

“It’s true, Carol. It’s the end times. I’ll spend my last days down here, you spend yours up there with your priest friend.”

That last shocked her more than anything.

“Bill? Don’t be—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Carol. I’ve seen the looks passing between you two. Maybe you had something going on in the past, maybe something’s going on now. I don’t know. But if not, my advice is to get it on now. There’s not much time left.”

Were her feelings for Bill that obvious?

He said, “That’s it, Carol. Get out of the city. Get someplace safe. It’s all going to fall apart. Sorry if I’m hurting you, but this is the way it has to be.”

And then he hung up.

Carol stood in her living room, the silent phone in her hand, and felt a cascade of disparate thoughts, feelings, and observations take shape.

Nelson … he’d been somewhat distant over the past few months but she hadn’t paid all that much attention. Her own life had been turned upside down earlier in the year by revelations of what her child had become, the horrors he’d perpetrated. And then … the return of Bill Ryan.

Was she to blame? Had she helped send Nelson off the rails? Or was he simply giving in to the off-kilter zeitgeist? He hadn’t had a midlife crisis, so now he was having a late-life crisis?

Whatever the reason, he was gone, off with someone new, leaving her alone.

No … not alone. She didn’t have to face this alone.

WNYW-TV

CAMERON: But Dr. Sapir, how exactly did you arrive at these figures?

SAPIR: I simply charted the times of sunrise and sunset and the resultant hours of daylight since Wednesday on a graph. Those figures yielded the curve you see here. I have merely continued that curve.

CAMERON: And that shows…?

SAPIR: All you have to do is follow it. We’ll have approximately eleven hours of sunlight today; slightly less than ten hours tomorrow, Monday; about eight hours and forty minutes of daylight on Tuesday, about seven hours on Wednesday, and—you see how steep the curve is becoming—four hours and forty-two minutes of light on Thursday.

CAMERON: And on Friday?

SAPIR: On Friday, nothing.

CAMERON: Nothing?

SAPIR: Correct. If the curve holds true, the sun will set at 3:01 P.M. on Thursday and will not rise again. There will be no sunrise on Friday.

CAMERON: But how is that possible?

SAPIR: It’s not.

CAMERON: Then how—?

SAPIR: It is what it is. <sobbing> It just … is.

Manhattan

Bill Ryan sat stunned before the TV in Glaeken’s study. He’d turned on the Sapir interview to see if the sight of Nick’s old colleague would shock him back into the real world. Instead it was Bill who had received the shock.

No sunrise on Friday? It seemed impossible, but Dr. Harvey Sapir was world renowned. And to see him break down and cry …

“Nick,” Bill said, turning to the younger man. “What’s going to happen? You’ve been coming on with all sorts of predictions lately. How’s all this going to turn out?”

Nick didn’t answer. His vacant gaze remained fixed on one of the curlicues in the wallpaper design.

Bill closed his eyes and tried to keep from shouting in frustration. Nothing was right. Especially Nick. Because every time he looked at Nick he was reminded of all the people who had suffered because they were close to him, because he’d cared for them. His parents, little Danny Gordon, Lisl, and now Nick. All of them either dead or mad. And to what end? To isolate him? To make him doubt himself? To make him afraid to get close to anyone, or care for anyone again?

Hello, down there! he thought, looking out the study window at the Sheep Meadow hole, a dark splotch in the afternoon light. Guess what? It’s working.

What the hell good was he? Of what use was he to Glaeken? If anything, he was a Jonah. Why did the old man keep him around?

Answerless questions. Glaeken wasn’t even home. He was somewhere in the building readying the deserted apartments for refugees people would be bringing in. Bill would have liked to help—the physical activity might do something to dispel this lethargy weighing upon him—but someone had to stay with Nick. And Bill felt responsible for him.

The doorbell rang.

Strange, he thought as he headed for the door. You needed a key to get up here. Who’d come this far and then ring the bell?

He was startled when he saw the woman standing in the atrium.

“Carol! I didn’t know you were coming.”

The sight of her swept away his lethargy.

“Neither did I. Glaeken sent me up.”

Immediately he knew something was wrong. He looked at her more closely and saw how prominent were the lines in her face. Carol had always looked younger than her years, but today she showed every birthday.

“Come in.” He glanced out into the atrium as she passed. “Nelson back yet?”

“No. And he’s not coming back.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He’s left me.”

“What?”

She sat on the couch and told him about the agony of worry she’d been weathering, and then the phone call she’d just received.

The bastard! He dumped her over the phone? The phone?

“You should have come to me when you learned about the accounts,” he heard himself say. “You didn’t have to go through that alone.”

Without realizing it, he had slipped into his old priestly, family-counselor role. He pulled back from it. This wasn’t some parishioner, this was Carol. Someone he knew. No, not just knew, but—he could admit it now—loved since he was a teenager. Silly to try for emotional distance where she was concerned. He’d never make it.

“I didn’t want to get you involved.” She glanced at the vacant-eyed Nick. “You have your own problems.”

“Do you love him, Carol?”

The words slipped out and immediately he wanted to call them back. He went to tell her she didn’t have to answer, then realized she knew that. So he let it hang. The question had plagued him since his return to the city a few months ago. He wanted to know, damn it.

“Yes. In a way. Not like I loved Jim. Nothing like that. This relationship had a much lower ambient temperature.”

“Why did you marry him?”

He couldn’t believe he was asking these questions. But here in the darkening room, with Carol becoming a silhouette against the dying light, he felt he could. Should. He didn’t reach for a lamp. That would break the mood set by the half light.

“I guess I was lonely. When I came back to New York, I knew no one. Mostly, I wanted it that way. I wanted a fresh start. I didn’t want to go back to Monroe and look up old friends. Too much time had passed. They’d just remind me of Jim and the life we had there. And they’d want to know where I’d been all these years, they’d want to know why I left, and they’d want to know about … the baby. I didn’t want to talk about any of it. It would be too much like reliving everything. I wanted to create a new Carol.”

“I can understand that. Perfectly.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. I did it myself in North Carolina. Even changed my name to Will Ryerson. But for different reasons. Strange, isn’t it? We were a thousand miles apart but we were both trying to remodel ourselves, and at just about the same time.”

“Well then, maybe you understand how lonely it can be. At least you have your religious beliefs—”

Bill shook his head slowly. “Had. Had my beliefs. They’re gone now.” Like just about everyone or everything else in my life I’ve cared about. “But go on. Please.”

“This isn’t an easy city to build relationships in. Not if you’re my age and unconnected. You get hit on by men who think because you’ve got some miles on you you’re an easy mark who’ll be so grateful for the attention you’ll hop into bed with them right off, or you’re pursued by ones who’ve already got a couple broken marriages behind them and think nothing of trying a third, or others who are simply looking for someone to take care of them. That’s why Nelson was so refreshing.”

“What was he looking for?”

“Nothing. He was self-sufficient—a lifelong bachelor who knew how to take care of himself. He wasn’t on the make, and neither was I. So we wound up feeling very comfortable with each other. No pressure. Just companionship—real companionship.”

Bill made no comment. He’d heard far worse reasons for marriage.

“Companionship led to a … um … closer relationship, which led to us moving in together. We seemed a good fit, made a good couple, caring and attuned to each other’s needs. After a while we decided to make it legal.” A soft laugh in the growing darkness. “Not the stuff that makes for a hot romance novel, but it worked for us. Until now.”

Bill racked his brain for some brilliant words of advice while fighting the conflicting feelings roiling through him. Carol had been hurt, dealt an emotional slap in the face, and yet he was … glad.

“Carol—”

“You’re still here?” Glaeken said.

They both looked up. He’d entered silently, as he tended to do.

Carol stiffened and turned to look out the window. “My God, it’s almost dark! I’d better get going.”

She shot to her feet and Bill rose with her. It seemed like the day had just begun. He opened his mouth to object but Glaeken beat him to it.

“It’s sunset. You can’t go out now. You’d never make it to the other side of the park, let alone to your apartment. You’ll spend the night here. We’ve plenty of apartments.”

Bill repressed a fist pump. Try as he might, he could not douse the gleeful elation sparking at the prospect of having her near all night.

The Bunker

“I don’t like this place, Mom.”

Gia gave Vicky’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and thought, Neither do I. But she didn’t voice it.

“We’ll be safe here. That’s the important thing.”

“Safe doesn’t come close,” Abe said, panting as he strung a curtain across the back third of the bunker. “Like a fortress it’s built. Four feet of steel-reinforced concrete above, below, and around, all nestled ten feet underground. We’ve got freeze-dried food, running water, a microwave, lights, beds, DirecTV, a DVD and VCR player, a toilet even. What’s not to like?”

How about a window? Gia thought.

They’d made good time along Route 80 through Jersey and into the rolling farmlands of Pennsylvania. She had no idea where she was, and what good would knowing do? As long as trouble stayed far away from Vicky, wherever she was was fine.

They’d spent much of the latter part of the day moving in. Carrying their belongings down through a narrow tube on a vertical ladder—nothing more than rungs set in the concrete—had been an experience. But they were about as settled as they were going to be. Good thing too. Night was falling.

She rubbed her upper arms. Chilly down here. And damp.

And close.

Good thing neither she nor Vicky were claustrophobic. Not yet, at least. She could imagine herself becoming that way if she stayed cooped up within these blank concrete walls too long.

“Anyway,” Abe was saying, “we’ll only have to be down here during the dark hours.”

“Which are getting longer and longer,” Gia said.

“When it’s light we can eat and hang out in the farmhouse. Lots of fun things we can do on the farm.”

“Can I milk a cow?” Vicky said.

Abe laughed. “No cows in that barn. Maybe a few feral chickens left over from the original owner. Fresh eggs instead of powdered would be nice once in a while.”

“So what kind of fun stuff?”

“How about learning to shoot?” He gave one of Vicky’s braids a gentle tug. “How does that sound?”

Gia stared at him. The thought of Vicky with a gun left her momentarily speechless.

“Abe, you’re not … you can’t be serious.”

“I should joke about such a thing?”

“I hate guns.”

He shook his head. “A woman who loves Jack but hates guns. This I’ll never understand. Gun hate was a dubious luxury before the bugs. Now … if what’s been going on keeps up, a gun might be all that stands between you and your daughter and being eaten.”

“You’re the gun expert. I’ll leave the guns to you.”

Abe’s gaze bored into her. “And if something, God forbid, should happen to me?”

Gia gestured around at all the enveloping concrete. “What could happen to us here inside the Berlin Wall?”

“Think about it, okay? Please? For your own sake.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

And I know just what I’ll think: No way.

She fumbled a slip of paper out of her pocket. Jack had written a wavelength on it.

“It’s almost time to contact Jack. What you can teach me is how to use your shortwave radio.”

“Topside I’ve got a cell repeater up on the barn with the dish and the shortwave antenna. Try the cell first.”

She shook her head. “We agreed that the shortwave would be the most reliable if things got worse. I want to get used to that.”

She needed to hear Jack’s voice. He knew he’d be worried about her, even though she was here. But Gia was twice as worried about him. He’d stayed in the belly of the beast.

“Hey, Mom,” Vicky said. “Where’s Parabellum?”

Gia turned and saw the empty cage.

“He’s gone!” Abe cried. “We’ve got to find him! He’ll never survive!”

WFPW-FM

This just in: The New York City Department of Corrections has reported a massive jailbreak from Riker’s Island less than an hour ago. After approximately eighty-five percent of guards on the third shift called in sick, the second shift refused overtime pay and walked off.

The police commissioner reports similar third-shift problems in most of the city’s precincts.

Hank braced the thick wood-and-steel bar across his door, then checked his window shutters to make sure they were locked down good and tight. Now—

A knock at the door.

Who the hell?

He stepped closer but made no move to lift the bar.

“Yeah?”

“Mister Thompson,” said a familiar voice on the other side. “Ernst Drexler here. May we have a word?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“I’d prefer not to shout through the door.”

“Well, that’s the way it’s gonna be. New rule: My door doesn’t open after sundown.”

“Please, Mister Thompson—”

“Speak your piece or move on.”

A pause, a sigh, then, “I find myself in an awkward position.”

“Meaning?”

“I have no accommodations for the night.”

Hank knew what was coming, but no way he was letting the white-suited twit off easy.

“I guess that means you couldn’t find anyone to put up storm shutters.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Too bad.”

“I was wondering…”

“Yeah?”

Another sigh. “I was wondering if I might share your quarters for the night.”

Hank paused, as if considering it—which he wasn’t.

After a lengthy silence, he said, “Nah.”

“Hank, please. I have no place to stay.”

So it was “Hank” now? And had he ever heard Drexler say “please”?

“Sorry, Drexie. Not keen on roommates.”

“Need I remind you that you are here at the leave of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order, of which I am a member and you are not?”

“You’ve reminded me of that more times than I can count. But you’re still not getting in here tonight. You can stay in the basement with the guys. No windows there so you’ll be safe enough.”

“Now listen here—”

“No, you listen: You and your Order can do what you want—try to evict us, whatever. But no matter what, I’m spending the night alone and not opening this door till sunrise. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

As Drexler began pounding on the door, Hank turned away and flopped onto his bed. Pretty soon the pounding stopped. He closed his eyes and searched for sleep.

Carol stood beside Bill at Glaeken’s picture window. He watched the park but she watched the living room instead. Jack and Glaeken stood in huddled conversation on the far side. Jack had arrived earlier, jubilant that he’d heard from someone named Gia over the shortwave. Now, as he and Glaeken conversed, they’d occasionally glance her way, but she realized they were really looking at Bill, and that made her uneasy.

She turned to the window and saw lights and bustling figures below.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” Bill said. He lifted a pair of binoculars from a nearby table and peered through them. “They were dropping some sort of depth charges in it earlier today. Looks like they’re going to try spraying them with insecticide again.” He passed the glasses to her. “Take a look.”

The Sheep Meadow swam into focus through the lenses. Carol remembered watching a similar scene on TV last night, a scene that had ended in bloody horror.

“I can’t believe they’re going to try this again,” she said. “Those men down there must be either very brave or very crazy.”

“I’d venture they’re neither. They’re doing a job. Everybody else can go nuts, throw up their hands and say nothing matters anymore, the world’s coming to an end so screw everything and let’s party, let’s go wild, let’s do all the things we never allowed ourselves to do when we knew there’d be a price to pay. Let’s get drunk, get stoned, rape, pillage, kill, destroy, burn everything to the ground just because we feel like it. But we’ll always have a certain small percentage who’ll go on doing their jobs, people with an overriding sense of duty, of responsibility, of obligation to try to keep things running, to ignore the end-of-the-world zeitgeist and simply keep going. People who know that to let yourself go crazy is to say that your day-to-day life has been a sham, that you’ve been a hypocrite, that your lifestyle has been little more than play-acting; like saying, ‘Hey, you know everything I’ve said and done up till now? It’s all been a lie. This is the real me.’ No matter what Rasalom throws at that small percentage of humans, they’re not going to back down. Some of them are around that goddamn hole right now.”

Carol found herself staring at Bill, a lump in her throat, tears in her eyes. She knew she was standing next to one of those people. The sound of applause made her turn. Behind them, Jack and Glaeken were clapping.

“I bet you used to give some wicked sermons,” Jack said.

Bill looked sheepish. “Sorry. Preaching to the choir. I got a little carried away.”

“No,” Jack said softly. “It was cool.”

Glaeken was smiling. “You’ve just demonstrated one of the reasons Rasalom hates you so. The type of person you describe is the only threat to his supremacy. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them. If the percentages were reversed, however—if there were as many people sticking to their posts, holding on and refusing to allow fear to rob them of everything they believe in, everything they’ve lived for, as there now are people falling victim to their fears—Rasalom wouldn’t have a chance. But the opposite is true. The violent anarchy growing outside feeds his power, helps him shorten the days even further, which increases the fear and irrationality, which in turn makes him stronger, and around and around it goes until he is the victor.”

A flash of light from below caught Carol’s attention. She turned and stared out at the park.

“Oh, look!”

The others joined her at the window as she raised the glasses and watched as the men around the Sheep Meadow hole sprayed fire at the things winging up from the depths.

“I’ll be damned!” Jack said from over her left shoulder. “Flamethrowers! King Kong flamethrowers!”

“I think it’s working!” Bill said.

And sure enough, the fire did seem to be working. The things flying out of the hole were caught in the crossfire. Arcs of flame streamed inward from all sides. Powered by the pumps on the trucks around the rim, they crisscrossed over the opening, waving back and forth, catching the winged things as they tried to escape into the night. Doused with gasoline, or whatever the hoses were spraying, they caught fire and hurtled out of control into the darkness, twisting, turning, tumbling, fluttering up and down and about like windswept embers from a fresh-lit campfire.

A thrill ran through Carol. The things were dying! They could be contained! Here was the spark of hope they’d all been looking for!

“Do you know what this means?” she said, lowering the glasses and turning to the others. “If they can set up flamethrowers around all the holes—”

“Hey, what’s going on down there?” Jack said.

Carol peered through the glasses again. The arcs of flame were wavering, faltering, some dropping, falling, pouring straight down into the hole; others were backing away from the edge, spraying the ground along the rim with liquid fire. And then Carol saw why.

“Oh, no!”

The flying things weren’t the only creatures leaving the pit tonight. Through the lenses she saw other shapes—bulbous creatures with hard, shiny, black bodies; sinuous, multi-legged crawlers as long as a man and as thick around as a muscular thigh, and more—moving along the rim, crawling over the edge, worming their way onto the grass. They leapt upon the men directing the flamethrowers, began tearing them to pieces.

Carol snatched the glasses from her eyes and held them away from her. Jack took them, watched for a moment in silence, then handed them to Bill.

Bill’s voice sounded dry, quavering. “Every night some new horror is added to the others.”

“And each night is longer than the last,” Glaeken said. “But come away from the window for now. We have something to discuss.”

Carol was glad to retreat to the lighted space of the living room. She huddled next to Bill. Despite the warmth of the apartment she felt cold. She almost wished he’d put an arm around her and hug her close. She’d spent the last few nights alone, but tonight she felt alone.

Jack sat across from them. Glaeken remained standing.

“Jack is leaving for the Central Pacific tomorrow. The object of his mission is crucial to our survival. However, even if he’s successful in retrieving the necklaces, I fear they won’t be enough. We need something else. One more component. And to obtain that, someone must travel in the opposite direction. Jack can’t do both—there’s not enough time. I need a volunteer to go the other way.”

A sick feeling grew in the pit of Carol’s stomach as she noticed both men staring at Bill.

He said, “How … how far in this other direction?”

“Romania.”

Carol grabbed Bill’s hand and squeezed. No!

“How can I get there? The airlines—”

He’s already decided! Carol thought. They didn’t even ask him and he’s already making travel plans.

“I know some pilots,” Jack said. “A couple of brothers. They run an executive jet service out on Long Island.”

“They’re still flying?”

Jack smiled. “You know the kind of people you were talking about before—the ones who keep on keepin’ on, no matter what? Frank and Joe Ashe are two of those. They don’t back down—I don’t think they know how.”

“Frank and Joe,” Bill said. “They sound like the Hardy Boys. Will they fly me?”

Jack nodded. “For a price. I just spoke to them. They’re not crazy about heading into Eastern Europe, but for the right price—in gold—they’ll do it.”

“Gold?” Bill said. “I don’t ha—”

“I have plenty,” Glaeken said. “Are you willing to make the trip?”

“Of course.”

“Bill!” Carol gave his hand a hard squeeze. “Maybe you should think about this.”

“What’s to think about?” His clear and untroubled blue eyes stared into hers. “Somebody’s got to do it. Might as well be me. I want to be useful, Carol. I’m tired of feeling like a fifth wheel. I need to do something. Hell, I’m not needed for anything else around here.”

I need you!

The intensity of the emotion behind that thought startled her.

“You could be killed.”

“We’ll all be dead if we don’t do what we can now.” He looked at Glaeken. “When do I leave and what am I supposed to get?”

“You leave tomorrow morning—”

“Oh, no!” Carol couldn’t help it.

“—and you’ll be searching a rocky ravine for scraps of metal, shards from a sword blade that shattered there in 1941.”

Bill looked shocked. “Do I have to get them all?”

“Just a few. Just a sampling is all we need. You must—”

An explosion rattled the apartment windows. Carol followed Glaeken, Bill, and Jack to the picture window.

Below, in the Sheep Meadow, flames billowed high into the night air. One of the tank trucks supplying the fuel for the flamethrowers had exploded. In the flickering light, even without the binoculars, Carol could see that the entire Sheep Meadow was now acrawl with the new horrors from the hole. They were on the move, spreading out into the city streets in a glistening, wriggling, undulating carpet.

She wondered if something similar was happening in Atlantic City … to Nelson and his new woman. No reason she should worry about the man who’d abandoned her, but she did. All those years together …

She glanced up and saw the moon rising huge and orange over the rooftops of the city. But something was … different about it tonight.

“What’s wrong with the moon?”

The others stared along with her. Jack spotted it first.

“The face—the man in the moon face is gone. Jeez—even the moon’s been changed!”

“Not changed,” said a flat voice by her shoulder.

A small cry of surprise escaped Carol as she turned and saw Nick standing directly behind her. But he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was focused on the moon.

“It’s the same moon. It’s just been turned. You’re looking at what people called the dark side of the moon.”

Carol turned back and stared up at the vaguely threatening orb that had been a symbol of romance for ages.

Even the man in the moon has turned his back on us.

“Take me with you tomorrow,” Nick said to Bill. “You won’t find anything without me.”

Carol watched Bill stare at Nick, then look questioningly at Glaeken.

After a pause, Glaeken nodded. “He’s right, I think. He may help shorten your trip. And right now anything that saves time is worth a try.”

Feeling colder than ever, Carol turned back to the window and leaned against Bill. As she stared at the pale, unfamiliar ridges of the moon’s new face, she gasped. Something dark, hideous, and mind-numbingly huge was sweeping across the sky, blotting out the light. It passed slowly, like a floating shroud, casting a chill over everything in its enormous shadow, and then it moved on, leaving the moon visible again.

She shuddered and felt Bill’s arm slip around her shoulders. But even that could not dispel the chill of foreboding that had insinuated its way into her bones.

Ernst huddled under a blanket in the Lodge basement, counting the hours till dawn. Surrounded by snoring Kicker louts, with cases of Hunt’s canned baked beans for his bed, comfort was an impossibility, sleep a forlorn hope.

What had become of his life?

Last summer he had been on top of the world. The Fhinntmanchca had been gestating in the subcellar directly beneath where he now lay, he was the One’s right-hand man, and the future was his to command.

Now, less than a year later, he saw no future except suffering and death along with the hoi polloi.

At least he was safe for tonight. Both his apartment and his office right upstairs had been invaded last night, but the cellar was secure: windowless foundation walls of thick stone, with a single bolted door the only access to the outside world. Running water, a couple of hot plates, a microwave oven, a kerosene stove.

He could survive as long as the door held up and the food held out. And then … what? If only—

He felt the floor vibrate and sat up.

What was that? Another hole opening in this end of the city?

More vibrations. They seemed to be coming from the subcellar. But the only thing down there was the remains of the Orsa. It had started out made of stone but had become organic, and after completing its task of creating the Fhinntmanchca, it had begun to decay. Back in the fall of 2001, the subcellar wall had been breached to bring it in, and then repaired. To dispose of it would require a similar excavation, and the High Council had not got around to allocating the funds.

Was the onset of the Change affecting the Orsa? Reviving it? Perhaps Ernst could find a way to turn this to his advantage.

More vibrations, but no one else seemed to notice. He rose and stole across the littered floor to a small room off the main area. He opened a door to a closet, and inside pulled up a trapdoor in the floor. All the Order’s lodges had been built with subcellars and escape routes, but this building had been sealed off with the arrival of the Orsa.

He stood over the rickety wrought-iron spiral staircase and listened to the vague, unidentifiable sound that echoed from the dark, dank space below. He started down. The staircase had been damaged by the Fhinntmanchca, and wobbled under his weight. When he reached bottom, he found the light switch in the wall and flipped it.

He repressed a scream as the space lit up to reveal a horde of beetlelike creatures with shiny black bodies four to five feet long pouring through a break in the subcellar wall—the very spot that had been breached to bring in the Orsa.

They must have been attracted to the subcellar by the Orsa, for they seemed too intent on devouring it to notice him.

Ernst watched for only a single heartbeat, then he turned and started back up the staircase. His hands shook and his sweaty palms slid on the steel railing as he moved as silently as possible. He did not look back—did not dare look back until he reached the top.

As he closed the trapdoor he peeked below and saw two of the beetles starting up the staircase. Frantic, he let the door drop and looked around for something to weigh it down. Food! Cases of canned goods in the main room, but he’d never get to them in time.

He had to get away, but where? Thompson’s room. He’d break the door down if he had to.

So he ran. As he passed through the main room he opened his mouth to shout a warning, then thought better of it. When running from a bear, one needn’t run faster than the bear, only faster than the slowest of those with you. And if those with you weren’t running at all …

He kept mum as he hurried to the exit door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the stairwell to the main floor. Deserting all caution, he ran up to the front vestibule. A few of the globular flies clung to the marble walls there, but otherwise it seemed quiet. No victims readily available, he supposed.

Without pausing, Ernst darted for the stairway to the second floor. He heard wings buzz behind him and increased his speed. His aging heart beat a terrified rhythm and the air seemed thin, lacking oxygen. He wasn’t used to physical exertion and his muscles screamed in protest.

He ran to Thompson’s door and began pounding on it.

“Hank! You must let me in! The bugs have breached the cellar and I have nowhere else to go!”

No answer. He pounded harder.

“I am begging you. For the love of whatever god you believe in, let me in!”

Buzzing to his right—the globular bugs floated out of the stairwell and veered toward him.

“PLEASE!”

Silence from within.

This was it, then. He pulled the ampoule of cyanide from his pocket and raised it to his lips. One bite and—

A furious buzz to his right and something tore at his arm, blasting a blaze of pain into his elbow and sending the ampoule flying.

“No!”

He couldn’t—wouldn’t die like this!

He dove for the floor, for the cyanide, and then they were upon him.

Ernst Drexler screamed in agony.

Hank snapped awake.

He’d been roused before by sounds from the security shutters. Bugs—spearheads most likely—ramming themselves against them. They’d have swarmed in and eaten him alive if not for the warning from the Kicker Man. He’d listened for a while as they battered futilely against the steel, then fluttered off, heading for redder pastures.

It used to be the nights were never long enough for Hank. His head would hit the pillow and before he knew it, he’d have to rise. At various times during the night he’d heard screams from outside on the street, but was never tempted to peek.

But this was different. Someone pounding on his door.

Drexler.

He sounded hysterical, crying about bugs in the cellar, in the hallway, begging to be let in.

As if.

Hank turned the light on and watched the door, but didn’t move from the bed. He pressed his hands over his ears to shut out the noise.

Never liked Drexler, never liked his stupid white suit, never liked the way he always looked down his nose at Hank and the Kickers with his Euro sophistication and aristocratic ’tude. But even if it had been his brother Jerry out there, no fucking way Hank was opening that door. Who knew what else would invite itself into the room?

A sudden agonized scream broke through the seal of his palms and he snatched them away to listen. No further screams came, but he heard violent thrashing just beyond the door, accompanied by muffled, gurgling sobs that were awful to hear, even if it was Drexler.

Then silence.

Yeah, hard to feel sorry for Drexler. He and his Order had paved the way for all the shit that was coming down outside.

As Hank reached for the light switch he noticed something dark and gleaming on the floor. He looked closer and realized that blood was leaking under the door and pooling by the threshold.

So much for Ernst Drexler.

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Nite Edition

Up from the Depths (1969) New World

The Fly (1958) 20th Century Fox

Return of the Fly (1959) 20th Century Fox

The Curse of the Fly (1965) Lippert/20th Century Fox

Night Creatures (1962) Hammer/Universal

Not of This Earth (1956) Allied Artists

Ceremonies

Maui

“It’s a gift, Bati! A sign from Pele herself!”

Moki’s voice was barely audible over the blast-furnace roar of the volcano. Dressed only in his malo, he stood near the ruins of the visitor center on the rim of the newly awakened Haleakala. Perspiration coated his skin, giving it a glossy sheen as red and orange light from the fires below flickered off the planes and curves of his taut, muscular body, making it glow against the inky night sky.

The two yellow stones in his necklace seemed to glow with internal fires of their own. And why not? The necklace had been working overtime on Moki. Only moments ago he had emerged from the crater with second-degree burns blistering most of his body. But the blisters had shriveled and the damaged skin had peeled and sloughed away to reveal fresh, unmarred flesh beneath.

Kolabati backed away from the heat and worried about Moki. He’d changed so drastically. He was no longer the man she’d loved and lived with. He was a stranger, a deranged interloper fashioning his own delusions out of the madness around him.

Yesterday she had been afraid for him. But now she was afraid of him. The cataclysm that had destroyed the Big Island and reawakened Haleakala seemed to have pushed him over the edge.

And tingeing Kolabati’s fear, coloring it a deep, dull red, was anger. Why? Why now? Why did all of nature choose this time to go mad? Coincidence, or fate? Was her enormous karmic burden—and she knew too well the extent to which the deeds of her many, many years had polluted her karma—finally catching up to her?

“What does it mean, Moki?” she called back, humoring him. “What kind of sign would the fire goddess be sending you?”

“She didn’t want me leaving Maui to gather lava from Kileau, so she destroyed Kileau and brought her fires to my backyard.”

Kolabati shook her head in silent dismay. Didn’t Moki’s mania admit any limits? How many hundreds of thousands had died on the Big Island when it had exploded? How many more here on Maui in those areas not shielded from the blast by Haleakala? But Haleakala herself had gathered her share of lives. Hana was gone, as were the Seven Sacred Pools, buried under the tons of ash and dirt from Haleakala’s explosive awakening, then sealed over by the initial gush of lava that had filled the Kipahulu Valley and burst through into the Waihoi, running down to the sea. According to the news gleaned from their radio, the whole southeast corner of the island, from the Kaupo Gap to Nanualele Point, was a seething bed of molten lava.

All so Moki wouldn’t have to leave Maui on day trips?

Fortunately the lava had flowed along its old paths. If Haleakala had erupted through its northern wall, the heavily populated central valley would have become a graveyard. Moki even had an explanation for that: Pele wished to spare Moki and his wahine.

So Moki had changed, and with his transformation Kolabati recognized unwelcome changes within herself. The inner tranquillity had been shattered, the peace broken, and she found her thoughts traveling along old familiar ways, the cold, calculating paths of the past.

She shivered in the chill wind. Shielded as she was from the heat of the crater, it was cold nearly two miles above the ocean. She wanted to flee, but where to? The news from the mainland was frightening. It might be safer here on the islands, but not with Moki. He was an explosive charge, ready to detonate at any moment and destroy everything and anyone nearby. Yet she could not leave him. Not while he wore the other necklace. That belonged to her, and she would not leave without it.

Yet how to retrieve it? How to unbell the cat?

She had considered removing it while he slept but had not yet dared to try. Since the madness had come upon him, Moki hardly slept. And if he awoke from one of his short naps to find the necklace gone, he would track her down, and then only Kali knew what he might do to her. He might even rip her own necklace from her throat and watch as a century and a half caught up with her. He of course would not age noticeably without his necklace, for he had worn it only a few years. But Kolabati would grow old and crumble into dying ashes before his eyes.

So she kept quiet, acted supportive, and waited for her chance.

With a start Kolabati realized that they were not alone on the crater rim. A group of perhaps sixty men of varying ages in traditional Hawaiian dress had joined them. Led by their alii, an elderly man in a chieftain’s feather robe and headdress, they were approaching Moki where he stood watching the fires. The alii called to him and he turned. She caught snatches of traditional Hawaiian chattered back and forth but had difficulty grasping the gist of what was being said.

Finally, Moki turned and walked down the slope toward her. The others remained up near the rim, waiting.

“Bati!” he said in a low voice, his grin wide and wild, his eyes dancing with excitement. “Do you see them? They’re the last of the traditional Hawaiians. They sailed all the way from Niihau looking for Maui.”

“They found it,” Kolabati said. “What’s left of it.”

“Not the island—Maui the god. You know the story.”

“Of course.”

Before dawn one day long ago, Maui, the mischievous Polynesian demigod, crept to the summit of Haleakala, the House of the Sun, on a mission of filial love. His mother had complained that the days were not long enough to allow her to finish her tasks of cooking, cleaning, and drying tapa cloth, so Maui decided to do something about it. When the first ray of the sun appeared over the summit, Maui snared it with his lasso, thus trapping the sun. The sun pleaded for freedom but Maui would not release it until it promised to lengthen the days by slowing its trek across the heavens.

“The Niihauans say the shorter days show that the sun has broken its promise and so they’ve come to aid Maui when he returns to recapture the sun. They want to know if I’ve seen him! Can you believe it?”

Kolabati looked past Moki at the grown men dressed in feathers and carrying spears, and pitied them.

“What did you tell them?”

“I temporized. I wasn’t sure what to say. But now I do.”

Kolabati didn’t like the look in his eyes.

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

His grin widened. “I’m going to tell them I’m Maui.”

“Oh, Moki, don’t toy with them. Aren’t things bad enough already?”

“Who’s toying? I sense a strange power in me. I have a feeling I just might be Maui, or at least his avatar. I tell you, Bati, I’m here in this place at this time for a reason. Perhaps this is a sign as to why.”

Kolabati grabbed his hand and tried to lead him down the slope.

“Moki, no. Come back to the house. Work on that new sculpture you started.”

He pulled free. “Later. After I’ve told them who I am.”

She watched him stride back up to the rim and face the Niihauans, saw him pound his chest and gesture to the fires below and then to the night sky above. The traditional Hawaiians stepped back from him and whispered among themselves. Then the alii gestured to one of the younger men, who stepped forward and drove his spear into Moki’s chest.

Kolabati screamed.

His consciousness is fuzzy, but he still has control, even though his being is in solution.

Such a strange feeling to have all his tissues—bones, brain, organs, nerves, intestines—distilled to liquid. All that he was resides now in a sack suspended from the hub of the four-spoked wheel that was once his body. The spokes have grown thicker, longer, and the stony womb has enlarged to accommodate his increased size. A cavern now, stretching downward into the infinity where the cold fire burns. The icy glow from below chills the sack where he grows, where his components reorganize into his new form. The petrous columns that arch across the cavern act as conduits for the fear, the violence, the pain, the misery they siphon from the surface, feeding him, shaping him.

His new form shall be ready by the undawn on Friday.

But now it is time for the next step—to deny them sight of the sun.

PART TWO

TWILIGHT

MONDAY

Fellow Travelers

WFPW-FM

And in business news, we are witnessing a global collapse of the world’s stock markets. The Nikkei Exchange has crashed. All stocks from Hong Kong, throughout Europe, and in London are in free-fall. There is no reason to expect the U.S. exchanges to fare any better when they open in New York this morning. We are witnessing the greatest financial cataclysm in history.

Precious metals, however, are a different story. Gold opened in Hong Kong at twenty-four hundred fifty-one dollars an ounce and went through the roof from there. Silver opened at an astounding fifty-seven dollars an ounce and hasn’t stopped rising. No price seems too high to bid on these metals.

Manhattan

Hank thought of his bags of silver coins as he watched his TV. He’d called that right. And he knew he was just as right about the food. The picture flickered now and again, but he never totally lost power. He had a battery-powered portable ready if needed. About the only things on were preachers, movies, and news—disastrous news.

The president had proclaimed a state of national emergency but the armed forces were proving ineffective against an enemy of such overwhelming numbers and so intimately mixed with the population they were meant to protect. Soldiers with wives, husbands, children, parents were staying home to protect their own. The remainder were vastly outnumbered. For every hole they plugged with explosives—in the instances where they could safely use explosives—two more opened up elsewhere. People were quickly losing confidence in the government’s ability to manage the situation. The social contract—if such a thing had ever existed—was dissolving.

He listened at the door. Quiet out there. He wondered if any of the Kickers had left the basement yet. Probably waiting for sunrise. But why wait till dawn?

He raised one of the window shutters a couple of inches and peeked out. The sky was getting lighter now. The night things should be on their way back to the holes already if they wanted to make it before sunrise. Should he risk stepping outside his little cocoon? Might be good for the Kickers to see their Fearless Leader out and about before anyone else.

Hank lifted the bar off the door and opened it an inch or so for a quick peek. Dim out there. All the lights either out or broken. The only illumination came from broken windows at the ends of the hallway.

Someone out there. Down the hall to his left a still form lay curled on its side. A long trail of smeared blood ran from his doorway to the body. No one else in sight. No things either. Who was that? Looked vaguely male. Drexler?

He stepped outside, twisted the knob to make sure it wouldn’t lock, and closed the door behind him. He’d just started along the blood trail when he heard an angry buzz from far down the hall behind him. He whirled. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew that buzz. He’d heard it enough these past nights. Wings. Big, double dragonfly wings. And then he heard another sound—the gnashing teeth of a chew wasp.

Terror rammed a fist down hard on his bladder. Too early! He’d left the room too damn early.

The buzz grew louder, angrier, closer. And then he saw it, hurtling down the hall at a level of about five feet, directly at him. The grinding of the teeth picked up tempo. With a scream building in his throat, Hank leaped back to his door, pushed through and slammed it closed—

—right on the chew wasp’s head. Its crystalline teeth gnashed in fury as it struggled to squeeze into the room. Hank kept pressure on the door, not daring to let up for an instant. If it got through, no telling what it would do to him. Worse, it might be attracting others. Had to do something—now.

He spotted the door bar a few feet away. He stretched for it, got a grip, then swung it with all he had, once, twice, three times, crushing the creature’s head.

When its jaws stopped working, he eased his pressure on the door and let it slip to the floor. He quick-kicked it into the hall and then slammed the door. He leaned against it, gasping, waiting for his heart to slow.

He decided he didn’t need to be the first out and about.

He gave it another ten minutes, then stepped out into the hall again. But this time he stayed by the door, squinting left and right, listening for the sound of wings. A bit brighter now. And still quiet.

Taking a deep breath, he once again approached the corpse. As he neared he recognized Drexler. Well, sort of. If not for the white suit—now 90 percent red—he’d never have been able to tell. His body was shrunken, wizened, all his exposed skin shredded, chewed up but strangely bloodless. His eyes had been eaten out, leaving red, raw sockets.

How did you die, Drexie?

As if in answer, he heard a sound, something between a cluck and a gurgle. It seemed to come from the corpse. As he stared, he saw the throat work, the jaw move. But he couldn’t be alive!

And then Drexler’s mouth opened and Hank saw something moving inside. No, not inside anymore, slithering out. A flat, wide, pincered head, dark brown where it wasn’t bloody red, followed by a sinuous six-foot body as big around as a beer can, powered by countless fine, rubbery legs, all dripping red.

Some sort of giant millipede, squeezing out Drexler’s gullet and coming right for him. And it was fast.

Hank yelped and backpedaled until his back slammed against the wall. He turned and tried to climb it.

But the thing wasn’t interested in him. It veered toward the doorway and raced down toward the lobby. Heading for the street and nearest hole, no doubt.

He’d never seen anything like that before. It had to be the latest addition to the bug horde.

Leaving Drexler’s remains behind, he slipped downstairs to the front lobby area. The big double doors stood open, the left half off its hinges. He eased through and stood on the front steps.

Monday morning. The sky looked funny. Not quite sunrise yet. Ordinarily the streets would have been jumping by now, clogged with cabs and cars and delivery trucks. But nothing moved. No, wait. Up the street he spotted a garbage-can-size beetle with a wicked set of mandibles spread wide before it, scuttling by at the corner, heading uptown; an occasional flying thing whizzed through the air, also in the general direction of Central Park. Except for those, the streets were empty. Where had the giant millipede gone? How could it have got around the corner so fast?

He went back inside. Where the hell was everyone? And then he remembered Drexler screaming through the door something about bugs in the cellar.

He hurried to the stairwell to the basement, and when he saw the smashed door, he knew what he’d find beyond it.

His in-house Kicker crew had been wiped out.

In that instant he saw his next move with perfect clarity: He had to get out of town. And he knew just where to go. During the summer he’d taken a few jaunts down to the Jersey Shore, to places like Asbury Park and Seaside Heights. Even rented a bungalow for a week in an oceanfront town called Chadwick Beach. Most of the houses there were little more than plywood boxes, but he remembered a couple of places that looked fairly sturdy, equipped with storm shutters and heat. They’d be empty now, the beaches and boardwalks all but deserted, waiting for the summer renters—renters who wouldn’t be coming. A perfect hideaway.

Had to get moving. The guys had left a couple of hand trucks in the lobby, and a van out back. He could fill that with cases of food and haul ass out of here. It would take a bunch of trips with the hand truck, but if he didn’t waste time, he could be on the road in less than an hour.

WFPW-FM

JO: Hi, this is Jo and Freddy. Yeah, I know we’re early but we’re the only ones left at the station. No one knows where the other guys are.

FREDDY: Headed for the hills, if they’re smart.

JO: Yeah. But we’re not smart. We’re sticking this out. In fact, we’re moving into the station. We’re living here, man, and we’re staying on the air as long as they let us. And since nobody else is around, that could be a long time.

FREDDY: Yeah. Jo and Freddy all day and all night.

JO: Right. So let’s get this started. It’s Monday morning, May twenty-second. The sun rose at 7:40 A.M. According to the Sapir curve, it will set at 5:35 this afternoon, leaving us with a measly nine hours and fifty-five minutes of sunlight today.

FREDDY: So do what you have to do quick and get home soon. And be careful out there, folks. Be good to each other. We’re all we’ve got left.

<cue “Sunlight”>

JO: Hate to interrupt the Youngbloods, man, but you’re not gonna believe this: The Pentagon is … gone. I mean, gone, man. One of those holes opened under it during the night and it just ain’t there no more.

“Isn’t the sun coming up?” Bill said, looking out the window. The sky was brightening but no sun, just a strange yellow light.

Jack came up beside him. “Looks overcast.”

“But those aren’t clouds up there, or even haze. It’s like … I don’t know what it’s like. Looks like a yellow scum of some sort’s been poured over the sky.”

“Whatever,” Jack said. “We’ve waited long enough. The boogie beasts have called it a night and it’s time to roll. You ready?”

“Soon as I get back from Carol’s place. She needs to pick up some things.”

“All right. I’ve got a couple of stops to make myself. When I get back, you and I and the Amazing Criswell will all head out to the Ashe brothers’ airfield.”

“Okay. I’ll be ready.”

“Don’t get lost. There’s not a lot of time to spare.” He turned to go, then turned back. “How you getting there?”

“Car.”

Jack reached into his belt and pulled out a pistol. He held it out to Bill, grip first.

“Better take this.”

Bill stared at the thing. Its dark surface gleamed dully in the diffuse light from the window. It seemed as if some sort of alien creature had invaded the apartment.

“A gun? I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I’ll show you. First you—”

“I couldn’t use it, Jack. Really.”

“It’s ugly out there, Bill. People were calling this city a jungle last week. They thought it was bad before the first hole opened up. They had no idea how bad it could get. Not much trouble right around here—the creeps are no more anxious to get near that hole than anyone else—but you get too far up- or downtown and you’ll run into spots that would make a jungle look like a Sunday afternoon drive. Take the gun. Just for show if nothing else.”

“All right.” Bill took the pistol and was surprised at its weight. “But what about you?”

Jack smiled. “Plenty more where that came from. Besides, I never carry just one.”

As Jack hurried off, Bill slipped the pistol under his belt and pulled his sweater down over it. Then he took the stairs down to the apartment where Carol had spent the night.

Jack found Julio’s open but damn near deserted. Half of the front windows were smashed, most of the dead plants had been ripped from their hangers. And worst of all, something had gnawed on the Free Beer Tomorrow … sign.

“Where is everybody?”

Julio paused in his sweeping up the glass fragments and shrugged. “Some hiding, some gone. You hear from Gia?”

“Yeah. Spoke to her during the night and this morning. They’re doing okay. No bugs out their way.”

Not yet, at least.

Gia had sounded on edge, but he’d expected that—ripped from her home, living in a bunker. He kept telling her it was all for the best. And he believed it.

“You planning on staying open?”

Another shrug. “Don’ know. Hate to give in to the bugs, but we spent last night in the cellar and it was scary. The power’s been off and on. If I got no power, I gotta serve warm beer. And that’s no good.”

“Close up and get some stuff together. I got a safe place for you—at least temporarily safe. We’ve got room. Whattaya say?”

He watched the muscular little man as he looked around the place that was his life, his livelihood. He knew how stubborn Julio could be. They’d been friends forever. Jack wanted to see him safe.

Finally Julio nodded. “Yeah, why not? But just at night. I stay open in the day. Every day.”

At least that’s something, Jack thought.

And who knew how many more days there’d be?

In the strange, shadowless yellow half-light that was passing for day, Bill skirted the park to the south and headed east across town in a borrowed Volvo. No roadblocks and no traffic to speak of. No police, either, and that concerned him. As he readied to turn uptown he glanced at the Queensboro Bridge.

“Carol!” he said as he screeched to a halt. “Look!”

“Oh, my God!”

A section of the span had broken up and now floated in the air, tethered to the rest of the bridge by twisted pieces of steel that groaned in the breeze.

“A gravity hole,” Carol said. “And it was such a beautiful bridge.”

“The engineers have been saying for years what poor shape the bridges were in. Now we know how right they were.”

Aiming for the Upper East Side, he drove along the middle of the street. With the exception of Glaeken’s building, it seemed as if almost every window in the city had been broken.

He eased to the left and upped their speed when he spotted a mob clustered around the front of a grocery store.

“Nelson and I used to grocery shop there.”

Nobody was shopping now. Pillaging was more like it. People were jumping in and out of the broken door and windows, looking for anything remotely edible. But with nothing left to pillage, the enraged mob was tearing out the empty shelves and hurling them into the street. Three men were brawling over what looked like a can of tuna fish.

Farther on, groups of tight-faced people hung about on the glass-bejeweled sidewalks, clustered in tense circles, glancing nervously over their shoulders this way and that with fear-haunted eyes. He saw three women standing around a doorway sobbing as a sheet-covered body was carried out. The people on the streets looked like ghosts.

“It’s falling apart.” Carol had her arms crossed in front of her chest as if to ward off a chill. “Just like Nelson said it would.”

As Bill was slowing for a red light at 63rd—habit, pure habit—somebody shot at them. The bullet punched through the rear window and smashed the right rear side pane on its way out. Bill floored the gas and sped uptown, ignoring traffic lights the rest of the way.

He double-parked in front of Carol’s apartment building and led her toward the shattered front door. Inside, she gasped when she saw a body on the floor. Someone had covered it with a drape from one of the ruined windows.

The elevator ride was slow and rough, as if the motors weren’t getting enough juice. As soon as the doors opened on her floor, Carol bolted from the car and ran down the hall. Bill noticed some drying brown stains on the carpet and what looked like a trail of the same leading past her apartment but said nothing. She had her door open by the time he caught up with her. He stayed close behind as she entered.

He bumped up against her back when she stopped dead inside the threshold.

“It’s a wreck!”

The windows were broken, the furniture gnawed and gouged.

“Good thing you weren’t here.”

If Nelson hadn’t run off, they might have stayed here last night, and might have ended up like that corpse in the lobby.

So damn it all, Bill was glad he’d taken off. Because it meant one less barrier between him and Carol. He loathed himself for that. But he wanted her. God, how he wanted her.

He forced himself to pull back and take her arm.

“Let’s move it.”

She led him to a storage closet where they each grabbed a suitcase, then to the master bedroom. She pulled clothing out of drawers, handed it to him, and he stuffed it in a suitcase. Then she opened a closet. She stopped and touched one of Nelson’s suits.

“I still can’t believe…”

“Do you hate him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think much of him now, but I can’t bring myself to hate him.”

“I don’t think you’re capable of hate, so I’ll hate him for both of us.”

She turned and looked at him. “I’m the one he ran out on.”

“No, he ran out on us.”

Carol stared. “Us?”

“All of us. Now’s the time when we have to stick together, help each other through this catastrophe. Doing what Nelson did, that just makes Rasalom stronger. It’s another brick in the walls going up between people. Don’t you see what’s happening? All the intangibles that link us are being destroyed. Love, trust, brotherhood, community, camaraderie, neighborliness. The simple everyday things that make us human, that make us more than just a pile of organisms, that make us larger than ourselves—they’re all going up in smoke.”

“It’s fear, Bill. Everyone’s afraid. Death is everywhere. Up is down, down is up—nothing’s sure anymore.”

“That’s outside. Rasalom’s wrecking everything outside. He’s calling all the shots out there. But inside”—he pounded on his chest—“inside you’ve got who you are, and you’ve got the bonds you’ve formed with other people. That’s where those bonds are anchored. Rasalom can’t get inside unless he’s allowed in. You let that fear in and it will destroy those bonds. And that’s the beginning of the end. For without them we divide into small, suspicious enclaves, which soon deteriorate into warring packs, which finally degenerate into a bunch of backstabbing lone wolves.”

“Nelson would never—”

“Excuse me, Carol, but I believe you’ve got a knife in your back. One with Nelson’s fingerprints all over it. As far as I’m concerned, running off like this is aiding and abetting the enemy.”

Carol didn’t argue.

They finished packing what they could, then headed for the elevators. They descended in silence and didn’t talk much as they started the ride back. More traffic about now, but scattered and fitful. Bill headed west toward the park on 72nd. As he slowed for a passing truck on Madison, three tough-looking Hispanics, either high or drunk or both, stepped in front of the car.

“A car,” the biggest of them said, slurring his words. “I could use me some wheels.”

Bill pulled out the pistol and pointed it through the windshield at one of the men, hoping the bluff would work. He knew he couldn’t pull the trigger. The big man smiled sheepishly, held up his hands, and the three of them staggered away. Bill glanced at Carol and found her staring at him.

“A pistol, Bill? You?”

“Jack’s idea. I don’t even know how to fire it.”

Carol held out her hand. “I do. I spent fifteen years roaming around the South with Jonah and … that boy.”

She took the gun, pulled the slide back maybe an inch, and looked inside.

“One in the chamber. All set.”

She flicked a little switch on its side, then held the pistol up in plain view next to her window.

Speechless, Bill drove on. They had no trouble the rest of the trip back.

Jack pulled into a no-parking zone on Seventh Avenue in front of a battered hospital and hopped out of his car. The West Village had taken a beating last night and he was pretty sure an illegally parked car would be low on the police priority list. He wasn’t staying long anyway.

He saw a slim brunette using a cordless drill to screw sheets of plywood over broken windows. Something familiar about her. A second look and he recognized her.

“Alicia?”

She turned, squinted at him with her blue-gray eyes. Her black hair was pinned up, making her look younger than her thirty-something years.

“Jack? What are you doing here?”

Alicia Clayton, M.D., pulled off a work glove and extended her hand.

“Came by to see if you needed a safer place to stay.”

She shrugged. “Don’t we all. But I’m bunking here. The kids, you know.”

Yeah, the kids. Alicia was a pediatric infectious disease specialist. She ran the Center for Children with AIDS.

“Listen, the place I’m talking about has lots of space—empty apartments galore. You could move the kids—”

She shook her head. “No way. Some of them are too sick to be moved anywhere without a full hospital setup. This place of yours have that?”

“Well, no. But … it’s going to get uglier, Alicia.”

Her mouth twisted. “I don’t see how—”

“Trust me, it will. You need to get to a safe place.” She was good people. Jack was one of the few who knew the hell she’d lived through growing up. Yet she’d overcome all that. Most of it anyway. “We’re going to need doctors.”

“I appreciate the offer, Jack, but these kids are stuck here, and that means I am too.”

Jack hadn’t expected any less, but he’d felt compelled to offer.

Just then a dapper fellow in green scrubs stepped through the entrance carrying a toolbox.

“Raymond,” Alicia said. “You remember Jack.”

“Of course,” he said and shook hands, but Jack knew the guy had no clue who he was.

“How come two of the medical staff are out here boarding up windows?”

Raymond fluttered a hand in the air. “Because the maintenance people didn’t show up this morning. Somebody’s got to do it.”

Alicia smiled. “But this is the last board. After this we’ll be sealed in safe and sound.”

Jack doubted that, but said nothing. He knew Alicia’s type. No way she’d walk away from a responsibility—and those sick kids were a responsibility she lived for. And would die for.

He said his good-byes and headed for his next stop, knowing he’d likely never see her again.

New Jersey Turnpike

Clear sailing on the blacktop. Hardly any other cars. Hank had most of the six southbound lanes to himself.

He wondered why more people weren’t on the move, then realized that gas was probably in short supply—all the service areas he’d passed so far had been deserted. And where was there to go? According to the news reports, hell was everywhere. It might be a horror show where you were, but you could be fleeing into something far worse. And what if dark fell before you made it to where you were going? Better to stay where you were, hunker down, and try to hold on to what you had.

He saw the sign for exit 11—the Garden State Parkway. That was his. The Parkway would take him down the coast to the shore towns. Just past the sign was another for the Thomas A. Edison Service Area. Under that, on the shoulder, sat a sheet of plywood, hand painted:

WE HAVE GAS

DEISEL TOO

Yeah, but can you spell?

Hank checked his gas gauge: half a tank. They were probably charging an arm and a leg per gallon, but who knew when he’d get another chance—if ever?

Ahead he saw a beat-up station wagon turn off the road onto the service area approach. Hank decided to follow.

As he approached the gas lanes he saw one of the two overalled attendants leaning in the passenger window of the station wagon. He straightened up and waved the wagon on.

Probably doesn’t have enough money, Hank thought.

He smiled and clinked his heel against the canvas bags stowed under the front seat. He had something they couldn’t refuse: silver coins. Precious metal. Always worth something, but more in bad times. The TV had said silver was going for eighty dollars an ounce. And the worse things got, the more it would be worth.

He slowed, reached down, and pulled out a handful of coins; he shoved them into his pocket, checked that both door locks were down, then headed for the gas lanes.

The two attendants were clean-cut and clean-shaven, one blond, one dark, both well built, each about thirty. The blond one came around to Hank’s side.

“You’ve got gas?” Hank said, rolling his window down a couple of inches.

The fellow nodded. “What’ve you got for it besides plastic or paper?”

Hank pulled out his quarters. “These should do. They’re all pre-1964—solid silver.”

The blond stared at the coins, then called to the dark-haired one.

“Hey, Chuck. He’s got silver. We want silver?”

Chuck came up to the passenger window. “I dunno,” he said through the glass. “What else you got?”

“This is it.”

“What you got in the back?” the blond one said.

A trapped feeling had begun to steal over Hank. He grabbed for the gearshift.

“Never mind.”

His hand never reached it. Both side windows exploded inward, peppering him with glass; a club came in from his left and smashed against his cheek, showering cascades of flashing lights through his vision. He heard the door open, felt fingers clutch his hair and his shoulder, then he was dragged from the van and dumped onto his back on the pavement.

Pain shot up and down Hank’s spine as he writhed, trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him. Above he was dimly aware of one of the attendants reaching into the van’s cab and turning off the engine, then taking the keys around to the rear. He heard the doors swing open.

“Holy shit!” said Chuck’s voice. “Gary! Take a look! This guy’s loaded!”

Terrified, Hank struggled to his feet. A part of him wanted to run, but where? For what? To be caught out in the open when dark came? Or to starve to death if he did find shelter? No! He had to get his supplies back.

He staggered to the rear of his van and tried to slam the nearest door closed.

“That’s mine!”

The fair one, Gary, turned on him in red-faced fury and lashed out with his fists so fast, so hard, so many times in rapid succession that Hank barely knew what hit him. One moment he was on his feet, the next his head and abdomen were exploding with pain and his face was slamming onto the asphalt drive.

He used to be pretty tough, able to hold his own against anyone, but this guy was tough and fast, and the good life Hank had been living the last year had left him soft and slow.

He raised his head and spat blood. As his vision cleared, he saw a white car speeding toward them from the highway. He blinked. Something on top of the car—a red-and-blue flasher bar. And the state seal on the door. A Jersey State Trooper.

He’d never liked cops, but he was glad to see this one.

Groaning, he forced himself up to his knees and began waving with both arms.

“Help! Over here! Help! Robbery!”

The police unit screeched to a halt behind Hank’s van and a tall, graying, bareheaded trooper, resplendent in his gray uniform and shiny Sam Brown belt, hopped out and approached the two thieves still leaning inside the back doors.

“Yo, Captain,” Chuck said. “Look what we found.”

“Fucking supermarket on wheels,” Gary said.

The trooper stared at the stacks of cartons. “Very impressive. Looks like we caught us a live one.”

“Officer,” Hank said, not quite believing his ears, “these men tried to rob me!”

The trooper swiveled and looked down at Hank, fixing him with a withering glare.

“We’re commandeering your hoard.”

“You’re with them?”

“No. They’re with me. I’m their superior officer. I set up this little sting operation to catch hoarder scum and looters on the run. You have the honor of being our first of the day.”

“I bought all that stuff!” Hank struggled to his feet and stood swaying like a sapling in a gale. “You have no right!”

“Wrong,” the trooper said calmly. “I have every right. Hoarders have no rights.”

“I’ll report you!”

His smile was white ice. “Move away, little man. I’m the court of last resort around here. Be thankful I don’t have you shot on the spot. Your hoard is about to be divided up among those who’ll make the best use of it. It’ll see us through until the time comes to restore order.”

Hank couldn’t believe this was happening. There had to be something he could do, someone he could turn to. He shouldn’t have come alone, should have brought a few Kickers for backup, but he didn’t trust—

And then he saw the tattoo in the thumb web of the officer’s hand and relief flooded through him.

“You’re a Kicker!”

“We all are. So?”

“I’m Hank Thompson!”

“That supposed to mean something?”

“I wrote Kick! I created that symbol. I created Kickerdom!”

The officer sneered. “Yeah, right.”

He reached for his wallet. “I can prove it!”

The cop kicked him in the gut. “You ain’t nobody.”

As Hank gagged with the pain, he saw Gary rip open a carton and pull out a cellophane envelope.

“Hey, look! Oodles of Noodles. My favorite!”

Something snapped inside him. Ignoring the pain, he rolled to his feet. Screaming, waving his fists, he charged at Gary.

“That’s mine! Get your hands off it!”

He never made it. The captain stepped in front of him and rammed his forearm into Hank’s face. Hank reeled back, clutching his shattered nose.

“Get running, little man,” he said in a tight, cold voice. “Run while you still can.”

“You can’t do this to me! I’m your leader!”

“Git!”

Mortally afraid now, Hank said, “I can’t! There’s no place to go! We’re in the middle of nowhere! I’ve got two bags of silver coins under the front seat. You can have them. Just give me back my van!”

The captain reached for the revolver in his holster. He didn’t pause or hesitate an instant. In one smooth, swift motion he pulled it free, ratcheted the hammer back with his thumb, and pointed it at Hank’s face.

“You just don’t get it, do you?”

Hank saw nothing in his eyes as the captain pulled the trigger. He tried to duck but was too late. He felt a blast of pain in his skull as the world exploded into unbearable light, then collapsed into fathomless darkness.

Manhattan

Jack spotted a few people sitting on the park benches in Union Square as he passed. Didn’t notice any movement, so he couldn’t be sure if they were alive or dead.

He parked on 17th Street before a storefront diabetes clinic—or at least a place that had once been a clinic. The Laundromat next door was equally demolished, but at least the wrecked equipment still resembled washers and dryers. The clinic … nothing but smashed furniture.

He stepped through the front room to the office and treatment areas in the rear. Just as deserted as the rest of the place. In the office he spotted the remnants of a Mr. Coffee. He shook his head. That brought back memories. W. C. Fields had his fatal glass of beer; here was where Jack had drunk a near-fatal cup of coffee.

Which, now that he thought of it, might have led to his first encounter with Dr. Bulmer.

He heard glass crunch behind him and whirled. A stocky young woman with straight dark hair stood in the doorway, staring at him. She wore a turtleneck sweater, a short plaid skirt, and dark tights.

“Jack? What are you doing here?”

Nadia Radzminsky, M.D., had let her hair grow, but otherwise looked pretty much the same as the last time he’d seen her.

“Looking for you. Don’t have your home address, so I thought I’d give this place a try.”

He told her about Glaeken’s building and the invitation to stay there.

With a dazed expression, she looked around at the destruction. “But my patients…”

“Are gone.”

Her head snapped around. “You don’t know that.”

“Nadia, you treat the poor, the homeless, the marginal folks.” He kept his tone gentle. “Lots of people who live behind thick walls with sturdy doors and double locks didn’t make it through the night. What do you think happened to your people?”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Some of them must have survived.”

“Then they’d be here, wouldn’t they.”

She didn’t reply, just stood there and chewed her lip.

“The one thing we’re going to need when this is over—if it’s ever over—are doctors. You want to do the most good, you’ll keep yourself safe.”

She was looking around again. “I don’t know…”

“And doesn’t your mother live in the city? She’s welcome too.”

That seemed to tip her Jack’s way.

“Okay. Where is this place?”

Jack gave her the address, then added, “You’ll bring Doug too, of course.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Okay. See you there. And don’t waste time. There’s not much of it.”

Good. He had a doctor for the building. Next stop, finish up a little business with an engraver. And after that, a visit to a ghost and his brother.

WFPW-FM

JO: Stay out of the water, everybody. In fact, stay away from the water. There are things in the rivers and apparently they don’t go into hiding during the day. We’ve just received a confirmed report of a fisherman being pulled off a dock in Coney Island and eaten alive right in front of his kids.

FREDDY: Don’t go near the water, man.

<cue: “Fishin’ Blues”>

“W’happen t’yer car, buddy?”

Jack had seen the drunk staggering along the glass-littered sidewalk; he’d veered toward Jack’s car as it pulled into the curb in front of Walt Duran’s apartment building.

“Ran into some bugs,” Jack said as he got out.

The drunk stared at the ruined paint. He was fiftyish, overweight, and needed a shave; he wore a gray wool suit of decent quality, but filthy. A liter of Bacardi Light dangled from his hand. His complexion was ghastly in the yellow light.

“Tried to dissolve her, didn’t they,” he said, then his face screwed up and he began to sob. “Just like they dissolved my Jane!”

Jack didn’t know what to do. What do you say to a crying drunk? He put a hand on the guy’s quaking shoulder.

“Hang around. Maybe I can find you a place to stay.”

The guy shook his head and stumbled away along the sidewalk, still sobbing.

Jack hurried up the building’s front steps. He pressed the button for Walt’s room but got no answering buzz. The glass panel in the front door was broken. Maybe the buzzer was too. He reached through the shattered pane and let himself in, then hurried up to the third floor.

Despite repeated knocks, Walt didn’t answer his door.

Concerned now, Jack pulled the piece of clear, flexible plastic he kept in his back pocket, slipped it between the door and the jamb, and jimmied the latch. The door swung open.

“Oh, shit,” he said when he saw the carnage within.

The front room was a shambles of shattered glass, torn upholstery, and broken furniture. Jack dodged through the wreckage and hurried to the bathroom where he’d installed Walt last night.

Empty, damn it. He went to the one remaining place to look, the tiny bedroom.

Blood. Blood on the sheets, on the floor, on the glass daggers remaining in the frame of the smashed bedroom window.

“Walt,” Jack said softly, staring at the dry brown streaks on the glass. “Why didn’t you come back with me last night? Why didn’t you stay locked up like I told you?”

Angry and sad, and not sure which to give in to, he wandered back to the bathroom. Walt’s metalworking tools were set up across the rust-stained tub.

But where were the necklaces? Probably hadn’t finished them, but Jack knew he’d started them.

And what was Jack going to do without them?

Then he spotted something silvery and serpentine in the tub, under the work board. He dropped to his knees and reached in.

Out came a necklace.

Jack cupped it in his hands and inspected it. The sculpted, crescent-shaped links, the weird engraved inscriptions, the pair of topazes with dark centers. The look of it, weight of it … perfect.

A deluge of memories, most of them bad, engulfed him. He especially remembered the night he had worn the genuine article, how it had kept him alive when he should have died, how removing it had damn near killed him.

He shook off the past and felt a lump form in his throat for the man who had made this.

“Walt. You were the best.”

He reached into the tub and found the second necklace, but groaned when he got a good look at it. Only half done. The links on the left side were blank. Walt hadn’t got around to engraving them before … well, before whatever had happened to him.

One and a half necklaces wasn’t going to cut it. Jack’s plan required two phonies to get the real ones.

He got to his feet and stuffed the completed copy into his pocket. He’d have to come up with a new plan.

Out on the street again he looked around for the drunk and spotted him sitting on the curb at the corner. He called to him, but the guy was absorbed in staring down at the sewer grate beneath his feet. Jack walked toward him.

“Hey, fella! I’ll get you to a safe place where you can sober up.”

The guy looked up. “Somebod’s downair,” he said, pointing into the sewer. “Can’t see’m but I hear’m movin’ ’round.”

Jack wondered if people were hiding in the sewers.

“Swell. But I don’t think you’ll fit through that opening, so—”

“Prolly c’use a drink.”

The guy reached down to pour a taste of his rum through the grate.

Something flashed up from the sewer, something long and thick and brown whipped out and grabbed the drunk by his neck and yanked him down facefirst onto the grate. Then it began tugging him into the opening in the curb face. Not slowly, smoothly, inexorably, but with violent heaves, accompanied by sprays of blood and frantic but futilely flailing arms and legs. Three heaves did it.

Before Jack could recover from his shock and take a single step forward to help, the man was gone. All he’d left behind were splashes of blood and a bottle of rum on its side, slowly emptying into the sewer after its owner.

No people hiding in the sewers from the night things … night things—big night things—were down there hiding from the day.

Jack backed up a few steps, then turned and hurried for his car. He had one last stop before heading for Monroe: Astoria.

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: —and at sea, the QE2 appears to be missing, man. She was last heard from Sunday evening and since then, nada. If she hit one of the gravity holes she’d have radioed for help. The single air-sea rescue plane that was sent out has found no survivors. Bummer, man.

<cue: “Beyond the Sea”>

Astoria, Queens

With the Queensboro Bridge out of commission, Jack had to take the Triboro, which was jammed. Not like it had been during the Internet crash, but slow, slow going.

When he finally reached Menelaus Manor in Astoria he was struck by its condition: The neighbors up and down the block showed extensive bug damage, but the old stone house remained intact, almost … pristine.

Jack knocked on the front door. Lyle Kenton answered. He looked awful—eyes sunken, skin a dull black, his usually neat dreads in disarray.

“Jack?” He stepped back and opened the door wider. “You’re just about the last person I expected to see.”

Jack stepped inside. “Hey, you’re the psychic. Should’ve seen me coming.”

Lyle didn’t smile. “Charlie’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

Lyle’s brother had died a couple of years ago, but part of him—his ghost, his spirit, his personality, whatever—had hung around.

“As in not here anymore. As in I can’t contact him. As in he doesn’t answer when I call his name.”

“Since when?”

Lyle ran a hand over his face. “Last Wednesday. He woke me up early—still-dark-out early—and said something was wrong. No, wait. He said everything was wrong. Said he’d hit the wall.”

“What wall?”

“You know how he can see some of the future.”

“Yeah. Up to a point, and then he couldn’t see any further.”

“Right. He said everything was darkness after that certain point. He called it ‘the wall’ that he couldn’t see over. Well, early Wednesday morning he said he’d hit it. I was beat so I told him we’d talk about it in the morning. But in the morning he was gone. Haven’t heard from him since.” Lyle’s eyes puddled up. “He’s gone, Jack. Charlie’s gone.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. He laid a hand on Lyle’s shoulder.

“He’ll be back.” Lame … so lame. Then a thought. “Look, Wednesday was the first day the sun rose late. That’s got to have something to do with it. When this mess is straightened out, he’ll be back.”

Lyle looked at him. “Straightened out? How’s it going to get straightened out? Maybe there’s a reason Charlie couldn’t see the future past a certain point. Maybe because there isn’t one.”

Jack didn’t like the sound of that. It struck a little too close to home.

“It’s not over yet. There’s a guy who might have a way out. He’s got a place that’s temporarily safe. I came over to invite you to stay.”

Lyle shook his head. “Can’t leave. What if Charlie comes back and can’t find me?”

“He’ll know you’re safe—and he’ll be glad.”

“No. Got to stay here. Got to be here if he comes back. Besides, the bugs seem to avoid the house.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Because of Charlie, you think?”

Another head shake. “The stones in the cellar—the ones Dmitri Menelaus moved in. Don’t know where he got them, but I think they scare off the bugs. I’m probably safer here than in your place.” A wan smile. “Want to move in?”

Am I going to lose you too? Carol thought as she stood next to Bill in his bedroom and helped him pack a small duffel bag with some extra clothes for the trip.

Why was it always she who was left behind? Jim had died and left her—although that certainly hadn’t been his choosing. And her son—at least at the time she had thought of him as her son—had left her. Nelson had run off like a thief in the night, and now Bill was preparing to fly to Romania.

“What are your chances of getting back?”

“I don’t know. Not great, I think.”

“Oh.” Carol couldn’t manage any more than that.

Bill straightened and looked at her. “Do I sound brave? I hope so. Because I sure as hell don’t feel it. I mean, I want to do this, but I don’t want to die or even get hurt. But I’ve got to do something.”

“Can I go with you?”

Anything would be better than being left behind again, especially now when she had nothing else to do but sit around and wait.

“To Romania?” Bill said, staring at her. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Is anyplace safe anymore?”

Even the daytime was no longer safe. Jack had returned a short while ago with a story of horrors hiding in the sewers and storm drains.

“You’re safe here. And Glaeken seems to want you around.”

“But why? What can I do besides help him take care of Magda? Not that I mind, but what else?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re part of the equation. I don’t pretend to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. Sometimes I wonder if he knows. But he’s all we’ve got. And if he says we need these bits of metal from Romania, and I’m the only one left who can get them, then I’ll give it my best shot. And if he says you’re important to the solution to what’s happening to the world, then I’ll go along with him. He hasn’t let us down yet.”

“‘Part of the equation.’” Her throat constricted around the words. “I’ve been part of some sort of equation since I got pregnant and provided the body that allowed this … this monster back into the world.” Her voice cracked. “He took my baby, Bill! He kicked out whoever my real baby might have been and took over his unformed body. And now he’s going to take you!”

She felt Bill’s arms go around her shoulders and pull her tight against him. His flannel shirt smelled lightly of detergent, and as its rough surface pressed against her cheek, the thought that he really should use fabric softener wafted inanely across her mind. She slipped her arms around his waist and pulled herself closer. If she could just hold him here like this it soon would be too late for him to leave, and then she wouldn’t lose him.

She realized then how much she wanted him. Not like the last time, not like back in ’68 when the beast that had usurped her womb twisted her into trying to seduce Bill from his vows. That had been lust, induced lust. This was something else. This was love. An old love, following a long and winding road from the puppy love when they’d dated in their teens, to something deep and real. In a way, perhaps she’d always loved Bill. And now that he’d turned away from his church and his old beliefs, now that the cocoon of his priesthood had unraveled, he seemed real again, flesh and blood. She wanted to tell him how she felt but the decades-old memories of that degrading scene of attempted seduction still echoed around her and held her back.

And yet, if she didn’t tell him now, would she ever get the chance again?

Jack’s voice shattered the moment: “Time’s a-wastin’, Bill. We’ve got to make a stop in Monroe on the way.”

Monroe … her hometown. Bill’s too. Where Rasalom had usurped her child’s body at conception. The torrent of memories was cut off as Bill pulled free of her arms.

“Got to go, Carol.”

He went to kiss her on the forehead. Impulsively, Carol lifted her face and kissed him on the lips. From the way he pulled back and the way he looked at her, she knew that he hadn’t forgotten 1968 either.

“Come back to me, Bill,” she said softly. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

He swallowed, nodded. “Okay. Yeah.” His voice was sandpaper dry. “I’ll be back. We can talk more about this then.” He picked up his duffel and started for the door, then stopped and turned. “I love you, Carol. I can’t think of a moment when I didn’t.”

And then he was gone. But his final words lingered after him, filling Carol with a bewildering mix of emotions. She wanted to laugh with joy; instead she sat on the edge of the bed and cried.

Long Island

It took Jack longer than he’d planned to reach Monroe. A lot of traffic outbound on the LIE. Maybe they thought it would be better out on the Island. He’d talked to Doc Bulmer on the phone this morning, and from what he’d said, things didn’t seem a whole hell of a lot quieter out here.

So he did the best speed he could. Nick sat in the backseat, his zombie stare fixed straight ahead. Bill wasn’t much better company. He sat in the passenger seat and said nothing, just gazed out the window, lost in a world of his own.

Jack wondered what was going on between him and that Mrs. Treece. Her husband had run off and left her. Was Bill moving in? He’d been a priest for most of his life. Had a lot of lost time to make up for. Jack couldn’t blame him. She was attractive, even if she could have been Jack’s mother. But he sensed more to it than opportunity knocking. Those two seemed to go back a long way.

So Jack thought about his conversation with Gia—his last for a while. She hadn’t liked the idea of him taking to the air in all this, but seemed to realize that he was the only one for the job. The good news was that everything was fine in and around Abe’s bunker. That was a load off his mind. His ladies were safe—he couldn’t have made this trip if he’d had the slightest doubt about that.

He tried the radio. A lot of stations were gone, nothing but static in their slots on the band, but a few DJs and newsfolk were hanging in there, still playing music, still broadcasting the news, keeping their listeners informed to the best of their ability as to what was fact and what was merely rumor. He had to hand it to them. They had more guts than he would have given them credit for.

He clicked it off. Not in the mood for music.

“So, Bill,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the backseat. “How are you going to handle Renfield back there?”

Bill turned from the window and fixed Jack with a stare.

“Don’t make fun of him. He’s an old friend and he’s a victim, just like a lot of other people these days.”

Jack instinctively bristled at the sound of someone telling him what to do, then realized that Bill was right.

“Sorry. I didn’t know him before he … before he went down into the hole.”

“He was brilliant. Hopefully he’ll be brilliant again. A mind like a computer, but a good heart too.”

“Bit of a spread in age between the two of you. How’d you meet?”

“I was his father for a few years.”

When Jack shot him a questioning look, Bill went on to explain about his stint as director of a Jesuit orphanage in Queens, and how a certain little boy had died and how he’d spent years on the run as a result.

Jack was shocked to realize he was sharing the car with the kidnapper priest who’d been all over the news years ago, the object of a nationwide manhunt—still hunted.

The story fascinated him. He’d been seeing this guy every day lately and never guessed what kind of a man he was, or the hell he’d been through. How could he? Bill seemed to have built a wall around himself, as if he were practicing being a nobody.

But now that Jack had got a peek over that wall, he decided he liked Bill Ryan.

And besides, the story made the trip pass faster. Here they were in Monroe, on Shore Drive.

Ba must have been watching from one of the windows. He stepped out the front door as they pulled in the driveway. He approached the car with only a Macy’s shopping bag dangling from his hand. The Nash lady, Doc Bulmer, and the kid, Jeffy, were all clustered at the front door to see him off, like the Cleavers sending an Asian Wally off to war.

Jack got out, waved Ba toward the car, then trotted to the front door.

“Glaeken wants me to urge you folks—his word—to come stay with him in the city. He says it’s going to get a lot worse out here.”

“We’ll be okay,” the doc said. “We’ve got our own protection.”

Jack glanced around at all the steel storm shades. The place looked like a fortress.

“Maybe you do,” he said, nodding. “But I promised him I’d ask.”

“You’ve kept your promise to Glaeken,” the Nash lady said softly, and Jack thought he saw tears in her eyes. “Now keep one to me: You bring Ba back, okay?” Her voice sounded like it was going to break. “You bring him back just the way he left, you hear?”

“I hear you, Mrs. Nash.”

Jack was touched by her show of emotion. No doubt about it, she genuinely cared about the guy. Maybe he’d misjudged her. Maybe she wasn’t quite the hard case she pretended to be.

“Either we both come back,” he added, “or neither of us comes back. You’ve got my word on that.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” she said, her eyes steely blue.

As Jack hurried to the car he figured he’d damn well better get Ba back safe and sound.

The sign atop the hangar read TWIN AIRWAYS in bold red letters. Tension coiled around Bill’s gut as they bumped toward it along a rutted dirt road. Where were they? Somewhere off Jericho Turnpike was all Bill knew.

And the Ashe brothers. Who were they? He’d never heard of them and didn’t know a thing about them and yet he was going to get into a jet and let one of them fly him across the Atlantic. And why? Because this fellow named Jack—who had maybe a dozen last names and an immediate avoidance response to anything labeled Police, who carried two or three pistols and God knew how many other weapons at all times—had said the Ashe brothers were “good guys.”

Glaeken, old boy, he thought as they skidded to a halt beside the hangar, I hope this trip is worth it.

Two reed-thin, blue-eyed men with fair, shoulder-length hair came out to meet them. They might have been mirror images had not one of them sported a stubbly beard and the other a long, droopy mustache. Both wore beat-up jeans so low on their hips they looked ready to fall off; the bearded one wore a purple paisley shirt tucked in behind a Jack Daniel’s belt buckle. The one with the mustache had on a fringed buckskin jacket over a Gov’t Mule T-shirt.

“They look like holdovers from the sixties or seventies,” Bill said softly out of the corner of his mouth.

“It’s okay. They sort of think they’re the Allman Brothers. Not really, of course. I mean, Duane being dead and all. But Allman soul mates, so to speak. They are from Georgia and they do like the blues, but trust me: You’re looking at two of the best damn pilots going. Not a place in the world with an airport they haven’t been.”

Jack introduced them as Frank and Joe. Joe had the beard and the JD buckle and he was going to be Bill’s pilot. But Bill’s flight was of secondary importance. The big concern seemed to be getting Jack and Ba into the air as soon as possible. After payment was made—a sack of gold coins transferred from the Crown Vic’s trunk to the Ashe brothers’ office safe—Joe left Bill and Nick in the tiny office while he went out to help install the high-power shortwave radio Jack had insisted on bringing along.

Twenty minutes later, Bill heard the Gulfstream’s jet engines whine, then roar off into the western sky.

“Shouldn’t we be hurrying too?” Bill said when Joe returned to the office.

“I reckon,” he said with a heavy drawl. “But it ain’t as critical for us as them. If Frank hustles his ass he’s got a damn good chance of staying in daylight a lot of the way to Hawaii. Not us. We’re heading east—right into the dark. It’s ’bout six P.M. in Romania now. Already past sunset.”

His expression showed how little he relished the trip.

“How did you wind up with us?” Bill said.

“We flipped a coin.”

“And you lost.”

Joe Ashe shrugged. “Six o’ one, half dozen t’other. We’re talking round trips here. Frank’ll have to fly east on the way home while we’re flying west.” He frowned. “Maybe I should say it’s four o’ one and half dozen t’other. We’ll have a shorter daylight window on the way back.” He grunted. “Shit. I did get the short end of this stick. That Frank’s always trickin’ me. Boy’s my evil twin, he is.”

Great, Bill thought. I’ve got the slow one.

“You want to back out?” Bill almost hoped he’d say yes.

Joe Ashe grinned. “Nah. Said I’d do it and so it’s a done deal. Unless o’ course you’ve changed your mind.”

Bill shook his head. “I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other.”

“Guess so. But what about your friend there? He’s lookin’ right poorly, I’d say.”

“He’s … he hasn’t been well lately.”

“Bummer. Maybe you oughta leave him behind. Things could get a mite hairy on this little jaunt.”

“I know. I wish I could, but I need him along.”

“Y’don’t say.” Joe studied Nick’s blank face a moment, then turned to Bill. “What the hell for?”

“I don’t know yet.” But Glaeken assures me I will.

Joe let out a soft, low whistle through his teeth.

“Okay, pal. You’re the boss. Let’s roll. I’ve got the flight plan all worked out. Got a ten, eleven-hour trip ahead of us, and a seven-hour time difference between here and Ploiesti.”

“Ploiesti? I thought we were going to Bucharest.”

“Ploiesti’s a little further north, closer to the Alps where this pass you’re headed for is supposed to be—couldn’t find it on any of my maps.”

Bill handed Joe the packet Glaeken had given him.

“You’ll find it on these.”

Joe took the packet. “Good. I’ll check them out on the way. Get your friend there moving now. Time to rock ’n’ roll.”

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Day Edition

Beginning of the End (1957) Republic

The Last Days of Man on Earth (1974) New World

The Monsters Are Loose (1965) Hollywood Star

Fear in the Night (1947) Paramount

Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970) IIP

Destroy All Monsters (1968) Toho/AIP

I Drink Your Blood (1971) Cinemation

Jaws of Death (1976) Selected

Night of the Blood Beast (1958) AIP

The Day the Fish Came Out (1967) International Classics

Target Earth (1954) Allied Artists

The Blood Suckers (1971) Chevron

Over the Atlantic

Flying east, night came especially early. As darkness engulfed them, the sky cleared, became an onyx dome set with the foreign face of the moon amid alien constellations.

Bill left Nick sleeping back in the passenger compartment and headed forward to take the copilot’s seat next to Joe. As he gazed out at the night, he was glad for the lack of clouds and excellent visibility in the moonlight. He could find no sign of the air leviathans he’d seen swooping from the Central Park hole Saturday night. No sign of anything in the air, but the water below seemed alive. It churned with shadows and swirled with phosphorescent flashes.

He turned back to the stars, studying them, trying to make sense of them, or find a familiar pattern.

“Where are we?” he said, wondering aloud as he glanced at the dead GPS screen.

“Over the Atlantic,” Joe replied from his left.

“Thanks. I mean where in space? The sun’s fading away, the moon’s been turned around, and the stars have been shifted into new formations.”

“Not just new formations,” Joe said, stroking his beard as he craned his neck to see the sky. “Notice there’s fewer stars up there? And ever’ night there’s even less than the night before. I wonder if some night soon I’ll take a peek and find there ain’t no stars at all.”

The stars did look kind of sparse.

“Almost as if the planet’s been moved to a different part of the universe.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Cosmic, man. Maybe it has.”

“No. That would be too logical an explanation, and easier to accept than what we’re going through.”

“Magnetic north’s changed too,” Joe said. “Compasses been pointing anywheres they damn well please the past couple days.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard that.” And then something occurred to him. “If the stars are changed and compasses no longer point north, and the GPS satellites are out, how do you know where you’re going?”

“Radio beacon. I’m homing in on a signal from the English coast. We’re not headed for England, but it’s on the way.”

“Where are we—good God!”

Bill had glanced off to his right at what had looked like a lone cloud in an empty sky. It wasn’t the cloud that had startled him, but what was under it.

Joe was leaning over his shoulder, squinting into the darkness.

“Shee-it! What the hell is that?”

Far to the south, a huge pillar had risen from the sea. It was made of some grayish substance that gleamed dully in the moonlight and streamed with lightninglike flickers of phosphorescence. Bill guessed it was hundreds of feet across and thousands of feet—maybe miles—high. Its top disappeared into the dark cloud growing above it.

So alien, so Cyclopean in size, the sight gave him a crawling feeling in his gut.

Joe must have felt it too. His voice was hushed.

“Almost looks like it’s holding up the sky.”

“Do we have enough fuel to maybe—?”

“No way, José!” Joe straightened in his seat and checked his instruments. “Even if we had plenty to spare, I wouldn’t get a foot closer to that thing than I absolutely had to. And I don’t gotta get no closer than I am now, thank-you-very-much.”

As they continued east, Bill’s eyes remained fixed on the giant column. The dark gray cloud above it continued to grow, and as it grew it began to sink around the column, eventually obscuring it from view.

“I’ll be damned!” Joe said. Bill turned in his seat and found him pointing north. “There’s another one!”

Bill wished the moon were brighter so he could get a better look at it.

And then the moon went out for a second.

“What was that?” Joe said.

Bill’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Something big.”

“Yeah? How big?”

“Very big. A body two hundred feet across and square miles of wing.”

Joe glanced at him with raised eyebrows, then scanned the night.

“I see it,” he said after a moment. “Or rather I don’t see the stars where it’s cruising. It’s—shee-it! It’s coming this way!”

Joe threw the Gulfstream into a screaming dive that jammed Bill back into his seat. And then the world got darker as something swooped through the air where they had been only seconds before. The jet bucked and rocked in the backwash from the monstrous wings. Bill craned his neck back and forth looking for the behemoth as Joe continued the dive. He saw it, off to the south, banking around, coming back to make another run at them.

“Never seen nothin’ so goddamned big in my life!”

And still he held the jet into the dive. The black water was looming terrifyingly close.

“Joe, aren’t you getting kind of low?”

“Not near low enough yet.”

And still they dove. Not till Bill was ready to shout with terror and hold his breath for a plunge into the sea did Joe level off. They raced along at fifty feet above the surface.

“You see it?”

Bill twisted around. “Yeah. I can see its right wing. It’s on our tail, coming up fast. Oh, God it’s coming fast!”

“Tell me when it’s almost on us. Don’t tell me too soon—and f’God’s sake don’t tell me too late. Just wait’ll you think its about to chomp us, then give a shout.”

It didn’t take long. The thing was moving faster than the Gulfstream. Bill barely had time to wonder how something so big could move so fast when suddenly it was upon them.

“Now, Joe! Now! NOW!”

Abruptly the Gulfstream banked a sharp left, rocking Bill against his safety belt. And suddenly the ocean exploded with white.

The leviathan was gone.

“Wh-what happened?”

“It hit the water,” Joe said, grinning. “Simple aerodynamics, boy. You want to make a sharp turn in flight, you’ve gotta bank. You bank at this altitude with wings that size, the downside one’s gonna catch the surface. And then it’s cartwheel time. Fuck you, Rodan.”

Bill figured that thing could have eaten Rodan for breakfast. He leaned back in the seat and wanted to vomit. But he swallowed hard and held out his hand to Joe.

“You are one hell of a pilot.”

Joe slapped his palm. “I don’t argue that.”

“When’s day?”

Joe glanced at his watch. “Not for a long while. Still some daylight left back home, I’d guess. Though not much.”

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: It’s 5:15, folks. Twenty minutes to sundown.

JO: Yeah. Everybody inside. Get inside NOW.

New Jersey Turnpike

Hank didn’t know how long he’d been phasing in and out of consciousness, but eventually he felt strong enough to move. His head felt three times its normal size and throbbed viciously, but he forced it off the pavement to look around. The movement triggered an explosion of pain through the left side of his skull as the world spun around him. He choked back the bile that surged into his throat, squeezed his eyes shut, and held still. And while he held still, he tried to remember what had happened.

He recalled loading the van, driving down the turnpike, turning in for gas—

Oh, Lord. The Kicker State Trooper. The pistol. The shot.

Hank reached up and gingerly touched the left side of his head. A deep wet gash above his ear there, clots and soft crusts all up and down the side of his head and neck.

But he was alive. The bullet had glanced off his skull and plowed a deep furrow through his scalp. He was weak, sick, dizzy, hurting like he’d never hurt before, but he was alive.

Hank opened his eyes again. He was looking down. A puddle of coagulated blood had pooled on the pavement a few inches below his nose. He pushed himself farther up, pulled his knees under him, then straightened. The vertigo took him for another twirling ride, but when it stopped he took his bearings.

Green metal bins on either side—garbage Dumpsters. Framed between them he could see the rest stop gas pumps a hundred or so feet away. Deserted now. No phony attendants waving cars forward. To his left was the stuccoed side of a building. The restaurants: Bob’s Big Boy, Roy Rogers, TCBY.

They must have dragged him over here out of sight and left him for dead while waiting for the next hapless traveler.

Clenching his teeth against the pain and nausea, he pulled himself to his feet and peered over the Dumpsters. The whole rest stop was deserted. Beyond the pumps the turnpike stood quiet and empty. The cars he’d seen parked over here earlier were gone now.

So was his van.

Hank wanted to scream. Robbed. By Kicker cops, no less. What the fuck? His own followers out during the day were as bad as the inhuman ones that ruled the night.

Night! He glanced at the sky, at the horizon. Shit, it was getting dark. In a few minutes those horrors would start flying and crawling from their holes. He couldn’t be caught out in the open.

He hobbled to the door on the near flank of the restaurants. Locked. He made his way around to the front entrance. The glass double doors were chained shut from the inside. He peered through. A shambles within. It looked as if the place had been ransacked and looted before it had been locked up. No matter. He wasn’t worried about food now. All he wanted was shelter.

He looked around in the failing light for something to break the glass—a rock, a garbage can, anything. He found a heavy, stuccoed trash receptacle nearby but no way could he lift it.

Near panic now, he circled the rest stop, desperate to find a way in. He was halfway around the back when something whizzed by his head, its jaws grinding as it passed. Then another. He couldn’t see them in the dusky light but he didn’t have to. Chew wasps. Here already. Must be a hole nearby.

In a low crouch he ran for the Dumpsters on the far side of the building. Maybe he could hide in one of them—crawl inside and pull the top down over him. Maybe he’d even find some scraps of food among the refuse.

When he reached the Dumpsters he hoisted himself up the side of the first but found its hinged top gone. Same with the other. Now what?

As he eased himself back down his toe caught in a slot in the pavement. A storm drain. His foot rested on a rusty grate, square, a couple of feet on each side. No problem getting through if he could pull it free.

Try it! he thought, bending and yanking on the grate.

Another bug whistled by—close enough to ruffle his hair. A spearhead.

Ignoring the throbbing in his skull that crescendoed toward agony with the effort, he poured all of what little strength he had left into the task. The metal squeaked and moved a quarter inch, then half an inch, then screeched free of its seat. Hank pushed it aside and slid through the opening into the darkness below. Four feet down, his feet landed in a puddle. No problem. Not even an inch deep. He reached up and slid the grate back over the opening. When it clanked into its seat, he slumped into a crouch and looked up at the sky.

Dark up there, but still lighter than down here. As he watched a lonely star break through the dispersing haze, a huge belly fly plopped onto the grate directly over him and tried to squeeze through. Its acid sack strained against the openings, bulged into the slots, but it was too wide. Buzzing angrily, it lifted off and flew away.

He should have been relieved, happy he’d found a safe haven. Instead he found himself sobbing. Why not? None of his Kickers around to see. He was alone, hurt—still bleeding a little—cold, tired, hungry, no food, no money, no ride, and now he was hiding in a storm drain with dirty, stagnant water soaking through his sneakers. He’d gone from King of the World to bottom.

He forced a laugh that echoed eerily up and down the length of the drain. If nothing else, he could soothe himself with the knowledge that things couldn’t get worse.

Something splashed off to his right.

Hank froze and listened. What was that, oh shit, what was that? A rat? Or something worse—something much, much worse?

He eased his feet out of the water and inched them up the far side of the pipe until he spanned its diameter. If anything was moving through the water, it would pass under him. He peered into the darkness to his right, straining ears and eyes for some sign of life.

Nothing there.

But from his left came a furtive scurrying, moving closer … countless tiny clicks and scratches as something—no, somethings!—with thousands of feet slithered toward him along the concrete wall of the drain.

More splashing from the right, bolder now, lots of splashes, hurried, anxious, eager, avid, frantic splashes coming faster, racing toward him. The storm drain was suddenly alive with sound and movement, all converging on him.

Hank whimpered with terror and dropped his feet back into the water as he slammed his palms against the grate above and levered it up from its seat. But before it came free a pair of tonglike pincers vised around his right ankle. He shouted his terror and agony but kept pushing. Another set lanced into his left calf. His feet were pulled from under him and he tumbled to his knees in the stagnant water.

And then in the faint light through the grate he saw them. Huge, pincer-mouthed millipede creatures, like the one he’d seen wriggling from Drexler’s throat in the lobby. The pipe was acrawl with them, five, six, eight, ten feet long. The nearest ones raised their heads toward him, their pincers clicking. Hank slapped at them, trying to bat them away, but they darted past his defenses and latched onto him, digging the ice-pick points of their mandibles into his arms and shoulders. The pain and horror were too much. His scream echoed up and down the hungry pipe as he was dragged onto his back. His arms were pulled above his head and his legs yanked straight as he was positioned along the length of the pipe. Cold water soaked his clothes and ran along his spine. And then more of the things leapt upon him, all over him, their countless clawed feet scratching him, their pincers ripping at his clothing, tearing through the protective layers like so much tissue paper until every last shred had been stripped away and he lay cold and wet and naked, stretched out like a heretic on the rack.

And then they backed off, all but the ones pinning him there in the water. The drain grew quiet. The sloshing and splashing, the scraping of the myriad feet died away until the only noise in the pipe was the sound of his own ragged breathing.

What did they want? What were they—?

Then came another sound, a heavy, chitinous slithering from the impenetrable darkness beyond his feet. As it grew louder, Hank began to whimper in fear. He thrashed in the water, struggling desperately to pull free, but the pincers in his arms and legs tightened their grip, digging deeper into his already bleeding flesh.

And then in the growing shaft of light from the rising moon he saw it. A millipede like all the rest, but so much larger. Its head was the size of Hank’s torso, its body a good two feet across, half filling the drainpipe.

Hank screamed as understanding exploded within him. These other, smaller horrors were workers or drones of some sort; they’d captured him and were holding him here for their queen! He renewed his struggles, ignoring the tearing pain in his limbs. He had to get free!

But he couldn’t. Sliding over the bodies of her obedient subjects the queen crawled between Hank’s squirming legs until she held her head poised over his chest, staring at him with her huge, black, multifaceted eyes. As Hank watched in mute horror, a drill-like proboscis extruded from between her huge mandibles. Slowly, she raised her head and angled it down over Hank’s abdomen. Hank found his voice and screamed again as she plunged the proboscis deep into his belly.

Liquid fire exploded at his center and spread into his chest, ran down his legs and his arms, draining the strength from them.

Poison! He opened his mouth to scream again but the neurotoxin reached his throat first and allowed him to voice little more than a breathy exhalation. His hands were the last things to go dead, and then he was floating. He still lay in the water but could not feel its wetness. The last thing he saw before tumbling into a void of blessed darkness was the queen horror with her snout still buried in his flesh.

WNYW-TV

News from NASA: We have lost contact with most of our higher orbiting satellites. The communication satellites are still operational—otherwise you would not be watching this broadcast—but the rest are simply … gone.

Over the Pacific

They got in and out of Bakersfield in record time. Or so Frank said. Jack would have to take his word about the record part, but it sure as hell had been fast. The main reason was that Frank’s plane was one of only a half dozen scheduled there today.

It hadn’t been Bakersfield, actually, but a small airstrip just outside it. Frank seemed to know everybody in sight; not very many of those, but they all seemed impressed that he was still on the job. Especially impressed that he was making arrangements to get refueled here on his return flight.

“Yer gonna be flyin’ inna dark comin’ back, y’know,” the old guy who ran the place had said as the wing tanks were filling.

Wrinkled and grizzled and looking old enough to have been Eddie Rickenbacker’s wingman in the Lafayette Escadrille, he was the one who’d pocketed a stack of Glaeken’s gold coins for the fuel.

“I know,” Frank said from the pilot seat. He had his iPod earphones slung around his neck and was playing with one of the drooping ends of his mustache.

Jack sat beside him in the pilot’s cabin—he’d called it the “cockpit” earlier and had been corrected—while Ba sat in the passenger compartment, adding more teeth to his billy clubs.

“Lotsa planes disappearin’ inna dark these days, Frankie. Go up, neva come down.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Some are even disappearin’ inna day. Inna day ! So nobody’s flyin’—nobody with any sense, that is. Scared to get off the ground. ’Fraid they won’t come back. Don’t want you t’be one a thems that don’t come back, Frankie.”

“Thanks, Pops. Neither do I.”

“Where’s Joe?”

“On his way to Bucharest.”

“Hungary?”

“No. Romania.”

“Same difference. Shit! What’s the matter with you two? You need the money that bad? Hell, I can lend you—”

“Hey, Pops,” Frank said. “It ain’t the bread. I’m a pilot, man. I fly folks places. That’s what I do. I ain’t changin’ that, okay? Not for anybody or any bugs. Besides, we once like promised this here dude that any time he really needed to get somewhere, we’d take him. You can dig that, can’t you?”

“No, I can’t dig nothin’ of the sort. Where y’goin’?”

“He says he’s got to get to Maui and back real bad.”

Pops stared past Frank at Jack like he was looking at a lunatic. Jack smiled and gave him an Oliver Hardy wave.

“Got to see my girl. It’s her birthday.”

Pops rolled his eyes and started to turn away.

“Real weird kind of weather you got around here,” Frank said, glancing up at the lid of gray overhead.

“All that shit from Hawaii.” Pops wiped his finger along the fuselage and held it up to demonstrate the coating of gray ash. “Just like your last name, Frankie. And you’re headed straight into it. Tops off at twenny thou, though. Watch yer intakes.”

“Will do.”

Pops went back to check on the refueling. A few minutes later they were airborne. Jack sniffed the air that leaked into the cabin at the lower altitude.

“Smells burnt.”

“That it is,” Frank said. “It’s vog—a mixture of like water vapor, smoke, and fine, fine, super-fine volcanic ash. Under normal conditions it would give us awesome sunsets all over the world. But now? We don’t seem to get real sunsets anymore.”

Jack felt closed in, trapped by the formless grayness pressing against the windows. Wasn’t even sure if they were headed up. He’d have to trust Frank on that.

Which was probably one of the reasons he didn’t like to fly. He liked to be in control of a situation. Up here he was at Frank’s mercy. He didn’t know which way they were headed, and if something should happen to Frank, Jack didn’t have the faintest idea of how to get them down safely. Scared the hell out of him when Frank had put the controls on autopilot over Denver and made a trip to the head. He’d returned soon, but nowhere near soon enough for Jack.

Suddenly the grayness darkened as if a curtain had been drawn, and the jet wobbled.

“What’s up?” Jack said as calmly as he could.

“Don’t rightly know.”

“Those are three little words I do not want to hear from my pilot.”

Jack held on to his seat’s armrests and knew if he looked down at his hands he’d see two sets of white knuckles.

“We’ll be okay.”

“Good. I like those three words much better.”

“Be cool, Jack. Gotta expect some weird voggish updrafts and down.”

The grayness lightened as abruptly as it had darkened. Jack began to breathe easier. He was leaning against his window, staring out into the unrelieved grayness, when the plane passed through a brief break in the vog. His throat closed and his hands renewed their chokehold on his armrests. Directly below the wings he saw a broad flat surface, smooth and black as new asphalt, spanning off in all directions until it disappeared into the gray. He was about to shout to Frank that they were going to crash when he saw the eye: Far off to his right, perhaps a quarter-mile away, cathedral-sized, huge and yellow with a slit pupil, it sat embedded in the black surface, staring back at him like a lab tech eyeing a microbe.

Jack slammed back in his seat.

“My God, Frank!” he said, his voice a croak. “What is that?”

Frank glanced past him. “What’s what?”

Jack took another look. The vog had closed in again. Nothing there now but gray.

“Never mind.”

Jack remembered Glaeken mentioning winged leviathans big as towns cruising the skies, but he’d said they’d keep to the nightside. Looked like he was wrong. At least one of them had made itself at home in the dense vog. Maybe more than one.

His mouth felt dry. “How long till we get above this junk?”

“Any minute now.”

Sure enough, two minutes later they broke into clear air. But no sign of the sun. The whole sky was now some sort of tinted filter, a ground-glass lens that wouldn’t allow direct sunlight through. Right now, Jack didn’t care. They were out of the vog, out of reach of that thing in the clouds.

He looked down. As far as he could see, nothing but a smooth dome of gray. Plenty of room for a gaggle of leviathans down there. Frank said they were over the Pacific; for all Jack knew they could be headed back toward New York.

The pilot’s cabin suddenly seemed too small. Jack decided to head back and see what Ba was up to. He slapped Frank on the shoulder.

“Get you anything?”

“A hefty J would be super right about now. I’ve got a lid of bodacious—”

“Frank, don’t even kid about that.”

“Who’s kidding, man? It’s the only way to fly. Hell, I recall the time I jumped the Himalayas and coasted into Katmandu totally wrecked. It was—”

“Please, Frank. Not on this trip.”

Six miles above the Central Pacific with a blitzed pilot. Not the kind of Friendly Skies Jack wanted.

Frank grinned. “Okay, man. Another coffee’d be good.”

“Not getting sleepy, are you?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know when. Then you can take over the controls.”

“Two coffees coming right up! An urn!”

Abe’s Place

“What’s wrong with the sky, Mom?”

Gia looked up for maybe the hundredth time. Nothing special about the few puffy clouds, but no blue behind them. Just a wan, diffuse yellow light that threw strange shadows across the verdant hills rolling away in all directions.

“I don’t know, honey, but at least we’re up here in the fresh air.”

One night in that concrete coffin and she was already itching to flee back to the city. She’d pushed two of the folding beds together for Vicky and her. Vicky had slept straight through. Gia hadn’t been so lucky. Between Abe’s thunderous snoring on the other side of the curtain and worrying about Jack, sleep had proven hard to find.

Abe had snagged some eggs from the chickens in the barn and they’d had breakfast in the farmhouse. The property sat atop one of the taller hills in the area and offered peaceful, wide-angle views of the countryside. The leaning, peeling barn was showing its age, but the house was in pretty decent shape. Gia had cast longing glances at the airy bedrooms.

“Look!” Vicky said. “There’s the cat again!”

She started after the barn cat. As in all their previous encounters, the cat took one look at Vicky and headed in the other direction.

“Be careful.”

“She’ll be all right,” Abe said, waddling up behind her. “Nothing sharp or dangerous left in the barn. And no sign of Parabellum.”

Gia figured here was a chance to float an idea that had been perking since breakfast.

“What do you think about sleeping in the house tonight?”

Abe shook his head. “Too risky. And besides, everything is below.”

“We could bring up what we need. There don’t seem to be any bugs in the area.”

“I know. Not a single tooth mark I’ve seen. But still … I promised Jack I’d keep you safe and—”

A low rumble filled the air and shivered through the ground.

Abe did a quick turn. “What?”

After fifteen to twenty seconds it faded away.

“That felt like an earthquake.”

Abe’s expression was grim. “Something worse, I fear.” He pointed to the rise on the far side of the house. “That way.”

They hurried past the house to a stony outcropping that overlooked the valley. Abe was panting by the time they reached the crest and got a look at the landscape spread out below.

“Gevalt!”

Gia felt her stomach knot when she saw the huge, circular opening in the floor of the valley.

“Oh, no.”

“Everywhere it’s happening. Only a matter of time before it happened here.” He glanced at Gia. “Still want to spend the night in the house?”

Gia didn’t answer. She turned and looked for Vicky. She wanted her close. Didn’t want her out of arm’s reach as long as they were topside.

The breeze didn’t seem so fresh, and the thought of another night in the bunker didn’t seem so bad.

Over the Pacific

Jack was glad he’d brought the shortwave along. With the way those low-frequency signals bounced off the ionosphere, he could talk to Gia from anywhere in the world. Which he’d just done and almost wished he hadn’t. A hole right under Abe’s nose … didn’t like that at all. At least everything was working in the bunker. They’d be safe from anything down there.

He tried to put it out of his mind by spending a few hours with Ba in an attempt to get to know him. Not easy. He did learn a few things about Sylvia Nash that cast her in a different light—about her dead husband, Greg—a Special Forces non-com who’d made it through the Gulf War in one piece only to go out one night for a pack of cigarettes and get killed by an armed robber when he stepped into the middle of a 7-Eleven heist.

He learned about Jeffy, the once autistic kid, and about the Dat-tay-vao that had inhabited Dr. Bulmer for a while, then left him a cripple, and now lay dormant in Jeffy, waiting. He learned about the powerful love between Sylvia and Doc Bulmer, how they were soul mates who locked horns and butted heads on a regular basis but whose karmas were so intertwined that one could not imagine life without the other.

A bit like Gia and me, Jack thought.

Jack learned all that, but he learned very little about Ba other than the fact that he grew up in a poor Vietnamese fishing village and was intensely devoted to Sylvia—referred to simply as “the Missus”—and how that devotion extended to anyone who mattered to her.

When Jack ran out of questions, they sat in silence, and Nick Quinn’s words to Alan Bulmer came back to him. Only three of you will return. He brushed them away. Nick may have had a run-in with Rasalom’s essence down in that hole, but he’d yet to prove that he had any powers of prediction. He talked in riddles anyway.

He noticed the plane banking to its left, so he headed up front to see what was going on. He found Frank chicken-necking to his iPod. The volume was so high Jack could recognize “Statesboro Blues” from where he stood. He sniffed the air. No trace of herbal-smelling smoke.

When he tapped Frank on the shoulder the headphones came off.

“Are we there yet?”

“You sound like my sister’s kids. Yeah, we’re there. Past it, in fact. Got to come around to make our approach from the west.”

Jack strapped himself in the copilot’s seat and peered out the window. The vog was gone. The air was clear all the way to the pristine blue of the Pacific below, but still no direct sunlight. Off the upturned tip of the right wing an irregular patch of lush green, spiked with mountains and rimmed with white sand and surf, floated amid the blue.

“Maui?” Jack said.

Frank shook his head. “Oahu. Pearl Harbor’s down there in that notch. Hang on. We’re coming around toward Maui now.” A moment later the plane leveled off and three islands swung into view. “There. That’s Molokai on the left, Lanai on the right, and Maui dead ahead.”

Jack had been studying the maps Glaeken had given him. Molokai looked okay, and the resort hotels along Maui’s Ka’anapali Bay seemed intact but looked deserted. Inland, the tops of the western mountains were tucked away within a wreath of rain clouds.

But as Frank banked southward, Jack found the old whaling town of Lahaina in ruins—everything burned, blackened, flattened. To their right the whole southern flank of Lanai was scorched and smoking. And then Jack’s stomach lurched, not so much from the movement of the plane as from what he saw ahead of them. He felt as if he’d been thrown into any one of a dozen prehistoric island movies of the Lost Continent / Land That Time Forgot type.

Maui looked swaybacked from here, as green as Oahu but with mountains at each end and a broad flat valley between. But the big mountain that took up most of the eastern end, Haleakala, was belching fire and pouring gray-black smoke. The old volcano’s sides, however—at least from Jack’s vantage—were still lush and green.

And somewhere on the slope of that chimney flue to hell dwelt Kolabati with her necklaces.

Jack studied the scene, wondering what the hell he’d got himself into. Maui looked so fragile, like it could blow any minute. Just like Hawaii on its far side.

“Can we swing around the island? Like to get the lay of the land before we touch down.”

“I dunno, Jack. Gettin’ late. And we’d have to fly low to see anything. Air currents could be tricky on the far side. I mean, with the wide temperature variants between the ocean and the lava and the vog, we could hit some weird thermals. I don’t like to do that when I’m straight.”

“Okay,” Jack said casually. “If you don’t think you can hack it, I’ll find somebody at the airport to take me up after we land.”

Frank grinned. “You’re a rotten, despicable, evil dude, Jack, and I hate you very, very much. May your karma turn black and fall into the void. Hang on.”

Frank swung the jet out and banked around the western flank of the reactivated Haleakala toward the south end of the island. The scenery changed abruptly from lush green to scorched black, as if a giant flamethrower had been played over the terrain. The eastern slope was a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Molten lava streamed down the broken-out side of the cone, cooling black crusts surfing the faces of crimson flame-waves, throwing up immense clouds of salty steam as they wiped out in the sea.

Frank skirted the turbulent clouds for a few miles. On the right lay the immense bubbling, boiling cauldron of ocean where the Big Island of Hawaii had once stood, the main source of the lid of vog that covered much of the Eastern Pacific.

Frank turned to Jack. “You sure you want to go all the way around?”

Jack nodded. “All the way.”

“Okay. Strap in and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He banked and gunned the jet into the roiling steam. Water sluiced off the windshields like rain as updrafts and downdrafts and mini-vortices buffeted the craft, but Frank guided her through with a clenched jaw and steely-eyed determination. When they broke free into the light again, he relaxed his grip on the controls and half-turned to Jack.

“Awright! Far freaking out! Let’s try that again. Maybe we can— Jesus H. Christ!”

Jack had already seen it. His stomach was fluttering in awe. The news reports had mentioned it and he’d seen photos, but nothing had prepared him for the reality of it.

A whirlpool. A maelstrom. A swirling, pinwheeling, ten-mile-wide mass of water spread out below him like the planet’s navel. Its perimeter moved slowly where it edged into Kahului Bay, but quickly picked up speed as the water progressed inexorably toward the whirling center where it funneled down into a black hole somewhere far below in the ocean floor.

Both Jack and Frank stared dumbly through their windows on the first two passes, then Jack began noticing details.

“Frank!” Jack said, staring down on the third pass. “It looks like—”

He grabbed the binocs from the clamp in the ceiling panel and focused in on the colorful specs he’d spotted below, riding the rim of the maelstrom, then darting in toward its swirling heart and out again.

“What’s doing?”

“Windsurfers! There’s a bunch of nuts down there windsurfing along the edge of the whirlpool!”

“That’s Ho’okipa Bay, windsurfing capital of the world. Those dudes live for that shit. I know where they’re comin’ from. So do you, I reckon.”

“Yeah, I can dig it,” Jack said, nodding slowly. Jeez, he was starting to sound like Frank. “But one little slip and you’re gone.”

“Yeah, but what a way to go!” Frank said dreamily. “If I’ve gotta go, I want it to be right here, strapped into my jet. Stoked to the eyeballs and Mach one straight down into the earth so’s after we hit, me and the plane are so tangled and twisted up they can’t tell Frank Ashe from Frank Ashe’s plane and so they bury us together. Or better yet, straight down into one of those holes until I run into something or run out of fuel. Whatta trip that’d be! Might even try that one straight. Whatcha think?”

“Drop me off first. I think it’s time to land.”

Frank grinned. “Aw. And just when we was startin’ to have some fun!”

He radioed down to Kahului airport for clearance; they told him the winds were out of the west and that they’d cleaned off the runway. All was clear and he’d better land fast because once it was dark, the hangars would be locked and wouldn’t be opened for anyone.

“‘Cleaned off the runway’?” Frank said to Jack as he started his approach. “What’s that mean?”

They found out after they landed and opened the hatches. From off to the east came a dull roar, the low, gurgling rumble of uncountable tons of water being sucked down through the ocean depths. Looming behind them, Haleakala smoked and thundered. The steady breeze was warm and wet, and it stank.

“Sheesh!” Jack said as he stepped down onto the tarmac.

The ripe, putrid odor clogged his nose and throat. He shifted the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder and glanced around at the deserted runways and empty buildings, searching for the source.

Frank made a face. “What is that, man?”

“Dead fish,” said Ba, debarking behind him. “I know that smell from village where I grew.”

“You get used to the pilau after a while,” said the tractor driver who’d come out to tow their jet into a nearby hangar.

“Don’t tell me Hawaii always smells like this.”

“Hell, no. Didn’t they tell you? It’s been raining fish the past two nights.”

“Fish?”

“Yeah. You name it: ahi, squid, crabs, blues, mahi-mahi, everything. Even a few dolphin. Raining out of the sky. And first thing every morning I’ve got to go out with the plow and clear them off the runways. Don’t know why I bother. Nobody’s flying much these days since all the tourists upped and went home.”

“But raining fish?”

“It’s the puka moana—the whirlpool. It backs up at night.”

With that he jumped on his tractor and started towing the jet toward the hangar, leaving Jack wondering how a whirlpool could back up. It wasn’t as if it were a toilet. Or was it?

Frank led them toward the terminal building.

“Let’s see what we can do about getting you guys a car.”

The main terminal building looked like an Atlantean relic raised from the sea. Its windows and skylights were smashed, rotting fish and seaweed draped its roof and walls. Inside was worse.

“Shee-it!” Frank said, waving his hand before his face. “Smells like a fish market that’s run out of ice.”

They trooped through the gloomy, deserted building, looking for someone, anyone. Finally they ran across a dark, middle-aged fat guy squeezing into a wrinkled sports jacket as he hurried toward them down a ramp. His badge read “Fred” and he looked part Hawaiian.

Jack waved him down. “Where are the car rentals?”

“There ain’t. All closed up. Nobody to rent to.”

“We need a car.”

“You’re outta luck, I’m afraid.”

Jack looked at Ba. “Looks like we’ll have to wait till morning, Ba. What do you say?”

Ba shook his head. “Too long away from the Missus.”

Jack nodded. He knew Ba was feeling the time pressure as much as he; maybe more. He grabbed the guy’s arm as he tried to squeeze by.

“You don’t understand, Fred. We really need a car.”

Fred tried to pull away but Jack tightened his grip on his flabby upper arm. Ba stepped closer and looked down at him.

“I can’t help you, Mister,” Fred said, wincing. “Now let me go. It’ll be getting dark in half an hour. I’ve got to get home.”

“Fine,” Jack said. “But we’re new around here and you’re not. And since you seem to be the only one around here, we’ve elected you to find us a car. And if you can’t help us out, we’ll be forced to take yours. We’ll pay you a generous rental price before we take it, but we will take it. So where do they keep the cars around here?”

Fred stared at Jack, then up at Ba, then at Frank who stood behind them. Jack felt a little sorry for the guy, but they had no time to play nice.

“Okay,” Fred said. “I can do that. I can show you to the rental lot. But I don’t know about keys or—”

“You let me worry about keys. You just get us there.”

“All right.” Fred glanced up through one of the broken skylights. “But we’ve got to hurry!”

Fred drove them to the rent-a-car lots, only a couple of hundred yards from the terminal. Jack used his Glock to shoot a link out of the chain locking the gate to the Avis area. Rotting fish littered the lot—on the cars, between the cars, in the lanes—and so the stench was especially vile here. Fred’s tires squished through them, spraying rotting entrails left or right whenever he ran over a particularly ripe one. He drove them around the return area until they found a Jeep Laredo. Jack was ready to hot-wire it but didn’t have to. The keys were in the ignition. It started easily. The fuel gauge read between half and three-quarters. That would be enough.

Jack returned to where Ba and Frank waited in Fred’s car. He pulled out the Maui road map Glaeken had given him and pointed to the red X drawn above a town called Kula.

“What’s the best way to get here—to Pali Drive?”

“You want to go upcountry? On Haleakala?” Fred said. “Now? With night coming? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Fred,” Jack said, staring at him, “we’ve only known each other for a few minutes, but look at this face, Fred. Is this face kidding?”

“All right, all right. I’ve never heard of Pali Drive but this spot you’ve got marked here is somewhere between the Crater Road and Waipoli Road.”

He rattled off directions.

“But there’s nobody up there … except for the pupule kahuna and his witch woman.”

Jack grabbed Fred’s wrist. “Witch woman? Dark, Indian looking?”

“That’s the one. You know her?”

“Yeah. That’s who we’re going to see.”

Fred shook his head. “Lots of strange stories coming downhill. Now I’m real glad you’re not taking my car. Because you ain’t coming back.”

“We’ll see about that.”

After Fred rushed off to drop Frank at the hangar where he planned to spend the night in his plane, Jack pushed a half dozen dead fish off the Jeep’s hood, unzipped his duffel bag, and began laying out its contents.

“Okay, Ba. Name your poison.”

He laid out the chew-wasp-toothed club Ba had given him, plus a .45 1911 Colt, a pair of Glock .40s, two HK MP5s, and a pair of Spas12 semiautomatic twelve-gauge assault shotguns with pistol grip stocks and extended magazines.

Ba didn’t hesitate. He picked out the 1911 and one of the shotguns. Jack nodded his approval. Good choices.

Ba turned the Spas12 over in his hands. “Semiautomatic?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. Abe was fresh out of Benellis, but these’ll do.”

Jack already had his own Glock; he added the toothed billy, an MP5, and the remaining shotgun to his armament, then tossed a fifty-cartridge bandolier to Ba.

“You ride shotgun.”

Ba pumped the Spas12, checked the breach, then handed it to Jack.

“No,” he said, his face set in its usual mortician’s dead pan. “I am much better driver.”

“Oh, really?” Jack repressed a smile. This was the longest spontaneous comment he’d been able to elicit from Ba all day. “What makes you say that?”

“Driving to airport this morning.”

Jack snatched the offered shotgun from his grasp.

“Fine. You drive. But try not to wear me out with all your empty chatter as we go. It distracts me.”

They’d gone about half a dozen miles or so on Route 37—some of the signs called it “Haleakala Highway”—driving on stinking pavement slick with the crushed remains of countless dead fish. The outskirts of a town called Pukalani were in sight when Jack glanced back at the lowlands behind them. Fairly dark below, lights few and scattered, the airport completely dark. He glanced beyond the coast to the strange-faced moon peeking huge and full above the edge of the sea, but when he saw the sea itself, his heart fumbled a beat and he squinted through the thickening dusk to confirm what he thought he saw.

“Whoa, Ba,” he said, grabbing his shoulder. “Check out the whirlpool. Tell me if you see what I see.”

Ba braked and looked over his shoulder.

“There is no whirlpool.”

“Thank you. Then I’m not crazy.”

He wished he’d thought to bring the binocs, but even from this distance in the poor light it was plain the huge pinwheel of white water was gone.

Had the hole in the ocean floor closed up?

“I don’t understand any of this. But then, I’m not supposed to. That’s the whole point.”

He was about to tell Ba to drive on when he noticed a white area of water bubbling up where the center of the whirlpool had been. The bubbling grew, became more violent, and finally erupted into the night. Not volcanic fire, not steam, just water, a huge thick column of it, hundreds of feet across, geysering out of the ocean and lancing into the sky at an impossible speed. It roared upward, ever upward, ten thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand feet into the air until it plumed into billowing cumulus clouds at its apex.

And it kept spewing, kept on pouring unmeasured thousands of tons of water into the sky.

“My … God!” was about all Jack could manage in the face of such a gargantuan surreal display.

“It is as the man said. Whirlpool back up at night.”

Ba threw the Jeep back into gear and continued up the highway. They had the road to themselves.

They’d traveled three or four miles uphill from Pukalani when heavy drops of seawater began to splatter all around them. Jack rolled up his window as the shower evolved into a deluge, forcing Ba to cut his pace.

A few minutes later, a blue-and-green parrot fish bounced off the hood with a nerve-jarring thunk. Then a bright yellow butterfly fish, then they were being pelted with sea life, banging on the hood, thudding on the top, littering the road ahead of them. The ones that didn’t burst open or die from the impact flopped and danced on the wet pavement in the glare of the headlights. A huge squid splatted against the windshield, momentarily blocking Ba’s vision; when it slid off he had to swerve violently to the right to avoid a six-foot porpoise stretched dead across the road.

And then fish weren’t the only things in the air. Chew wasps, spearheads, belly flies, men-of-war, and a couple of new species Jack hadn’t seen before began darting about. Ba accelerated. Jack was uneasy about traveling at this pace through pelting rain and falling fish over an unfamiliar road slick with dead or dying sea life. But the headlights and speed seemed to confuse the winged predators, and Ba plowed into the ones that wouldn’t or couldn’t get out of the way.

After they passed through Kula, Jack spotted the turnoff. Ba slid the Jeep into the hairpin turn as smoothly as a movie stuntman, downshifted, and roared up the incline.

Jack had to admit—silently, and only to himself—that Ba was indeed the better driver.

The Waipoli Road turnoff came up so quickly they overshot it. But Ba had them around and back on track in seconds. And then the going got really rough. The pavement disappeared and devolved into an ungraded road that wound back and forth in sharp switchbacks up a steep incline. The slower pace allowed the night things to zero in on the Jeep. They began battering the windows.

But soon the headlights picked out a brightly painted hand-carved sign that read Pali Drive. Ba made the turn and the road narrowed to a pair of ruts. They bounced along its puddled length until it ended at the cantilevered underbelly of a cedar-sided house overlooking the valley. Ba stopped with the headlights trained on a narrow door in the concrete foundation.

Jack rechecked his map and notes by the dashboard light.

“This is it. Think anybody’s home?”

Ba squinted through the windshield. “There are lights.”

“So there are. I guess that means we’ve got to go in.”

A spearhead rammed the tip of its spike through the roof then. Hungry little tongues wiggled through the openings behind the point and lapped at empty air. As it pulled back, seawater began to dribble in through the hole.

“Let’s go,” Jack said. “Shotguns and clubs?”

Ba nodded and picked up the other Spas-12.

“Okay. We meet at the front bumper and head for the house back-to-back. Use the shotgun only if you have to. Go!”

Jack kicked open his door, leapt into the downpour, and dashed-splashed toward the front of the Jeep. Something fluttered near his head; without looking he lashed out at it with the wasp-toothed billy. A crunch, a tear, and whatever it was tumbled away. He met Ba in the glow of the headlights and they slammed their backs together. A spearhead darted through the light, low, toward Jack’s groin, while a belly fly sailed in toward his face. The wound where the first belly fly had caught him on the arm had healed, but he remembered the pain. He wasn’t about to let this one in close. He swung the club at the spearhead and shredded its wings while ramming the muzzle of the shotgun into the belly fly’s acid sac, rupturing it.

“Let’s move!” Jack shouted. “I’ll lead.”

Like a pair of Siamese twins fused at the spine, they moved toward the door, Jack clearing a path with his billy and shotgun, Ba backpedaling, protecting the rear. When he reached the door, Jack began pounding on its hardwood surface, then decided he couldn’t wait. He handed Ba his billy and pulled the plastic strip from his pocket, all the while congratulating himself for bringing Ba along. The big guy was faced into the headlights now, a club in each hand, batting the bugs away left and right. Fortunately, they weren’t nearly as thick here as they’d been in New York, but even so, without Ba, Jack would have been eaten alive as he faced the door.

He quickly slipped the latch and they burst into a utility room. He spotted a sink and a washing machine before they slammed the door closed behind them and stood panting and dripping in the safe quiet darkness.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” Ba said. “And you?”

“I’m just groovy. Let’s go see who—”

Suddenly the overhead lights went on. A tall, dark-skinned man with reddish hair stood in the doorway. He was dressed in a loincloth and a feather headdress and Jack might have laughed except that he was pointing a Marlin 336 their way.

“Who are you?”

Jack put up his hands. “Just travelers seeking shelter from the storm.”

“No shelter here for malihini.” He stepped forward and raised the rifle. “Get out! Hele aku oe!”

“Easy there,” Jack said. “We’re looking for Miss Bahkti, Kolabati Bahkti. We were told she lived here.”

“Never heard of her. Out!”

Even if the guy hadn’t flinched at the sound of her name, the necklace around his neck, a perfect match to the copy Jack carried in his pocket, would have proved him a liar.

Then Jack heard a woman’s voice call his name.

“Jack!”

Kolabati had followed Moki down to the lower level to see who was pounding on the door; she’d hung back in the dark hallway, watching the scene in the utility room over Moki’s shoulder. Two wet and weary men there, one white, the other a tall Asian. Something about the smaller man, the brown-haired, brown-eyed Caucasian, had struck her immediately as familiar. But she didn’t recognize him until he spoke her name. It couldn’t be! But even with his hair plastered to his scalp and down over his forehead, he could be no one else. Her heart leapt at the sight of him.

She brushed past Moki and ran to him, arms outstretched. Never in her life had she been so glad to see someone.

“Oh, Jack, I thought you were dead!”

She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. He returned the embrace, but without much enthusiasm.

“I am,” he said coolly. “I just came back to see how you were doing.”

She stepped back and stared at him. “But when I left you, you were—”

“I healed up—my own way.”

Kolabati sensed Moki close behind her. She turned and was relieved to see that he had lowered his rifle. She manufactured a smile for him.

“Moki, this is Jack, a very old and dear friend.”

“Jack?” His gaze flicked between her and the newcomer. “The Jack you said you once loved but who died in New York? That Jack?”

“Yes.” A glance at Jack’s face revealed a bewildered expression. “I … I guess I was wrong about his being dead. Isn’t that wonderful? Jack, this is Moki.”

Kolabati held her breath. No telling how Moki would react. He’d become so unpredictable—unbalanced was a better word—since the changes had begun.

Moki’s jaw was set and his smile was fierce as he thrust his open hand toward Jack.

“Aloha, Jack. Welcome to my kingdom.”

Kolabati watched the muscles in Moki’s forearm bulge as he gripped Jack’s hand, a wince flickered across Jack’s features before he returned the smile and the grip.

“Thank you, Moki. And this is my good friend, Ba Thuy Nguyen.”

This time it was Moki’s turn to wince as he shook hands with the Asian.

“You’re both just in time,” Moki said. “We were about to leave for the ceremony.”

“Maybe now that they’re here we should stay home,” Kolabati said.

“Nonsense! They can come along. In fact, I insist they come along!”

“You’re not thinking of going outside, are you?” Jack said.

“Of course. We’re heading uphill to the fires. The night things do not bother us. Besides, they seem to avoid the higher altitudes. You shall have the honor and privilege of witnessing the Ceremony of the Knife tonight.”

Moki had told her about the ceremony he’d worked out with the Niihauans, a nightly replay of last night’s bloody incident. She wanted no part of it, and Jack’s arrival was a good excuse to stay away.

“Moki, why don’t you go alone tonight. Our guests are cold and wet.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “How about a rain check on that? We’re kinda beat—”

“Nonsense! The awakened fires of Haleakala will dry your clothes and renew your strength.”

“Go yourself, Moki,” Kolabati told him. “After all, the ceremony can go on without us, but not without you.”

Moki’s glare spelled out his thoughts: Leave you here with your reborn lover? Do you take me for a fool? Then he faced Jack.

“I shall be insulted if you do not come.”

“A guest must not insult a host,” the tall Asian said.

Kolabati noticed a quick look pass between Jack and Ba, then Jack turned to Moki.

“How can we refuse such an honor? Lead the way.”

Kolabati held on as Moki bounced their Isuzu Trooper up the rutted jeep trail toward Haleakala’s fire-limned summit.

“What sort of a ceremony is this?” Jack said from behind her.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Moki said.

“I mean, is it traditional, or what?”

“Not entirely. It has its traditional aspects, naturally—ancient Hawaiians often made sacrifices to Pele—but this variation is one of my own devising.”

Jack and his silent Asian companion were two jouncing shadows in the rear as Kolabati turned from the front seat to face him.

“Pele?” said Jack’s shadow.

“Hawaii’s Goddess of Fire,” Kolabati told him. “She rules the volcanoes.”

“So what are we doing—throwing some pineapples and coconuts over the edge?”

Moki laughed as he turned onto Skyline Trail. “Pele has no use for fruits and nuts. She demands tribute that really matters. Human tribute.”

Jack’s laugh was low and uncertain.

Kolabati said, “He’s not joking.”

Jack said nothing then, but even in the dark Kolabati could feel the impact of his gaze. She heard his silent questions, asking her what she had come to, what had brought her to this. She wanted to explain, but couldn’t. Not now. Not in front of Moki.

The quality of the road improved as they approached Red Hill and the observatory. Moki pulled to a stop a quarter mile from the summit and the four of them walked under the cold gaze of the unfamiliar moon to the crater’s edge.

And there, half a mile below them, a sea of fire. The boiling center of the crater, the terminus of a delivery tube from the planet’s molten core, was alive with motion. Bubbles rose on the storm-tossed surface and burst, splattering liquid rock in all directions. Geysers of molten lava shot like whale spume, hurling red-orange arcs a thousand feet into the air before joining the steady downward flow to the sea in a wide fan of fiery destruction.

Even here, thousands of feet above, with the reversed trade winds blowing cold against their backs, the fire stroked them with its heat. Kolabati watched Jack hold out his hands to warm them, then turn his wet back toward the fire. The wind had an icy bite at ten thousand feet. He must have been freezing. The Asian, too, rotated his wet clothing toward the heat.

“I’ve figured out why Pele is so huhu,” Moki said, shouting above Haleakala’s roar. “She’s seen her people abandoning the old ways and becoming malihini to their own traditions. She’s sent us all a message.”

Jack was staring down into the fire. “I’d say she’s one very touchy lady.”

“Ah!” said Moki, glancing off to their right. “The other celebrants arrive. The ceremony can begin.”

He strode away toward the approaching Niihauans. Their elderly alii raised his feathered staff and they all knelt before Moki.

Kolabati felt a cold hand grip her arm: Jack.

“He’s just kidding about this human sacrifice stuff, isn’t he? I mean, I keep expecting Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour to show up.”

Kolabati could barely meet his eyes. “I wish he were, but he means it. The group over there, the ones wearing the feathers and such, they’re the last of the purebred traditional Hawaiians from the forbidden island of Niihau. Moki confronted them last night and told them he was Maui.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “He thinks he’s an island?”

“No. He’s mad but not that mad. Maui was a god who came up here ages ago, right where we’re standing, and trapped the sun and forced it to make the days longer. When Moki told them he was Maui, the Niihauans didn’t believe him. One of them stabbed him in the chest with a spear.”

Jack glanced over to where Moki stood talking with the Niihauan alii.

“You mean tried to stab him in the chest.”

“No. The spearhead sank to its full length right here.”

She reached out and touched a spot over Jack’s heart.

He gave her a quick look, then stared again at Moki.

“The necklace?”

Kolabati nodded.

“It didn’t work that way when I wore it.”

“It’s never worked that way. Something’s happened to it. It’s been activated, stimulated in some way that I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Jack said, still staring at Moki.

“You do? How can you—?”

“That’s why I’m here. I need that necklace. There’s someone back in New York who might be able to set the world right again. But he needs the necklace to do it.”

The thought of giving away the second necklace to a stranger jolted Kolabati. She turned to look at Moki and held her breath as she saw a middle-aged Niihauan rise and step toward him with a raised knife. Moki stood firm, showing no fear. In fact, he gestured the man forward. The Niihauan stepped closer, and in a blur of motion raised the knife and plunged it into Moki’s chest.

Jack cried, “Jesus Christ!” while Ba stiffened and muttered something unintelligible.

Kolabati watched the rim with fatalistic distaste as Moki staggered back a step, then straightened. He grasped the knife handle with both hands, and slowly, deliberately, his body shaking convulsively, withdrew the bloody blade from his chest. The Niihauan looked on in openmouthed amazement, then raised his face and arms toward the sky. Moki gave him a moment, then rammed the dripping blade into his heart.

As the man screamed in agony, Jack turned away, cursing under his breath. Kolabati continued to watch. Human sacrifices had been part of her childhood. When you are born to a priest and priestess of a temple where humans were regularly thrown to rakoshi, it became a matter-of-fact event. In their case, a necessity—the rakoshi had to be fed. But this was different. This was obscene, serving no useful purpose other than feeding Moki’s delusions.

As she watched Moki lift the Niihauan’s corpse and hurl it into the fire, a sacrifice to the false goddess, Pele, Jack turned to her.

“How the hell did you get involved with this maniac?”

“A long, sad story, Jack. Believe me, he was nothing like this before the sun and the earth began to betray us.”

Inside she mourned for the Moki who had been, the Moki she sensed was irretrievably lost to her.

“I’ll have to take your word for that. But right now he’s got to be stopped. And one way to stop him is to get that necklace from him.”

“More easily said than done when you’re talking about a man who heals like Moki.”

“I might have a way.” His eyes bored into hers. “Will you help?”

She nodded vigorously. “Of course.”

But don’t expect to walk out of here with Moki’s necklace when we get it back.

TUESDAY

Passages

WFPW-FM

JO: Hey, we’re back. You probably thought we jumped ship like most everybody else in town, didn’t you. Not us, man. We lost our power for a bit there. As we’re sure you already know, the whole city’s dark.

FREDDY: Yeah, but we’ve got a generator going now so we’re staying on the air, just like we promised.

JO: Trouble is, we won’t be able to bring you much news. The Internet is shaky again and the wire services are shutting down. But we’ll stay on and do the best we can.

FREDDY: Yeah. Semper fi, man.

<cue: “Life During Wartime”>

Dinu Pass, Romania

“I think we’re lost, Nick,” Bill said.

They were tipping and grinding and scraping along what passed for a road in these parts as Bill fought the wheel of the Romanian equivalent of a Land Rover—rust-streaked, an odometer in kilometers, creaky, ratchety steering, failing brakes, and a leaky exhaust system. But it seemed damn near indestructible, and its thick glass so far had proven itself impervious to the bugs that had swarmed them in the Ploiesti area. Not too many bugs around here, though. Not many humans or animals around to feed on.

Bill squinted ahead. Sheer mountain walls towered on either side, closer on his left, but the formerly seamless blackness beyond the flickering, dancing headlights was showing some cracks. Morning was coming. Good. Although traveling east had made the night mercifully short, he was tired of the darkness. He had a blinding headache from the car’s carbon monoxide–tainted air as well as the tension growing in his neck; his left leg and right arm burned from fighting the creaky clutch and stubborn gearshift; and he was sure they’d missed a crucial turn about ten kilometers back.

And he’d begun talking to Nick. Nick hadn’t deigned to reply yet, but the sound of his own voice gave Bill the feeling that he wasn’t completely alone out here in a remote mountain pass in the heart of a benighted country where he spoke not a word of the native language.

“We’ll never find our way back home again. Unless it’s in a pine box.”

Joe Ashe had piloted them into Romania in great time, riding the jet stream all the way. The field at Ploiesti had been deserted except for one of Joe’s East European pilot buddies—apparently the Ashe brothers had a global network of kindred spirits—who had this beat-up old land rover waiting for them.

They’d assumed Bill would wait until daylight before setting out. But dawn, such as it was these days, had been nearly three hours away. And three hours seemed like a lifetime. Sure, it was 6:02 A.M. local time, but the clock in Bill’s body read only midnight. He was too wired to sleep, so why not put the time to good use? The Romanian rover looked sturdy enough—more like a converted half-track mini-tank than a car—so he’d loaded Nick into the passenger seat and headed out into the darkness.

A foolish mistake, Bill realized now. He glanced at his watch. Eight o’clock. According to the Sapir curve, the coming day would be about half an hour shorter than the shortest day of the year in the dead of all the Decembers that had preceded the celestial changes.

Bill shivered. A new kind of winter had come. A winter of the soul.

“I know what you’re going to say, Nick. You’re going to say, ‘I told you so.’ And maybe you did, but I guess I wasn’t listening. Doesn’t matter now, though. We’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere and we’ll just have to wait until the light comes and hope to find somebody who can tell us how to get to this keep place.”

Nick, ever polite, refrained from an I-told-you-so.

Bill scanned the terrain ahead for a level place to park and noticed the road widening. Great. He could pull to the side and wait for the light. Then he saw the white shapes ahead. As he got closer he realized they were houses. A cluster of them. A village.

“Maybe there is a God after all, Nick,” but he knew Nick didn’t believe that. Neither did he.

Bill almost wished again for the old days when he did believe. Because he’d be praying now for help, for direction, for the Lord to inspire his hands on the wheel to guide them to the right road and lead them to their destination.

But those days were gone. His god was dead. Mumbled words would not bring help from on high. He was going to have to do this just the way he’d always done things—by himself.

As he followed the road on its winding course among the houses, he felt no lessening of his sense of isolation. What had appeared to be a village was really no more than a collection of huts, and those huts looked beat up and run down. As the headlight beams raked them he saw how their white stucco walls were scarred and chipped, noted the gaps in the thatch and shakes covering their roofs. Hard times had come to this place. He didn’t have to search the huts to know the village was deserted.

“Now we’re really lost.” Fatigue settled on him like a ratty blanket. “Lost in the middle of nowhere. If there is a God, he’s forsaken this place.”

Then he saw the flames. On the far side of the village, flickering fitfully in the fading darkness. It looked like a campfire. He drove toward it, steadily picking up speed.

A fire meant people and that meant he wasn’t completely lost. Maybe he could still salvage this trip.

But suddenly he saw nothing ahead—no road, no grass, no earth, only emptiness. He stood on the brakes, tumbling Nick into the dashboard as the rover swerved and skidded to a stalling halt at the edge of a precipice. A hole, dammit! Another one of those bottomless holes!

No, wait. To his left, vague and dim, an ancient bridge of some sort, with stone supports plunging into the pit. It coursed across the emptiness—a rocky gorge, he saw now; not a hole—toward the campfire. And now that he was closer and the sky was lighter, Bill realized the campfire wasn’t outside. It was inside, glowing through a tall open gate set within a massive stone wall that seemed to spring from the mountainside. He could make out human forms standing around it. Some of them might even be staring back at him. On the structure’s leading edge, a thick, sturdy tower rose a good forty or fifty feet above the top of the wall. The whole thing looked like a small castle, a pocket fortress. He felt a smile spread over his face—how long since he’d really smiled?

He was here. He’d found it.

The keep.

Bill let out a whoop and pounded the steering wheel.

“We made it, Nick!”

He restarted the vehicle and headed for the causeway, intending to drive across. But when the headlights picked up the worn and ragged timbers, he stopped, unsure if he should risk it.

“What do you think, Nick?”

The question was rhetorical, but Bill noticed that Nick seemed more aware than he’d been a few moments ago. Had the impact with the dashboard jostled his mind? Or was it something else?

Maybe it was all the bugs swarming around the keep. He hadn’t noticed them before, but he could see now that the air was thick with them. Perhaps because the only people in the pass were clustered around that fire inside. But why were the doors open? And why weren’t the bugs running rampant through the place, chewing up the inhabitants?

One thing Bill did know was that walking across the causeway now was impossible. They’d be ground beef before they traveled twenty feet. Of course, they could wait. But Bill couldn’t wait, not another minute. He hadn’t come this far through the dark simply to sit here with his destination in sight and wait for dawn. Screw the bugs. He was going across. Now.

“All right, Nick. Here goes nothing.”

He put the rover in first gear and edged forward, fixing his gaze on the timbers directly ahead. Not so easy with the bugs batting against the vehicle with increasing frequency. A bumpy ride, but smoother than the ridge road they’d been traveling. A glance ahead showed a group of figures clustered in the gateway of the keep, watching him.

“Stop.”

Bill slammed on the brakes. Nick’s face was pressed against the side window. His voice was as lifeless as ever, but Bill sensed real emotion hidden within it—almost excitement.

“What is it, Nick? What’s wrong?”

“I see them. Down there. Little pieces of the sword.”

He was pointing down to his right, below the base of the tower, down to where its rocky foundation melted into the gorge, fifty feet below. Bill could barely make out the bottom. How could Nick see little pieces of metal?

“I don’t see a thing, Nick.”

“Right there. They glow with bright blue fire. Are you blind?”

Bill strained to see but could find only darkness below.

“I guess so. But as long as one of us can see them, we’re in business.”

Bill was congratulating himself on how smoothly this mission was going when the rear window cracked and bellied inward as one of the bigger bugs hit it like a cinder block. It held, but for how long? Because suddenly they were under full-scale attack as the bugs launched a blitzkrieg on the rover, scraping, gnawing, pounding, and slapping against every square inch of the vehicle’s surface, as if the approach of dawn had driven them into one final feeding frenzy before they’d be forced to return to their hole.

Bill hesitated to release the clutch. He couldn’t see. With all the chew wasps, belly flies, spearheads, men-of-war, and other things clustered against the windshield and the other windows, the outer world had become a squirming mass of gnashing jaws, writhing tentacles, and acid-filled sacs. He’d be driving blind. No guardrail, and fifty feet of empty air awaiting them if the rover strayed more than three feet left or right.

Then the rear window bulged farther inward with the weight of the onslaught and he knew he had no choice. Even going over the side was preferable to sitting here and being eaten alive when that window gave way.

Taking a deep breath, Bill eased up on the clutch and they started to move. He found that by looking down through the very bottom of his side window he could catch an occasional glimpse of the causeway’s edge. He used that as a guide.

As they rolled forward, he heard a noise, faint and indistinct at first, but growing steadily in volume. It sounded almost like human voices—cheering voices. It was. The sound reached into the rover and touched him, warmed him. Using it as a beacon, he increased his speed, homing in on it.

And suddenly—like driving under an overpass in the heart of a cloudburst—the bugs were gone. Swept away, every last one of them. Silence in the rover. Except for the voices. Instead of bugs the vehicle was now surrounded by cheering people. Men and women, middle aged and older with rugged peasant faces, coarse clothing, sheepskin vests, woolly hats. They pulled open the rover’s door and helped him out, all the while shaking his hand and slapping his back. Bill returned the smiles and the handshakes, then glanced back along the causeway. The bugs crowded the air outside the arch of the gateway, but not one ventured through.

He turned back to the people and saw children and goats wandering around behind them. And beyond those, on the stone block walls, crosses. Hundreds of crosses. Thousands of crosses.

What sort of place was this? And why did he feel as if somehow he’d returned home after a long journey?

With the coming of day the bugs fled back to the darkness where they lived and the peasants trooped out of the keep with their children and animals, crossing the causeway to what was left of the real world, leaving Bill and Nick and their vehicle behind with the ashes of the night fire.

He knew he and Nick should head down into the gorge to search for the shards of the shattered sword, but he could not leave this place. Not just yet. The keep took him in, wrapped him in the arms of its walls, and demanded his attention.

The crosses … how could he spend two thirds of his life in the priesthood and not be taken in by a place so thoroughly studded with crosses? Not dull, dreary, run-of-the-mill Latin crosses, but strange thick ones, with brass uprights and nickel crosspieces set high, almost at the top. Like a tau cross or what was called St. Anthony’s cross.

Not all of the villagers had left. An ancient, white-bearded gent—eighty if he was a day—named Alexandru remained behind. He spoke as much English as Bill did Romanian, but they found common ground in German. Bill had studied the language in high school and college and had been fluent enough to read Faust in the original text. He found he’d retained enough to communicate with Alexandru.

The old man showed him around the structure. His father, also named Alexandru, had been the keep’s last caretaker in the days before World War Two. It could have used a caretaker now—a whole crew of them. Snow, wind, rain, drought, heat, and cold had left their marks on the keep. All the upper floors within the tower had collapsed, leaving nothing but a giant, rubble-choked stone cylinder. Yet although crumbling and in sad disrepair, it still exuded a certain power.

“It used to be a bad place,” Alexandru said. “Now it is a good place. The little monsters will not come here. All around they fly, but never in here.”

He went to the gate and gestured off to the left. Bill’s gaze followed the pointing arm to a black circular area, hundreds of feet across, marring the verdant floor of the pass.

A hole.

“That is where they come from, the little monsters.”

“I know. The holes are everywhere.”

Alexandru then led him to the keep’s cellar and showed him the opening in the stone floor there. He told of how the Germans had camped in the keep in the spring of 1941 and nearly wrecked the place, of how something immeasurably evil had awakened and slaughtered all the soldiers, of how it had almost escaped before it was destroyed.

Alexandru looked at Bill with watery blue eyes.

“At least we thought it was destroyed. Now I am not so sure.”

“How was it destroyed?”

“A redheaded stranger came and slew it with a magic sword—”

… a magic sword …

“—then he limped off with a Jewish woman from Bucharest and was never seen again. I wonder whatever happened to him.”

“He’s old and gray now like you,” Bill said, wondering what Glaeken had looked like in his prime. He must have been magnificent. “And he and the woman are still together.”

Alexandru nodded and smiled. “I am glad. He was a brave man, but terrible to see when he was angry.”

With the aid of Alexandru’s directions, Glaeken’s notes, and a flashlight, Bill led Nick down through the utter blackness of the subcellar to the lower segment of the tower. A narrow stairway wound down to the base where some of the foundation had crumbled. Alexandru had said something about a strange American named Dmitri Menelaus who had carted off many of the loose stones years ago. Light seeped through the opening into the base of the tower.

“All right, Nick,” he said, leading him outside. “Do your thing. Where are they?”

Nick stood blinking in the light. Thin, and paler than ever, he didn’t look well. And he’d crawled back into himself.

Bill scanned the ground, looking for the shards Nick had said he’d seen. It was like river-bottom here, fist-sized stones jumbling down a gentle slope to a sluggish stream. He looked up to his right at the mountains soaring behind the keep. This gorge was probably all water in early spring when the snows melted. Half a century had passed since the sword blade had shattered here. How could anything be left? How could they hope to find the remnants even if any still existed?

“Well, Nick? Where are they?”

Nick said nothing, only stared ahead.

Desperate, Bill knelt and picked among the stones and gravel. This was impossible. He’d never find anything this way.

He straightened up and brushed off his hands. Earlier, in the dark, Nick had said he’d seen the pieces, glowing “with bright blue fire.”

Maybe he could see them only at night.

“Damn!”

He’d risked their lives rushing to get here so he could return to Ploiesti as soon as possible and start their homeward journey in the light. Now he was going to have to wait until dark.

He turned and aimed a kick at the tower’s granite-block hem. The keep, a dark, brooding, lithic presence looming over him, took no notice.

Bill led Nick back inside the tower to a gloom as deep and dark as his spirits. The delay meant it would be Wednesday before he got back to Carol. He wondered how she was doing.

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Day Edition

Eaten Alive (1976) New World

Day of the Nightmare (1965) Herts-Lion

Nightwing (1979) Columbia

Raw Meat (1972) AIP

The Devils of Darkness (1965) 20th Century Fox

Tentacles (1977) AIP

Phase IV (1974) Paramount

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) United Artists

They Came from Beyond Space (1967) Amicus

The Last Days of Planet Earth (1974) Toho

The Flesh Eaters (1964) CDA

They Came from Within (1975) TransAmerica

The Earth Dies Screaming (1964) Lippert/20th Century Fox

New Jersey Turnpike

Hank wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming. He seemed to be awake. He was aware of noises around him, of a stale, sour odor, of growing light beyond his eyelids, but he could not get those eyelids to move. And he could feel nothing. For all he knew, he no longer had a body. Where was he? What—?

And then he remembered. The millipedes … their queen … a scream bubbled up in his throat but died stillborn. How can you scream when you can’t open your mouth?

No. That had been a dream. It had all been a dream—the holes, the flying horrors, the rest stop, the trooper, the gun, the bullet, the millipedes—a long, horrible nightmare. But finally at an end. He was waking up now.

If he could just open his eyes he’d see the familiar ceiling of his bedroom. And then he’d be free of the nightmare. He’d be able to move then.

The eyes. They were the key. He concentrated on the lids, focusing all his will, all his energy into them. And slowly they began to move. He didn’t feel the motion but saw a knife-slit streak appear, pale light, like the glow on the horizon at the approach of dawn.

Encouraged, he doubled his efforts. Light widened around the horizon as the edges of his lids stretched the gummy substance that bound them, then burst through as they broke apart. Not the blaze of the rising sun, but a wan, diffuse sort of light. He forced his lids to separate further and the light began to take form through the narrow opening, breaking down into shapes and color. Vague shapes. A paucity of color. Mostly grays. His pupils constricted, bringing the images into sharper focus.

He was looking down along a body. His own body, lying in bed, naked atop the sheets. Hazy, but he knew his own body. Thank God, it had all been a dream. He tried to turn his head to the left, toward the light, but it wouldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move? He was awake now. He should be able to move. He slid his eyeballs leftward. The bedroom window was over there somewhere. If he could just—

Wait … the walls—rounded. The ceiling—convex. Concrete. Concrete everywhere. And the light. It came from above. He forced his eyelids open another millimeter. No window—the light filtered through a grate in the concrete ceiling.

The stillborn scream from a moment ago came alive again and rammed up against his throat, pounding at his larynx, crying to be free.

This wasn’t the bedroom. He was in the pipe—the drainage pipe! It hadn’t been a dream. It was real. Real!

Hank fought the panic, beat it down, and tried to think. He was still alive. He had to remember that. Still alive and it was daytime. The things from the holes were quiet in the daylight hours. They hid from the light. He had to think, had to plan. He’d always been good at planning.

He shifted his eyes down to his body. His vision was clearer now. He saw the gentle tidal rise and fall of his hairy chest, and farther down, on his belly, he spotted the bloody wound where the queen millipede had spiked him and injected him with her poison. The neurotoxin was still in effect, obviously, paralyzing his voluntary muscles while it let his heart and lungs go on working. But it didn’t have complete control. He’d managed to open his eyes, hadn’t he? He could move his eyeballs, couldn’t he? What else could he move?

He pulled his gaze away from his abdominal wound and searched for his hands. They lay flopped out on either side, palms up. He checked out his legs. They were intact, slightly spread with the toes angled outward. He could have been a sunbather. His body was the picture of relaxation … the relaxation of complete paralysis. He returned his gaze to his arm and followed it down to the hand. If he could move a finger—

And then he noticed the webbing—surrounding him, running in all directions, crisscrossed like gauze. It curved away from each arm and leg like heavy-duty spiderweb and ran out to the wall of the drainpipe where it melted into a glob of some sticky-looking gelatin smeared on the concrete. He looked down as much as his slit perspective would permit and realized that he wasn’t lying in the pipe, he was suspended in it. From the horizontal lie of his body he guessed that he was resting on a hammock of web across the diameter.

Hank marveled at the coolness of his mind as it analyzed his position. He was trapped—not only paralyzed, but effectively and securely bound in position. The web hammock, however, was not entirely without its advantages. Long, uninterrupted contact with the cold concrete would have made it difficult for his body to maintain its temperature; the webbing also kept him out of the water, thereby preventing his flesh from breaking down in the constant moisture.

So in a very real sense he was high and dry, but also bound, gagged, and paralyzed.

Reminded him of his days as a slaughterhouse worker. Here he was, hung up like a side of—

Beef.

That last thought impacted with the force of a sledgehammer. That was it! He was food! They’d shot him full of preservatives and stored him away alive so he wouldn’t decompose. So when pickings got slim above, they could come down here and devour him at their leisure.

He willed down the rising panic. Panic wouldn’t help here. They’d already paralyzed his body. Allowing fear to paralyze his mind would only make matters worse. But that one cold hard fact battered relentlessly at his defenses.

I’m food!

But I’m alive. I came up from nothing, I wrote Kick! and I started the Kicker Evolution. I can beat these bugs.

He knew their pattern. They’d probably stay dormant all day and crawl up to the surface to hunt during the dark hours. That was when he’d get free.

But first he had to regain control of his body. He already controlled his eyeballs and eyelids. Next—his hands. If he was to get free he’d need them the most. A finger. He’d start with the pointer on his right hand, concentrate all his will and energy into that one digit until he got it to move. Then he’d proceed to the next, and the next, until he could make a fist. Then he’d switch to his left.

He glared at his index finger, narrowing his vision, his entire world to that single digit, channeling all his power into it.

And then it moved.

Or had it? The twitch had been almost imperceptible, so slight it might have been a trick of the light. Or wishful thinking.

But it had moved. He had to hold on to that thought. It had moved. He was regaining control. He was going to get out of here.

With climbing spirits, he redoubled his concentration on the reluctant digit.

WFAN-AM

<dead air>

Monroe Village, Long Island

Alan rolled his wheelchair along the network of cement paths that encircled Toad Hall, heading from the backyard to the front. Off to his left, to the west, he saw smoke rising over the trees. Not near smoke, not from the Shore Drive neighborhood, but farther away. From downtown Monroe, most likely. He’d heard stories of roving gangs, looting, burning, raping. They hadn’t shown up out here, but perhaps that was simply a matter of time.

Strange how things had worked out. He’d always imagined that if the world ever descended into anarchic nihilism, the violence and chaos and mob madness would occur at night, screams and flames hurtling into a dark, unseeing sky. But given the current situation, human violence was confined to the daylight hours. The night was reserved for unhuman violence.

Alan turned from the smoke and inspected Toad Hall. The old mansion had absorbed another merciless pummeling last night, but like the valiant, indomitable champion she was, she remained on her feet.

Her injuries were accumulating at an alarming rate, however. Her flanks were cut and bruised and splintered, her scalp showed through where her shingles had been torn up. She could still open her eyes to the dwindling daylight, though. Most of them, at least.

Which was why Alan was out here now. A couple of the storm shutters had refused to roll up this morning. Even from the inside Alan could see they were deeply dented, more deeply than he’d have thought possible from a bug attack, at least from any of the bugs he’d seen so far.

Which meant there might be something new under the new moon, something bigger than its hellish predecessors and consequently more dangerous to the little fortress Toad Hall had become. He coasted to a halt and stared as he rounded to the front.

The damage to the steel shutters was worse than he’d realized. They’d been scored by something sharp and heavy, with the weight and density of a steel spike.

But the remains of the rhododendrons under the shuttered windows bothered him more.

They’d been trampled flat.

Alan rolled across the grass for a closer look. These were old rhodos, maybe fifty years or better, with heavy trunks and sturdy branches, thick with healthy deep-green leaves through Ba’s magical ministrations. Tough wood. Alan remembered that from the times he’d cut back the rhodos around his old house before it had burned down.

These hadn’t been cut, though. The trunks and branches had been crushed, and their splinters pressed into the ground. Something awfully big and heavy—or a number of big and heavy somethings—had attacked these windows last night, banging and scraping at the shutters.

But they hadn’t gotten in. That was the important thing.

As Alan pushed his left wheel forward and pulled the right backward to turn and roll back to the path, he saw the depression in the lawn. His stomach lurched. He’d been too intent on the shutters and the ruined rhodos to notice before. But from this angle you couldn’t miss it.

The fresh spring grass, overdue now for a trimming, had been crushed in a wide swath that angled in from the front gate, curved around the willows, and led directly to the house. Alan tried to imagine what sort of creature could leave such a trail but all he could come up with was a thirty-foot bowling ball. With teeth, most likely. Lots of them.

He shuddered and rolled back to the path. Each night got a little rougher. Eventually Toad Hall’s defenses would fail. It was inevitable. Alan prayed he’d be able to persuade Sylvia to move out before that happened, or that Glaeken would be able to assemble the pieces he needed to call for help.

Alan could feel it in his bones: They were all going to need help. Lots of it. And soon. Otherwise, if the Sapir curve was correct, they had two more daytimes left. Then the light would die for the last time at three o’clock on Thursday afternoon. And the endless night would begin.

Abe’s Place

The bugs had done their dirty work—with a vengeance.

During the night, entombed in all that concrete and locked in behind the triple-hatched entry chimney, Gia hadn’t had a clue. But now, topside …

All the farmhouse windows had been smashed, and everything inside had been torn up. Gia had no emotional connection to the place, but still the devastation got to her.

“We ate breakfast here yesterday,” she said, staring at the mindless wreckage of the kitchen.

Abe stepped in through the ruined door.

“The barn is worse. No eggs, just scattered feathers where the chickens used to be. And still no sign of my poor Parabellum.”

“What about the cat?” Vicky said.

Abe shook his head. “I didn’t see him.” As Vicky’s lower lip trembled and her eyes filled, Abe hurriedly added, “But barn cats are tough. He probably found a good hiding place.”

He glanced at Gia and she knew what he was thinking: Not likely.

He nodded toward the rear of the house. “Let’s take a walk to the ridge. I want to show you something.”

“The hole?”

“Something else.”

The hole was the same, but the valley had changed. The ground was torn up, the trees partially denuded, and …

Gia pointed at the linear mounds radiating from the hole like spokes on a wheel.

“What are those?”

“I don’t know from lawns, but those look like mole hills.”

Gia’s skin crawled as she looked at them.

“But if those are moles, they’re as big as humans.”

“Bigger even. But I don’t think they’re moles. More like worms, I’ll bet. And this I hate to mention, but a lot of them are pointed this way.”

Maui

Even the coffee tasted like fish.

Jack knew the water was pure—he’d watched Kolabati draw it from the cooler—but it still tasted fishy. Maybe because everything smelled fishy. The air was so thick with the odor of dead sea life he swore he could taste it when he breathed.

He was standing on the lanai, forcing the coffee down, looking out at the valley below and the great whirlpool spinning off Kahului. It would have been heart-stoppingly beautiful if not for the stench. Behind him, sounds of chopping, chipping, sawing, and hammering drifted through the door from the house’s great room.

He thought about Gia and Vicky, hoping they had a quiet night, wishing he had a way to check up on them.

Kolabati joined him then, coffee cup in hand, and leaned on the railing to his right. She wore a bright flowered muumuu that somehow enhanced her figure instead of hiding it. Jack’s eyes locked on her necklace. He tried to be casual but it wasn’t easy. Half the reason for this hairy trip dangled a couple of feet away. All he had to do was reach out and—

“My silverswords are all dead,” she said, looking down at a wilted garden beneath the deck. “The salt water’s killed them. I’d hoped to see them bloom.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gestured with her cup toward the giant maelstrom.

“There’s no point to it. It sucks water and fish down all day, then shoots it all miles into the air at night.”

“The point,” Jack said, remembering the gist of Glaeken’s explanations, “is not to have a point. Except to mess with our minds, make us feel weak, impotent, useless. Make us crazy with fear and uncertainty, fear of the unknown.”

Jack noticed when he said “crazy” Kolabati stole a quick glance over her shoulder at the house.

“And speaking of points,” he said, “what’s the point of Moki? How’d you get involved with a guy like that? He’s not your type, Bati.”

As far as Jack could see, Moki was nobody’s type. The guy was not only out to lunch, but out to breakfast, dinner, and the midnight snack as well. A homicidal megalomaniac who believed he was a god, or at least possessed by one: Maui, the Polynesian Prometheus who brought fire to humanity and hoisted the Hawaiian Islands from the bottom of the sea with his fishing pole.

After last night’s ceremony the four of them had returned to the house where Ba and Jack spent the night in the garage, the only place in the house secure from the bugs. Moki and Bati were never bothered by the creatures—more proof of Moki’s divinity. He’d kept them up most of the night elaborating on his future plans for “Greater Maui” and the rest of the remaining Hawaiian Islands.

Running under it all Jack sensed a current of hatred and jealousy—aimed at him. Moki seemed to see Jack as a threat, a rival suitor for Kolabati’s affections. Jack hadn’t planned on any of this. He’d spent the morning wondering how he could use that jealousy to get to the kook’s necklace. But so far, short of putting a bullet through his skull, he’d come up blank.

“How do you know my type?” Kolabati said, eyes flashing and nostrils flaring. “What do you know of me?”

Jack studied her face. Kolabati had changed. He wasn’t sure how. Her wide, dark, almond-shaped eyes, her high cheekbones, full lips, and flawless mocha skin were the same as he remembered. Maybe it was her hair. She’d let it grow since he’d last seen her. It trailed long over her near shoulder and rustled in the sour wind like an ebony mane. But it wasn’t the hair. Something else, something inside.

Good question, he thought. What do I know about her?

“I know you don’t hang out too long with people who don’t see things your way.”

She turned and stared down at the valley.

“This is not the real Moki—or at least not the Moki who shared my life until a week ago.”

Shared her life? Jack was about to make a crack about the ability of this over 150-year-old woman to share anything when he saw a droplet of moisture form in the corner of her eye, grow, and spill over the lid to run down her cheek.

A tear. A tear from Kolabati.

Jack was speechless. He turned and stared through the doorway where Moki feverishly worked like the madman he was. But on what? And didn’t he ever sleep? He’d harangued them for hours, then he’d rushed to the upper floor where he’d gone to work on the shattered pieces of sculpture littering the great room, recutting them, fashioning a new, single giant work from the remnants. Ba was in there with him now, sitting in a corner, sipping tea and watching him in silent fascination.

“He was wonderful,” Kolabati said.

Jack looked at her again. The tear remained. Others joined it.

“You love him?”

She nodded. “I love who he used to be.” She turned toward Jack, wiping her cheeks. “Oh, Jack, you would have loved him too. I only wish you’d known him then. He was gentle, he was so alive and so much a part of his world, these islands. A genius, a true genius who couldn’t flaunt his brilliance because he took it for granted. He never tried to impress anyone, never tried to be anyone but Moki. And he wanted to be with me. Me. Nobody else. I was happy, Jack. I was in love. I thought I’d found an earthly Nirvana and I wanted it to last forever. And it could have, Jack. You know it could have.”

He shook his head. “Nothing lasts forever.” He reached out and touched her necklace. “Even with that.”

“But so soon? We’d just begun.”

He searched her face. Here was the difference. The seemingly impossible had happened. Kolabati, the cool, aloof, self-absorbed, ruthless Kolabati who had sent him out to kill her own brother, who had walked out with her own necklace as well as Kusum’s and left Jack bleeding in a chair because he had refused her offer of near immortality … Kolabati Bahkti had fallen in love and it had changed her. Maybe forever.

Amazingly, she began to sob—deep, wrenching gasps of emotional pain that tore at Jack. He’d come here expecting to find the old, cold, calculating Kolabati and had been fully ready to deal with her. He wasn’t prepared for the new model.

He resisted the impulse to take her in his arms. No telling what Moki-the-Unkillable might do if he saw that. So he settled for touching her hand.

“What can I do? What will fix it?”

“If only I knew.”

“Maybe it’s the necklace. Maybe the necklace is part of the problem—maybe it is the problem. Maybe if you take it off him—”

“And replace it with a fake?” Her eyes flashed as she dug into the pocket of her muumuu. She pulled out a necklace exactly like her own. “This one, perhaps?”

Since Kolabati was wearing one of the genuine necklaces, and Moki the other, this had to be Jack’s fake.

He swallowed. “Where’d you get that?”

“From your duffel bag.” Her eyes hardened. “Was that your plan? Steal my brother’s necklace and replace it with a fake? It never occurred to you that I might have given it to someone else, did it?”

Time to bite the bullet, Jack thought. Let her know the whole story.

“Kusum’s necklace isn’t enough,” he said, meeting her gaze. “We need both.”

She gasped and stepped back, her hand clutching at her throat.

“Mine? You’d steal mine?”

“It wouldn’t be stealing, exactly. I’d just be returning it to its original owner.”

“Don’t joke with me about this, Jack. The people who carved the necklaces have been dead for ages.”

“I know. I’m not working for them. I’m working for the guy they stole the original metal from. He’s still around. And he wants it back. All of it.”

Kolabati’s eyes widened as she studied him. “You’re not joking, are you.”

“You think I could make up a story like that, even if I tried?”

“All those years will rush back upon me without it, Jack. I’d die. You know that.”

“I intended to ask you for it.”

“And if I refused?”

He shrugged. “I was going to be very convincing.”

Actually he’d had no firm plan in mind when he’d come here. Good thing too. He hadn’t counted on Moki. Not in his wildest dreams had he counted on the likes of Moki.

Kolabati’s hand still hovered protectively over her necklace. She couldn’t seem to drag it away.

“You frighten me, Jack. You frighten me more than Moki.”

“I know it sounds corny as hell, but the fate of the whole world depends on this guy Glaeken getting those two necklaces back and restoring them to their original form.”

Kolabati gestured to the stinking valley, to the whirlpool beyond. “He can change all this? He can make everything as it was?”

“No. But he can stop the force that’s making it this way, that’s working to destroy everything we see here. You don’t have it too bad here, Bati. This is really pretty decent because there aren’t many people around. But back on the mainland, in the cities and towns, people are at each other’s throats. Everyone’s frightened, scared half to death. The best are holed up, hiding from the monsters by night and their fellow humans by day. And the worst are doing what they’ve always done. But it’s the average Joes and Janes who are really scary. The ones who aren’t paralyzed with fear are running amok in the streets, looting and burning and killing with the worst of them. You can do something to stop it, turn it all around.”

“I don’t believe you. It can’t be that bad. I’ve lived more than a century and a half. I saw my parents shot down by an English officer, I witnessed the Sepoy rebellion in the 1850s, two world wars, the Bolshevik revolution, and worst of all, the atrocities in the Punjab, Indian killing Indian during the partition. You have no idea what I’ve seen.”

“This is worse. The whole world’s involved. And after sundown Thursday it’ll be night everywhere, forever. There’ll be nowhere to run. Unless you do something.”

“Me.” The word was spoken in a very small, faraway voice.

“You.”

Jack let that sink in awhile, let her stare down at the island she seemed to love so much, let her breathe the reek of its slow death. And then he put the question to her. He’d never have considered asking the old Kolabati, the one he’d known in New York. But this new version, someone who’d loved a man, who loved this island, maybe this Kolabati could be reached.

“What do you say, Bati? I’m not asking you to take it off and hand it to me. But I am asking you to come back to New York and talk to Glaeken. He’s the only guy on earth who’s older than you. Hell, you’re a newborn compared to him. You sit down with him and you’ll believe.”

She turned and leaned against the railing, staring through the door into the great room of her house.

“Let me think about that.”

“There’s no time to think.”

“All right,” she said slowly. “I’ll come see this man. But that’s all I promise you.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” He felt his fatigued muscles begin to uncoil with relief. It was a start. “Now, about Moki’s…”

She looked at him sharply.

“He’s not going to die,” Jack added quickly, “or even age appreciably if someone should manage to replace his real necklace with a look-alike. Who knows? Get it off him and maybe he’ll revert to his old self.”

Before Kolabati could answer, Moki’s voice boomed from within the house.

“Bati! Hele mai! And bring your ex-lover. See what your god has fashioned!”

Kolabati rolled her eyes and started forward. Jack grabbed her arm, gently.

“What do you say?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She pulled her arm away and dropped the dummy necklace back into her pocket. Jack followed her.

And stopped inside the door, staring.

The great room had been transformed. All the wood and lava from the broken sculptures had been reshaped, combined, coalesced into a single huge assembly that stretched from wall to wall. And where he’d run out of sculpture remnants, Moki had smashed furniture and added pieces to the mix. He’d arranged assorted stained and bleached fragments so they appeared to spring from the wood paneling of the walls, forming four spokes in a giant lopsided wheel, weaving crooked paths toward a common center. A lava center. Moki had somehow joined all the red and black lava fragments—the gleam of wire, the dewy moisture of still-drying epoxy were visible within the irregular mass—into a new whole, a jagged, haphazard aggregate that had no coherent shape, no symmetry, no discernible intelligence to it, yet somehow looked menacing and implacably predatory.

Moki stood near the center, hands on hips, grinning like a caricature of Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate.

“What do you think of Maui’s masterpiece?”

Ba squatted in the far corner, a gaunt Buddha, silent, watching.

“It’s … disturbing,” Kolabati said.

“Yes!” He clapped his hands. “Excellent! Exactly what it is supposed to be! Disturbing. True art should disturb, don’t you think? It should challenge all your comfortable assumptions, tip them over so you can see what crawls around on their underbellies.”

“But what is it?” Jack said.

Moki’s smile faltered, and for the first time since he’d arrived, Jack detected a hint of uncertainty in the man’s eyes.

He hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s done.

“Why … it’s a vision,” he said, recovering. “A recurring one. It’s plagued me for days. It’s…” His eyes brightened with sudden inspiration. “It’s Maui! Greater Maui! Yes! The four separate islands—Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, and Maui itself—drawing back to where they belong—together. Forming one seamless mass at the center!”

Jack stared at the construct. This was no island or regrouping of islands. Too bizarre, too menacing. It was something else, but even the artist hadn’t a clue as to what.

Moki grabbed Kolabati’s hand. “Come. Maui is tired. He needs to rest before the ceremony tonight. And he needs his woman by his side.” He stared at Jack, challenging him. “The woman who once loved you now loves a god. She can never go back. She will never want to. Isn’t that true, Bati?”

Kolabati smiled and nodded. “Very true, my love.”

Jack watched her carefully. Kolabati was not the type to allow herself to be pushed around like this. No one told this woman what to do.

As Moki led her away by the hand, she glanced back at Jack and patted the pocket of her muumuu. The one that bulged with the fake necklace.

Jack nodded. That was the Kolabati he knew.

“You kids play nice, now,” he called after them.

He watched until they disappeared into the bedroom, then went over to where Ba squatted. He leaned against the wall next to him.

“What do you think, Big Guy? You’ve been watching the whole process. What’s it look like to you?”

“It is evil.”

Jack waited for Ba to elaborate, but that was all he was going to say. So Jack walked around it, ducking under the spokes, crouching, stretching up on tiptoe, looking for a fresh perspective, an angle that would reveal the work’s secret. But the more he looked, the more unsettled he became. Why? Nothing but an assemblage of wood and lava. One that looked like nothing in particular. If anything, it resembled Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man—except the man here was some sort of headless amoebic embryo.

He had an inescapable sense that more than Moki was at work here. Jack couldn’t help but feel that the sculptor’s madness had tapped into something outside himself, outside everything humans knew, and he’d built a crude model of it.

And Ba was right. Ba had said it all.

Whatever it was, it was evil.

Dinu Pass, Romania

“Look down, Nick. At the ground. Do you see anything?”

Night had come. So had the bugs. The air was dense with them. From the base of the keep’s tower, Bill watched their bizarre and varied forms buzzing, darting, drifting in the air a mere half dozen feet away.

But though they stood in the opening, he and Nick were safe. The bugs kept their distance. As soon as darkness fell, Bill had guided Nick back into the stone depths to where they now stared into the hungry night.

“Come on, Nick. Take a good look. Do you see any of that glow you saw last night?”

He nodded and pointed straight ahead. “There.”

A slow change had come over Nick during the day. He seemed more alert, more responsive to the world around him. Were the effects of his descent into the hole wearing off?

“All right, then.” Bill’s insides were coiled tight. “I guess this is it.”

He turned to the baker’s dozen of villagers armed with chairs and torches, waiting behind him in the tower base. The thirteenth was Alexandru, standing off to the side.

Through Alexandru, Bill had explained that the red-haired man who’d come here in 1941 was still alive and in America, that if he could recover some pieces of the “magic sword” that had shattered here on these stones, he might be able to close up the hole out there in the pass and bring back the sun. They’d helped him search around the base of the tower this afternoon but their efforts had been no more fruitful than his own in the morning. They’d have to go out at night.

Bill had expected to be laughed off as a madman, or rudely rebuffed at the very least. Instead the villagers had conferred, then agreed to help him. The women had begun wicker-weaving while the men set about making torches. Now they waited, dressed in multiple layers of clothing, wicker armor on their thighs and lower legs, heavy gloves, sheepskin hats and vests. They looked ready for an arctic blizzard, but they’d be facing a different sort of storm.

Bill nodded to the men. It was time. Their faces remained expressionless, but he noticed glances pass between them, saw them begin to breathe more heavily. They were scared, and rightly so. A perfect stranger had asked them to put their lives on the line, to perform the equivalent of wading into a piranha-infested river with only a crab net and a spear for protection. If they turned and headed back up the stone stairs now, he wouldn’t blame them.

But they didn’t. They filed out through the opening with their shields and torches raised, forming a shallow semicircle of protection into which Bill and Nick stepped. And then, just as they’d rehearsed it inside the keep, they advanced as a group, the end members closing the circle behind Bill and Nick as they moved away from the tower wall.

The bugs assaulted in a wave. The men in the circle around him began to cry out in fear and revulsion as they blocked the swooping creatures with the raised chairs and shields while thrusting at them with their torches. To the accompaniment of buzzing wings and sizzling bug flesh, they inched forward.

Bill crouched next to Nick, his arm over his shoulders, keeping his head down as they moved. He shouted in his left ear.

“Where, Nick? Show me where!”

Nick searched the rocky ground, saying nothing. Bill had a sudden, awful fear that Nick might not be able to see the glow because of the torches the circle of villagers carried. If daylight obscured it, would torchlight do the same?

As if in answer to Bill’s unasked question, Nick said, “Here’s one.”

He was pointing at a spot two inches in front of his left shoe.

Bill shouted to the group to stop, pulled out his flashlight and began pawing through the stones with his free hand. He felt the circle constrict around him as the villagers were beaten back into a tighter knot by the bugs. But under the stones he found only dirt.

“There’s nothing here, Nick!”

But Nick kept pointing. “There, there, there.”

“Where, dammit?”

“The glow. There.”

Nick sounded so sure. Out of sheer desperation, Bill began digging through the moist silt. It didn’t seem likely, but maybe rains over the decades had buried some of the fragments and the glow was filtering up through the ground. The trip had been a bust so far and they didn’t have much time out here, not with the increasing ferocity of the bug attack, so he was willing to try almost—

Bill’s fingers scraped on something hard and slim with rough edges, something that felt nothing like sand or stone. He forced his fingers down into the silt, worked them around the object, under it, then pulled it free.

A rusty, dirty, jagged piece of metal lay in his palm. He held it up.

“Is this it, Nick?”

“Can’t you see the glow?”

Bill turned the object over and over in his hands. No glow. Just a broken, pitted piece of metal.

“No. Are there more?”

“Of course.” He pointed to Bill’s left. “Right there.”

Bill began to dig again. One of the men shouted something to him. Bill didn’t know the language but the meaning was clear.

Hurry!

Bill placed his flashlight on the stones and used the first piece to help dig after the second, throwing dirt in all directions. He heard a faint clink of metal on metal and was reaching into the hole to feel for it when a chew wasp darted between the legs of one of the men and sank its needle teeth into his arm. Without thinking, Bill lashed at it with the metal fragment in his hand.

The flash nearly blinded him for an instant. He blinked, and when the purple afterimage faded, he saw the chew wasp flopping on the stones and gnashing its teeth in waning fury, a deep, blackened, smoking wound in its back.

Bill stared at the metal fragment in his hand. Whatever power this blade had once held was not completely gone, not by a long shot.

He threw himself into probing deeper into the bottom of the second hole. He found a second piece of metal almost immediately and held it up.

“How about this one, Nick? Quick! Does it glow?”

Nick nodded. “Yes.”

“Great. All right now. Where’s the—”

Then one of the villagers screamed and fell backward, landing across Bill’s back and nearly knocking him flat. Bill thought the bugs might have broken through his defenses and latched onto him en masse, but he was wrong.

This was worse.

Something had the man by the ankle, something uncoiling out of the darkness like a long black rope, but alive, tapered, twisting, and powerful. His fall had broken the circle and now the bugs were inside, attacking from within as well as without. The men tried to regroup but wavered as the snakelike thing began to drag their friend from their midst. Some bent to grab his arms to pull him back but the bugs were immediately upon them and they had to let him go to protect themselves. Bill watched in horror as the man was dragged screaming into the darkness, the bugs swarming him, ripping at him.

Another inky snake darted through the night and snared a second villager. And as he was pulled crying to his doom, a third creature caught Nick and pulled him off his feet. Nick made no sound as he landed on the rocks. Bill wrapped an arm around his chest but the snake began to drag them both away. Bill sensed something huge and dark looming in the blackness beyond the reach of the torchlight and realized then that these weren’t snakes but the long, smooth tentacles of a single monstrous creature. Glaeken’s offhanded comment floated through his mind …

The bigger ones tend to be slow; it will take them a while to get here, but they’ll get here.

Bill knew from the inexorable pull it exerted on Nick that he couldn’t resist its strength.

In desperation he reached down to the tentacle and slashed at it with the sword fragments. Another blinding, sizzling flash and suddenly the tentacle had uncoiled and its severed tip was writhing and flopping furiously about like a beheaded snake.

The villagers were now in complete disarray, stumbling about, swinging their torches and shields wildly.

“Back!” Bill cried. “Back to the keep.”

He pulled Nick to his feet and half carried him over the rocky ground toward the base of the tower, flailing about in the air with the metal shards, clearing a path through the bugs. Finally they made it, trailing some of the villagers, just ahead of a few others, stumbling through the opening into the blessedly empty air of the keep. Bitten, bleeding, burned, they collapsed into panting heaps on the granite floor; compared to the rough stones outside, its smooth surface felt almost soft. Only the elderly Alexandru stood, exactly where they had left him.

“Where are the others?” he said, his eyes ranging through their ranks. “What happened to Gheorghe? And Ion? And Michael and Nicolae?”

Bill lifted his head and counted. Only eight of the dozen villagers who’d gone out with him had made it back. He went to the door and looked out. Four torches burned on the stones of the gorge. The men who had carried them were nowhere in sight. Behind him, the survivors began to weep and he felt his own throat tighten. Four brave men had sacrificed themselves so a stranger could dig up some chunks of old metal.

Bill looked down at the fragments in his hand, then again at the four sputtering torches.

These had damn well better be worth it.

Outside he heard something huge dragging its enormous weight over the rubble of the gorge.

Manhattan

Carol watched the light fade from the sky over the darkened city and thought of how lucky they were to have generators here. She thought of Bill. He’d been an integral part of each thought since he’d left yesterday morning, but especially now, with dark coming.

“Where is he?” she said to Glaeken.

He was passing by, carrying an empty tray from Magda’s room. He paused beside her.

“Still in Romania, I should think.”

She glanced at her watch. Almost five here. That meant it was almost midnight over there. Almost Wednesday.

“But he should have been back by now.”

“Could have been back, perhaps, but as for should…” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He reached out and gently laid a scarred hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry yet. Not until tomorrow. If he’s not back by this time tomorrow, then worry. You’ll have company then—I’ll be worrying with you.”

He left her and headed toward the kitchen.

Carol continued to stare at the darkening city, wondering if Bill was alive, on land, or in the air. If only she knew.

Dinu Pass, Romania

With the two metal shards settled deep in his pocket and Nick strapped into the passenger seat, Bill was ready to go. The villagers had nailed a board across the land rover’s broken rear window. Bill hoped it blocked the bugs half as well as it blocked his view.

“I don’t want to go.”

Bill glanced at Nick and was shocked to see tears running down his cheeks.

“Nick…?”

“I like it here. I feel … better here. Please let me stay.”

“Nick, I can’t leave you. I’ve got to go back and we may need you there. But once this is all over, I’ll bring you back.”

He sobbed. “Do you promise, Father Bill?”

Bill felt a sob building in his own throat. He gripped Nick’s hand.

“Yeah, Nicky. I promise.”

He felt miserable but hid it as he waved to Alexandru and the others.

“Tell them I’ll be back,” he told the old man in German. “After this is all over, after the holes are closed and the monsters are gone, I’ll be back. And I’ll tell the world of the bravery of your people.”

Alexandru waved but did not smile. Tears rimmed his eyes. Bill shared his grief, not only for the dead but for Alexandru’s little community. A village atrophying and dying as was his could ill afford to lose four of its most vital men.

“I’ll be back,” he said again. “I won’t forget you.”

And he meant it. If he survived this, if he was alive to do so, he’d be back.

He threw the vehicle into first and started out the gate onto the causeway. The bugs swarmed him. He was halfway across when the headlights picked up the first tentacle. It lay stretched lengthwise along the planks and lifted its tapered tip at Bill’s approach, as if watching him, or catching his scent.

Bill stopped and squinted into the darkness as other tentacles pushed forward to join the first. Soon the causeway was acrawl with them. He found the high-beam button on the floor to the left of the clutch and kicked it.

He gasped and instinctively pressed himself back in his seat when he saw what waited at the far end. The light from his high beams reflected off a huge, smooth, glistening, featureless black mass, thirty feet high and at least a hundred feet across. He looked for eyes or a mouth but could find none. Just slimy-looking blackness. A huge sluglike creature with tentacles.

And those tentacles were reaching for him, stretching closer.

Bill looked for a way out, a way to get around it, but its massive bulk blocked the end of the causeway. Even if he could run the land rover over the tentacles, he’d end up against the immovable wall of the thing’s flank.

The tip of one of the tentacles suddenly appeared at the end of the hood. It coiled around the hood ornament and pulled. Bill shifted into reverse and backed up a dozen feet. The tentacles inched after him.

Trapped, dammit! Trapped until morning!

He pounded the steering wheel in impotent rage and undiluted frustration. He had the shards that he’d come for and he couldn’t get them back to Glaeken, couldn’t even set off for his return trip to Ploiesti until dawn.

More time wasted. And another night without seeing Carol. He wanted to be with her. Every moment was precious. How many did they have left?

Using the side mirror, he carefully backed the vehicle through the gates, then sat behind the wheel and swallowed the pressure that built in his chest as he stared out at the night. He felt like crying.

“We’re back?” Nick said, smiling. “Oh, I’m so glad we’re back.”

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: Jo’s catching some much-needed Zs, man, but I’m still here with you. The phones are down and our cable’s out. And hey, it’s time for you to get back inside. It’s 4:48. Get your butts to safety right now. Ten minutes of light left.

<cue: “Baby, Please Don’t Go”>

New Jersey Turnpike

By nightfall Hank was exhausted, but he would allow himself no sleep.

How could he? With darkness the drainpipe had come alive. First the sibilant stirrings, echoing softly around him, ballooning to a cacophony of hard-pointed mandibles clicking a hungry counterpoint to countless chitinous feet scraping against the concrete; then the sinuous shapes, faint and vague in the rising moonlight slanting through the grate, undulating toward him from left and right, sloshing through the water below, crawling along the ceiling directly above, the thinnest of them as thick as his upper arm, the largest as big around as his thigh, ignoring him as they slid by, weaving over, under, and around each other with a hideous languid grace that seemed to defy gravity, blackening the pale gray of the concrete with Gordian masses of twisting bodies, blotting out the moon as they nosed against the closed grate.

He heard a metallic scrape, a screech, then a clank as the grate fell back onto the pavement above. A sudden change came over the millipedes. Their languor evaporated, replaced by a hungry urgency as they thrashed and clawed at each other in a mad frenzy to join the night-hunt on the surface.

Moments later, the last of them had squeezed through. Once again Hank was alone with the moonlight.

No … not alone. Something coming. Something big. He knew without looking what it was. A few minutes later he saw her huge pincered head rise and hover above him, swaying.

Not again! Shit-shit-shit! Not again!

He’d worked since dawn on regaining control of his limbs, and for most of the day it had seemed a hopeless task. No matter how he concentrated, how he strained, his body simply would not respond. But he’d kept at it, and as the light had started to fail, he’d begun to achieve some results. He’d noticed twitches in his arms and legs, in his abdominal muscles. Either the toxin was wearing off or he was overcoming it. It didn’t matter which. He was regaining control—that was what mattered.

But all his efforts would be for nada if the queen dosed him again.

She made no move, simply hovered there with her head hanging over him. Did she suspect anything?

Get the fuck away!

He’d spent the entire day willing his muscles to move, now he was begging them to be still. One twitch, one tremor, one tiny tic, and she’d ram her proboscis into his gut again and put him back to square one.

She watched him for what seemed like forever, then she began to move—

No!

—her head lowering toward his belly—

NO!

—and past him. She arched over him, her hard little feet brushing across the skin of his abdomen. He could feel nothing but he saw his abdominal muscles twitch and roll with revulsion and prayed she wouldn’t notice.

She didn’t. Her near-endless length finally cleared him and she wound her way up through the drain opening and into the night.

At last—time for action.

He strained his arms and legs upward as if fighting against steel manacles. To his delight he saw the muscles bulge with the effort. His fingers didn’t move, didn’t close into the rebellious fists he willed for them, but he watched the veins in the undersides of his forearms swell as blood coursed into the resistant muscles, watched his abdominals ripple and swell around the wound as he tried to sit up.

But nothing was happening. His veins and arteries continued to surge, stretching against the envelope of skin, his abdomen rippled like the Atlantic in a hurricane, but no sign of voluntary movement, only chaos.

And then his eyes snapped to the wound below his navel. Something moved there. Something wriggled within it. This morning’s scream built again in his unresponsive throat as two slim black pincers, each no more than an inch long, poked into the air. A multi-eyed head, deep brown and gleaming, followed. It paused, glanced around, fixed Hank with its cold black gaze, then dragged its long, many-legged length from the wound with a crinkling slurp. Another identical creature quickly followed. Then another.

Hank’s once quiescent and unresponsive body was moving now with a will of its own, writhing, bucking, convulsing, rocking up and down, back and forth in its webbed hammock as his veins and arteries bulged past the limits of their tensile strength and ruptured, freeing more wriggling, pincered, millipedic forms.

Something snapped within Hank’s mind then. He could almost hear the foundations of his sanity crack and give way. And that was good. He welcomed the collapse.

For it brought a whole new perspective. Everyone aboveground was dying. Dying and decomposing. Not Hank. No way. Hank was alive and would stay alive through these, his children.

Parenthood.

If only I could cry!

He’d never wanted children, but now it had happened. His children. He’d considered the Kickers his children—after all, hadn’t he fathered the movement? But these were true offspring. They’d grown within him. Fed off him. Made him part of them. He’d go on living through them while everybody else—including the Kicker cop captain and his two renegade underlings—died.

If only I could laugh!

He watched with pride as dozens more of his children broke from the cramped confines of his body to swarm and crawl with wild abandon over his skin. So good to see them free and moving about, stretching their slender, foot-long bodies, gaining strength before heading to the surface and joining the great hunt.

If only I could cheer!

Some of them tangled and began to rake and spear each other with their pincers.

No fighting, children. Save it for topside.

Just then two more broke from the sides of his throat, glistening with blood from the vessels through which they’d been traveling. They reared up and faced him, swaying back and forth like cobras before a snake charmer.

Yes, my children, he wanted to tell them, I am your daddy and I’m terribly proud of you. I want you to—

They darted forward without warning, each burying a pincered head hungrily into his eyes.

No! he wanted to say. I’m your daddy! Don’t blind Daddy! How can he watch you grow if you eat his eyes?

But they were naughty children and didn’t listen. They kept burrowing inward, deeper and deeper.

If only I could scream!

Maui

Night was falling.

Jack stood in the great room and stared again at Moki’s giant sculpture. The closer darkness came, the more repellent he found it. The stench of rotting fish from outside made it worse. Its foulness urged him to smash it back into its component fragments.

He’d driven down to the airfield earlier. Frank and his plane had survived the night. Jack had called Gia on the shortwave. She’d said everything was okay but he’d sensed a new tension in her voice. She denied any problems but during the grisly ride back he couldn’t get it out of his head that she was worried about something.

He turned now at a sound behind him and saw Kolabati emerging from the bedroom. Alone. Finally. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement as she strolled toward Jack. And as she passed she pressed something into his hand—warm, heavy, metallic. He glanced down.

The necklace.

“Moki?” he said.

She motioned him to follow her to the lanai.

“He’s wearing your fake,” she whispered when they’d stopped at the railing.

“And he’s still…?”

Bitter anguish dulled the animation in her eyes as she nodded. “Still the same.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Put it on,” she whispered, touching the hand that held the necklace.

Jack thrust it into his pocket. “Better not. He’ll notice.”

“Put it on. You’ll need it. Trust me.”

Jack shook his head. “I’ll be okay.”

He looked out over the darkening valley. In the ocean beyond it he saw the white water of the whirlpool fading to gray. The maelstrom was slowing. Soon the geyser would begin and the air once again would fill with dying fish and hungry bugs.

But he still had time to make it to Kahului and take to the air.

He turned back to Kolabati. “What about the rest of it? What about you? Are you coming back to New York with me?”

“Do you trust me, Jack?” she said. Her gaze drilled into him. The answer seemed very important to her.

“Yes,” he said, not completely sure of the truth here, but saying it anyway.

He sensed the new, improved Kolabati could be trusted further than the old, but how much further he couldn’t say. He wasn’t quite ready to stake his life on it.

“Good. Then I’ll return to New York.”

Jack couldn’t resist hugging her. She truly had changed.

“Thank you, Bati. You don’t know what this means to me, to everyone.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Jack,” she said levelly. “It’s good to have your arms around me again, but I’m not giving up my necklace. I have no intention of doing that. I’m going back to New York just to talk to this ancient man you’ve told me about. That and nothing more.”

“That’s fine. That’s all I ask. I’ll leave the rest up to Glaeken. I know he can work something out with you. But let’s get moving. We haven’t got much time.”

“Not so fast. There’s still tonight’s ceremony.”

Jack pushed her to arm’s length but Kolabati clutched his forearms, refusing to let him go.

“Ceremony? You’re going to let him kill another—?”

And then Jack remembered how last night Moki had let the Niihauan stab him first. Was that what she wanted? To see Moki die? Did she hate him that much for going crazy on her? He looked into her eyes and couldn’t read them.

He would never understand this woman. Fine. But could he trust her? Her allegiances seemed as mercurial as her moods.

“That’s my condition. After the ceremony, I’ll return to New York. You have my word.”

“Bati?” a voice called from inside.

And then Moki stepped out onto the lanai. His eyes flared when he saw the two of them touching. He took Kolabati by the arm and pulled her away.

“Come. We’ll start the ceremony early tonight.” He glared at Jack. “I’m especially looking forward to this one.”

As Kolabati followed him into the house, she looked back at Jack and mouthed three words: Wear … the … necklace.

When they debarked from the Isuzu, Moki turned to Jack and jabbed his index finger at his chest.

“We came early because it will be you who faces Maui tonight.”

Jack smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“If you can defeat me in the ceremony, you may have her. Otherwise she stays with me and you return to America.”

Jack noticed how Moki had said “America” instead of “the mainland.” Apparently his island had seceded from the union, at least in Moki’s mind.

Jack looked at Kolabati. She returned his stare coolly.

“So … this is what you meant by ‘after the ceremony.’ Swell.”

She nodded.

Moki gestured to the crater’s edge. “Come. It’s time.”

Jack hesitated. This was happening too fast, and none of it in his plan. He didn’t like surprises, and this was a particularly ugly one. Kolabati had known about it before when they were whispering on the lanai. Had she cooked it up with Moki, or was this all his idea?

At least Jack had one of the necklaces …

Or did he?

What was that around Moki’s neck? Jack’s fake, or the real thing? He cursed himself for not checking the one Kolabati had given him more closely. It didn’t feel any different, and if he remembered correctly from years ago, the necklace had caused an unpleasant tingle the first time he’d touched it. But that sensation had dissipated after he’d worn it for a while. Was that why he felt nothing when he touched it now? Or was there nothing to feel because it was the fake?

“What’s the matter?” Moki said, his grin broadening. “Afraid like your Asian friend?”

“Your ceremony sickened him last night.”

“Perhaps you should have stayed behind with him—or better yet, left the island.”

“I promised someone to get him back safely.”

“Take off your shirt and follow me,” Moki said, then turned and started up to the crater’s edge.

Jack followed, removing his shirt as he went. The cold air raised and then flattened gooseflesh on his skin. He tossed his shirt to Kolabati as he passed. Her dark, almond eyes widened when she saw no necklace around his neck.

What had she wanted to do? Rattle Moki by letting him see that Jack wore a necklace exactly like his? Uh-uh. He wasn’t playing her games.

She frowned at the three wide scars running diagonally across his chest. “Are those from—?”

“Yeah. Mementos from one of your pets.”

He welcomed the heat from Haleakala’s fires when they reached the ridge. Moki stopped and faced him. In the orange light he looked like a grinning demon as he produced two knives with slim, six-inch blades. The flames from below glinted off their polished surfaces. He handed one to Jack, wooden handle first. As Jack gripped it, a chorus of shouting erupted from below. He turned and saw the Niihauans approaching, angrily waving their arms.

“I was afraid of this,” Moki said, sighing like an indulgent father watching his unruly children. “That’s why I brought you up here early tonight. They want one of their own to defeat me, not some malihini. I’ll have to tell them not to worry. They’ll get their turn.”

Moki stepped between the Niihauans and the crater rim. He spread his arms wide and spoke to them. Jack couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the inferno below, but finally they stepped back and waited.

“Now!” Moki said, returning. “Let’s get on with it.” He put his hands on his hips and puffed up his chest. “You strike first.”

“First take off the necklace.”

“Stop stalling. Is this the brave Repairman Jack Bati told me about?”

“Just ‘Jack,’ okay?”

“I think you’re a coward.”

“You won’t take it off?”

“My necklace is not a subject for discussion. It is part of me. It will remain with me until I die. Which shall be never.”

“Okay,” Jack said slowly, “since we’re on the subject of courage, let’s give ourselves a real test: Each of us will pierce his own heart.”

Moki stared at him with wide eyes. “You mean … I will plunge my knife into my chest and you will do the same into yours?”

“You got it. Simultaneously. It’s one thing to stab somebody else, but it takes a god to stab himself.”

Moki’s grin widened. “I believe you are right. You are a worthy rival, Repairman Jack. I’ll be sorry to see you die.”

Not as sorry as I’ll be if Kolabati has suckered me.

Moki positioned his knife over his chest, the point indenting the scarred area just to the left of the breastbone. Jack did the same. His sweaty palms slipped on the handle. The touch of the point sent a chill straight through to the organ beating barely an inch beneath it. It picked up its tempo in response.

This had to work.

“Ready?” Jack said. “On three. One … two…” He shouted the last number. “Three!”

Jack watched as Moki rammed the blade deep into his chest, saw his torso hunch, his grin vanish, his features constrict with sudden agony, watched his eyes fill with shock, horror, rage, betrayal as the sick realization of what had just happened to him filtered through the haze of pain.

He looked down at the knife protruding from his chest. Blood welled up against the hilt and ran down his skin. Then he looked at Jack’s blade, still poised over his chest. His lips worked.

“You … didn’t…”

“You’re the crazy one, pal. Not me.”

Moki glanced over to where Kolabati stood in the flame-flickered darkness. The hurt in his eyes was unsoundable. Jack almost felt sorry for him, until he remembered the brave Niihauan who hadn’t had a chance against him last night. Jack followed his gaze and saw Kolabati’s dismayed expression.

Sudden pain seared his chest. He staggered back and saw Moki go down on his knees, blood pumping from the slit in his chest, his bloody knife free in his hand. And across Jack’s chest—a deep gash, bisecting the rakoshi scars. Moki had pulled his own knife from his wound and slashed Jack.

Jack pressed his hand against the gash but it had already stopped bleeding. The pain, too, was gone. And as he watched in amazement, the wound edges closed and began to knit.

He looked up and saw Moki watching too. Moki reached a bloody hand up to the metal encircling his neck. Ashen-faced now, he looked at Jack’s unadorned throat, his eyes pleading for an explanation. He couldn’t speak, but he could move his lips.

They said: How?

Jack pulled up the left cuff of his jeans to show where he’d wound the true necklace around his ankle.

“Just because they call it a necklace doesn’t mean you have to wear it around your neck.”

Moki pitched forward on his face, twitched, shuddered, then lay still.

Jack looked at the blade in his hand and tossed it onto the hardened lava beside Moki. Another victory for Rasalom, another talented human gone mad, and now dead.

Suddenly Jack felt exhausted, empty. Must it have ended like this? Couldn’t he have found another way? Was the mad darkness in the air seeping into him as well? Or had he always carried a piece of it within? Was that what he felt twisting and thrashing against the walls of the cage he’d built for it?

Shouts made him turn. The Niihauans were charging up the slope. Jack backed away, unsure of their intent. But they ignored him, rushing directly to Moki’s body. They prayed by it, then lifted him by his hands and feet and tossed his remains into Haleakala’s fires.

As the others began to pray, the chief turned to Jack.

“Haleakala,” he said, beaming. “The House of the Sun. Now that the false Maui is dead, the sun will return to the path that the true Maui taught it.”

“When?” Jack said.

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow, you will see.”

“I hope so,” Jack said. He turned toward Kolabati. “All we’ve got to do is get back to the house and pick up Ba and—”

Kolabati was gone.

Jack spun this way and that, searching the darkness. Not a sign of her. The Isuzu was still parked down the slope but no trace of her. He searched the area but all he found was his shirt, lying on the lava where she’d been standing. He pulled it on and hopped into the car.

Shit. She must have taken off on foot while he was listening to the old chief. Same old Kolabati. She’d lied to him. Should he have expected any less?

Me, of all people.

He’d spent most of his life lying. He mentally kicked himself for believing she’d changed. But she’d been so convincing. Had she ever had any intention of coming back to New York with him?

That’s what you get for playing by the rules.

Maybe he and Ba simply should have tied up Moki and taken his necklace, then ripped Kolabati’s from her throat and left her to die of old age in a few hours. Not that it hadn’t occurred to him, yet everything within him balked at the plan. But maybe this hadn’t been the time for niceties. Too much at stake.

He picked his way downhill, driving as quickly as he dared, while scanning the road ahead in the headlights and as far to each side as he could see in the dark. Nothing. Nothing moving but the wind. As he wound down from the crest, the wind abated and the fish and seawater began to rain from the sky, narrowing vision even further. An occasional bug began to harass the Isuzu.

Finally he came to the house. The lights were on and the generator was running, just as they’d been an hour ago. Jack leapt out and ran inside, stepping over a thrashing tuna along the way. Not many bugs around at the moment, and those seemed to be ignoring him. The necklace?

Once inside he ran through the halls, shouting Kolabati’s name, and Ba’s too.

Had to find her. Uncertainty gnawed at him. What if she hadn’t returned to the house? What if she was hiding somewhere out on the hillside? He’d never find her.

And where was Ba?

He took the stairs to the upper floor, to the great room, but lurched to a stop when he heard the sound. Ahead, bleeding down the hall from the great room, a buzz, the unmistakable sound of oversize diaphanous wings, hundreds of them, beating madly.

He wanted to turn and run but forced himself to stand fast. Something about the buzzing … not wild and frenzied … calmer, smoother, almost … placid.

He stepped forward. He had to see what was going on. From back here he could see only the front end of the room. The lone lamp that still functioned gave off enough light for him to make out the details. What he saw sent his skin crawling.

Bugs … the great room was full of them, mobbed with them. They obscured the walls, perched on the furniture, floated in the air. All kinds of bugs, from hovering chew wasps to drifting men-of-war, and all facing the same direction, away from the smashed windows, toward the interior of the room. Jack’s legs urged him to get the hell out of here, but he had to see what held them so spellbound.

He dropped to his knees and inched forward. The bugs remained oblivious to him. He stretched out on the bare floor and craned his neck around the edge of the entryway to bring the rest of the room into view.

More bugs. So tightly packed he could barely see through the crush. Then a gust of wind sluiced through the windows, undulating the hovering mass enough for Jack to catch a look at the center of the great room.

They all faced the sculpture, Moki’s final work—the only object in the room on which the bugs had not perched. Its long, arching wooden spokes lay bare for their entire length, from where they sprang from the walls to the jagged, unwieldy aggregate of black and red lava fragments at their center. The bugs hovered about it, every one of them faced toward the center like rapt churchgoers in silent benediction.

And the lava center … it pulsed with an unholy yellow light, slowly, as if in time with the beat of a massive, hidden heart.

A single glimpse and then Jack’s view was obscured again. But that glimpse had been enough to break him out in a sweat and send him sliding back along the floor. Something about that sculpture, the way it glowed, the reverence of the bugs, the entire scene disturbed him on a level too deep to comprehend or understand. Something within him, not from his personal experience, but some sort of racial memory, a warning carved on his hindbrain or encoded in his genes, flooded him with circulating fear, leaving him unable to react in any way but flight.

And when he was far enough down the hall, he rose to his feet and ran around a corner where he stopped, panting. He resented the dread crawling under his skin. He prided himself on his ability to govern his fear, channel it, use it. Now it was nearly out of control. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, willing himself to be calm. Half a minute of that and he was in control again. But his fingers still trembled on their own in the adrenaline aftermath.

He moved toward the stairs—where he found Ba. And a woman struggling in his iron grip.

Jack shook his head. “Bati … some things never change.”

Ba had stayed behind in case something like this happened—or if Jack didn’t make it back.

“I was going back,” she said through clenched teeth. “But my way!”

“I don’t think you can get back, unless it’s with us.”

With her free hand she reached behind her neck and unclasped the necklace, then held it out to Jack.

“Take it then.”

Jack blinked. “What?”

“And while you’re at it,” she said, tapping the center of her forehead, “put a bullet right here.”

“Bati—” He didn’t know what to say.

“You’d rather watch me die slowly?”

Damn her. Always manipulating. She knew he wouldn’t shoot her, and knew he couldn’t sit and watch her rot.

To Ba, he said, “Let her go.” To Kolabati: “Put that back on, and get in the car. You can decide after you’ve met Glaeken, but you are coming with us.”

“Yes,” Ba said. “We must leave. I fear we might already be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

A tortured look flickered across his features, all the more startling because of their usual waxy impenetrability.

“I do not know. I only know I must return to the Missus.”

“Okay, Big Guy. We’re on our way.”

They escorted Kolabati to the Isuzu and put her in the passenger seat with Jack behind her where he could keep an eye on her. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

They weathered the cascade of fish bouncing off the hood and roof as the car swerved through the downhill switchbacks. When Ba finally hit pavement he picked up speed. The wheels skidded on dead fish and clumps of wet seaweed.

“Easy, Ba. If we crack up, we may never get back to the plane, and then this whole trip will be for nothing. If it’s not already.”

“I must get back to the Missus. Quickly. She needs me.”

Jack studied his grim, intent features in the dashboard glow. Ba was scared too. But not of bugs. Scared for his adopted family. Why? Why now? What was happening back there?

WEDNESDAY

In the Still of the Night

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: It’s a minute after midnight. A little over nine hours till the light.

JO: We’re almost halfway home. Hang in there, man.

Monroe, Long Island

Alan felt like a vampire.

Why not? He was living like one. Up all night, sleeping when he could during the light. Reminded him of his days as an intern. Thirty-six hours straight without a wink hadn’t been at all unusual. But he was older now, and the stress of the nights—the insane paradiddles on the storm shutters, the incessant gnawing at the outer walls—carried over into the dwindling daytime, keeping his naps fitful and restless.

He was exhausted, plain and simple. But he couldn’t let Sylvia know. She was a wreck as it was. The only time she got any rest herself was when she could curl up in the basement with Jeffy and Mess and Phemus, secure in the knowledge that Alan was patrolling the upper reaches of Toad Hall.

He was just finishing one of those patrols now, wheeling through the first-floor halls, checking the candles, replacing the ones that were guttering into glowing puddles. The power had failed around midday. He’d thought it might be just a local failure but the radio said LIPA was off-line for good. Another time it might have been romantic. Knowing what was outside, straining to get in, made it anything but.

So now with the midnight rounds completed and fresh candles flickering in every room, Alan settled himself down in the TV room and turned on the radio. Strange how a little adversity could change your habits. A week ago he wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving the radio playing while he’d made his rounds. Now, with the power out and batteries scarce, he didn’t leave it on a moment longer than necessary.

Jo and Freddy were still hanging in there, God bless ’em. Their voices were ragged, sometimes they were completely incoherent—their fatigue enhanced by a little herb, perhaps—as they broadcasted in shifts; their signal seemed at times like it was generated by a collection of frantic, wheel-spinning gerbils, but they weren’t giving in to the fear. Neither was a fair share of their remaining listeners.

And neither was Alan.

Only problem was they didn’t play doo-wop. They played good stuff, some new but mostly so-called “classic rock.” As far as Alan was concerned, the real classic stuff had been sung on street corners—with the bass vocal and popping fingers for rhythm, and close, soaring, three- and four-part harmonies telling the story. That was where it all began. Some great stuff had come out of the sixties, and even the seventies, but the heart of it all, the classic end of the music, had begun in ’55 and tapered into the sixties until the Brits began reinterpreting the music.

“Eight Miles High” came on. Alan could live with that. The Byrds knew their harmony—even if it was two-part masquerading as three-part—and he was losing himself in McGuinn’s Coltranesque solo when he heard an unfamiliar sound from the front hall. He turned off the radio.

Splintering wood.

He pulled the tooth-studded billy from the pouch behind his backrest, laid it in his lap, and wheeled toward the front of the house. As soon as he entered the foyer he saw the problem. After nights of constant effort, the chew wasps finally had managed to rip off the metal weather strip from the bottom of the front door and were now busily at work gnawing rat holes at the floor line. Sharp-toothed lower jaws were visible in two spots, sawing relentlessly at the wood, gouging off pieces, building piles of splinters.

Not good. In no time they’d have a couple of holes big enough to wriggle through. And then Toad Hall would be full of chew wasps—and spearheads, too, no doubt.

All looking for Jeffy. But to get to Jeffy they’d have to go through Sylvia. The very thought of that sickened him.

But to get to Sylvia they’ve got to get through me.

Alan looked around for some sort of backup defense, something to shore up the weak point. He spotted the heavy brass étagère to the right of the door.

Perfect.

He rolled over to it, removed all the netsuke and piled them gently in the corner, then pulled the étagère over onto its side. He tried to let it down easy but it hit the floor with a clang. He found that maneuvering it against the door from his wheelchair was all but impossible, so he slid from the seat onto his knees and worked from the floor.

As he was guiding the thick brass back of the piece against the door, a chew wasp began to wriggle its head through the hole it had made. As its eyes lit on Alan, its movements became more frantic, its toothy jaws gnashed the air hungrily. Alan grabbed his club and bashed in the creature’s skull with two blows. It wriggled for an instant, then lay still, its carcass wedged in the hole, blocking it.

Alan fitted the étagère snugly against the door, then pulled his wheelchair closer. He’d stocked its backrest pouch with the equivalent of a tool chest. Hammer, nails, saw, ax, pliers, screwdriver—anything he might need on short notice during the night.

He took out the hammer and began driving a half dozen of the biggest nails he had into the seams between the tiles along the outer edge of the étagère. Damn shame to mess up this beautiful marble but it could be replaced. The people besieged in Toad Hall could not.

Alan pulled himself back up into his chair and regarded his handiwork. It looked pretty stable. With only wing power behind them, he doubted the bugs were strong enough to push back the heavy brass piece even if he’d left it unsecured. But now, with nails acting as stoppers, he was certain they’d be frustrated until morning. He heard sharp little teeth scraping against the far side of the metal.

“Let’s see you chew a hole in that.”

Tomorrow, though, he’d have to find some way to reinforce the outer surface of the door.

Maybe Ba would be back by then. Alan hoped so. As much as he insisted on his own independence and refused to lean on anyone else, Toad Hall was awfully big. Too big to be adequately patrolled by one man in a wheelchair. With the welfare of Sylvia and Jeffy at stake, he couldn’t let his pride endanger them. As long as Sylvia insisted on staying here, he’d do his best to protect her. But he wished he had Ba for backup. Even more, he wished they’d all moved in with Glaeken last Saturday when the old guy had offered.

“Alan?”

He wheeled around and found Sylvia standing in the foyer entrance. She wore the loose sweater and baggy old jeans that were serving as her pajamas during the siege. Her face was pale and lined from the pillowcase. She did not look like the Sylvia Nash who’d once appeared in The New York Times Magazine with her unique bonsai art—her beautiful trees now lay smashed and broken in the shattered remains of the greenhouse—but Alan found her as beautiful as ever.

“Hey. You’re supposed to be catching some sleep.”

“I heard all that banging. I thought something was wrong.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you, but the chewers have started to gnaw rat holes in the door.”

She came over and dropped onto his lap; she slipped her arms around him and hugged.

“I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t. I’m worried about Ba. I’m afraid he won’t come back. And if he doesn’t, if he’s … dead … it will be my fault for letting him go. I’ll never forgive myself.”

Alan put his arms around her waist. “We’ve been through this, and if anyone can take care of himself, it’s Ba.”

“But I’m worried about you too, Alan. When I’m down in the basement with Jeffy and you’re up here alone I begin to think I’ve been very foolish, very selfish in insisting we stay here. But for some strange reason I feel it more than ever tonight. So I’ve made up my mind. Tomorrow we move in with Glaeken. Hopefully Ba will be back by then and we can all leave here as a group. I want our little family back together again, Alan. Toad Hall is our home, but we’ve got to survive. That comes first.”

He squeezed her against him. “I know what this place means to you. I know how tough it is for you to leave it.”

“It’s like giving up.” He could feel her jaw muscles bunch as she spoke. “I hate to give up.”

“But it’s not giving up or giving in. It’s a strategic withdrawal so you can live to fight another day when you’ve marshaled your forces.”

“I love you,” she said, leaning her head against his. “Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me and my stubbornness.”

“Maybe it’s because of your stubbornness. Maybe I like a woman who don’t take no shit from nobody, not even this Rasalom guy and his bugs.”

Sylvia jerked her head up, fluttered her eyelids, and put on her Southern belle voice.

“Whah, Doctah Bulmuh! Ah don’t believe Ah’ve evah heard you speak that way! Especially in front of a layday!”

“I only speak that way when I’m under a lady.”

They kissed—simultaneously, spontaneously. Whether it was body language or the kind of telepathy that develops between soul mates, Alan didn’t know. And didn’t care. All he knew at that instant was that it was time for a kiss. And Sylvia knew it too. So they kissed. Simple.

“When was the last time we made love?” he heard her say as he nuzzled her neck and inhaled the scent of her.

“Too long.”

They hadn’t had a chance even to sleep together since the attacks.

“Another good reason to move in with Glaeken,” she said. “An excellent reason.”

They sat there for a while, Sylvia cradled on his lap, and held each other, listening to the bugs gnaw at the edges of the brass étagère. Alan realized again how much he loved this woman, how attuned he was to her, like no other person he had ever known. The thought of her coming to harm was unbearable. Tomorrow they’d move to Glaeken’s and she’d be safe, as safe as anyone could be in this madness.

But first he had to see them through the night.

The Bunker

“What’s that?”

Gia bolted upright in bed. A small night-light burned but otherwise the bunker was dark. Beyond the curtain, Abe snored. But between his loud, discordant rumbles … another sound.

Rasping … grinding …

Without disturbing Vicky, Gia slipped out of bed and padded around the curtain to where Abe slept. He lay on his back like a beached whale. She shook his shoulder once and he jolted awake.

“What? What is it?”

“Listen,” she said.

And now, with the snoring silenced, the new sound came through loud and clear. She felt sick when she realized what it was.

“Something’s chewing on the outer wall.”

Abe shook his head. “No. Impossible.”

“Listen! It’s the burrowers. Has to be.”

Abe listened.

“You may be right. They’re trying to get in. But they haven’t a chance. Like I said, four feet of steel-reinforced concrete—an atomic bomb they’ll need. And even then…”

Gia shivered. It sounded good in theory, but what if whatever was out there kept it up all night, night after night, chewing up just a little wall at a time? Eventually they’d get through.

She hurried back to bed and snuggled against Vicky. But sleep was impossible. The noise … the grinding, the chewing … went on and on.

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Day Edition

Flesh Feast (1970) Cine World Corp.

Twilight People (1972) New Worlds

Beyond Evil (1980) IFI-Scope III

The Night God Screamed (1973) Cinemation

From Hell It Came (1957) Allied Artists

The Unearthly (1957) Republic

Night of the Dark Full Moon (1972) Cannon

Bug (1977) Paramount

Creatures of Evil (1970) Hemisphere

The Unknown Terror (1957) 20th Century Fox

The Day the World Ended (1956) AIP

Scream and Scream Again (1970) Amicus/AIP

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) United Artists

Monroe, Long Island

The scrape of metal on metal.

Alan snapped to full alert. Without hesitating he wheeled out of the game room and rolled toward the foyer. That was where it had come from. It sounded as if the étagère had moved. Alan didn’t see how that was possible, but he had his toothed billy out and ready in his lap, just in case.

As he turned into the living room he heard the buzz of wings.

They’re in!

His heart pumped dread but he kept on rolling. Maybe there were only a few. Maybe—

Something flashed toward him. He snapped his head back and it blew by his cheek, jaws grinding furiously.

Chew wasp.

Alan’s heart pumped madly now. He fumbled in his lap for the billy. By the time the bug had banked around for a return run, he had it ready. Visibility wasn’t great in the candlelight so he didn’t swing at it. He simply held the billy between his face and the bug and braced himself.

The chew wasp ran into the club mouth first. It glanced off to the right and shredded its wing on the club’s teeth in passing. Alan left it flopping around on the rug and wheeled into the foyer. It wasn’t going anywhere with one wing and he could administer the coup de grâce later. Right now he needed to push that étagère back into place before any more of its friends got in.

He smelled them first—that rotten carrion odor. And as he rounded the corner from the living room into the foyer he saw two spearheads and another chew wasp wriggle free from behind the étagère and take flight. Either they didn’t see him or they ignored him as they winged up the open curved stairway toward the darkness of the second floor.

Looking for Jeffy.

At top speed he rolled his chair over to the étagère. Not only had it been pushed away from the door, it had been moved with enough force to bend the nails onto their backs. It now rested atop them.

Alan shook his head. “What the…?”

Time enough later to ponder how the little monsters had done this. Right now he had to plug the hole.

With a quick glance over his shoulder at the stairs, Alan slid off the wheelchair to his knees as he had before and threw his weight against the étagère. A squeaky scrape echoed through the foyer as it slid back over the nails and settled again on the floor, flush against the door. Alan turned and leaned his back against it.

Okay. No more could get in, at least for the moment. Now he had to find a way to secure it here until morning. He glanced at his watch: 6:22. Morning was still three hours away. Well, he could sit here all night, just like this; that would do it. Three hours on this marble floor wasn’t forever; it would only seem that way. The problem with staying here was he was a sitting duck for the bugs that had already got in. He knew of at least three. Could be more.

He hefted the billy. At least he didn’t have to concern himself with hunting them down. Sooner or later—most likely sooner—they’d come hunting him. He’d have to be—

The étagère bucked against his back.

Startled, Alan half turned and leaned hard against it with his shoulder. The piece slid back into place.

What the hell was that?

Uneasiness prickled his scalp. That was no chew wasp pushing through its hole. Too much power. Something big out there. Bigger than—

Alan remembered the dents in the storm shutter out front, and that long depression in the yard. He had a feeling whatever had been responsible was back.

Christ!

He didn’t know what it was using to push the étagère but he’d been able to push it back, so maybe things weren’t so bad as they seemed.

And then the étagère moved again, a good foot this time, sliding Alan along with it. He pushed back, his feet scraping along the marble floor, searching for purchase and finding little. And even if they had, he doubted he’d be able to do much.

If only I had two good legs! he thought as he brought all his upper body strength to bear on the étagère.

But what was this thing? How was it pushing the étagère?

As if in answer, a smooth black tentacle, glistening in the candlelight, slid up from the other side and unerringly darted toward his face. Alan ducked and swung at it with his club.

And missed. The tentacle had dodged the blow, almost as if it could see. It came for him again immediately and wrapped around his wrist. Its touch was cold and damp, but not slippery; Alan yanked back in revulsion but couldn’t pull free. His skin was stuck, as if the tentacle were coated with glue. It began drawing him toward the door.

Thoroughly frightened now, he switched the club to his other hand and began pounding on the tentacle. The embedded teeth opened gashes that grew deeper and leaked foul-smelling black liquid with every blow. The traction eased, the grip loosened, and Alan was free again.

But only for a heartbeat. Another tentacle snaked in beside the damaged one and reached for him. Alan fell back and groped in his wheelchair pouch until he found the ax—a hatchet, really, with a short handle and a wedged head, no more than three inches along the cutting edge. But sharp. Alan got a good grip and swung it at the new tentacle. The blade sank deep, severing it clean through about a foot behind the tip. The proximal end whipped back immediately, spraying the foyer with its ebony equivalent of blood, while the free tip wriggled about.

All right!

He pushed the étagère out of the way and quick-crawled to the door, positioning himself to the right of the opening. The little holes had merged into one big one about eighteen inches wide and four inches high. He’d barely set himself when a third tentacle slithered through the near edge. He severed it with a single chop and that tip joined its brother on the floor. A fourth tentacle darted in, then a fifth. Alan hacked at them as soon as they appeared and they withdrew, wounded.

“Yes!” he said, the word hissing softly between his teeth. “Keep ’em coming, you bastards! It’s circumcision time! Let’s see if you’ve got more tentacles than I’ve got chops!”

He was pumped. He knew he was acting a little bit crazy, maybe because he was feeling a little bit crazy. Maybe he’d been in that wheelchair too long. Whatever, here he was, free of it, weapon in hand, defending Toad Hall. He hadn’t felt this alive in years.

Suddenly a half dozen fresh tentacles surged through at once, rearing up, reaching for his arms, his face. He swung wildly, catching one in midair, one against the door. He was taking a bead on another when he heard buzzing wings and gnashing teeth above and behind him.

Bugs!

Instinctively, he ducked, but too late. Pain ripped through his left ear. He touched a hand to the side of his face. It came away red. Alan turned and grabbed the billy. Now he had a weapon in each hand—hatchet in right, club in left—and was eager to use them. The pain and the blood from his ear had released something within him. His fear was gone, replaced by a seething rage at these creatures who dared to invade his home and threaten the people he loved.

He chopped at an extended tentacle, severing its tip, then heard the buzz again and swung blindly at the air.

And connected. The broken, oozing body of the chew wasp—its jaws still smeared with blood from Alan’s ear—bounced off the door and fell to the floor. Immediately, one of the tentacles coiled around its squirming form and yanked it outside.

Alan chopped at a particularly thick tentacle, severing it halfway through. As he drew back to finish the job, something slammed against his back, shooting a blaze of pain through his right shoulder. He grunted with the sudden agony. As wings buzzed furiously by his ear, he dropped the billy and reached over his shoulder. When his questing fingers found the horny beak piercing his flesh, he knew a spearhead was trying to make him its next meal. It must have come in at an angle and glanced off his shoulder blade. A direct hit would have put it right through to his chest cavity. Had to get it out before it dug itself deeper and finished the job.

He wrapped his fingers around the twisting, gnawing beak and yanked. He was rewarded with another eruption of vision-dimming pain, but the spearhead came free. It writhed and twisted and wriggled and flapped madly as he brought it around front. But as he raised his hatchet to chop it in half, the tentacle he’d wounded seconds ago coiled around his right wrist and wrenched it toward the door. He groaned as the sudden movement sent a bolt of pain lancing down his arm from the shoulder wound. His fingers went numb momentarily; he lost his grip on the hatchet handle. But he couldn’t worry about that. Had to get his right hand free. Now.

So Alan struck at the tentacle with the only weapon he had—the bug writhing in his left hand.

Using the spearhead’s pointed beak as a knife, he stabbed and slashed madly, repeatedly. Desperate breaths hissed between his teeth. This was out of hand now. He’d lost the high ground and was on the defensive. He spotted a slew of new tentacles sliding under the door—how many did this thing have?

Had to retreat. He was going to be in very big trouble if he didn’t pull free in the next few seconds and get out of reach.

He took a big swing with the spearhead, angling it so it cut into the open, oozing area he’d previously damaged with the hatchet. As the bug’s sharp beak pierced through the far side, Alan pushed it deeper, cramming it into the tissues. It must have struck a vital nerve trunk because the distal end of the tentacle went into spasm, coiling and uncoiling wildly.

Alan pulled free of its grasp and rolled away from the door. Leaving his wheelchair behind, he rose to his hands and knees and scrambled across the foyer toward the living room.

He almost made it.

He cursed his legs as they slumped beneath him, slowing him down. His right arm was letting him down too. Had to depend on his arms for a good part of his speed, but the right was wounded. His left hand was just inches from the living room carpet when he felt something coil about his ankle. Even then, a good strong kick might have freed him, but his legs didn’t have one in them. He realized then that he should have tried for the stairs. If he’d been able to reach the newel post of the banister he’d have had something to hold on to.

As the tentacle dragged him back, Alan clawed at the marble floor, looking for a crack, a seam, anything to hold on to, but found nothing. It had been too expertly installed. He kicked feebly with his free leg but then felt another tentacle wrap around that ankle and worm its way up to his thigh.

Now he was being dragged back at a faster rate.

He spotted his hatchet where he’d dropped it. He tried to reach it. He stretched his good arm and fingers to the limit, until he thought his shoulder would dislocate, but could not get near it. Like a departing sailor gazing at his home port from the stern of a ship, he watched the hatchet slip farther and farther out of reach.

Next came his wheelchair. He grabbed at that, caught hold of a footrest, but it simply rolled with him. He clutched it because it was all he had to hold on to.

And then other tentacles, Alan couldn’t count how many, looped and coiled around his legs, and no way he could kick free now, even if he’d had two good legs. He was helpless. Utterly helpless.

I’m going to die.

Although he never stopped struggling against the inexorable tug of the tentacles, the realization was a sudden cold weight in his heart. Fear and dread shot through him, but no panic. Mostly sadness. Tears sprang into his eyes, tears for all the things he’d never do, like walking again, or watching Jeffy grow up, or growing old with Sylvia. But most of all, for the way he’d be dying. He’d never feared the moment, but then he’d always imagined it arriving when he was gray and withered and bedfast, and that he’d welcome it with open arms.

The tentacles dragged his legs through the opening at the bottom of the door. The jagged wood raked the backs of his thighs and then dug into the flesh of his hips and buttocks as he became wedged into the opening.

He wasn’t going to fit through. At least not in one piece.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, I don’t want to die like this!

And suddenly amid the fear and the grief and the pain he realized that he had to die a certain way. He’d been given no choice in how death was coming to him, but he had a say in how he met it.

Silently.

He groaned as the traction on his legs increased and the ligaments and tendons and skin and muscles began to stretch past their tolerances.

Quiet!

He reached up and grabbed the thin cotton blanket from the wheelchair and stuffed it deep into his mouth, gagging as the fabric brushed the back of his throat.

Good. Gag. Then he couldn’t scream. And he mustn’t scream.

Oh God, the pain!

Had to be quiet because if he let out the pain and fear in a scream, Sylvia would wake and come for him … he knew her, knew if she thought he was in danger, she wouldn’t hesitate, she’d charge, she’d wade through a storm of bugs and tentacles to get to him …

Alan screeched silently into his blanket-stuffed mouth as the ball at the head of his right femur twisted free and dislocated from the hip socket with a grinding explosion of agony, and screamed again as the left one followed.

Quiet, quiet, QUIET!

… because it was too late for him and if she came upstairs they’d have her too, and after they got Sylvia, they’d get Jeffy and then Glaeken wouldn’t be able to assemble whatever it was he had to assemble and the Otherness would win it all and the bugs would feast on everybody … he just prayed he’d bought Sylvia and Jeffy enough time … prayed his body would stay wedged in the opening and block the bugs out for a while because soon Toad Hall would be swarming with them and if they had enough time they’d gnaw through the cellar door and all this agony would be for nothing … so he had to hold on and keep quiet for just a few more seconds because in just a few more seconds it would be over and …

Alan’s blanket drank the howl that burst from his throat as his right leg ripped free of his body and slid away into the night and yet he smiled within as he felt his consciousness draining away in the warm red stream pumping from his ruptured femoral artery, smiled because nothing was quieter than a dead man.

“Alan?”

Sylvia awoke with a start and stared wildly around, momentarily disoriented in the darkness. Then she saw the candle flickering on the Ping-Pong table and remembered she was in the basement. She reached out a hand and found Jeffy’s slumbering form curled next to her on the old Castro Convertible.

She squinted at the luminous dial on her watch: 7:30. Had she been asleep that long? She must have been more tired than she’d thought. At least the night had gone quickly. Daylight was due at 9:10. Another long, long night was drawing to a close. She stretched. Soon Alan would be knocking on the upstairs door, telling them all to rise and—

Then she heard it.

On the upstairs door—scratching. She leapt out of bed and hurried to the foot of the steps to listen again.

No—not scratching. Gnawing.

Trembling, chewing her upper lip, Sylvia crept up the stairs, telling herself with each tread that she was wrong, that it couldn’t be, that her ears had to be playing dirty tricks on her. Halfway up she caught the smell and abruptly ran out of denials. She rushed the rest of the way to the door where she pressed her palms against the solid oak panels and felt the vibrations of countless teeth scoring the outer surface.

Alan! Dear God, where’s Alan?

She turned the knob and gripped it with both hands. Bugs in Toad Hall. She had to see. She could hear them and smell them but she had to see them to believe so many had invaded her house. She edged the door open a crack and saw a sliver of hallway. The creatures immediately attacked the opening and she slammed the door shut. But she’d seen enough.

Bugs. The hall … choked with them—floating, drifting, darting, bumping, hanging on the walls.

Sylvia began to tremble. If the halls had been taken over, where was Alan? To invade Toad Hall they had to get past Alan.

“Alan?” she cried, her face against the vibrating door.

Maybe he’d reached the movie room and locked himself in. Maybe he was safe.

But those were only words. She could find no place in her heart and mind that truly believed them. A sob built in her throat and ripped free as a scream.

“ALAN!”

Homecomings

Monroe, Long Island

Ba heard Jack shout, “Watch out!” as Kolabati cried out.

He swerved to avoid the panel truck that had cut through the intersection ahead of them, missing it by inches.

“Christ, that was close. Ease up, Big Guy. If we T-bone someone we may not get there at all.”

Ba could not ease up. He had commandeered the steering wheel at the Ashe brothers’ airfield. He was unused to handling Jack’s big car. He barely slowed for stop signs and none of the traffic lights were working. No matter. He had to get home. Now. The Missus needed him.

As the familiar streets and storefronts of downtown Monroe flashed by, his anxiety increased with every passing block. Empty streets, smashed storefronts, and only a few frightened people and fewer cars hurrying through the waning afternoon light. The town had deteriorated badly in the two days since he’d left.

Ba felt Bill Ryan’s hand on his shoulder.

“Jack’s right. Between us we’ve traveled more than halfway around the globe and back. Be a shame to crack up and die so close to home.”

A new voice: “Yes. No need to hurry.”

Who? The strange one, Nick, had spoken.

“What do you mean, Nick?” Bill said.

But Nick said no more.

No need to hurry …

Did that mean nothing to worry about? Or … too late to matter?

Ba had spent the entire trip from Maui in this state of anguished fear. He could not escape the feeling that something terrible was happening at Toad Hall without him. He had called the Missus time after time from the phone on the jet. Just a word or two from her was all he would have needed to ease his mind. But he could not make the connection.

Fortunately the trip had gone well. They had caught the jet stream and had made excellent time. Even more fortunate, Bill Ryan and Nick had already arrived and were waiting for them when they touched down.

Ba had tried to call again from the hangar phone but still no response. And so now he approached the scene of a tragedy. He knew it. He should not have left Toad Hall. If anything had happened to the Missus and her family …

Here was Shore Drive. Now the front wall of Toad Hall’s grounds, the gateposts, the curving driveway, the willows, Toad Hall itself, the front door—

“Oh, shit,” Jack said softly. “Oh, no.”

“Missus!”

The word escaped Ba when he saw how the bottom half of the front door had been smashed through and torn away. He was out the door and running toward the house, taking the front steps in a bound. The door hung open, angled on its hinges. He burst through and skidded to a halt in the foyer.

Carnage. Furniture strewn about, wallpaper hanging in tatters like peeling skin, the Doctor’s wheelchair sitting empty in the middle of the floor, and blood. Dried blood puddled on the threshold and splattered the outer surface of the door.

Fear such as he’d never known gripped Ba’s throat and squeezed. He’d battled the Cong and fought off pirates on the South China Sea, but they’d never made him feel weak and helpless like the sight of blood in Toad Hall.

He ran through the house then, calling for the Missus, the Doctor, Jeffy. Through the deserted upstairs, back down to the movie room, to another staggering halt before the cellar door. The door stood ajar, its finish gnawed off, its beveled panels splintered, nearly obliterated. Ba pulled it open the rest of the way and stood at the top of the stairs.

“Missus? Doctor? Jeffy?”

No answer from below. He spotted the flashlight lying on the second step. He picked it up and descended slowly, dreading what he’d find.

Or wouldn’t find.

The basement was empty. A red candle had burned down to a puddle on the Ping-Pong table. Ba’s finger trembled as he reached out and touched the pooled wax. Cold.

Feeling dead inside, he dragged himself up the stairs and wandered out to the front drive. Jack and Bill stood by the car. Kolabati and Nick waited within.

Bill said, “Are they…?”

“Gone,” Ba said. His voice was so low, he could barely hear himself.

“Hey, Ba,” Jack said. “Maybe they left for—”

“There is blood. So much blood.”

“Aw, jeez,” Jack said softly.

Bill lowered his head and pressed a hand over his eyes.

“What do you want us to do, Ba?” Jack said. “You name it, we’ll do it.”

A good friend, this Jack. They had met only a few days ago and already he was acting like a brother. But nothing could ease the pain in Ba’s heart, the growing grief, the bitter self-loathing for leaving the people he loved—his family—unguarded. Why had he—?

He whirled at the sound of a car engine starting in the garage at the rear of the house. He knew that engine. It belonged to the 1938 Graham—the Missus’s favorite car.

Fighting a surging joy, afraid to acknowledge it for fear that it might be for nothing, Ba stumbled into a run toward the rear. He had gone only a few steps when the Graham’s shark-nosed grille appeared around the corner of the house. The Missus was behind the wheel, Jeffy beside her. Her mouth formed an O when she saw him. The old car stalled as she braked and then she was out the door and running across the grass, arms outflung, face twisted in uncontrollable grief.

“Oh, Ba! Ba! We waited all day for you! I thought we’d lost you too!”

And then the Missus did something she had never done before. She threw her arms around Ba, clung to him, and began to sob against his chest.

Ba did not know what to do. He held his arms akimbo, not sure of where to put them. As overjoyed as he was to see her alive, it certainly was not his place to embrace the Missus. But her grief was so deep, so unrestrained … he had never seen her like this, never guessed she was capable of this magnitude of sorrow.

And then Jeffy ran up, and he too was crying. He threw his arms around Ba’s left leg and hung there.

Gently, gingerly, hesitantly, Ba lowered one hand to the Missus’s shoulder and the other to Jeffy’s head. His elation at seeing them was tempered by the slowly dawning realization that the picture was incomplete.

Someone was missing.

“The Doctor, Missus?”

“Oh, Ba,” she sobbed. “He’s gone. Those … things … killed him and dragged him off! He’s gone, Ba! Alan’s gone and we’ll never see him again!”

For a moment Ba thought he glimpsed the Doctor’s face peering at him from the shadows in the backseat of the Graham, thought he felt the warmth of his easy smile, the aura of his deep honor and quiet courage.

And then he faded from view and something happened to Ba, something that hadn’t happened since his boyhood days in the fishing village where he was born.

Ba Thuy Nguyen wept.

As the Change progresses above, so progresses the Change below.

Rasalom revels in his new form as it grows ever larger. Suspended in its cavern, he is the size of an elephant now. To make room for him, more earth drops away into the soft yellow glow of the bottomless pit below.

With his senses penetrating deep into the earth, Rasalom sees the Change progressing unimpeded, far ahead of schedule. Chaos reigns above. The sweet honey nectar of fear and misery, the ambrosia of rage and ruin continues to seep through the strata of the earth to nourish him, help him grow, make him ever stronger.

And in the center of the dying city, Glaeken’s building stands unmolested, an island of tranquillity in a sea of torment. Members of his pathetic little company now rush back from trips here and there around the globe with their recovered bits and pieces of the first and second swords. All of them still clinging so doggedly to their hope.

Good. He wants to let that hope grow until it is the last great hope left for all humanity. Let them think they’ve been doing something important, something epochal. The higher their hope lifts them, the longer the fall when they learn they’ve struggled and died for nothing.

But Rasalom senses them taking comfort in their relative safety, drawing strength from their comradeship. Their peace, uneasy though it may be, is a burr in his hide. He cannot allow this to continue unchallenged. He does not wish to destroy them—yet. But he does wish to breach their insulation, unsettle them, vex them, start them looking over their shoulders.

One of them must die.

Not out in the streets, but in the heart of their safe haven. It must be an ugly death—nothing quick and clean, but slow and painful and messy. And to make the death as unsettling as possible, it must befall a dear member of their number, one who seems the most innocent, the most innocuous, one they never would expect him to single out for such degradation.

The new lips gestating within the sac twist into a semblance of a smile.

Time for a little fun.

In the tunnel leading to the cavern, Rasalom’s skin, shed days ago, begins to move. It ripples, swells, fills out to living proportions. Then it rises and begins its journey toward the surface.

As it walks, it tests its voice.

“Mother.”

Queens, New York

Ba should be driving, Bill thought as he raced along the deserted LIE, aiming the big Crown Vic for the Queens-Midtown Tunnel like a bullet from a gun. He glanced at his watch: 3:32. Less than forty minutes of light. He would have preferred the Queensboro Bridge but remembered that was impassable due to a gravity hole.

Jack rode shotgun—literally. He sat high in the passenger seat with this huge short-barreled thing—he’d called it a “Spas”—held up in plain sight. An exotic Indian woman was squeezed between them. Ba sat behind Bill with a similar shotgun in plain view. The two warriors were sending a message: Don’t mess with this car. Nick sat behind Jack, Sylvia and the boy were squeezed in the middle, their cat on the boy’s lap, their one-eyed dog panting on the floor.

That left the driving chore to Bill. He knew he wasn’t the greatest driver, but if they ran into one of the roving gangs that had taken over the city during the day he figured he’d do better with a steering wheel than with a shotgun.

He glanced at Jack, who’d been withdrawn since their reunion at the airport. He was definitely on edge. Something eating at him, something he wasn’t talking about.

Bill guessed if it concerned them, they’d find out soon enough.

The farther he drove into Queens, the more obstacles on the expressway; he wove as quickly as he dared around and through the litter of wrecked or abandoned cars. They slowed him and he wanted to fly.

Carol … he hungered for the sight of her, for the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand. She consumed his thoughts, his feelings. He wished he could have got a call through to her from the airport, just to let her know he’d made it back and was coming home.

“Better hurry,” Nick said from the back.

“Going as fast as I can, Nick.”

“Better go faster.” His tone was as flat as when he’d told Ba he had no need to hurry. They’d learned what that had meant. What did this…?

“Faster why?”

“It’s Carol.”

The car swerved slightly as Bill’s fingers tightened on the wheel.

“What about Carol?”

“She’s in trouble.”

WNYW-TV

<no transmission>

Manhattan

Carol found the head waiting in the kitchen.

She was on her way back from Magda’s room, carrying her lunch tray, worrying about Bill and why she hadn’t heard from him yet. She screamed and dropped the tray as she rounded the corner and saw it floating in the air. She recognized the face.

“Jimmy!” she cried, then got control of herself.

Not a head, just a face. And not Jimmy. Not her son. She’d almost stopped thinking of him as her son.

Rasalom. This was Rasalom.

The face smiled—an Arctic gale registered greater warmth. Then its lips moved, forming words, but the voice seemed to come from everywhere. Or was it inside her head?

“Hello, Mother.”

Carol backed out of the kitchen. The face followed.

The tone turned mocking. “Mommy, don’t leave me!”

Carol stopped retreating when her back came up against the dining room table. She looked around for Glaeken but knew he wouldn’t be there. He’d gone out hours ago while she’d stayed to watch over Magda.

Carol swallowed and found her voice. “Don’t call me that!”

“Why not? That’s what you are.”

She shook her head. “No. You grew inside me for nine months, but you were never my child. And I was never your mother.”

Another smile, as cold as the first. “I sympathize with your efforts to dissociate yourself from me. I understand them because I’ve tried to do the same in regard to you. Perhaps you’ve had more success than I.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The bond of flesh. Since the day I was conceived within you, I’ve worn the flesh you gave me. It links us. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it is a fact, one that won’t go away. One we both have to deal with.”

“I’ve learned to deal with it—by not thinking about it.”

“But that doesn’t cancel it. I’ve given this a lot of thought and there’s a better way to deal with it, a way that allows me to come to terms with my fleshy link to you. A way that can benefit you as well.”

The voice in her head was so calm, so soothing. Almost mesmerizing. Carol shook herself.

“I—I don’t want anything from you.”

“Don’t think just of yourself. Think of your friends. I’m offering you and some of them a safe harbor, a haven, a chance to survive the endless night.”

“I don’t trust you.”

The smile again, rueful this time. “I wouldn’t trust me either. But hear me out. You have nothing to lose by listening to my proposal.”

Carol remembered what Bill had told her about a woman named Lisl who’d lost her soul and her life by listening to Rasalom. But what, besides sanity and dignity, did Carol have left to lose? Unless a miracle occurred, tomorrow would hold the world’s last daylight. After Thursday’s sundown she’d be in the same leaky life raft as the rest of the world.

“What do you mean by ‘a haven’? And how many of my ‘friends’ can I take there?”

“A reasonable number.”

“Glaeken among them?”

The face rotated back and forth, the equivalent of a headshake.

“No. Not Glaeken. Anyone else, but not Glaeken. I’ve waited too long to even my scores with him.”

Carol didn’t know what to think, what to do. If Rasalom had agreed to allow Glaeken safe harbor, she’d have known he was lying. No rivalry, no enmity in human history was as long and as bitter and as deeply ingrained as theirs. But he had excluded Glaeken. What did that mean? Could his offer be genuine? If she could save Bill and a few of the others …

“Come downstairs and we’ll discuss it.”

“Downstairs? Oh, no. I’m not leaving this building.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m one floor down. In your apartment.”

“How—how did you get in?”

“Come now, Mother dear. I can do anything I wish. Anything. Come visit. We’ll talk. I’ll be there until darkness falls. After that I’ll have other matters to attend to.”

The face grew dim, became translucent, then disappeared. Gone as if it had never been.

Carol sagged back against the table. Expect the unexpected. Wasn’t that what Glaeken had told her? Easy enough to say, but Rasalom’s face—floating in the air, talking to her as casually as if they’d bumped into each other in an aisle at the A&P.

The ease with which he seemed to have entered the building was bad enough, but knowing he was waiting down in her apartment tied her in knots.

Should she go? That was the question. And what was this all about? Was she supposed to haggle with him? Barter for lives? The responsibility was numbing.

She had to risk it. If she could save even a few people …

But she didn’t want to go alone. She knew she had to, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t have much time, either. If only she had a weapon of some sort. But what could she use against someone who could change the course of the sun and anything else he pleased?

As Carol picked up the broken dishes from the kitchen floor and threw them away, she spotted the knife rack over the sink. She pulled out the wide-bladed carving knife and tucked it into the folds of the old cardigan she’d borrowed from Glaeken. A laughable weapon, considering who she’d be facing. But the weight of the blade in her hand offered some tiny comfort.

She peeked in on Magda and found her sleeping soundly. Carol guessed it would be all right to leave her for a few minutes. Glaeken would be back soon, and Rasalom had said he’d wait only until dark.

She hurried downstairs.

Her apartment had an empty feel. The drapes stood open but because the windows faced north, the light was dusky.

Was he here? What was she supposed to call out? Jimmy? Rasalom? Certainly not son.

“Hello?” she said, settling on that. “Are you here?”

She walked through the living room and down the hall. Why didn’t he answer? Was this some sort of a joke?

Suddenly he stepped out of the bedroom not three feet in front of her. In the flesh.

Naked flesh.

Carol cried out in shock and jumped back.

“Hello, Mother.” His voice was coarse, raspy, more dead than alive.

He stepped toward her as she backed away. His left hand was missing. His slim body seemed faintly luminescent, and his genitals … he was hugely erect, pointing directly at her face. Suddenly he darted by her and positioned himself between her and the door.

She turned and faced him, her heart thudding, her palm slick on the handle of the knife in her sweater.

“Wh-what’s this all about? I thought you wanted to talk.”

He smiled. “Isn’t it wonderful what desperation does to people? It paralyzes some, makes others brutish, and makes others stupid. You fall into that final category, Mother.” He spat the last word. “What’s this about? It’s about a love note to Glaeken and the rest. It’s about defilement and slow, painful death, Mother. Incestuous rape and matricide. In other words, you and me.”

He leapt at her. Reflexively Carol pulled out the knife and held it before her with both hands. She felt the impact as Rasalom’s body struck it, felt the skin part before the point, felt the blade sink deep into his flesh. He grunted and stepped back. He looked down in wonder at the knife handle protruding from his upper abdomen, just below the breastbone. He touched the handle with a finger, then looked up at her.

“Mother … you shock me. I guess there are still a few surprises left in this world.”

“Oh, God!”

“He won’t help you. He was never there. But I am here now. And I am your God. Think of it, Mother. You are about to be raped by God. And afterward…” He caressed the handle like a priapic tool … “I shall use this to skin you alive. Won’t that be a nice gift to hang in Glaeken’s closet? Your skin.”

Carol screamed and tried to dash past him but he caught her with his only hand and slammed her back against the wall. The breath whooshed out of her with the impact. As she tried to regain it, the door burst open.

“Carol!”

A group of men—some of them armed—burst in, with Bill in the lead. He leapt to her side and Carol clung to him, sobbing.

“Oh, Bill, oh, Bill, thank God you’re here!”

“You!” Bill glared at Rasalom, who had stepped back and appeared to be surveying the scene with amusement.

Jack stepped forward and faced Rasalom, a shotgun of some sort cradled in his arms. Ba stood by the door, similarly armed, while Nick stood behind him in the hall.

“Who the hell are you?” Jack said.

“I once knew him as Rafe Losmara,” Bill said. “But his real name is Rasalom.”

Rasalom bowed, unfazed by the intruders. “At your service.”

Jack’s expression was skeptical as he glanced at Bill, then back to Rasalom’s slim, naked figure.

“Doesn’t look like the Rasalom I’ve met.”

“I am many things to many people.”

Bill was staring at the handle protruding from Rasalom’s abdomen.

“Is that a knife…?”

The sight of the knife seemed to unsettle Jack. “I’ve just been through this movie.”

As Carol wondered what Jack meant, Rasalom smiled at him and said, “Have much success on your trip to Maui, Heir?”

Heir? What was happening here? Jack looked ready to explode as Rasalom turned to Bill and yanked the blade free.

“Please don’t be concerned, Father. I’m a rapid healer.”

“Yeah?” Jack’s face was tight with rage. In a single smooth, swift motion he had his shotgun extended to arm’s length, its muzzle inches from Rasalom’s face. “Heal this.”

The explosion was deafening. Close against her Bill cried out in shock as Carol screamed and turned away, but not before she saw Rasalom’s head disintegrate behind the muzzle flash.

A moment later, Bill’s hushed, awed whisper slipped past the ringing in her ears.

“Look at that!”

Carol turned and saw Rasalom’s headless body lying on the floor. It seemed to be shrinking, deflating. And then she saw why. Loose soil was pouring from the stump of his neck.

“Dirt,” Jack said. “This wasn’t him, just skin filled with dirt.” His eyes were more than a little wild as he gave the remains an angry kick. “Dirtbag.”

Glaeken hobbled through the doorway then.

“What has happened here?”

Carol quickly ran over the events of the past twenty minutes. Glaeken nodded with slow resignation.

“Leave your skin in my closet, he told you?”

Carol felt Bill tighten his grip around her shoulders.

“Why?” Bill said. “What does it mean?”

“More of his games. A diversion while he waits for the Change to be complete. One more thing to confound, confuse, sicken, and terrify us. He probably meant to leave Carol’s skin and his own. A grisly reminder to me that his Change is far along to completion.”

Glaeken went to Rasalom’s remains and lifted the skin by both feet. Jack helped. Together they shook the last of the dirt from within. It felt dry and light, almost like an oversize set of a child’s footed pajamas. Glaeken rolled it up, then tucked it under his arm and started for the door.

“Come upstairs. I want to get rid of this once and for all. Then we have work to do.”

She noticed Jack looking around with a panicked expression.

“Hey! Where’s Kolabati?”

Rasalom’s skin smoked, twisted, browned, blackened, and burned in the fireplace. Carol watched as Glaeken pushed it deeper into the flames with the poker. As the ashes curled and rose through the flue, he turned and surveyed the gathering of his inner circle.

Carol surveyed it as well. The newcomers were Sylvia Nash and her son, huddled against her. Pale, distant, remote in her grief, Sylvia sat quietly in a corner of the huge sofa. Carol’s heart went out to her. Alan was missing. Bill had told her what had happened. She hadn’t got to know that man in the wheelchair, but during their brief contact last Saturday Carol had sensed something fine and strong within him. And now, looking at Sylvia, she could sense a comparable rebellious strength within her. This woman had been battered but refused to bow. Ba stood tall behind her like some preternatural guardian.

Carol leaned against Bill; Nick sat stiff and straight but inattentive on Bill’s far side.

Jack had disappeared, searching for a woman he’d brought back from Hawaii.

“Well,” Glaeken said, jamming his hands into his pockets as he looked at Bill and Nick, “our wanderers have returned. What have you brought back?”

Bill reached into a sack and pulled out a few odd-shaped pieces of rusted metal. He dropped them onto the marble-topped coffee table.

“This is the best I could do.”

Glaeken picked up the pieces, examined them closely, then nodded.

“Amazing. These are from the blade. How—?”

“Nick helped. I’d never have found them without him. But are they … is it enough?”

“These are fine. We need only a sample of the metal. I—”

Jack burst in then, his expression bleak. “She’s gone! Disappeared! I can’t find a trace of her.”

Glaeken stared at him. “But how—?”

“Rasalom’s skin … walking around … I got distracted … shit!”

He tossed a heavy, intricately carved necklace onto the table. It rolled and skidded to a stop in front of Glaeken. He didn’t pick it up to examine it. He seemed to know it was right merely by looking at it.

“The other?”

Jack lowered his gaze. “Where do you think? Kolabati’s got it.”

Carol noticed Glaeken’s complexion fade two or three shades toward white. He seated himself—carefully.

“And she’s gone?”

“I got suckered,” he said. “Twice. Let myself get distracted. But there’s enough here to do your thing, right? I mean, you’ve got the kid, pieces of the old sword, and one of the necklaces. That’s enough, right?”

Glaeken sat motionless for an endless moment, then he shook his head, slowly, painfully.

“No, Jack. I wish it were, but we need the combined power within the pair of necklaces to make this work.”

Jack shot to his feet and began to pace the room. Carol had learned something about him from Glaeken during the past few days, how he made his living working for people who had been let down by everyone else. Now he obviously felt he’d let them all down and his failure was eating him alive.

“I don’t know where she is. She took off into the city. She could be anywhere. She could be dead.”

“It’s all right, Jack,” Glaeken said. “You brought her back.”

“But I didn’t get it done. That’s the bottom line: I didn’t get it done!”

“I doubt if anyone else on earth could have returned with even one of the necklaces.”

“All fine and good. But you’re telling me one necklace doesn’t cut it, so the whole trip was a waste of time. That makes Bill’s trip a waste of time. And I took Ba with me, and maybe if he’d stayed home…”

Jack didn’t finish the thought. He stopped and faced the group. His eyes were tortured. It took him a moment to find his voice again.

“I blew it. And because of that, there’s no way out now, for any of us. I’ve let everybody down. I’m sorry.”

He turned and started for the door. Carol tried to think of something to say that would ease his pain, lighten his load, but before she could call out to him, she saw Sylvia reach out and grab his arm as he passed. He stopped and stared down at her. She rose wordlessly, slipped her arms around him, and hugged him.

For a moment Jack stood stiffly, looking baffled, then he lifted his arms and returned the embrace. He closed his eyes as if in pain.

Bill rose to his feet and Carol rose with him.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Bill said. “Really. We know you gave it your best shot. We trust in that. And if that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is. We go on from here as best we can.”

He stepped toward Jack and extended his hand.

Jack eased away from Sylvia and gripped Bill’s hand, then Carol hugged him, then Glaeken offered his own hand.

His throat working, his voice on the verge of crumbling, Jack stepped back and stared at the semicircle that had formed around him.

“You people … you people. Where’d you all come from? Where’ve you been all my life?”

His voice seemed to fail him then. He took a deep breath, held it, then let it out as he turned to Glaeken.

“I’ll keep searching for her, but she knows this city. She’s lived here. If she doesn’t want to be found, then…”

Shaking his head, he turned and walked out the door.

When he was gone, they all stood and stared at each other in silence.

“There’s no hope then?” Carol said.

Glaeken heaved a sigh, slow and heavy, as he shook his head. His eyes were remote, his disappointment palpable.

“If there is, it depends on Kolabati having a change of heart. And that…” He shook his head again.

“That’s it?” she said. “We’ve lost? What do we do now?”

“We do what we’ve always done,” Bill said. “We don’t back down. And we refuse to be anything less than we are.”

Carol looked at him standing tall and defiant. He’d told her what he’d been through in the past five years, and if that hadn’t broken him, she doubted anything could. She realized in a blaze of heat how much she loved Bill Ryan.

Glaeken too seemed to draw strength from him.

“You’re right, of course. We can make Rasalom come for us rather than crumble and fall toward him. That will be a victory of sorts.” He extended his elbow toward Sylvia. “Mrs. Nash, if you’ll allow me, I’ll show you the apartment I’ve been holding for you.”

As they left, Bill turned to Nick.

“Want me to take you back to your room?”

Nick was staring at the flames in the fireplace. To Carol’s surprise, he answered.

“I want to watch the fire. I want to see where all the ashes go.”

Carol dared a quick glance at the fireplace, ready to turn away if Rasalom’s skin was still there. But it wasn’t—at least not recognizably so. Just burning logs.

“They go up the chimney and float away, Nick,” Carol said.

“Not all of them. Some are on the window.”

Carol turned and for the first time noticed the ashes sticking to the picture window. She gasped and clutched Bill’s arm when she saw how they clung in a gray, feathery pattern—the shape of a headless man, spread-eagled against the dying light.

Bill hurried to the wall and touched a button. The drapes slid closed.

“Maybe I’d better walk you home.”

“I can’t go back there.”

The thought of that pile of dirt on the rug, the memory of what he’d planned to do—it sickened her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Carol looked at him. She didn’t know how else to put this, other than come right out and say it.

“Can’t I stay with you?”

He stared at her for a long moment, then reached out, pulled her close, and kissed her.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for days.” He sighed. “For years. For decades. Forever, I think.”

She looked up at him, into his clear blue eyes.

“It’s time, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes. Long past time, I think.”

He took her hand and led her toward his apartment.

The Bunker

“Really, Jack,” Gia said into the shortwave microphone. “We’re okay. Everything’s a mess topside, but we’re fine down here.”

With the coming of daylight, the grinding had stopped. Why, she couldn’t say. Maybe the burrowers returned to the hole, maybe they went dormant during the light time. All Gia knew was that the damned noise had stopped.

But with darkness upon them, she was sure it would start again.

“You don’t sound so sure.”

I’m trying my best, she thought.

She didn’t want to give Jack even a hint about the burrowers. She knew if he thought they were in the slightest danger he’d hop in the first car he could find and rush to them.

And never make it. Jack was as tough and resourceful as they come, but even he couldn’t prevail against the horrors of the night. They’d never see or hear from him again. So she couldn’t let him suspect a thing.

“You’re the one who doesn’t sound good,” she said, deflecting the talk from herself.

“Yeah, well, I came up short on the Maui trip.”

When he’d called earlier to tell her he’d landed safely, he hadn’t mentioned success or failure. Now she heard the full story. Kolabati … that bitch.

“One isn’t enough. I need to find the second.”

“You’re not thinking of going out tonight.”

“I may be crazy, but I’m not insane. Speaking of night, are you sealed in?”

“All three hatches locked up tight.”

But the threat wouldn’t come by way of the hatch. It would come through the walls.

Somehow they had to hold out through tonight.

Until tonight, Carol had made love to only two men in her life, both of them husbands. Bill was the third and by far the most anxious. His hands trembled as he undressed her, as he helped her remove his own clothes, as he caressed her.

“I’m not very practiced at this,” he told her when they were lying skin-to-skin, and even his voice trembled.

“I am,” Carol said, and drew him into her.

What he lacked in technique he more than made up for with the intensity of his passion. Their lovemaking rocked the mattress. Hot, fierce, and over too soon for Carol, but somehow it left her as breathless as Bill. She hugged him tight against her, reveled in his being warm and wet within her.

And then she heard him sobbing softly on her shoulder.

“Bill? Are you okay?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. It’s just … I keep thinking … what a waste. This is so wonderful. I’ve never felt so close to another human being in my entire life. I’m way past my prime, Carol. We can all count the rest of our days on one hand, and I’m just now learning what it’s like to make love. All those years—wasted! My life—wasted! What an idiot!”

“Don’t you say that, Bill Ryan. Don’t you ever let me hear you say that!” She shared his hurt, but she was angry at him too. “You did not waste your life. Maybe your beliefs were misplaced, but not your actions. You spent your life being a father, a real father, to hundreds of lost and abandoned boys, the first and maybe the best father they ever knew. You couldn’t have done that if you’d had a wife and children of your own. You couldn’t have been there twenty-four hours a day for them like you were. So it wasn’t wasted at all. You made a difference, Bill. A big difference. A lot of grown men are walking around who still remember you, who still have a warm place in their hearts for their beloved Father Bill, who are maybe good to their own kids because you were good to them, because you showed them how it’s done. That’s a legacy, Bill, one that might have gone on for generations if Rasalom wasn’t trying to bring all our generations to an end. So don’t you dare say you’ve wasted your life—at least not in front of me.”

After a long pause, Bill lifted his head and kissed her.

“I love you,” he said. “I puppy-loved you in high school and then buried it in an unused corner like a bone. But it never went away. I think I’ve always loved you.”

“And I think part of me always loved you, a little bit. But now all of me loves you—a lot.”

“Good. Does that mean we do this again? Soon?”

“How soon?”

“Now?”

And then she realized that he was hard again inside her.

“Oh my.”

The Final Piece

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: The Internet’s definitely down again, folks. Talk about a bummer.

JO: And worse, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon, ten minutes of light left.

FREDDY: Yeah. According to the Sapir curve, this is the next to last sunset. Let’s all hope he’s wrong, man.

Glaeken, feeling as low as he’d ever felt in all his millennia, had settled Sylvia Nash and her son in her apartment and was on his way back to his apartment.

“Yo, G!”

He looked up and saw Julio, the muscular little bar owner, hurrying his way down the hall.

“A lady downstair lookin’ for Jack.”

“What does she want? You let her in, I hope.”

Night had fallen. The streets would be lethal. Where had she come from?

“Yeah, but I got Doug and Nadia staying in the lobby with her. Thing is, I can’t find Jack nowhere an’ she’s real crazy ’bout seeing him.”

“Is it the woman he sent into hiding?”

“Gia? No way. I know Gia. This lady’s dark. Says her name’s Cola-body or som’ like that.”

Glaeken closed his eyes and steadied himself, making sure he’d really heard that last sentence. Could it be? Could it truly be her? Or could this be another of Rasalom’s games?

Well, he’d know soon enough.

“Bring her to the top floor. Immediately.”

A few moments later, Glaeken was waiting by the door to his apartment when Julio ushered a slim, dark, raven-haired woman from the elevator. Her clothes were torn, her hands and face smudged with grime, the dark almonds of her eyes were wide, wild, exhausted. Not at all the way Glaeken had pictured her, but he sensed the years crowded beneath the smooth youth of her skin.

He could barely drag his eyes from the necklace encircling her throat. He had to have it. How he was going to get it, he did not know, but he could not allow her to leave here with that necklace.

“Miss Bahkti?”

She nodded. “And you’re the man Jack told me about, the old one?”

The old one. He hid his smile. Is that how he speaks of me? Well, it’s true, isn’t it?

“Yes, that would be me. Call me Glaeken. Come in.”

He nodded his thanks to Julio and ushered Kolabati into his apartment. She stumbled crossing the threshold and almost fell, but Glaeken caught her under the arm.

“Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “No. Not in the least.”

He led her to the sofa. She all but fell into it. She rubbed a trembling hand over her eyes and sighed. She looked utterly exhausted.

“Jack told me what was happening to the world. I thought he was lying, trying to trick me. It couldn’t be as bad as he said.” She paused and looked up at Glaeken with haunted eyes. “But it’s worse. Much worse.”

Glaeken nodded, watching her closely. She seemed dazed.

“And worse is yet to come.”

She stared up at him. “Worse? Outside … one street over … something huge and black and slimy … so big it had to squeeze against the buildings on both sides to get down the street. It was covered with tentacles and it was reaching into the windows and pulling out anything it found. I heard people—children—screaming.”

“A long dark night of the soul for the survivors,” Glaeken said.

Kolabati shifted her gaze toward the fire and fingered her necklace.

“Did Jack give you the other necklace?”

“Yes.”

“Is it sufficient for your needs?”

“No.” Where was this leading?

“Then you still need this one?”

“Yes.”

“Will it make a difference?”

“It may. It may be too late now for anything to make a difference, but it is our only chance, our only hope. We must try it.”

She continued to stare at the fire. Her voice was barely audible.

“All right then. You may have it.”

A wave of relief struck Glaeken. The impact forced him to sit. But before he could speak, Jack burst into the room.

“It is you!” he said, glaring at Kolabati.

“Jack—” Her lips curved halfway to a smile but Jack was in her face before they reached it.

“You lied to me! You agree to come back here and talk to Glaeken, then you pull a vanishing act.”

Glaeken wanted to stop Jack before he said anything rash, but noticed that Kolabati was unfazed by the outburst. So he kept quiet.

“That’s true,” she said. “And I am here. And I’ve been talking to Glaeken.”

Jack hovered over her, his anger visibly evaporating.

“Oh. Yeah, but—”

“I said I’d come back—but on my terms, not yours. I am no one’s prisoner, Jack. Ever.”

Glaeken studied Jack and Kolabati as they faced off. He sensed more going on between these two than met the eye, but he had no time to concern himself with that. He jumped into the momentary lull.

“Miss Bahkti has agreed to give us her necklace.”

“We already have it. You said it wasn’t enough.”

“No,” Glaeken said softly. “The one she is wearing.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch, Jack,” she said, her voice laden with exhaustion. “What I’ve seen here has convinced me: You were not exaggerating. Everything is falling apart. This is not a world I wish to live in. If I keep the necklace, I’ll go on living in it—indefinitely. That would be horrible beyond imagining. So I’ve decided to surrender it to someone who can make better use of it.”

“But you’ll die.”

She stared at him. “I’m well aware of that. But I wish to end my life the way I’ve lived it—on my own terms.”

“Fine. But charity isn’t in your nature, Bati. You’re a quid pro quo type—just like me. What’s the quid here? Is it losing its power? What aren’t you telling us?”

“Please, Jack,” Glaeken said, offended by his unyielding hostility. “She’s agreed to give us the necklace, the rest is really none—”

“I’ve always been upfront with Bati,” Jack said, half-turning toward Glaeken. “She knows that. She knows not to expect anything less.” He turned back to Kolabati. “What’s the rest of it?”

She rose and stepped to the window. She stared into the living darkness for a long moment.

“Karma,” she said. “What’s happening out there threatens the turning of the Karmic Wheel.”

She turned and faced Jack. Glaeken felt as if he’d been forgotten.

“You know the stains on my karma, Jack. Kusum shared those stains. The weight of that karmic burden drove him to the acts that led to his death at your hands. I’ve long feared dying because of the retribution my karma will earn me in the next life. Now … now I fear living more than dying.” She touched her necklace again. “And perhaps … if giving this up will allow the Great Wheel to keep turning … perhaps this deed will undo all the others. Perhaps this act will purify my karma.”

Jack nodded his understanding. Glaeken, too, thought he understood: Kolabati was making a deal with her gods—forgiveness of her karmic burden in return for the necklace. Glaeken wondered if truly there might be a Karmic Wheel. He doubted it. In all his many years he had seen no evidence of it. But he was not about to say anything that might dissuade Kolabati from surrendering that necklace.

Without warning, she reached both hands behind her neck, unfastened the necklace, and handed it to Jack.

“There,” she said, her voice husky, her eyes glittering. “This is what you wanted.”

Then she turned and headed for the door.

Jack stared a moment at the necklace in his hand, then started after her.

“Bati, wait. Where’re you going?”

“Outside. It will end quickly there.”

Glaeken rose and followed Jack. He passed him and caught up to Kolabati at the door. He grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“No. I cannot allow you to die like that. Not out there. Not alone.”

“Everyone dies alone.” Her eyes looked frightened, terrified of what lay beyond, waiting for her. “I’m used to being alone.”

“So was I. But I’ve learned to draw strength from companionship. Let the years take you. It will be gentle—far gentler than out there.”

“I’ll stay with you, Bati,” Jack said. “I’ll sit with you to the … the end.”

“No!” she said, her voice rising. “I don’t want you to see me—I don’t want anyone to see me.”

A proud woman, Glaeken thought. And vain, too, certainly. But that was her privilege. He loosened his grip on her arm and clasped her hand. He found it cold, moist, trembling.

“I know a place where you can be alone and comfortable. Where no one will see you. Come.”

As he began to lead her through the door, Jack stepped forward.

“Wait.”

For the first time since Glaeken had met him, Jack looked awkward. His catlike grace was gone. The necklace hung in his hand like a leaden weight. He seemed at a loss for words.

“Please, Jack,” Kolabati said, turning to him, “I haven’t much time.”

“I know. I know. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve thought some awful things about you for the past few years, but what you’re doing now … it takes courage. More courage than I think I’d have if positions were reversed. I think you’re the bravest woman I know.” He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. “I … we all owe you. And we won’t forget you.”

Kolabati nodded slowly. “I know I don’t have your love, so I guess I’ll have to settle for that.” She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. “Good-bye, Jack.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, his expression stricken. “Good-bye.”

Glaeken led Kolabati down to Carol’s apartment—former apartment. Carol would not re-enter it. He guided her to the bedroom but did not turn on the light.

“It’s quiet here. Safe and dark. No one will disturb you.”

He heard the springs squeak as she sat on the bed.

“Will you stay with me?” she said in a small voice.

“I thought—?”

“That was Jack. I couldn’t be comfortable with him here. But you’re different. Your years stretch far beyond mine. I think you understand.”

Glaeken found a chair and pulled it up beside the bed.

“I understand.”

His sentiments echoed Jack’s: This was one brave woman. He took her hand again as he had upstairs.

“Talk to me. Tell me about the India of your childhood—the temple, the rakoshi. Tell me how you spent your days before you came to wear the necklace.”

“It seems I was never young.”

Glaeken sighed. “I know. But tell me what you can, and then I will tell you of my youth, what little I remember of it.”

And so Kolabati spoke of her girlhood, of her parents, of her fear of the flesh-eating demons that roamed the tunnels beneath the Temple-in-the-Hills. But as she talked on, her voice grew hoarse, raspy. The air in the room grew moist and sour as her tissues returned their vital fluids to the world. Her voice continued to weaken until speech seemed a terrible effort. Finally …

“I’m so tired,” she said, panting.

“Lie back.”

He guided her to a recumbent position, gripping her shoulders and lifting her knees. Beneath her clothes her flesh felt wizened, perilously close to the bone.

“I’m cold.”

He covered her with a blanket.

“I’m so afraid. Please don’t leave me.”

He held her hand again.

“I won’t.”

“Not until it’s completely over. Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

She did not speak again. After a time her breathing became harsh and rapid, rising steadily to a ragged crescendo. Her bony fingers squeezed Glaeken’s in a final spasm—

And then relaxed.

All quiet.

Kolabati was gone.

Glaeken released her hand and stepped into the hall outside the apartment. Jack sat cross-legged on the floor next to the door. He looked up.

“Is she—?”

Glaeken nodded and Jack lowered his head.

“Collect both necklaces and the blade fragments and be ready to leave for Monroe as soon as it’s light.”

Jack shot to his feet. “Monroe? Uh-uh. I’m done here. I’m heading out to Abe’s place. Gia and Vicky—”

“Will be much better served by your delivering the necklaces and the fragments to an enclave of smallfolk in Monroe.”

He shook his head. “No can do. They’re scared. I could hear it in their voices. They need me.”

Glaeken leaned heavily against the wall. No. This could not be happening. He could not allow Jack to leave. Not now. It hadn’t mattered when the refashioning seemed impossible. But now … Jack had to be here. To activate the weapon … to claim it and have it claim him … to transform from Heir to Sentinel … Defender … to step into Glaeken’s worn and empty shoes.

“We—the world needs you more, Jack. This must be done. Alan and Kolabati gave their lives to make this possible. If you use the last daylight to go to Gia instead of the smallfolk, their sacrifices will have been for nothing.”

“But Ba—”

“Will not leave Sylvia and Jeffy again. It’s up to you—you and Bill together.”

He punched the wall. “Shit!”

“Jack, if there were any other way—”

“Yeah-yeah.” He waved him off. “Okay, I’ll do it. Just stop jawing about it.”

“Very well.” He twisted the knob and opened the door.

Jack frowned at him. “What are you up to?”

“I promised I’d stay until the end.”

Jack nodded and walked away.

Back in the bedroom, the scent of rot was vague in the air. He resumed his seat and found Kolabati’s hand again. He would hold it until the skin was cold, dry, as flaky as filo dough, until it crumbled to dust and ran through his fingers. And when the sky began to lighten, he would draw the curtains, close the door, and lock the apartment.

The Bunker

“Mommy, make it stop!”

Vicky had her hands over her ears and a pleading look on her face. Gia seated herself on the bed next to her and enfolded her in a bear hug.

“I wish I could, honey.”

The grinding sound gradually had grown from background noise to scratchy Muzak to cacophony. The bunker walls seemed to act as an amplifier and echo chamber. As far as Gia was concerned, the increasing noise could mean only one thing: Whatever they were, there were a lot of them. And they were digging through the concrete.

Gia felt so trapped she wanted to scream. If Vicky weren’t here, she’d be in the middle of one right now, her throat rawed from the ones before it. No way out. The bugs above, the burrowers on all sides and maybe even beneath. They’d been digging their way closer and closer all night.

And worse … worst of all … Jack had called and said Glaeken needed him for some crucial task that only he could do, and that maybe the end result would bring back the light. He’d said he didn’t think he’d have time to do what Glaeken needed and drive out here. He’d asked her what to do, saying if she wanted him to come out, he’d blow off Glaeken to be with her and Vicky.

How could she allow that? If what he had to do offered even the slimmest chance of returning things to normal, she had to let him take it. She’d told him to do what he thought would turn out best for them, for everyone.

The hardest words she’d ever had to say.

She’d ended the transmission feeling almost certain that they’d never see each other again.

And now she watched Abe standing in the center of the bunker floor, turning in a slow circle. When he faced Gia he stopped and gestured to her.

“A word, please, Gia.”

She gave Vicky a parting squeeze. “Be right back, sweetie.”

When she reached Abe he turned her so their backs were to Vicky.

“The night’s almost over,” he said in a hushed voice. “If we can hold out just a little longer, light will come and they’ll leave us alone.”

“Thank God.”

“Thanks we shouldn’t give yet. I have a feeling a few of them are very close.”

“I thought you said this place could withstand an atomic bomb.”

“It can. It can withstand anything man or nature can throw at it. But whatever these things are, from man or nature they ain’t.”

“What do we do?”

“Work your way along the walls with your hands. Look for vibrations. If something’s getting close, you should be able to feel it.”

“And if I find something—then what?”

“I don’t know, but at least we’ll know where to stay away from.”

“Okay,” Gia said slowly. The idea sounded crazy but … not as if she had much else to do. “I’ll give it a shot.”

She started by the entry chimney and moved to her right, rubbing her hands up and down the concrete. The whole wall seemed to be trembling. How was she going to find one spot vibrating more than—

“Oh, God!” she cried as she felt an area of concrete fairly shuddering beneath her palms. “Something’s happening here!” She pressed harder. “I think—”

And then a foot-wide circle of wall exploded, showering her with gray powder and bits of concrete.

Gia cried out and tumbled backward as a tapered snout, glistening white, wriggled into the room. Row upon concentric row of black teeth ringed its central mouth and ground away the concrete as the head twisted back and forth, ninety degrees this way and that. From somewhere behind her she heard Vicky’s high-pitched scream.

Movement to her right—Abe, moving faster than she’d have thought possible.

“Hold your ears, ladies!” he shouted as he stepped up to the creature and jammed one of his shotguns into the opening in its snout.

Gia slapped her palms over her ears, barely in time to muffle the thunderous boom! as he pulled the trigger. He jerked back from the recoil, then another boom! as he fired again.

The thing thrashed and bucked, and then, leaking thick yellow goo, backed away, withdrawing into its burrow.

Two more thundering reports as he fired twice more into the opening.

Then he backed into the center of the space and did a slow turn. His lips were moving. She lowered her hands to hear him.

“Any others, Gia? I can’t tell. My ears are ringing too much.”

Gia scrambled to her feet and listened. She heard Vicky sobbing, but the grinding had stopped.

“I don’t hear anything. Do … do you think you scared them away?”

He shook his head. “I hurt that one, but the rest … I can only think it’s the light. It’s dawn and they’ve gone to do whatever they do when it’s light.”

Gia hurried over to where Vicky cowered on the bed and wrapped her arms around her quaking shoulders. She watched Abe standing alone with his shotgun. He couldn’t defend them alone. And Jack wasn’t coming.

She made a decision.

“Abe … remember your offer of shooting lessons?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to take you up on it.”

His face lit. “Really?”

She nodded. “I need to be able to do what you just did.”

THURSDAY

The Last House on the Left

Monroe, Long Island

“You sure these are the directions he gave you?”

Jack stopped his Vic in the middle of the road and peered about in the gloomy light. Bill Ryan sat in the passenger seat, a pair of shotguns propped between his knees. The two necklaces, the katana, and the blade fragments sat between them in a long, carved wooden box.

Bill peered at the hastily scribbled note in his hand.

“Positive.”

Jack would have preferred to have Ba along on this trek but Bill seemed different today. He had an odd air of peace about him that Jack found strangely comforting.

And he needed comfort, damn it. He should have been heading west today instead of east. Gia’s voice had sounded strange this morning. She’d said they’d had a quiet night … why was he having trouble believing her?

And it had taken goddamn forever to make their way through the carnage in and around the city.

“You grew up in Monroe, didn’t you?” he asked, not because he gave a damn, but to fill the void.

“Yeah, but in all those years I never ventured out here. I don’t think I ever knew there was an out here. This is nowhere.”

Nowhere. Perfect description, Jack thought.

But he’d been here before. Two years ago—damn near to the day—he’d discovered Scar-lip, the last rakosh, in a freak show that had set up out here in the far northeast corner of Monroe.

He was following a dirt road through the heart of a vast salt marsh. To their left, under a low, leaden, overcast sky, Monroe Harbor sat smooth and flat and still and gray as slate. Somewhere dead ahead lay the Long Island Sound. Nothing moved. Not an insect, not a bird, not even a breeze to stir the reeds and tall grass to either side. Like being caught in the middle of a monochrome marshscape.

The only break in the monotony was the file of utility poles marching along the east flank of the road toward what looked like an oversize outhouse near the water at its far end.

“That’s got to be the place,” Bill said.

“Can’t be.”

“You see anything else around? We’re supposed to follow this road out to the house at its end. That’s the place.”

Jack doubted it but put the Vic in gear again and started forward. As they approached the shack, Jack noticed smoke rising from behind it.

“Whoever he is, he’s got a fire going.”

“I hope he builds a better fire than he builds a house,” Bill said.

“Right. Must be the original crooked man and this must be the original crooked house.”

The shack did not seem to have one true upright. The entire one-story structure canted left, leaning against the peeling propane tank on its flank; its crumbling brick chimney canted right; and the aerial atop that canted left again.

But this had to be it: the house at the end of the road.

A battered, antediluvian Torino sat in front. Except for the fire in the back, the place looked deserted.

“You know,” Bill said as they neared it, “that’s not just a plain old fire back there. I don’t know much about that sort of thing, but it looks to me like he’s got some kind of forge going full blast.”

As Jack made a left into the small graveled front yard he noticed ripped and tattered screens, smashed windows—like every other house they’d passed on their way out from the city.

“This doesn’t look good.”

Bill shrugged. “The fire’s going, and Glaeken said…”

“Yeah. Glaeken said.”

He parked and took the wooden box with him when he got out. Bill accompanied him to the door. To the right lay what appeared to be a small vegetable garden, but nothing was growing. The front door opened before they reached the steps and a grizzled old man glared at them through the remnants of the screen in the upper half of the storm door.

“Took your time getting here.”

His shock of gray hair stuck out in all directions. He needed a shave like his stained undershirt needed to be washed—or better yet, tossed out and replaced.

Jack remembered him from two years ago: George Haskins, the man they were looking for. Except now he looked … younger. No matter. This was the guy.

“You’re expecting us?” Jack said.

How could that be? The phones had been out for days.

“Yeah. You got the metal?”

“May we come in?” Bill said.

“I don’t think they’d like that. You see—”

Jack heard a garbled babble from somewhere behind the solid lower half of the storm door.

Haskins looked down and spoke toward the floor. “All right, all right!” Then he looked up at Jack again and thrust his hand through the opening. “They’re real anxious to get started. Gimme the metal.”

Jack handed him the box. Haskins pulled it inside and handed it to someone down by his feet.

“There! You happy now? You gonna shut up and leave me alone now? Good!” He looked up at Jack again. “They been driving me crazy waiting for this stuff.”

“Who?”

“My tenants. I been spending my nights down in the crawlspace with ’em. They been keepin’ the cooters out. If it hadn’t—”

More babbling.

“Okay, okay. They say come back in about four hours. If they really rush it, they should be done by then.”

Curious, Jack stepped up on the stoop and peeked through the opening. He saw maybe a dozen scurrying forms, like midgets, only they couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches tall. And they looked furry.

“What the—?”

Haskins moved to block his view.

“Four hours. They’ll have it for you then.”

“Yeah, but who are ‘they’?” Jacked remembered Glaeken mentioning “smallfolk.”

“My tenants. Been with me since a little before the Beatles broke up, just waitin’ for this day—‘when time is unfurled and we’re called by the world,’ as they put it. Seems to me like time and ever’thing else is unfurled these days. So go away and come back later. They don’t want nobody around while they’re workin’.”

He closed the door.

“Four hours,” Bill said, looking at his watch as they returned to the car. “It’s a little after eleven now. That’ll be after dark.”

Jack sat behind the wheel, unease gnawing at his stomach. Bill was right. According to the Sapir curve, this morning’s sunrise had been the last. After four hours and forty-two minutes of light, the sun would set for the last time at 3:01 P.M. No more day forever after. Only night.

And then there’d be no quarter from the “cooters,” as Haskins called them.

Damn. Could have been to Abe’s by now.

“How the hell are we going to get back?”

Jack started the car. “Drive. How else?”

He pulled out and headed back down the road, wondering how to kill the time. No point in heading back to the city. They’d have to spend it in Monroe.

“What is it with this town?” Jack said.

“Village,” Bill said. “North Shore towns like to refer to themselves as villages.”

“Fine. Village. But what gives here? Every time I turn around, the name pops up. You’re from Monroe, Carol’s from Monroe, the doc, the Nash lady and her boy are from Monroe. And now we’re back out here again making a delivery to some old coot with a house full of furry dwarfs. And I don’t want to get started on what I’ve been through out here in the past few years.”

“I’ve wondered about that myself, and I think I know.”

“The ‘burst of Otherness’ people have told me about?”

Bill frowned. “Haven’t heard that. Take a right at the end of the road down here and I’ll show you.”

Bill guided him to a residential neighborhood, to Collier Street. They stopped in front of number 124, a three-bedroom ranch.

“This is where it happened,” Bill said, his voice strangely husky as he stared at the house through his side window. “This is where Rasalom re-entered the world more than a quarter century after Glaeken thought he’d killed him. It was in the house that used to stand on this lot—the original was set afire—that Carol conceived the child whose body was usurped by Rasalom. That single event has left a stain on this town, given it some sort of psychic pheromone that draws odd people and creates a fertile environment for weird and strange occurrences.”

“Like those dwarfs out in the marsh.”

“Right. They must have sensed Rasalom’s return, must have known they’d be needed, so they’ve been camped out there with George Haskins for decades, waiting for their moment. Now it’s come. Same with the Dat-tay-vao. It traveled halfway around the world to end up in Monroe, where it lived for a while in Alan Bulmer, then moved on to Jeffy. From what I can gather, that journey began about the time Rasalom was reconceived.”

“So it must have known that it would be needed too.”

“So it seems. But there were other occurrences back in that first year, a cluster of hideously deformed children born in November and early December. No one could explain it then, but now I can see that they all must have been conceived around the same time as Rasalom. His very presence in town must have mutated them in embryo.”

Jack nodded. He’d heard about that cluster of deformities and, to his regret, had even met some of them.

“That must have been the ‘burst of Otherness’ I mentioned.”

“Seems likely.” Bill shook his head. “Those deformed children … major tragedies for the families involved but merely warnings of what was to come.”

Jack mulled that as Bill guided him through the town, past the high school where he’d been a football star, past the new house built on the site of his family home, burned to the ground, killing both of his elderly parents.

“I’m sure Rasalom was responsible for that too,” he said in a low voice, thick with emotion. He ground a fist into his palm. “So many others—friends, acquaintances, children! My folks, Jim, Lisl, Renny, Nick, and Danny—dear God, Danny! Damn, I’ve got scores to settle!”

Jack put a hand on Bill’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“We’ll get the bastard. We’ll make him pay.”

Sure we will.

“Meanwhile, let me show you something—if I can find it.”

It took Jack ten minutes of scouting before he recognized the street. He turned onto it and found the vacant lot.

“Two years ago, one of those holes opened here—but only for a few minutes.”

Bill rolled down his window and stared. “Wasn’t that—? Yes! That used to be the old Rubin place. But where’s the house? And I seem to remember a big oak.”

“House and most of the tree—down the hole.”

Bill turned to Jack, eyes wide. “The disappearing house! I remember hearing about it but thought it was a Weekly World News story or something along those lines. I never dreamed it happened in Monroe.” He stared out the window again. “The Rubin place … I can’t believe it. But how did you—?”

Jack put the car in gear. “Long story. But we’ve got time.”

Jack told it as they wandered around Monroe. The town—village—seemed all but deserted. No bodies lay about. No bodies anywhere. Probably because unlike the bugs, which merely sucked the juices from their victims, the newer, bigger hole-things devoured their kills. Occasionally Jack spotted fearful faces peering at them from darkened rooms through shattered windows. As they cruised the main drag through the remnants of the downtown harbor-front area, a gang of lupine scavengers began to approach the car.

Bill lifted one of the Spas-12s.

Jack looked at him. “You know how to work that thing?”

“It’s not rocket science, and I almost hope they try something.” He spoke through thin, tight lips. “I’m feeling real mean at the moment.”

At sight of the shotgun they lost interest and trotted away.

Jack stared at him. “Even you.”

“What?”

“It’s getting to you. Even you’re starting to feel the effects of this craziness.”

“And you’re not?”

“Nah. I’ve made my living waiting for guys like that to start something. You’re just beginning to window-shop in the neighborhood where I’ve spent my adult life.”

Abe’s Place

“Like a rifle it’s not. Not like a pistol even. Those you must caress, treat gently. A shotgun is a brute that throws not single well-aimed punches, but flurries.”

She thought of her father and his hunting shotguns, but they were nothing compared to this. The barrels were longer and smaller gauge. She prayed he and mom were all right.

Focus, she told herself.

She couldn’t help them, but she could do everything in her power to protect Vicky. And if that meant learning to shoot …

Gia tried to relax but found it impossible. The surprising weight of the weapon in her hands, the evidence of its destructive power—she was looking at the holes Abe had blown in the barn wall—had her insides coiled into tight little knots.

And now it was her turn to pull the trigger.

She and Abe stood side by side in the ravaged barn, three feet or so from its north wall. Vicky watched from a good twenty feet behind them.

“Okay,” Abe said. “In your hands you hold a fine weapon: a twelve-gauge Benelli M1 Super 90 semiautomatic shotgun. Jack has used one on occasion.”

Gia didn’t ask what occasion.

“Its magazine holds seven rounds. With one in the chamber, you’ve got eight shots. We have two of these—one for you and one for me—and lots and lots of double-ought and hardball shells, so don’t worry about saving ammo.”

“Don’t I have to pump something?” In the movies they always seemed to pump the barrel between shots.

“Like I said, it’s semiauto. You just pull the trigger when you need to, and if you feel another shot is called for, you pull the trigger again.”

“What happens when I run out?”

“I’ll show you how to reload later. First we get you comfortable pulling the trigger. Ready?”

No, but she nodded anyway.

“Okay. That hole in the wall there is the worm’s mouth. You do what I did last night: Jam the barrel in there and pull the trigger. Pull it twice. I’ve got you loaded with alternating shot and hardball shells. Give it one of each. That seemed to be enough to back it up last night. Got it? Barrel in, two quick shots, then back up and see if it needs more.”

Gia nodded. “Got it.”

“I’ll get your earmuffs on, then go to it. And remember to be ready for the recoil.”

The ear protectors looked like oversize plastic headphones. Abe adjusted a pair on Gia’s head, then his own, then he turned and signaled Vicky to hold her ears.

When he nodded the go-ahead, Gia swallowed. God, how guns scared her. But those burrowers scared her more.

She poked the muzzle into the hole, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.

—and almost wound up on her butt from the recoil.

Abe had warned her but she hadn’t appreciated how strong it would be. She saw him urging her forward, so she rammed the barrel back into the hole and fired again. This time she was ready and held the weapon steady during discharge.

Abe was smiling and she knew she was grinning too. She’d done it, and damn if it hadn’t felt good.

Abe was motioning toward the hole and she faintly heard him shouting, “It’s another one! Get it! Get it!”

And got it she did.

They ran the scenario twice more and she blew away two more imaginary worms.

Yes!

Then she saw Abe reaching for the shotgun. Was he kidding? She pulled her Benelli out of reach.

Yes, suddenly it was her Benelli. She loved it. She thought of that bumper sticker she’d always snickered at: You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Now she thought she understood.

Abe looked puzzled as his lips moved. She removed her ear wear.

“It’s got to be reloaded,” he said.

“I’ll reload it. Show me.”

“All right already, but—”

He reached again but she wouldn’t give it up. She liked the way it made her feel. She had power. She wouldn’t be helpless against those things. When they came for her and Vicky, she could strike back and drive them off.

She didn’t want ever to let go of her Benelli. At least not until this was over, one way or another.

The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Day Edition

And Soon the Darkness (1970) Levitt/Rickman

When Time Ran Out (1980) Warner Brothers

Nothing but the Night (1972) Cinema Systems

Doomed to Die (1940) Monogram

Night Must Fall (1937) MGM

The Dark (1979) Film Ventures

Dark Star (1972) Bryanston

Dead of Night (1946) Universal

Fade to Black (1980) Compass International

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) TV

Night World (1932) Universal

Abe’s Place

She stood with Abe and Vicky on the stone outcropping and stared at the hole in the valley below. Her arms ached from the repeated recoil of the practice, but she was comfortable with the Benelli now, and could reload almost as fast as Abe.

In the fading light she could make out scores of mounds radiating from the hole. But the ones that had started off in the other direction had curved around and were now pointed toward them.

“They must have sent out a signal,” Abe muttered. “They all know we’re here.”

Gia shivered. That meant even more of them gnawing at the bunker tonight. She prayed whatever Jack was involved in would work.

And soon.

Monroe, Long Island

By 2:30 they were back at Haskins’s place. The fire was still burning in the forge in the back, though not as brightly as before. The clang of metal upon metal filled the air.

“You’re early,” Haskins said at the door, still not inviting them in.

“We know,” Bill said, “but the dark’s coming and we want to get moving as soon as we can.”

“Can’t say as I blame you. Just as well you did show up. They’re almost done. Wait in the car and I’ll bring it out to you.”

Jack hesitated asking, then figured, what the hell. “You wouldn’t happen to have a shortwave, would you?”

“What fer? Don’t know nobody anywheres.”

“I do,” Jack said.

He led the way back to the car. Bill got inside and began fiddling with the radio, trying to find a broadcast of any sort. Jack paced in front, his gut twisting steadily tighter as the gray sky faded toward black.

“Listen,” Bill said, sticking his head out the window. “The clanging’s stopped.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “Too late. We’re not going to make it back. Even if we had a goddamn plane we couldn’t make it back in one piece.”

The storm door slammed then, and out came old George Haskins lugging two blanket-wrapped objects in his arms like sick children.

“There you go,” he said, dumping them into Jack’s waiting hands.

One bundle was square and bulky, the other long and slim. And they were heavy. Bill took the smaller one and together they placed them on the backseat, then Jack was diving for the steering wheel.

“It’s been great talking to you, George, but we’ve gotta run.”

“Good luck, boys,” Haskins said, heading back to his front door. “I don’t know what this all means, but I sure hope it works out.”

The rear wheels kicked gravel as Jack accelerated down the road. He glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Haskins standing on the stoop, watching them go. He couldn’t be sure in the dim light but he thought he saw a group of knee-high figures clustered around him. Then Haskins waved—they all waved.

Blinking his eyes to clear them, Jack concentrated on the road.

Somewhere beyond the mists that masked the sky, the sun was setting for the last time.

“We’re not going to make it,” he said. “No way we can get back alive.”

“We’ve got to give it our best shot. We don’t have any other options that I can see.”

“Oh, we’ll give it a shot, Billy boy. One hell of a shot.”

But we’re not going to make it.

He wished again that he hadn’t sent Gia and Vicky off with Abe. He needed to see them again, hold them in his arms—one last time before the end.

WFPW-FM

JO: This is it, folks. It’s 3:01 in the afternoon. Supposedly the last sunset, man. If Sapir’s curve is right, the last time we’ll ever see daylight.

FREDDY: Yeah. Nobody’s offered us any hope, so we can’t pass any on to you. We wish we could, but—

JO: And don’t ask us why we’re here because we don’t know ourselves. Maybe ’cause it’s the only thing we know how to do.

FREDDY: Whatever, we’ll keep on doing it as long as the generators hold out, so keep us on as long as you’ve got batteries to spare. If we hear anything we’ll let you know. And if you hear anything, call us on the CB and we’ll pass it on.

JO: Any way you look at it, it’s gonna be a long night.

PART THREE

NIGHT

Aaaahh! NIGHT. Endless night. Everlasting darkness.

Rasalom turns within his fluid-filled chrysalis and revels in the fresh waves of panic seeping through from the nightworld above. Darkness reigns. His dominion is established beyond all doubt. A fait accompli.

Except for one flaw, one minuscule spot of hope—Glaeken’s building. But that is a calculated flaw. That too will fade once its residents realize that all their puny efforts to reassemble the weapon are for naught. It is too late—too late for anything. The juices from those crushed hopes will be SWEET.

All Rasalom need do now is await the completion of the Change at the undawn tomorrow, then break free from this shell to lay claim to this world.

His world.

And he is nearly there. He feels the final strands of the metamorphosis drawing tight around and through him. And when it is done, he will rise to the surface and allow Glaeken to gaze on the new Rasalom, to shrink in awe and fear from his magnificence before the life is slowly crushed from his body.

Soon now.

Very soon.

END PLAY

Manhattan

“Where can they be?”

Carol knew she was being a pest, that no one in the room—neither Sylvia, nor Jeffy, nor Ba, nor Nick, not even Glaeken himself—could answer the question she’d repeated at least two dozen times in the past hour, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I know I’m not supposed to be afraid, I know that’s what Rasalom wants, but I can’t help it. I’m scared to death something’s happened to Bill. And Jack.”

“That’s not fear,” Glaeken said. “That’s concern. There’s an enormous difference. The fear that Rasalom thrives on is the dread, the panic, the terror, the fear for one’s self that paralyzes you, makes you hate and distrust everyone around you, that forces you either to lash out at whoever is within reach or to crawl into a hole and huddle alone and miserable in the dark. The fear that cuts you off from hope and from each other, that’s what he savors. This isn’t fear you’re feeling, Carol. It’s anxiety, and it springs from love.”

Carol nodded. That was all fine and good …

“But where are they?”

“They’re gone,” Nick said.

Carol’s stomach plummeted as she turned toward him. Glaeken, too, was staring at him.

Nick hadn’t answered her all the other times she’d asked the same question. Why now?

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“They’re gone,” he repeated, his voice quavering. “They’re not out there. Father Bill and the other one—they’ve disappeared.”

Carol watched in horror as a tear slid down Nick’s cheek. She turned to Glaeken.

“What does he mean?”

“He’s wrong,” Glaeken said, but his eyes did not hold the conviction of his words. “He has to be.”

“But he sees things we don’t. And he hasn’t been wrong yet. Oh, God!”

She began to sob. She couldn’t help it. Lying in Bill’s arms last night had been the first time since Jim’s death that she had felt like a complete, fully functioning human being. She couldn’t bear to lose him now.

Or was this part of a plan?

She swallowed her sobs and wiped away her tears.

“Is this another of Rasalom’s games? Feed us a little hope, let us taste a little happiness, make us ache for a future and then crush us by snatching it all away?”

Glaeken nodded. “That is certainly his style.”

“No!” she screamed.

The outburst shocked her. She never raised her voice. Never felt it necessary. But this had leapt from her—and it seemed right. It capsulized the anger she felt. She glanced over to where Jeffy sat reading a picture book with Sylvia. Sylvia was looking at her with a curious expression, but the boy wasn’t paying attention. Carol turned back to Glaeken.

“No,” she said again, in a lower voice. “He’s not getting anything from me. I won’t be afraid, I won’t lose hope, I won’t give up.”

She went to the huge curved sofa, picked up a magazine, and sat down to read it. But she couldn’t see the trembling page through her freshly welling tears.

The Horror Channel

<no transmission>

“Got to be those things in the backseat,” Jack said in a hushed voice.

Bill said nothing. He held his breath and leaned away from the passenger-side window as countless tentacles brushed across its surface.

Hurry up!

A giant, tentacled slug blocked their way on Broadway as it squeezed into 47th Street. He mentally urged it to keep moving and get out of their way.

“This happened to me once before,” Jack went on. “With the rakoshi. As long as I was wearing one of the necklaces, they couldn’t see me. One or both of those things Haskins gave us was made from the necklaces. This has got to be the same kind of effect. I mean, look at that slug. It’s ignoring us like we don’t even exist.”

The whole trip had been like a dream, an interminable nightmare. The horrors from the holes had taken over—completely. Their movements had lost the frantic urgency of all past nights. Now they were more deliberate, no longer an invading army, but more like an occupying force.

Bill and Jack had traveled in from the Island through swarms of bugs and crawlers large and small—but they had traveled unnoticed. An occasional horror would flutter against one of the windows or crash into a door or a fender, but each was accidental contact. Still, their progress had been slow through the dark dreamscape, and when they arrived at the Midtown Tunnel, they’d found it impassable—choked with countless giant millipede-like creatures. They’d finally found their way across the miraculously intact Brooklyn Bridge and had been making good time heading uptown on Broadway. The wide avenue had run downtown in the days when it had been a thoroughfare for cars instead of crawlers, but no one seemed to be writing tickets tonight.

Bill watched Jack. “You wanted to keep on going west, didn’t you.”

Jack glanced at him, then looked away. “Say what?”

“When we hit Manhattan and it was clear we weren’t going to be attacked, you wanted to cut straight across and into Jersey. Am I right?”

“Crossed my mind.”

“You could have dumped me, reached the people you care about, and used these things to protect them. Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “Not the right thing to do. And Gia would have sent me back anyway.” He grinned. “A colossal waste of gas.”

Bill thought he finally understood why Glaeken placed such stock in this violent, enigmatic man.

The slug’s back end finally cleared enough pavement to allow Jack to scoot around behind it and they were moving again. Another fifteen minutes of picking their way around abandoned cars and the larger crawlers and they arrived at Glaeken’s building.

Bill unlocked his door and reached for the handle as Jack drove up on the sidewalk.

“Better not get out empty-handed,” Jack said. “You might not make it to the door.”

Good thought. Bill grabbed the boxier of the two blanket-wrapped objects and hopped out. Julio was at the lobby door, holding it open.

“Where you guys been?” he said as Bill rushed through. “We been worried sick ’bout you.”

Bill patted him on the shoulder as he passed.

“Elevator still working?”

“Slow as shit, but it gets there.”

Bill hopped in and waited for Jack only because it would have been a slap in the face to leave him behind. The need to be with Carol was a desperate, gnawing urgency. He wanted to see her, hold her, let her know he was all right. She had to be sick with worry by now.

Jack hit a button short of the top.

“Got to make a stop.”

Bill knew it wasn’t for the bathroom.

“Hope they’re okay.”

“Yeah.” His voice was tight. “So do I.”

Jack got out and seconds later Bill reached the top floor alone. He fairly ran for Glaeken’s apartment, and there she was, the wonder and joy and relief in her eyes so real, and just for him. She sobbed when he wrapped his free arm around her. He wanted to carry her back to the bedroom right now but knew that would have to wait.

“Nick said you were dead!”

Bill straightened and looked at her. “He did? Dead?”

“Well, not dead. But he said you were gone—not there anymore.”

“Why would he—?”

And then Bill thought he understood. Just as he and Jack had been invisible to the bugs on their trip home, so they must have been invisible to Nick as well.

He realized that he and Carol were the center of attention—Sylvia, Jeffy, Ba, Glaeken—everyone but Nick was staring at them. He released Carol and showed his blanket-wrapped bundle to Glaeken.

“We got it. Those smallfolk you mentioned were there. They took the necklaces and scraps and gave us this and another package in return.”

“Where’s the other?”

“Jack has it. He’s making a call. He’ll be here in a minute.”

Glaeken pointed to the bundle, then the coffee table.

“Unwrap it and place it there, if you will.”

Bill searched through the many folds until his hand came in contact with cold metal. He wriggled it free and held it up.

Bill’s gasp was echoed by the others in the room.

“A cross!” Carol said in hushed tones.

Yes. A cross, identical to the ones that studded the walls of the keep back in Romania. But the colors surprised him most. He’d expected something made of iron, a dull flat gray similar to the necklaces they had delivered to Haskins this morning. Not this. Not an upright of solid gold and a crosspiece of shining silver, reflecting the dancing light of the flames in the fireplace.

Bill tore his eyes away from its gleaming surface and looked at Glaeken.

“Is this it? A cross?”

Glaeken had stepped back, placing a section of the sofa between Bill and himself. He shook his head.

“Not a cross. But it is the source, the reason the cross is such an important symbol throughout the world. In truth it is merely the hilt of a sword.”

Bill ran his fingers over its surface and felt something like a tingle.

“But what happened to the iron from the necklaces?”

“You’re touching it,” Glaeken said. “The smallfolk have a way with metals.”

“I guess they do.”

Glaeken looked around. “What’s taking Jack so long?”

The Bunker

Nightmare.

The only word for it.

Vicky crouched in the center of the floor, fingers jammed into her ears, shoulders quaking as she sobbed in terror. Abe knelt next to her, reloading his shotgun while Gia rotated in a slow circle. Sweat soaked her hair, dripped down her face, drenched the long-sleeve T-shirt she wore. Her insides quaked, her fingers twitched, and her palms felt sweaty against the stock as she waited for the next burrower to show its snout.

The strategy, if it could be called that, was Abe’s: One of them would shoot until only one round—the one in the chamber—remained; then the other would take over while the first reloaded.

The burrowers hadn’t waited long after dark before resuming their incessant grinding. Gia had expected one to pop through the existing hole, but it remained empty. Maybe the burrower that had made it backed up and died after Abe had shot it, blocking the passage. She could only guess, and feel relieved.

But that didn’t last. Others must have been close to breaking through before they’d quit with the coming of the light, because it didn’t take long before new holes began opening in the walls and horrid snouts pushing into the bunker.

Abe took the lead, pumping two shots each into the first two, then three into the third. Each time, they writhed and retreated, leaving their holes empty. But more were on the way. Gia couldn’t hear them through her ear protectors, but she knew they were coming.

Abe had insisted on wearing the protectors, saying they’d be virtually deaf after a few shots if they didn’t. And they might need their hearing.

He tapped her calf and pointed to her right. Gia looked and saw the concrete begin to flake and bulge. She swallowed her fear and hurried over. She reached the spot just in time to see the snout break through. Again, a close look at the concentric rows of black grinding teeth ringing the snout, but this time she got a look inside the round, gnashing mouth and saw more rings of teeth, diamond clear like chew wasps’, angled inward for tearing.

Fighting her rising gorge she jammed the muzzle in among those teeth, took a breath, and pulled the trigger—once, twice. The creature twisted, shuddered, then withdrew.

I did it! I got one!

But she couldn’t celebrate. Another was breaking through a dozen feet to her right. She ran over and blasted that one twice.

As she looked around for the next invader, she saw a light on the shortwave radio flashing red. An incoming signal. That could only be Jack calling. As she debated answering she felt something tickle the back of her neck. She rubbed it and looked at her hand: fine white powder mixed with sweat.

Cement!

She looked up in time to see a burrower break through the ceiling directly above her. They were coming from all directions!

She screamed and lifted the shotgun. As she rammed the muzzle into the snout she thought of Jack’s call. No way they could answer. She prayed he was calling with good news, to say he’d been successful. But if so, she saw no sign of a letup here.

Whatever he was involved in had to work, and work soon.

Very soon.

Or she and Vicky and Abe were goners.

Manhattan

Jack finally stepped into the room carrying the longer package. Something in his face …

Bill gripped his arm. “Everything okay?”

He shook his head. “No … don’t know. Couldn’t get an answer. Let’s get this done.” He hefted his burden. “What’s in here?”

“The rest of the instrument,” Glaeken said. “Be careful. It will be sharp.”

Another intake of breath across the room as the layers of blanket fell away to reveal a gleaming length of carved steel.

“The blade,” Jack breathed.

The muscles in his forearm rippled as he held it by the butt spike and raised it in the air, turning it back and forth, letting the light leap and run across the runes carved along its length.

The blade … magnificent. The sight of it warmed one part of Bill and chilled another. Something alien and unsettling about those runes. He slipped his arm around Carol and held her closer.

Bill still held the hilt in his free hand. He’d noticed a deep slot in the center of its upper surface—a perfect receptacle for the blade’s butt spike.

“Should we put them together?” he asked Glaeken.

The old man shook his head. “No. Not yet. Please place the hilt on the table.”

As Bill complied, Jack lowered the blade.

“This too?”

“Drive its point into the floor, if you will.”

Jack shot him a questioning look, then shrugged. He upended the blade, grabbed the butt spike with both hands, then drove it through the carpet and deep into the hardwood floor beneath. It quivered and swayed a moment, then stood straight and still.

Glaeken turned to Sylvia. His eyes opaque, his expression grave.

“Mrs. Nash … it is time.”

Sylvia stared at the gold-and-silver cross gleaming on the table not five feet away and felt all her strength desert her in a rush.

Everything was happening—changing—too quickly. She’d gone to bed last night thinking she’d been freed of the burden of deciding. Jack had only one necklace and it wasn’t enough. The instrument could not be reassembled, Jeffy would not be called on to give up the Dat-tay-vao. She had been frightened, terrified of the near future, and ashamed at the relief she had felt at being spared the burden of risking her son’s mind.

This morning she’d awakened to find everything changed. Glaeken had both necklaces and the original plan was back in motion.

Sylvia had been preparing herself for this moment all day but still wasn’t close to ready. How could she ever be ready for this?

She sensed Ba looming behind her and didn’t have to look to know that whatever she decided he would be with her 100 percent. But the rest of them … she glanced around the room. Carol, Bill, Jack, Glaeken—all their eyes intent upon her.

How could they ask her to do this? She’d already lost Alan. How could they ask her to risk Jeffy?

But they could. And they were. And considering all that was at stake, how could they not ask?

Jeffy too seemed to notice their stares. He drew his gaze from the hilt—he’d been fixated on it since Bill had unwrapped it—and turned to Sylvia.

“Why are they all looking at us, Mom?”

Sylvia tried to speak but no sound came. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“They want you to do something, Jeffy.”

He looked around at the expectant faces. “What?”

“They want you to—” She looked up at Glaeken. “What does he have to do?”

“Just touch it,” Glaeken said. “That is all it will take.”

“They want you to touch that cross. It will—”

“Oh, sure!”

Jeffy pulled away from her, eager to get his hands on the shiny object. Sylvia hauled him back.

“Wait, honey. You should know … it might hurt you.”

“It didn’t hurt that man,” he said, pointing to Bill.

“True. But it will be different for you. The cross will take something from you, and after you lose that something you … you might not be the same.”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“You may be like you were before, in the time you can’t remember.” How to explain autism to a nine-year-old? “You didn’t speak then; you barely knew your name. I … don’t want you to be like that again.”

His smile was bright, almost blinding. “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’ll be okay.”

Sylvia wished she could share even a fraction of his confidence, but she had a dreadful feeling about this. Yet if she held him back, didn’t let him near the hilt, then what had Alan died for? He’d gone to his death protecting Jeffy and her. How could she hold Jeffy back now and condemn him—condemn everyone—to a short life and a brutal death in a world of eternal darkness?

Yet the risk was Jeffy losing the light of intelligence in those eyes and living on as an autistic child.

Certain darkness without, a chance of darkness within.

What do I do?

She forced her hands to release him. She spoke before she had a chance to change her mind.

“Go, Jeffy. Do it. Touch it.”

He lurched away from her, eager to get to the bright metal thing on the table. He covered the distance in seconds, reached out and, without hesitation, curled his tiny fingers around the grip of the hilt.

For an instant his hand seemed to glow, then he cried out in a high-pitched voice. A violent shudder passed through him, then he was still.

What is that?

A disturbance. An aberrant ripple races across Rasalom’s consciousness, disrupting the seething perfection of the ambient fear and agony.

Something has happened.

Rasalom searches the upper reaches, sensing out the cause. Only one possible place it could have originated—Glaeken’s building.

And there he finds the source.

The weapon. Glaeken has managed to reassemble its components. He has actually recharged it. That is what Rasalom felt.

But even now the sensation is fading.

Such hope concentrated in that room, an unbearable amount. Yet exquisite misery is incipient there. How wonderful it will be to catch the falling flakes of that hope as it crystallizes in the cold blast of fear and terror when they realize they have failed.

For it is too late for them. Far, far too late. This world is sealed away from Glaeken’s Ally. Let him assemble a hundred such weapons, a thousand. It will not matter. The endless night is upon the world. A dark, impenetrable barrier. There can be no contact, no reunion of Glaeken with the opposing force.

Let him try. Let his pathetic circle hope. It will make their final failure all the more painful.

There now. The disturbing ripple is gone, swallowed by the thick insulating layers of night that surround it like a shroud.

Rasalom returns to his repose and awaits the undawn.

“Jeffy?”

Her little boy stood stone still with his hand on the hilt, staring at it. His cry of pain had pierced her like a spear and she’d leapt to his side. Now she hovered over him, almost afraid to touch him.

“Jeffy, are you all right?”

He did not move, did not speak.

Sylvia felt a rime of fear crystallize along the chambers of her heart.

No! Please, God, no! Don’t let this happen!

She grabbed him by the shoulders and twisted him toward her, caught his chin with her thumb and forefinger and turned it up. She stared into his eyes.

And his eyes …

“Jeffy!” she cried, barely able to keep her voice under control. “Jeffy, say something! Do you know who I am? Who am I, Jeffy? Who am I?”

Jeffy’s gaze wandered off her face to a spot over her shoulder, lingered there a few seconds, then drifted on. His eyes were empty. Empty.

She knew that face.

She fought off the encroaching blackness that her mind hungered to escape to. She’d lived with that vacant expression for too many years not to know it now. Jeffy was back to the way he used to be.

“Oh, no!” Sylvia moaned as she slipped her arms around him and pulled him close. “Oh, no … oh, no … oh, no!”

This can’t be! she thought, holding his unresisting, disinterested body tight against her. First Alan and now Jeffy … I can’t lose them both! I can’t!

She glared across the room at Glaeken, who stood watching her with a stricken expression. She had never felt so lost, so alone, so utterly miserable in her life, and it was all his fault.

“Is this the way it has to be?” she cried. “Is this it? Am I to lose everything? Why? Why me? Why Jeffy?”

She gathered Jeffy up in her arms and carried him from the room, hurling one final question at Glaeken and everyone else there as she left.

“Why not you?”

The heaviness in Glaeken’s chest grew as he stood at the far end of the living room and watched poor Sylvia flee with her relapsed child.

Because this is war, he thought in answer to her parting question. And every war exacts its price, on the victors as well as the vanquished.

Even in the unlikely event we win this, we will all be changed forever. None of us will come through unscathed.

That knowledge did not make him grieve any less for the loss of that poor boy’s awareness.

A single sob burst from Carol and echoed like a shot in the mortuary silence. Bill slipped his arms around her. Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. Ba looked simply … lost. And tortured. Glaeken knew anything that hurt his mistress hurt him doubly. His pain-filled eyes reflected the war within—torn between following Sylvia or staying here. He took a step toward the door, then turned back and leaned against the wall.

Glaeken faced the others. “We are ready.”

“How can you be so cold?” Carol said, glaring at him.

“I am not immune to their torment. I ache for that child, but even more for his mother. He may have lost his awareness and his ability to respond to the world around him, but he has lost his perspective as well—he doesn’t know what he has lost. Sylvia does. She bears the pain for both of them. But we must save our grief for later. If the price the child has paid is to have meaning, we must take the final step.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “What do we do?”

“Put the hilt and the blade together.”

“That’s it? Then what?”

“Then the signal reaches the Ally or it does not. And then the Ally responds or it does not.”

“Do or die, eh?”

“Quite literally.”

“Then let’s get to it. We’ve waited long enough. Let’s get this over with.”

Jack seemed in a terrible hurry. Why?

He picked up the hilt, hefted it, and turned toward the blade where it jutted from the floor.

“Wait,” Glaeken said. “There’s something you should know.”

Jack was the Heir. The Ally hadn’t hung a sign on him saying so, but Glaeken sensed it, and everything pointed to it. Even Rasalom had referred to him as such. He was destined to take on the role of Sentinel, Defender, Guardian when Glaeken died. A natural progression.

But Rasalom’s ascension and the initiation of the Change while Glaeken still lived had changed all that. What should have been a simple progression now required an initiation. The Heir would have to participate in the process. When Jack rammed the hilt onto the blade’s butt spike, he would become a different sort of being—ageless, potent, powerful.

And so the easiest thing for Glaeken would have been to allow Jack to join the two parts of the weapon and have done with it.

But he felt compelled to warn the man what he was getting into. Glaeken wished someone had warned him countless years ago before his own first encounter with the weapon.

But I was so reckless and headstrong then. Would it have made a difference?

Jack stood by the blade, waiting.

“If this works,” Glaeken said, “when you join the two halves you will be, in a very real sense, joining yourself to the weapon and the force that fuels it.”

Jack looked at him. “Just by putting it together? No spells or incantations or any of that stuff?”

“None of that stuff,” Glaeken said, allowing himself a tiny smile. “Because that’s just what it is—stuff. Showbiz. This is the real thing. Know that it is an intimate bond, permanent, one you will not be able to break no matter how much you desire to.”

He noticed that Jack seemed to have lost some of his enthusiasm for joining the hilt to the blade.

“What about you?” he said. “Didn’t this used to be yours? Shouldn’t you be handling this?”

Glaeken fought the urge to retreat to the farthest corner of the room.

“No. It’s over for me. This is not my age. I’m from another time, a long-dead time. This is your age. I saved mine. Someone from your time must save yours.”

“So you’re saying if this works I’ll be the new Sentinel or whatever?”

Glaeken nodded. “You are, after all, the Heir.”

The Bunker

Gia saw Vicky leap to her feet and lurch away from her spot, her face a mask of terror. And then Gia knew why: A snout burst through the floor inches away from where she’d been crouching. Vicky slipped and fell and the snout stretched toward her.

“No!” Gia screamed, leaping forward.

She rammed the muzzle of her Benelli into its maw and yanked the trigger three times in rapid succession.

“Fuck you!” she shouted in a burst of rage and horror. “FUCK you!”

Spurting goo, the thing slipped back into its hole.

Too close. She shuddered. Too, too close.

Vicky was staring at her. “Mom, you said the F-word.”

“Did I?” She hadn’t realized. “Well, when some slimy worm is trying to eat your little girl, you’re allowed.”

She looked around. The situation was deteriorating. Some of the burrowers in the walls and ceiling were starting to wriggle from their holes, revealing white, bulbous bodies, ringed with bristling ridges. They reminded Gia of maggots—glistening, human-size maggots.

So many now. Too many. She and Abe simply couldn’t reach them all.

But they had to try.

Gia ran over to one that jutted three feet into the room. As she neared, it whipped toward her, stretching like an accordion. She fell back in shock and it snapped at her shotgun. She fired and missed, gouging a deep pock in the ceiling. Another pull of the trigger and this time the shot shredded an area behind the head. The burrower writhed and twisted, spraying thick yellow goo, but it kept coming, pushing itself farther and farther into the room.

Around her she saw others doing the same.

Manhattan

His mouth dry as sand, Jack could only stare at Glaeken. The moment he’d been dreading had arrived.

Or had it?

“But I’m not supposed to … at least I was told that I don’t take over till you’re gone.”

“The Change alters the rules. I’m as good as gone. My sword was broken and I have aged. Now there’s a new sword, and it needs a new champion, a new Sentinel to wield it. By completing the weapon you accept the role.”

Jack thought of Gia and Vicky … if they’d somehow survived, taking Glaeken’s place meant losing them. Because he wouldn’t be Jack anymore. He’d be the new Sentinel, the immortal watchman. He remembered what Glaeken had told him about how his own past relationships had deteriorated as the women grew old and he did not. He’d had to watch his wives, his children, his grandchildren age and wither and die, until he’d decided to have no more wives or children, or even long-term relationships.

Until he’d been freed … until he’d known that he and Magda could grow old together.

Watching Gia and Vicky age and die while he stayed young … Jack had been struggling for years to find a way to make it work with them, and now Glaeken wanted him to throw everything away—assuming anything was left.

He laid the hilt on the table.

“I’m going to take a rain check.”

Glaeken’s expression slackened. “Jack, you can’t—”

“I can, and I am. What makes you so sure it’s me?”

“You know as well as I that you’re the Heir.”

Looking around, he saw all eyes fixed on him. Confused eyes … they didn’t know what had gone down these past years, what he and Glaeken were talking about—that he’d been drafted into this cosmic war and, without being given a choice or a say, tagged for the generalship when the time came. Glaeken was saying the time was now. Jack couldn’t buy that—wouldn’t buy that.

“Maybe it’s someone else here.”

Glaeken sighed. “You know very well it is not. The weapon chooses who shall wield it—and it shall choose you.”

“It has a say?”

“Of course. What you’ve known as the Dat-tay-vao now resides within the hilt. That is not an inert amalgam of metals, it is very much alive—almost sentient.”

“Then let’s see if it chooses someone else.”

“One of us?” Bill said.

Jack turned to him. “Why not?” He was grasping at straws, he knew, but what if there was more than one potential Heir? “None of you is an accidental bystander. You’ve all played a part in the events leading up to this moment.”

He turned to Ba.

“If there was ever a natural-born warrior, it’s you, Ba. Maybe you were cured by the Dat-tay-vao so you’d be able to travel halfway around the world to wind up here in this room at this time.”

Plus, Jack realized, all this had become personal for Ba. No way he couldn’t be carrying an incandescent grudge against Rasalom after what happened to his friend Alan and now to Jeffy. Righteous fury—the perfect fuel.

The big Asian’s expression remained calm but Jack noticed a tightening in the muscles of his throat. His nod was almost imperceptible.

“I will do this.”

Ba stepped forward with no hint of hesitation. Jack glanced around and noticed Sylvia slipping back into the room. She stood in a corner holding her listless Jeffy by the hand. She watched grim-faced as Ba took the hilt from the table and lined it up over the butt spike.

Ba paused and looked at Glaeken. “What will happen?”

“Maybe nothing. It may be too late for anything to work. Rasalom may have us sealed off too completely for the signal to break through.”

“But if it does work, how will I know?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Glaeken said. “Believe me, we’ll all know.”

Ba continued to stare at him questioningly.

“For one thing, Ba, the blade and hilt will fuse. That will be your confirmation that the sword has accepted you.”

Ba nodded.

Jack noticed that Glaeken took a surreptitious backward step and looked away as Ba inhaled deeply and rammed the hilt home.

Nothing happened … nothing that Jack could see.

After a few heartbeats Ba said, “I do not feel different.” He pulled up on the hilt, slipping it free of the butt spike. “And they have not become one. It has refused me.”

Jack couldn’t read his expression. Relief, or disappointment that he would not have this weapon to protect Sylvia and Jeffy?

Jack ground his teeth and hid his frustration. The big guy would have been perfect.

Without a word, Ba held out the hilt to Bill.

Bill blinked. “Me? But I can’t … I mean, I’m not…”

Jack jumped in. “Why not? I mean, from what you told me in the car, you’ve been Rasalom’s nemesis since his rebirth—since before his rebirth. Is there anyone alive today besides Glaeken who Rasalom hates more? Look what he did to your life.” Jack’s life had been shattered too, but not by Rasalom. “That sets you up as someone ready to administer major payback.”

Yes. It could be Bill. Had to be. He was perfect—a holy man’s soul and a warrior’s heart. Bill had drawn blood and had withstood the death, misery, and horror of Rasalom’s vicious campaign to break him.

They were made to face off against each other.

At the moment, however, Bill looked anything but the fearless standard-bearer.

Carol was clutching his arm, but he pulled free and stepped forward. She stood back with her eyes fixed on the hilt and both hands pressed tight against her face, covering her mouth. The ex-priest approached Ba as if he were holding a poisonous snake. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out with trembling hands and took the hilt from him.

“It can’t be me.”

Ba stepped aside, clearing the path.

Like a sleepwalker, Bill shuffled to the blade, fitted the tip of the spike into the opening—and paused. He looked around.

“It’s not me. I know it’s not.” But his hoarse voice lacked conviction.

Bill didn’t shove the hilt down, he merely let it fall upon the spike. Once again, Jack noticed Glaeken averting his eyes.

But nothing happened—again.

Bill removed the hilt and stepped back from the instrument, his body trembling from head to foot.

Jack closed his eyes and swallowed a surge of bile. He’d run out of denials.

It’s me. Christ, it’s me.

Glaeken’s eyes bored into his, penetrating to his soul. Bill and Ba too were staring at him.

But their faces were replaced by Gia’s and Vicky’s. Even if, somehow, they were still alive, if he cut and run now they’d have no chance. If this hilt-and-blade thing worked—still a big if—things could never be the same between him and them, but at least he’d be able to give them a chance of survival.

“Damn it!” he said through his clenched teeth. “Goddamn it!” He stepped forward and snatched the hilt from Bill. “No sense in wasting any more time. Let’s get this shit over with.”

With a single swift motion he positioned the hilt over the spike and—paused. He didn’t want this.

But if it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be.

He set his jaw and pushed the hilt onto the spike.

And waited.

And waited.

He jiggled the hilt. Loose. No fusion.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe cry. Because the inescapable truth was that the instrument, the sword, whatever it was, didn’t work. No signal would be going out.

We’re all screwed.

He looked up and saw Glaeken gaping at him.

Glaeken balled his fists to keep from shouting.

No! This couldn’t be! He’d done everything right! The sword was fresh, new, and ready! Why didn’t—?

“Well, then, who is it?” he heard Carol say in a high voice verging on rage. “It’s got to be somebody!” She turned to Glaeken. “And who said it has to be a man?”

Glaeken had no answer for that, and Carol wasn’t waiting for one anyway. She reached past Jack, lifted the hilt, and slammed it back down.

With no more effect than anyone before her.

“Don’t tell me we went through all this for nothing!” she said. “It’s got to—” She turned to the figure watching from the far end of the room. “Sylvia! Sylvia, you try it. Please.”

Sylvia wiped away a tear. “I don’t…”

“Just come over and do it.”

Leading Jeffy by the hand, Sylvia approached the instrument. She made eye contact with no one.

“This is a waste of time,” she said.

The words proved too true. She released Jeffy, lifted the hilt, and rammed it home.

Nothing.

How pathetic they are.

Rasalom’s expanded consciousness has witnessed the members of Glaeken’s circle stride up to the odd conglomeration of metals and spirit standing in the center of the room, each so full of hope and noble purpose, and watched each of them fail. He relishes the growing despair in the room, thickening and congealing until it is almost palpable.

And something else growing there … anger.

When their trite little totem fails, they will begin to turn on each other.

Luscious.

The Bunker

Burrowers, living and dead and dying, littered the floor. They ran six to seven feet in length and moved with an obscene, undulating motion. They’d backed Gia, Vicky, and Abe into the corner by the bathroom. Gia had Vicky hidden behind the bathroom door while she and Abe did what damage they could to the invaders. The burrowers would have overrun them by now if the live ones hadn’t paused to taste the dead and the nearly so.

Gia’s gorge rose at the sight of them tearing into their inert brothers, knowing they’d soon be doing the same to the three humans down here. The dying burrowers jerked and spasmed as they were eaten. Unbidden images of Vicky at their mercy, eaten alive, flashed through her brain.

For the first time in her life she almost felt it might be a good thing that Emma hadn’t made it.

Almost.

She couldn’t imagine, couldn’t allow her child to die like this. Better a quick clean death than …

But could she do it? Even if it was the best thing for Vicky, a merciful gift, could she aim this shotgun at her daughter and pull the trigger?

Listen to me. I’ve got us dead already. And we’re not. Jack and Glaeken are still out there. They’ll come up with something. They’ve got to.

But when? Oh God, when?

Manhattan

Glaeken watched Sylvia tug the hilt free of the spike and turn in a slow circle. This time she made eye contact—and her gaze was withering.

“This is it?” her voice bitter, brittle. “This is all we get? Alan loses his life, Jeffy sinks back into autism, all for what? For nothing?”

“Maybe it’s Nick,” Bill said.

“No,” Sylvia said, her voice rimed with disdain. “It’s not Nick.”

Jack shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t refurbished right. Or like Glaeken said, maybe it’s too late. Maybe the signal can’t get through.”

“Oh, it’s too late all right.” She continued her slow turn. “Too late for Alan and Jeffy.” Finally she stopped and glared at him. “But it’s not too late for you, is it?”

Glaeken felt his mouth going dry. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.” She lifted the hilt higher, straining against its weight. “This is yours, isn’t it?”

“Its predecessor was, before it was melted down and—”

“It’s still yours, isn’t it?”

Glaeken swallowed. Sylvia was trespassing along a path he dearly wished her to avoid.

“Not anymore. Someone new must take it up now.”

“But it wants you.”

“No.” What was she saying? “I served my time—more than my time. Someone else—”

“But what if no one but the wonderful Glaeken will do?” She spat his name.

“That’s not possible.”

She lifted the hilt still higher, her expression fierce.

“Try it. Just try it. Let’s see what happens. Then we’ll know for sure.”

“You don’t understand,” Glaeken said. His arthritic lower back was shooting pain down his left leg so he eased himself into the straight-back chair against the wall behind him. “It can’t be me. It’s not possible.”

He saw Jack step closer to Sylvia. He kept his voice low but Glaeken made out the words.

“Chill, Sylvia. Look at him. He’s all rusted up. Even if he’s the one it wants, what can he do against all that’s going on out there?”

Sylvia stared Glaeken’s way a moment longer, then shook her head.

“Maybe. But there’s something else going on here.” She handed the hilt to Jack. “You figure it out.”

Jack glanced down at the gold and silver hilt in his hand, then looked at Bill.

“Only one other person left to try. It’s crazy, but what’s new about that?”

As they led Nick to the blade, wrapped his hands around the hilt, and guided it over the butt spike, Glaeken rose stiffly and walked down the hall to the rear of the apartment. He needed to be alone, away from the oppressive despair in the living room.

He stopped at Magda’s bedroom and looked in. She was sleeping. That was all she seemed to do these days. Maybe it was a blessing. He took a seat at her bedside and held her hand.

Sylvia and the others didn’t—couldn’t—understand. He was tired. They didn’t know how tired one could be after all this living. To have engineered one last victory, or merely to have launched a final battle against Rasalom would have been wonderful. He could have gone blissfully to his death then. But that was not to be. He would die in the darkness like everyone else—no … worse than everyone else. Rasalom had something special reserved for him.

Still, he couldn’t risk even going near the instrument. Who knew what the reaction might be? It might start everything over again, and once more he would be in the thrall of the ally power. Its champion. Its slave. Forever.

I’ve done my part. I’ve contributed more than my share. They cannot ask for more.

Someone else had to carry on the fight.

The Bunker

“Are we going to die?”

Gia looked down into Vicky’s wide, terrified blue eyes. Abe had pushed her into the bathroom with Vicky, saying he’d hold off the burrowers as long as he could, then come in and join them for a final defense.

She could hear him out there, back to the door, firing round after round at the advancing creatures; she imagined the flying bits of maggot flesh, the splattering yellow goo. Part of her felt she should be out there with him, but another knew her place was here as her daughter’s last defense.

“No. We’re not going to die.” She hoped she sounded convincing. “We’ve got Jack working on it. Remember?”

She nodded but didn’t smile. She almost always smiled at the mention of Jack’s name. “Yeah, Jack. He’ll fix it.”

Oh, the faith of youth.

“He sure will. And when—”

Gia yelped and Vicky screamed as something heavy slammed against the steel door, rattling it on its hinges and leaving a soccer ball–size dent.

The gunfire from the other side stopped.

“Abe?” Gia banged on the door. Oh, no! “Abe!”

Manhattan

“Where’s my Glenn?”

Startled by the words, spoken in Hungarian, Glaeken looked down and found Magda awake, staring at him. Their litany was about to begin. Her memories were mired in the Second World War, when they both had been young and fresh and newly in love.

“I’m right here, Magda.”

She pulled her hand away. “No. You’re not him. You’re old. My Glenn is young and strong!”

“But I’ve grown old, my dear, like you.”

“You’re not him!” she said, her voice rising. “Glenn is out there fighting the darkness.”

The darkness. Some part of her jumbled mind was aware of the horrors outside, and knew Rasalom was involved.

“No, he isn’t. He’s right here beside you.”

“No! Not my Glenn! He’s out there! He’d never let the dark win! Never! Now get away from me, you old fool! Away!”

Glaeken didn’t want her to start screaming, so he rose and left her.

“And if you see Glenn, tell him his Magda loves him and knows he won’t let the darkness get away with this.”

The words stung, setting their barbs into the flesh of his neck and shoulders and trailing him down the hall toward the living room.

The living room … it looked like a wake. The seven silent occupants, though separated by only a few feet of space, were miles apart, each closed off, locked behind the walls of their own thoughts. And fears.

Even here.

Nick and Jeffy stared at the air. Ba sat cross-legged against the far wall, eyes closed, silent. Jack and Sylvia stood at opposite ends of the long window, each gazing out at the eternal blackness. Even Bill and Carol sat apart, silent and separate on the couch.

And here am I, he thought, separated from them and from my wife, as cut off from the rest of humanity as I’ve ever been.

Rasalom had won outside, and he was winning in here.

And then Glaeken saw Jeffy move. The boy approached the coffee table and dropped to his knees before it. He gripped the hilt where it lay and pressed his cheek down against it, as if some part of him knew that what he was missing was locked within the cold reaches of the metal.

All their sacrifices … all their faith in him … Rasalom eternally victorious …

Anger erupted within Glaeken like one of the long-dormant volcanoes in the Pacific, exploding in his chest, engulfing him in its fiery heart.

Rasalom winning … having the last laugh …

It comes down to that, doesn’t it? Me against him. That’s what it’s always been. Always the two of them pitted against each other.

He couldn’t allow Rasalom to win. If there was one chance, no matter how slim, he had to take it.

He found himself moving, crossing the room toward Jeffy, lifting him gently away from the hilt.

“Sylvia,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Take him and stand back.”

Sylvia rushed over and pulled Jeffy away.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Nothing yet. And perhaps nothing will. But just in case…”

Glaeken stared down at the hilt.

Is this what it wants? he said, speaking silently to the power within the metal, wondering if it could hear him. It let me go and now it wants me back? Will no one else do?

The hilt lay silent, gleaming coldly in the flickering light of the breathless room. Wondering which he hated more, Rasalom or the power to which he had allied himself ages ago, Glaeken reached down and wrapped his gnarled fingers around the hilt.

Memories surged through him at the metal’s touch. Yes, the hilt was alive. The entity that had been the Dat-tay-vao welcomed him back. The smallfolk had done their job well.

And as much as he hated to admit it, the hilt felt as if it belonged in his hands.

He turned toward the blade.

“Everybody back.”

What is that?

Rasalom is disturbed by another ripple through the enveloping chaos above. Bigger. A wavelet this time.

He spreads his consciousness. It’s that instrument again. And this time Glaeken himself is holding it. It’s the reunion of the man and the living metal that is disturbing. No matter. A minor ruffle, and short lived.

“Too late, Glaeken!” he shouts into the subterranean dark. “Too late!”

“Don’t look,” Glaeken said.

But Carol had to look. For as soon as Glaeken had touched the hilt the air of the living room became charged.

She’d risen and followed Bill to the far side of the sofa where they now stood with their arms wrapped around each other watching as Glaeken poised the hilt over the butt spike.

Something was going to happen. How could she turn away?

She watched the old man set his feet, take a deep breath, then ram the hilt downward.

Light such as she had never seen or imagined, light like the hearts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bikinis and all the Yucca Flats bombs rolled into one, light like the Big Bang itself exploded from the hilt, engulfing Glaeken and searing the room. Hot light, cold light, new light, ancient light, it blasted through the room in a wave.

In that initial flash Carol saw Glaeken’s bones silhouetted through his flesh and clothes, saw the springs and inner supports of the sofa before her, then the light was upon her, making her retinas scream and her irises spasm and her lids clamp down tight to shut out the light but it was no use because the light would not be denied and it poured through her, suffusing each cell of each tissue in a perceptible wave of warmth as it passed.

She heard cries of wonder and astonishment from the others and was startled by a deafening crash as the glass in the picture windows blew out. Gusts of night air stormed through the room as Carol fought to open her eyes against the glare.

The light was still there, more diffuse now, and splotched with purple from the afterburns on her retinas. It had stopped expanding and had begun to contract, rushing back from the edges of the room to concentrate again at the center, coalescing into a column with Glaeken at its heart. Carol had to raise a protecting arm across her face and half turn away as it consolidated and amplified its power into a narrower beam, shooting upward, burning through the ceiling, through the roof, into the blackness above. And faintly through the brilliance she could still make out the figure of a man standing in the heart of the light.

She turned to Bill. “The roof! We’ve got to go up to the roof!”

He blinked at her, half dazed. “Why?”

She didn’t know why exactly. A deep part of her was responding to the light, almost as if she recognized it. Whatever the reason, she felt compelled to be up where she could watch this beam of light challenge the darkness.

“Never mind why.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go!” She turned to the others in the room. “Everybody—the roof! The roof!”

Rasalom writhes in his chrysalis.

What is happening? A sudden squall of light in the upper reaches of Glaeken’s building.

The instrument! He’s activated it!

Rasalom remains calm. The light being shed is a discomfort, an irritant. No more.

This is not a setback. Glaeken may be able to cause some trouble with this, but he can be no more than an inconvenience. The Change is too far along. It cannot be reversed.

The Bunker

Finally, Abe’s voice, weak and shaky, filtered through the door.

“I’m okay, but don’t come out.”

Relief flooded Gia. “Why not?”

“Because the things, the burrowers … they’re still here.”

Gia pressed her ear against the door. She didn’t understand.

“Then why…?”

“Why am I not shooting? Because they’re not doing anything. They’re just…”

Gia couldn’t stay in the bathroom. She had to see, had to know what he was talking about. She pulled open the door … and gaped.

Abe, drenched in sweat and slime, slumped on the floor with his back against the wall. A rearing burrower loomed over him … but was facing away. Gia looked around and saw that the two dozen or so surviving burrowers had all reared up and were facing in the same direction.

“What … what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Abe didn’t try to rise, just lay there panting. “They had me. I’d emptied every weapon I have, and then suddenly they stopped and turned.”

“What are they doing?”

“I don’t know. It almost seems as if they’re waiting.”

Gia noticed that they all faced the wall to the right of the hatch chimney. She did a quick calculation of the direction.

“They’re facing east.”

“What? They’re Muslims?”

“Toward New York.”

Jack … Glaeken …

Someone had done something. But was it enough?

Manhattan

Carol led the way up, throwing her shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and bursting out into the cold night air. She was vaguely aware of the hungry buzz and flutter of the night things swooping through the darkness beyond the edges of the building; she barely heard the rooftop gravel crunch under her feet, or noticed the others crowding out behind her. She was locked on the bright beam spearing into the heavens—straight and true, unwavering, a narrow tower of light shooting upward, ever upward until it pierced the sky.

And then it faded.

“It’s gone,” Bill said close behind her.

“No!” She pointed up. “Look. There’s still a bright spot up there. Like a star.”

The only star in the sky.

“Never mind the star,” Bill said. “Check out the roof.”

Carol saw a smoldering hole where the light had burst through. She approached it cautiously and looked down into the living room below, afraid of what she might see there, afraid that Glaeken had been harmed somehow by the blaze of light.

But no charred, blackened remains lay crumbled on the rug below. No Glaeken either. Instead, a stranger stood in his place—in Glaeken’s clothes—clutching the hilt that sat upon the blade.

“Look!” Carol whispered. “Who’s that?”

He was taller than Glaeken. He had the old man’s broad build but was much younger, perhaps Jack’s age. And fiery red hair. His shoulders and upper arms stretched the seams of the shirt he wore. Who—?

And then she caught a glimpse of his blue eyes and knew beyond all question—

“It’s Glaeken!”

She felt an arm slip around her shoulder as she heard Bill’s hoarse whisper beside her.

“But he’s so young! He can’t be more than thirty-five!”

“Right,” she said as understanding grew. “The same age as when he first took up the battle.”

Carol could not take her eyes off him. The way he moved as he tore the blade free of the floor and swung it before him. He was—she could find no other word for him—magnificent.

And then he looked up at them through the opening and Carol recoiled at the grim set of his mouth and the rage that flashed in his eyes. He lifted the weapon and reduced the coffee table to marble gravel and kindling with one blow, then he strode from sight. Seconds later they heard the apartment door shatter.

“He is pissed,” Jack said.

Bill shook his head. “I hope it’s not at us.”

“No,” Jack said. “It’s Rasalom. Got to be Rasalom.”

“Then I’m glad I’m not Rasalom.”

Jack spun and ran toward the doorway.

“Where—?” Carol began, but he was already out of earshot.

“Probably headed to Pennsylvania. I know he’s been worried sick about his ladies and his friend.”

Carol shivered in the cold wind and looked back up at the point of light the beam had left in the sky. It looked brighter—and bigger.

She pointed. “It’s growing.”

“I think you’re right,” Bill said, squinting upward at the rapidly expanding spot. “It almost looks like—” He yanked her back, away from the hole in the roof. “Run! It’s coming back!”

Carol shook him off and stood waiting for the brilliance falling from the heavens. It wouldn’t hurt her—she knew it wouldn’t hurt her. She spread her arms, waiting for it, welcoming it.

And suddenly she was bathed in light—the whole rooftop awash in blindingly white light. Warm, clean, almost like—

“Sunlight!”

The entire building stood in a cone of brilliance that challenged the darkness from the point source far overhead—as if a pinhole had been poked into the inverted bowl of Rasalom’s night and a single, daring ray of sunlight had ventured through.

Carol ran to the edge of the roof and leaned over the low parapet. Below, on the bright sidewalk, the crawlers were scuttling away into the darkness, fleeing the glare.

She heard a crash as bright fragments of glass exploded onto the pavement. And suddenly Glaeken was there, striding across the street toward the park, his red hair flying as he swung the blade before him, as if daring something to challenge him. And as he stepped from the light into the darkness beyond—

“Bill!” Carol cried. “Oh, God, Bill, come look! You’ve got to see this!”

The light followed Glaeken, clinging to the sword and to his body like some sort of viscous fluid, trailing after him, creating a luminescent tunnel through the darkness.

“Where’s he going?” Bill said as he, Ba, Sylvia, and Jeffy joined her at the edge.

Carol thought she knew but Ba answered first.

“To the hole. The one he seeks is there.”

They quickly lost sight of Glaeken, but together they stood on the roof and watched the tube of light channel its way into the inky depths of the park.

And then something else—someone else: another figure, bristling with weapons, running along the path of light.

“Who on Earth—?” Carol began, but didn’t have to finish.

No one felt the need to answer. They all knew who it was, the only one it could be.

WFPW-FM

FREDDY: Something’s happened out there, man. We just got a call on the CB that there’s a beam of light coming out of the sky over Central Park West. We can’t see it from here so we don’t know for sure if it’s true.

JO: Hey, the guy who called’s been pretty reliable all through this mess, but you know we’ve all been getting, like, a little funky since the sun went out, man, so if you’ve got a CB and you’re anywhere near Central Park, peek out what’s left of your windows and let us know what you see.

Rasalom relaxes within his chrysalis.

Only a pinhole, nothing more. All that effort expended by Glaeken’s circle and to what end? A pinhole in the night cover. Laughable. It changes nothing.

Except Glaeken. He’s been changed, returned to the way he was when he and Rasalom first squared off against each other. Little did either of them know that they would be locked in battle for ages.

But Rasalom cheers Glaeken’s rejuvenation. It would have been almost embarrassing to crush the life out of the feeble old man he had become. Destroying the reborn Glaeken—young, agile, angry—will be so much more satisfying.

And best yet, he doesn’t even have to seek out Glaeken. The idiot is coming to him. How convenient.

Their last meeting … so like their first. The circle shall be complete. It shall end as it began—in a cavern.

Glaeken stood in the dark on the rim of the Sheep Meadow hole and gazed into the abyss.

Somewhere down there, Rasalom waited. Glaeken could feel him, sense him, smell his stink. He would not be hard to find.

But he had to hurry. A rude, insistent urgency crowded against his back, nudging him forward. In spite of it, he turned and stared back at the cone of brilliance that pinned his apartment house like a prop on a stage, at the worm of light that had trailed him from the cone. Because of it, the night things had avoided him on his trek to this spot. They’d been clustered along the edge here but had slithered away at his approach.

He wished they hadn’t—wished something had challenged him, blocked his path. He hungered to hurt something—to slash, cut, maim, crush under his heel, destroy.

I was free! he thought. Free!

And now he was caught again, trapped once more in the service of—what? The power he’d served had no name, had never presented a physical manifestation. It simply was there—and it wanted him here.

The rage seething and boiling within him was beyond anything he had experienced in all his countless years. A living thing, like a berserk warrior, wild, deranged, psychotic, slavering for an object—anyone, anything on which to vent the steam of its pent-up fury. His whole body trembled as the beast within howled to be let loose.

Save it. Save it for Rasalom.

He was sure he’d need it then. All of it.

He turned back to the pit and swung the weapon. Damn the Ally, but it felt good to feel good, to have his muscles and joints so strong and lithe, to be able to fling his arms freely in all directions, to twist and bend without stiffness and stabs of pain.

And the weapon—he hated to admit how right it felt in his grasp as a deeper part of him remembered and responded to the heavy feel of the hilt tight against his palms and fingers. The warrior in him smelled blood.

He sensed movement behind him and whirled. Had one of the creatures dared—?

No. A lone figure approached, trotting toward him. He had a strange-looking shotgun strapped across his back, an assault rifle in his hands, and a pair of pistols stuck in his belt.

Jack.

“Take your back?” he said as he stopped before him.

Glaeken’s bitterness eased at the words, balmed by the man’s casual courage.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jack—you’re the Heir. You should be back with the others.”

He held back from telling him that he was a liability here—that Rasalom might find a way to use Jack against him.

Jack shook his head. “You’re not the only one with a score to settle.”

Yes … the Connells … Weezy and Eddie. Especially Weezy. Glaeken had loved her too.

“I understand, but I’m the only one who can do the settling.” He pointed to Jack’s weapons. “Bullets are useless here.” He hefted the sword. “This is the only thing that can put an end to Rasalom.”

Or maybe not. Maybe he’s too powerful now even for the sword.

“You’ll help me best by waiting with the others. All my dangers lay straight ahead. It’s not my back I’m worried about—it’s you.”

“All right. You go ahead. But I’m not going back. I’m waiting right here—just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“You never know.”

Glaeken had no more time to waste. He nodded to Jack, slipped the weapon through the back of his belt, and lowered himself over the edge to begin his descent.

WFPW-FM

JO: Awright, man. We’ve had confirmation. A few other good people have CB’d in to tell us that yes, there is some heavy light coming out of the sky on Central Park West up near the Sheep Meadow.

FREDDY: Yeah, and if you remember, that’s near where the first of those nasty bug holes opened up. We don’t know if there’s a connection so you might want to be careful, but the folks who’ve contacted us say they’re going to try to get over to it and check it out.

JO: We’ll keep you informed. As long as we’ve got juice from the generator, we’ll be here. So keep us on.

Carol pointed into the dark blob that was Central Park. The thread of light that wove through the blackness there had not lengthened in the past few minutes.

“Glaeken must have stopped moving,” she said. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

“I don’t think we’ll see it move any farther,” Bill said. “It looks like it’s reached the hole. He’s probably out of sight now, moving down.”

“I hope the light’s still following him. And where’s Jack?”

No one had an answer.

Carol glanced down at the sidewalks below in time to see a battered car skid to a halt against the curb. It was covered—smothered—with night things, but they slipped away when the car penetrated the edge of the light. The door flew open and a half dozen people—a man, two women, and three kids—tumbled out. They began to run for the door of the building but slowed to a stop as they realized they were no longer being pursued. They looked up at the light, spread their arms, laughed, and began to hug each other.

Another car flew out of the darkness and bounded over the curb before it came to a stop. Another group of people jumped out. The first greeted them with cheers and they all embraced.

“I don’t know if I like this,” Bill said.

Carol looked at him. “They’re coming to the light.”

“That could be trouble. Think we ought to get downstairs, Ba?”

The big Asian stood behind Sylvia and Jeffy. He shook his head.

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” Carol said. “I mean, I think we should share the light.”

Bill nodded. “I do too. As long as that’s all they want.”

Carol looked down again. More people had reached the light, some apparently on foot from neighboring buildings. She noticed something.

“Bill? Remember when we first looked down? Wasn’t the light just to the edge of the sidewalk?”

Bill shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

Carol stared down at the rim of shadow that encircled the building. It now reached a good yard beyond the curb on the asphalt of the street.

A hundred or so feet down the western wall, Glaeken found the mouth of the lateral passage—a dozen feet across and the only break in the smooth granite surface. He swung inward and landed on his feet. He pulled the weapon free and started walking. He needed no signpost to tell him that Rasalom lay ahead.

The light followed, filling the tunnel in his wake, stretching his shadow far ahead, sending dark things scuttling and slithering and fluttering out of the way.

He pushed on, not running, but moving swiftly with quick, long strides. The sense of urgency clung to his back, propelling him forward. He swung the blade back and forth, splashing the air with bright arcs of light, then waded through them.

But as he progressed deeper and farther along the tunnel, he noticed a dimming of the light. He turned and looked back along his path. Back there the light looked as thick and bright as before, but down here it seemed attenuated, diluted, tainted …

It could only mean he was nearing his goal, the heart of the darkness.

Not much farther on, the light loosened its embrace and pulled free; it hung back, abandoning him to penetrate the beckoning blackness of the tunnel ahead alone.

Glaeken kept moving, slower now, stepping more carefully. Only the blade was glowing now, and that faintly, struggling against the thickening blackness that devoured its light. Soon its light failed too. Glaeken stood in a featureless black limbo, cold, silent, expectant. Darkness complete, victorious.

And then, as he knew it would, came the voice, the loathed voice, speaking into his mind.

“Welcome, Glaeken. Welcome to a place where your light cannot go. My place. A place of no light. Remind you of anywhere from the past?”

Glaeken refused to reply.

“Keep walking, Glaeken. I won’t stop you. There’s light of sorts ahead. A different light, the kind I choose to allow here. No traps or tricks, I promise. I want you here. I’ve been waiting for you. The Change is almost complete. I want you to marvel at my new form. I want you to be the first to see me. I want to be the very last thing you see.”

Glaeken felt his palms dampen. He was in another country now, where Rasalom made all the rules. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he stepped forward into the black.

WFPW-FM

JO: Okay. We’ve had somebody CB us from right inside the beam of light over on Central Park West and they say it’s the real thing. Bright, warm, and the bugs won’t go near it. Nobody knows how long it’ll last, but it’s there now and these folks think it might be there to stay.

FREDDY: So look, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna make this loop and set it going, then we’re outta here. We’re heading there ourselves. We’ll have a message on the tape, then we’ll follow it with a Travelin’ Wilburys song, and the whole deal will play over and over.

JO: And here’s the message: Get to the light. Get over to Central Park West any way you can and get into the light. Get moving and good luck. And while you’re on the move, here’s some appropriate traveling music. See you there, man.

<cue “Heading for the Light”>

Dim light ahead, oozing around the next bend in the passage.

Unhealthy light. A sickly, wan, greasy glow, clinging to the tunnel walls like grime, casting no shadows. No hope dwelt in that light, no succor from the night, merely a confirmation of the dark’s superiority.

As Glaeken moved toward the feeble glow, the air grew colder; an acrid odor stung his nostrils. He rounded the bend and stopped.

In the center of a huge granite cavern, a hundred feet across, Rasalom’s new form hung suspended over a softly glowing abyss. Four gleaming ebony pillars reached from the corners of the chamber, arching across the chasm to fuse over its center. A huge sac, bulging, pendulous, nearly the size of a small warehouse, hung suspended from that central fusion. Glaeken could make out no details of the shape floating within its inky amnion. He didn’t need to see Rasalom to know it was he, undergoing the final stage of his transformation.

“Welcome to my womb, Glaeken.”

Glaeken did not reply. Instead, he leapt upon the nearest support where it sprang from the wall and strode along its upper surface toward the center where Rasalom hung.

“Glaeken, wait! Stop!” Rasalom’s voice took on a panicky edge in his head. “What are you doing?”

Glaeken kept moving toward the center, the weapon raised before him.

“There’s no need for this, Glaeken! I’m so close! You’ll ruin everything!”

Glaeken slowed, alerted by the anxious tone. This was the Adversary’s time, and Rasalom’s natural arrogance must have ballooned to gargantuan proportions by now. Glaeken could count on any sign of uncertainty being a sham, a lure to draw him closer, not put him off.

He’d cautiously progressed to within a dozen feet of the sac when the surface of the support suddenly softened and erupted in hundreds of fine tendrils that wrapped around his ankles, snaring them, encasing them in a squirming mass, then recrystallized to rocklike hardness. He pulled and strained but his feet were locked down. He chopped with the blade but remained trapped like a fly on a pest strip.

He stared down at the sac hanging within spitting distance below. A huge eye rolled against the inner surface of the membrane and stopped to stare back at him.

“That is quite far enough.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

He shifted his grip on the hilt and raised the weapon over his shoulder like a spear, its point directed at the eye. Rasalom’s voice screamed in his brain.

“No! Glaeken, wait! I can help you!”

That didn’t sound feigned. Was Rasalom vulnerable while not fully reshaped?

“No deals, Rasalom.”

He reared back to hurl the weapon.

“I can make her whole again!”

Glaeken hesitated. He couldn’t help it.

“Whole again? Who?”

“Your woman. That Hungarian Jewess who stole your heart. I can give her back her mind—and make her young again.”

“No. You can’t. Not even the Dat-tay-vao—”

“I’m far more powerful than that puny elemental. This is my world now. When I complete the Change I can do whatever I wish. I will be making the rules here, Glaeken. All the rules. And if I say the woman called Magda shall be thirty again and sound of mind and body forever—forever—then so it shall be.”

Magda … alert, young, healthy, sane … the vision of the two of them together as they used to be …

He shook it off.

“No. Not in this world.”

“It doesn’t have to be this world. You can have your own corner of the globe, your own island, your own archipelago. All to yourselves. You can even take some of your friends. The sun will shine there forever. You can live on in idyllic splendor.”

“While the rest of the world…?”

“Is mine. All you have to do is acknowledge me as master of this sphere and drop your weapon into the abyss. After that I shall see to all your comforts.”

For a heartbeat he half considered it—and the realization rocked Glaeken.

Did he want Magda back that much? And Magda—she’d never forgive him. He’d have to live on with her abhorrence, her loathing.

He tightened his grip on the weapon.

“No deals.”

Putting all his arm and as much of his foot-locked body as he could behind it, Glaeken hurled the weapon at the sac. The huge eye ducked away as Rasalom’s voice screamed in his mind.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The point of the blade pierced the membrane, penetrated about a foot, then stopped, quivering. Rasalom’s voice became a howl of pain as inky fluid spurted out around the blade, coating it, congealing around it, sealing the wound and encasing the weapon until the entire blade and all but the pommel of the hilt were mired in a hardening tarry mass.

And then Rasalom’s howl of pain segued into a peal of laughter. The single huge eye once again pressed against the inner surface of the membrane and regarded him coldly.

“Ah, Glaeken. Noble to the end. Just as well, I suppose. You probably knew you’d never see the tropical idyll I promised. But did you truly think you could hurt me? Here in the heart of my domain, in the seat of my power? Your arrogance is insufferable. It is too late to harm me, Glaeken—too late for a long time.”

Glaeken tried once more to pull his feet free but they would not budge. He took a deep breath and stood quietly, waiting, listening to the hated voice in his mind.

“You knew it was too late, Glaeken. You must have known all along. Yet knowing it was useless, still you took up the weapon and came to me instead of waiting for me to come to you. I don’t understand that. Can you explain your madness, your arrogance? We have some time. Speak.”

“If the answer is not apparent to you, no amount of talking will make you understand. Where do we go from here?”

“We wait. I’m almost ready. At the undawn I will be complete. When I emerge from my chrysalis I shall leave you here and move to the surface where I shall deal with your little circle of allies. And as I gut them I shall let you see it all through my eyes. And as for your wife, I shall keep my promise to you: I will restore her youth and her mind before her end—after all, we wouldn’t want her to die without knowing exactly what is happening. When all that is done, I’ll return for you. And then the fun shall truly begin.”

Glaeken said nothing. No use in asking for mercy for himself or the others when none was to be had. So he closed his eyes and willed his insides to stone to inure them from the sick dread coiling through him.

He’d failed.

“And while we wait, I believe I’ll close that tiny wound in my perfect night. Too many people are taking undue pleasure in it. Imagine their fear and dismay when it starts to fade and they realize that they are naked prey to all the night things encircling them. Yes, I like that idea. I should have thought of the pinhole myself. Allow a little cone of light through here and there about the world, let the locals run to it like moths to a flame, let it shine long enough to lift hopes, and then douse it. Thank you, Glaeken. You’ve given me a new game.”

“Look at them all,” Carol said. “Must be thousands down there.”

She’d returned with the others to the living room of Glaeken’s apartment and now she gazed down through the broken windows at the crowd below, listening to the noise floating up as each new arrival was greeted with cheers and hugs. A good sound, the noise of people breaking from unrelenting fear.

“It’s the radio,” Bill said. “The only station still on air in town is playing a message sending everybody here.”

Suddenly it went quiet below.

“What happened?” Carol’s heart thudded with alarm and she clutched his arm. “I think the light just dimmed. Tell me I’m wrong, Bill. Tell me I’m wrong!”

Bill glanced at her, then back out the windows.

“No … I’m afraid you’re right. Look—it just dimmed a little more!”

“It’s Glaeken’s fault,” said a familiar voice.

They all turned. Nick was still sitting on the couch where they’d left him, still facing the dead fireplace.

“Glaeken has lost. Rasalom is ascendant.”

“Glaeken is … dead?” Sylvia said, stepping forward, hovering over Nick.

Carol was surprised at her concern. She’d thought Sylvia blamed Glaeken for Jeffy’s condition.

“Not yet,” Nick said. “But soon. We’ll die. Then he’ll die. Slowly.”

Carol heard a new sound well up from the crowd outside—murmurs of fear, wails of panic. She turned back to the window and had the sudden impression that their cries of despair seemed to chase the light. She watched with growing dread as it faded from midday glare to twilight glow.

They’re afraid again.

“Afraid!” she cried. “Maybe that’s it.” Suddenly she knew what had to be done—or thought she knew. “Bill, Sylvia, everybody—downstairs. Now!”

She didn’t wait to explain and she didn’t wait for the elevator. Filled with a growing excitement and a desperate urgency, she galloped down the dizzying flights to the ground floor, dashed through the lobby, and out into the crowd on the twilit sidewalk.

Bill was right behind her, then Ba, carrying Jeffy and guiding Sylvia through the restless, panicky people. Carol led them to the edge of the fading light, right to the shadow border facing the park, then grabbed Bill’s hand in her right and took a stranger’s—a frightened-looking black woman’s—in her left.

“I won’t be afraid anymore!” Carol shouted at the huge outer darkness that tried to stare her down. She squeezed the woman’s hand. “Say it,” she told her. “I won’t be afraid anymore! Grab somebody’s hand and say it as loud as you can.” She turned to Bill. “Shout it, Bill. Mean it. Take a hand and get them to say it!”

Bill stared at her. “What’s this—?”

“Just do it. Please! There’s not much time.”

Bill shrugged and grabbed someone’s hand and began repeating the phrase. She noticed that the black woman to her left had taken a young man’s hand and was repeating the phrase to him. Carol turned and saw a very grim Sylvia standing behind her, arms folded across her chest.

“Come on, Sylvia!”

She shook her head. “This is nuts. It’s—it’s hippie bullshit. Like those peaceniks back in the sixties trying to levitate the Pentagon. You can’t chant Rasalom away.”

“I know that. But maybe we can put a kink in his plans. His whole thrust has been to isolate us from each other, to use fear to break us up into separate, frightened little islands. But look what’s happened here. One little ray of light and we’ve suddenly got a crowded little island. What if we refuse to play his game anymore? What if we refuse to run screaming in fear back to our hidey-holes? What if we stand here as a group and defy him? There’s a defect up there, a hole in Rasalom’s night. Maybe we can keep it open. Maybe we can even widen it. What have we got to lose that’s not already lost?”

“Not one damn thing!” a nearby bedraggled, middle-aged woman said. She pulled Sylvia’s arm away from her chest and grabbed her hand. “I won’t be afraid anymore!”

“Okay, okay,” Sylvia said through tightly clenched teeth as she clutched Jeffy’s arm in one hand and the woman’s in the other. “Do your worst—I won’t be afraid anymore!”

Carol felt her throat tighten at the defiance in her voice.

The chant was becoming more organized, picking up a rhythm as it spread through the crowd, growing in volume as more and more voices chimed in …

And then the light around them brightened. The increase was barely noticeable, but it was noticed. A cheer rose from the crowd and suddenly everyone was a believer. The chant doubled, tripled in volume.

Carol laughed as tears sprang into her eyes. She heard Sylvia’s voice behind her.

“It’s working! It’s working!”

Everyone in the crowd was involved now, shouting at the tops of their lungs. And the light continued to brighten. Carol had no doubt now that the glow was growing stronger. Even the light in the channel that had trailed Glaeken into the park was growing brighter.

But more than that, the cone of light was growing wider, inching across the pavement toward the park, pumping pulses of brightness along the luminous channel that led to the Sheep Meadow hole.

And more people were coming, running to the light, swelling the crowd, swelling the sound of defiance.

Something was happening.

Rasalom had been uncharacteristically silent. And his huge new form did not lie quiet in its amniotic sac. The membrane rippled now and again, like a chill running over fevered skin, and occasionally it bulged in places as Rasalom shifted within.

Glaeken closed his eyes and tried to sense what was going on. He stood perfectly still, listening, feeling.

Warmth.

Light … light growing above. Not visible here, but he sensed it. Light and warmth, seeping into the earth above the cavern. And behind …

He turned and looked down the passageway. Where he’d left perfect darkness, he now saw the faintest glow. An illusion? Or the harbinger of a tiny dawn?

Glaeken turned back to his ancient enemy.

“What’s happening upstairs, Rasalom? Tell me!”

But now it was Rasalom’s turn to be silent.

Sylvia watched the scene from a second-floor window. The noise, the press of people had begun to frighten Jeffy so she’d brought him inside.

The cone of light had returned to noontime brightness and was widening steadily now, creeping uptown and down along the street, invading the park. The crowd, too, was swelling steadily, the light and the noise attracting thousands more. The Manhattan mix was there, red, yellow, Central African ebony to Norwegian white and every shade between.

The chant Carol had started still reverberated loud and clear, but here and there in the crowd Sylvia noticed pockets of people singing and dancing. A couple of MP3 ghetto blasters had appeared and different kinds of music, from hip-hop to salsa, were each attracting their own fans. A couple of guys were leading a big group in singing “Happy Together.” She guessed that was just as effective. You didn’t have to proclaim your lack of fear when you were singing and dancing. And from directly below her window, uncertain harmonies drifted up as a ragtag group tried to find a comfortable key for “The Closer You Are.”

Sylvia thought of Alan then and how he’d loved doo-wop and suddenly she was crying.

Oh, Alan. My God, how I miss you. You belong here, not me. You loved people so much more than I. I should be dead and you should be here.

Alan … after he’d pulled out of the coma from the Dat-tay-vao, she’d come to think of him as indestructible. An indisputable assumption: Alan would be around forever. She’d never considered the possibility of life without him. And now he was gone—no body, no grave, no trace, just gone—and she hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye.

She hugged Jeffy closer. It was all so damn unfair.

For a brief while she had blamed Glaeken, but knew now that he, too, was paying a terrible price. She’d seen it in his eyes as he’d picked up the hilt and told her to get Jeffy clear—the anger, the frustration, the vulnerability, the weary resignation. All in a single glance. The weight of the terrible responsibility he was shouldering once more had struck her like a blow. She’d instantly regretted all the angry things she’d said to him.

And now maybe he was gone too.

She watched the arc of light edging through the park—well into the Sheep Meadow now, almost to the rim of the hole. Did that mean they were winning, or was this just a false hope?

Sylvia closed her eyes and hugged Jeffy tighter.

If you’re still alive down there, Glaeken, please know that you’re in our thoughts. If there’s anything you can do, do it. Get him, Glaeken. Don’t let him get away with what he’s done to us. GET HIM!

Yes, light was seeping down the tunnel. Glaeken was sure of it now. Growing steadily. And Rasalom … Rasalom was thrashing about in his amniotic sac.

What was happening up on the surface? The weapon was here, useless, encased in hardened fluid from the sack. What in the name of anything could exert such a disturbing effect on Rasalom?

Suddenly a thunderous rumble from the tunnel behind him. The support shuddered beneath Glaeken’s feet. He twisted and saw the growing glow disappear as the roof of the tunnel collapsed, choking the passage with rubble. As the tunnel mouth belched a cloud of dust, Rasalom’s voice returned.

“Once again you’ve chosen a vexing group of friends, Glaeken.”

A warm glow of pride lit within him, along with a glimmer of—did he dare?—hope.

“They’re a tough bunch. What have they done?”

“Nothing that will matter in the long run, but for the present they’ve created an annoyance, an inconvenience.”

“What?”

“They’ve enlarged the pinhole in the night-cover made by your puny little weapon.”

Glaeken steadied himself, choked down the shout of triumph that surged against his vocal cords. He maintained a calm exterior.

“How?”

“How is irrelevant. Their success is irrelevant. The entire world is in darkness. A single cone of sunlight, no matter how bright, is laughably insignificant.”

Glaeken sensed the weight of all that Rasalom had left unsaid.

“Sunlight, Rasalom? Since when have you been afraid of sunlight?”

“I fear nothing, Glaeken. I am master of this sphere. It fears me.”

“It’s not sunlight, is it, Rasalom. It’s another kind of light. Light from your enemy. And it comes at a time and place that’s more than ‘inconvenient.’ It’s shining directly above your little nest, and it has arrived at a time when you’re vulnerable, before your new form has matured.”

“Nonsense, Glaeken. Pure wishful thinking on your part. When my gestation is through, and that is only a matter of hours now, I shall personally plug that hole in my perfect night. Then you will see how ‘vulnerable’ I am.”

Glaeken noticed a growing warmth at his back. He twisted again toward the rubble-strewn tunnel. Something happening there.

And then he saw it. A gleaming pinpoint, a tiny bead no larger than a grain of sand, glowing near the top of the debris, growing bigger, growing brighter. The light seemed to be worming its way through the rubble, as if it had a mind of its own. But how was that possible?

“Don’t allow yourself to hope, Glaeken. It cannot harm me.”

Yet Glaeken did allow himself to hope, could not help but hope when he saw the bead brighten suddenly and shoot out toward the pit in a narrow beam of brilliance, like a needle-thin blue-white laser streaming toward Rasalom. But it came up short against the support under Glaeken’s feet, spraying and splashing like water against a stone wall.

The beam persisted, though. Like a living thing with a will of its own, it split, one half sliding upward, the other down around the support. The light crept to the top just inches ahead of Glaeken’s trapped feet. As soon as it crested the support it raced downward to rejoin its other half. They fused and once again shot out toward Rasalom’s amniotic sac.

But the beam did not strike the sac. Instead it flashed toward the weapon, igniting the exposed butt of the hilt. The pommel blazed with blinding fire, and dimly, through the encrustations, Glaeken could see bolts of light flashing along the length of the blade.

Rasalom howled in Glaeken’s mind as he writhed and thrashed within his sac. Glaeken had a feeling that this time was no act.

The weapon began to vibrate, the encrustations cracked and fell away like old skin, and suddenly the hilt was free, blazing with white light.

Another beam of radiance broke through the rubble and flashed across the cavern. It too found the weapon and added its power to it.

But how … how could the light pass through the rubble?

And then he heard a stone tumble off the debris pile. Something—someone—was disturbing the rubble, clearing a passage along its top.

Glaeken knew of only one person with the indomitable will necessary to reach this spot.

As Rasalom’s howl rose to a shriek, Glaeken felt the tendrils wrapped around his legs begin to soften, their hold weaken. He bent and tore at them, straining to pull free. No time to lose. Rasalom’s thrashings were shaking the weapon within the wound it had made. The beam of light stayed with it, moving whenever it did, but if the weapon slipped loose it would fall into the pit. And then Rasalom’s victory would be assured.

With a final surge, Glaeken yanked his legs free and leapt to the central disk where the four arched supports fused. He dropped to his belly, hung precariously over the edge, and reached for the weapon.

Cold-fire eternity beckoned below.

He fought a surge of vertigo and stretched his right arm to its limits, violently thrusting it down to force the ligaments to give him the tiny extra increment of length he needed to reach the jittering hilt. His fingertips brushed the pommel twice, and then with a final, agonizing thrust, he hooked two fingers around it. At his touch the weapon seemed to move on its own, slamming the grip of the hilt against his palm. Power surged up his arm and throughout his body and once more the weapon was his.

As he was the weapon’s.

He stood and looked about. The original beams of light and new ones from the rubble stayed with the blade, fueling it, following wherever he moved it. He couldn’t reach Rasalom or his sac, so he decided to try the next best thing.

Reversing his grip, he lifted the weapon high and drove the point down into the center of the nearest of the supporting arches. A blinding flash lit the cavern as the blade cut deep into the flinty substance. The material of the support began to bubble and smoke as the blade melted its way through it like a hot knife cutting frozen butter. Foul, greasy smoke, reeking of seared flesh, engulfed him. More flashes followed as Glaeken worked the blade back and forth, widening the gash as he deepened it, strobing the cavern with bursts of light and stretching weird shadows against its walls.

Rasalom howled.

“No, Glaeken! I command you to stop! Stop now or you’ll pay dearly. And so will your friends!”

Without pausing an instant in his labors, Glaeken glanced down at the huge eye pressed furiously against the membrane.

“You’ve already promised that, Rasalom. What have I got to lose?”

“I won’t kill you, Glaeken! I’ll let you live on, just barely. I’ll make you witness, see, feel everything that happens in my new world.”

Glaeken said nothing. He had almost cut through the first arch. With a final thrust, the blade angled through the underside and came free.

The central portion suddenly sagged a half a foot under him. Glaeken hurried to his left, toward the next support.

“Glaeken, NO! That island I promised you—you and the woman and your friends—”

Glaeken shut his mind to Rasalom’s rantings and drove the blade into the second arch. More flashes and oily smoke. He worked the blade ferociously, gasping with the stench and the exertion, and eventually it worked its way through.

The center sagged again, its free edge lurching downward almost two feet this time. The supports he had cut wept dark fluid from their truncated ends as they remained suspended above the void like severed arms reaching for something they would never again possess.

Supported now by only two arches, the center tilted at an angle. Glaeken’s feet slipped on the smooth surface as he hurried toward the nearer of the remaining arches.

And again he drove the blade deep into the substance. But as he worked it through, he felt an impact on his right leg. Searing pain flashed up to his hip. He caught a blur of movement and rolled away.

A huge hand had reared up from the underside of the center, but it resembled a hand in only the vaguest sense—black as the night above, with three fingers as thick around as Glaeken’s waist, each terminating in a sharp yellow talon. Crimson fluid stained one of those—his blood.

Rasalom—in his new form. Glaeken could not see the rest of him, most of which was no doubt still in the sac below. Had his new form finally matured, or was he breaking free before the process was completed in order to stop Glaeken?

It made another swipe, blindly, in his direction. Glaeken ducked under the talons. The sudden move sent a fresh surge of agony through his wounded leg. As it came for him again, he slashed with the weapon and felt the blade dig deep into the inky flesh.

Light exploded around him, a flash of brilliance that dwarfed all those before it. In his mind he heard Rasalom cry out in shock and pain. When his vision cleared he saw the taloned hand waving above him, one of its thick fingers swinging madly back and forth as it dangled from a smoking stump by a few remaining intact tendons.

Glaeken straightened and limped to the other support. He had been able to cut only partway through the third and was unlikely to get a chance to finish the job within Rasalom’s reach. He’d attack the fourth—but not near the center.

His move must have surprised Rasalom because Glaeken was halfway along the arch before the voice sounded in his brain.

“Don’t run off, Glaeken. We’ve only begun to play.”

Glaeken didn’t look back. He continued his torturous trek toward the far end of the arch. Within a dozen feet of its origin he stopped and turned.

Rasalom’s amniotic sac still hung from its lopsided platform like a gargantuan punching bag, but now a sinewed arm with a wounded hand protruded from the rent made by the weapon. It raked the air above it with its two remaining talons. And the eye … that malevolent eye still pressed against the membrane, glaring at him.

“I’m not running far.”

With another burst of light and bloom of oily smoke, he drove the weapon deep into the arch beneath him and began to work it back and forth. The support was thicker here near its base, but he could afford the extra time it would take because he was out of Rasalom’s reach.

“Glaeken,” Rasalom said to his mind, “you’ll never learn. You are forcing me to…”

Ahead, over the center of the pit, another arm clawed free of the membrane, then ripped a talon down the surface of the sac, opening it like a zipper. Tons of ebony fluid poured from the rent, spilling into the bottomless glow of the depths below. The rent parted, widened, and then …

Something emerged from the membrane.

Glaeken knew who it was, but could not be certain what it was. It had arms, that he knew. And a huge eye at its upper end. But in the dim glow leaking up from the pit below he could be sure of little else as it crawled from the sac and hoisted itself onto the sagging central platform. Legs … now he could see legs, four bristling, segmented stalks like a tarantula’s, but the rest was encased in an oozing gelatinous mass that dripped off the platform in amorphous globs and tumbled into infinity. A larger shape lurked within the mass, something with a head and a torso, but Glaeken could make out no details. And now a pair of thick, sucker-studded tentacles wriggled free of the gelatin below the arms to twist and coil in the air.

Glaeken flashed back to the q’qrs with their extra, tentacle-like upper limbs, but he had a feeling this shape, this avatar possessed far more appendages.

It began moving his way, crawling toward him along the slope of the fourth arch.

Glaeken redoubled his efforts with the weapon, widening, deepening the cut in the upper surface, thrusting the blade through to the underside. Rasalom’s incomplete new form was cumbersome, his progress slow, but he was sliding steadily closer. He soon would have Glaeken within reach of those talons.

Suddenly an explosive crack echoed through the cavern as the fourth arch shook beneath Glaeken’s feet and broke partway through like a green sapling. Its distal segment sagged. Glaeken paused and watched Rasalom claw frantically for purchase as he slipped back along the decline toward the central disk. He gave the monstrous form no time to recover, however; immediately he renewed his hacking assault at the remaining splinters holding the arch together.

“Give it up, Glaeken! This is an exercise in futility! You cannot win!”

Rasalom’s words were no longer in his mind. His new form was speaking in a startlingly powerful voice. Even muffled by the gelatinous coating, it shook the walls of the cavern.

Glaeken ignored it and forced his wearying arms to maintain the assault on the arch. The reflexes were still there, the arms knew what to do, but the unconditioned muscles were sagging with fatigue. Yet he couldn’t rest, couldn’t even slow his pace. He closed his eyes to blot out all distractions and kept hacking.

“GLAEKEN!”

The stark terror in the voice and the ripping sound that accompanied it jolted Glaeken. He looked up.

Rasalom was near, clinging to the arch with his tentacles, his outstretched talons only a few feet from Glaeken’s face, yet he was receding, falling away. And then he saw why. Glaeken had cut through the remnant of the fourth support and now Rasalom was dangling over the pit, clutching the swiftly tilting remnant with arms, legs, and tentacles.

The entire structure—the central disk, the new Rasalom, and the remnant of his saclike chrysalis—was now supported entirely by the third arch. And Glaeken had already damaged that near its union with the disk.

After all these ages, Rasalom’s end was at hand.

Or was it?

Rasalom was suspended head down over the pit, but he was scrabbling backward along the remnant of the newly severed arch, up toward the disk.

“You cannot win, Glaeken! Not this time! It cannot happen! I’m too close!”

His movements were shaking the entire structure, exerting enormous pressure on the lone arch. It began to bob like a fishing pole that had hooked an enormous great white. As Glaeken hobbled back to the rim of the cavern and made his way toward the final arch, he heard it begin to crack where he had started his cut.

Rasalom must have realized it too, because even in this dim light Glaeken could discern a frantic desperation in his movements. But too late. The end of the arch was splitting, angling down at its wounded tip. Breaking …

A cannon-shot crack signaled the end. The disk lurched downward to a vertical angle, twisted crazily. Rasalom remained, clutching the disk’s upper edge with his taloned fingers. Other appendages, spiny, rickety arms with clawed tips had broken free of the gel along his flank and were blindly questing for purchase while his tentacles stretched toward the end of the arch, reaching.

And then the final threads of the final arch gave way and the disk, the sac, and Rasalom too, plunged into the abyss.

No—not Rasalom.

Glaeken groaned as he realized Rasalom was still there. The rest had fallen away but he was clinging to the remnant of the final support by one of his tentacles—and pulling himself up.

“What can I do?”

Glaeken whirled at the sound of the voice and saw a dirt- and dust-caked Jack silhouetted in the light from the tunnel. He must have crawled through.

“Nothing! Go back!”

“Not likely.”

“You’ve done more than enough. This is my fight!”

“Like hell!”

“YOU!”

Jack focused on Rasalom. “Jesus Christ, look at you! You spent thousands of years and put us through all this shit so you could look like that? You’ve gotta be the biggest asshole in the multiverse!”

He raised his automatic rifle and began firing at Rasalom’s tentacles. The bullets had no more effect than gnats. He quickly ran out his magazine.

Glaeken forced his wounded leg to move, to half run, half stagger along the ledge to the base of the third arch, climb upon it, and hobble along its wavering length. He didn’t have time to cut through this one. He had to meet Rasalom at its terminus and stop him there before he regained his footing.

“This is what it’s always come down to, hasn’t it, Rasalom. You and I. Just you and I.”

Rasalom’s reply was to snake his other tentacle upward and loop it around the shaft next to the first. He used them to hoist himself higher until his taloned hands could grip the arch. That done, new tentacles began to spring from the great gelatinous mass of his body to join the others.

He’s going to make it!

Glaeken clenched his teeth against the pain in his leg and increased his speed. He didn’t hesitate when he reached the shaft. He stepped out on its swaying, sloping surface and slashed the first tentacles with the weapon. The air filled with blinding flashes, greasy smoke, and thick, dark fluid spurting from the amputated ends. The world narrowed to Glaeken, Rasalom, the arch, and the weapon. Slitting his eyes against the flashes, choking on the smoke, he slipped into a fugue of pain and motion, moving in a fog, operating on reflexes as he severed coil after coil and kicked their writhing remnants aside, then moved on to the next group.

From below him came a thunderous roar as Rasalom kicked and thrashed in inarticulate pain and rage.

Spiny, spidery, pincer-tipped arms rose on both sides and snapped at him. Glaeken lashed out left and right, scything through them as he kept inching forward.

Something coiled about his ankle and pulled him off his feet. He fell and landed hard, almost losing his grip on the sword. Ahead of him, Rasalom’s yellow-taloned hands found purchase. He began to lever himself up onto the support. If he made it—

Something boomed in the cavern and the area of the support beneath the hand with the missing finger exploded, the flinty surface dissolving into a spray of fragments. The two talons slipped, leaving Rasalom dangling by one arm.

Glaeken glanced over his shoulder and saw Jack aiming a large-bore weapon like a grenade launcher his way. Only he hadn’t fired a grenade, more like a huge shotgun shell. The pellets couldn’t harm Rasalom, but the support was another matter.

Another boom and another explosion as the shot tore up the support beneath the remaining set of talons. They slipped but held.

Glaeken rolled, severed the tentacle holding him, then crawled to the end of the arch where Rasalom swung below, suspended by only three talons dug into its surface.

“Glaeken … no … please! Don’t—”

And in the instant of that plea Rasalom yanked his body upward and lashed at Glaeken with the two talons of his damaged hand. Glaeken ducked as they raked the air inches away, the breeze of their passing ruffling his hair. He swung the weapon upward, over his head. The impact with Rasalom’s wrist and the simultaneous detonation of brilliance as the blade sliced through skin and muscle and tendon and bone nearly knocked Glaeken off the arch. He threw himself flat and hung on as Rasalom thrashed and howled and waved his partially severed, black-spurting wrist in the air.

Up ahead, near the shattered tip of the arch, Glaeken saw that Rasalom’s only remaining hold on it was the three talons of his surviving hand.

“Kinda like déjà vu, huh?” said a voice close behind him.

Glaeken turned. Jack, his expression fierce, his eyes ablaze, had stepped onto the arch and was addressing Rasalom.

“You again!”

“Yeah, me again. Looks like you’ve lost another hand.” Jack edged past Glaeken, then held out his own hand. “I need a piece of this son of a bitch.”

Glaeken understood. He handed Jack the sword. Jack hefted it, then looked down at Rasalom.

“You really wanted to look like that? You think you’re scary? Seriously? What an asshole.”

His face changed, becoming a mask of rage as he raised the sword over the clutching talons.

“NO!”

A flash as Jack swung the blade and severed one of the fingers. Rasalom howled incoherently.

“That was for Eddie and Weezy!” Jack screamed in a raw voice Glaeken didn’t recognize. His throat worked as his tone softened. “Especially Weezy.”

Another flash, another scream as he swung and sliced through a second. The severed tip tumbled into oblivion.

“And that was for whatever you did or tried to do to three very important people.”

Rasalom howled as the talon of the last digit scraped along the surface of the arch, scratching a deep furrow as it slipped slowly toward eternity. Then it caught in a small pit near the edge.

Jack seemed to be blinking back tears as he handed the sword to Glaeken.

“The last one is yours. You must have one helluva list.”

Glaeken, still prone, nodded. “It would take me all day to recite it.”

“The Lady there?”

“She’s number one.”

“Glaeken!” came the muffled, agonized voice from below. “You can’t! This can’t be happening! Don’t!”

Glaeken pointed to the partially choked tunnel where Jack had entered.

“Back up.”

Jack nodded and retreated. Glaeken rose to his knees and lifted the weapon to sever that last digit.

“GLAEKEN! Surely after all these millennia we can find a tiny piece of common ground, come to some kind of accord!”

He lowered the blade.

“Never.”

Instead of using the weapon, he swiveled his body, flexing his good leg all the way to his abdomen.

His foot shot out and knocked the talon over the edge.

No final farewell to Rasalom, no verbal send-off. Nothing more than a contemptuous kick. Just what he deserved.

Rasalom’s scream was loud, almost painfully so. It echoed up from the glowing depths long after his tumbling, mutilated form had been swallowed by the mists.

But Glaeken did not wait and watch and listen as he dearly would have loved. Instead, as soon as the arch slowed its bobbing from the release of Rasalom’s enormous weight, he began crawling back toward the cavern rim as fast as his limbs would allow.

Rasalom was falling into eternity. When he passed the point where his presence no longer influenced this sphere, the old laws would begin to reassert themselves. Nature would awaken from its Rasalom-induced coma and begin its recovery, regain its control.

And this cavern had no place in nature.

As he reached the end of the arch, the walls began to shake. He saw Jack knocked off his feet to tumble back into the tunnel. Glaeken knew if he could reach that tunnel, he might survive.

He was almost there when the cavern rim gave way. He fought for purchase but his hands found only loose earth. He tried to raise his good leg, find some sort of foothold, but no use. His upper torso angled back as he began to tumble after Rasalom. Eternity beckoned below …

And then a hand closed about his ankle.

The Bunker

Vicky screamed as the burrowers broke from their paralysis and lurched into motion again. But they ignored the humans as they moved … away.

Gia watched in awe as they wriggled back into the holes that Swiss-cheesed the walls—something frantic about their movements—and disappeared.

“What’s happening?”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t know, but I bet You-Know-Who has something to do with it.”

Vicky frowned. “Who’s You-Know-Who?”

Gia nudged her and gave her a look. “Who do you think?”

The little girl beamed. “Ohhhh yeaaaah.”

Manhattan

The crowd quieted as a new sound overwhelmed their chants and songs. Carol’s voice had given out a while ago, so she was already silent.

They’d spilled across the street and into the illuminated sections of the park, and were swelling farther. But the sound had frozen them all in their tracks; and now they stood half crouched, looking up, looking around, looking at each other. Carol hushed those near her.

A basso drone, a thunderous buzz, a monstrous flapping in the air all around the widening cone of light, growing louder, vibrating the streets, the sidewalks, the buildings.

“It’s the bugs!” someone cried. “They’re coming back! Coming to get us!”

“No!” Carol cried, her voice a ragged blare above the growing fearful murmur of those about her. “Don’t be afraid. They hate the light. As long as we stay in the light they won’t come near us.”

She, too, was afraid, but she hid it. What was happening? She glanced at Bill and he shrugged and held her close.

Then she saw them. Bugs. An immense horde of them, thickening the air and swarming along the ground around the cone of light. Some of them were forced to dip into the light by the crowding but their wings and bodies began to smoke where the light touched them and they darted back out.

No concerted attack, no suicidal kamikaze bug rush to wipe them out. Rather, a mad, blind, panicked dash toward the hole. The cone of light had reached the edge of the bottomless opening and she could see the countless horrors diving into the depths beyond the light, the winged ones spiraling down, the crawlers leaping from the edge.

“They’re going back!” Carol said, as much to herself as to Bill. “They’re going back into the hole!”

As a cheer roared from the crowd and she pressed forward for a better look, the earth began to shake. Cheers turned to screams as people were knocked off their feet. Carol’s hoarse shout of alarm rose with the others as she was hurled to the pavement with Bill atop her.

From the blown-out windows of the top floor, Sylvia watched the pandemonium below with growing alarm. She clutched the sill with one hand and Jeffy with the other as the building shook and creaked and groaned around them.

An earthquake! she thought. She remembered the 2011 tremor, but this was much worse.

And there, down on the near edge of the Sheep Meadow, the earth was cracking open.

Another hole!

This was it, then. The growing light, the sense of impending victory, the return of the bugs en masse to the original hole—all a false hope, an empty promise. A new hole, unafraid of the light, was opening closer to the building. What new horror was going to issue from that?

The sudden changes could mean only one thing: Glaeken had failed.

The tremors worsened as a deep rumble issued from the first hole in the center of the Sheep Meadow. Clouds of what looked like dust or smoke were spewing from the opening. Sylvia reached for the field glasses and focused on the hole. The edges looked ragged—they seemed to be crumbling, breaking away, sliding into the opening, choking it.

Yes! It was closing! And below—she shifted the glasses—what was happening with the new hole?

But it wasn’t a hole yet. Maybe it never would be. More like a depression, a cave-in of some sort.

The tremors stopped.

Then silence. Sylvia lowered the field glasses and paused, listening. Silence like no silence she could ever recall. Not a bird, not an insect, not a breeze was stirring. She could hear the rush of her own blood through her arteries, but nothing else. All the world, all of nature paused, frozen, stunned, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

It lasted one prolonged agonized moment. And then, for the second time tonight, the light began to fade.

The silence was shattered by a burst of cries of renewed terror from below, then the chant began again. She heard Ba begin to repeat the words behind her. Sylvia joined him, whispering the litany as she raised the glasses and scanned the roiling crowd for Carol or Bill or Jack—anyone she knew.

The chant was failing this time. Despite thousands of throats shouting the words at the tops of their lungs, the light continued to fade.

We’ve lost!

Somehow in the dying light she managed to pick out Carol’s familiar figure at the edge of the new hole, or depression, or wherever it was. She wanted to shout down to her to get away from there. That was where the new threat would arise. But Carol was right on the edge, pointing down at the bottom of the depression. She was pacing back and forth, hugging Bill, hugging everyone within reach. What—?

Sylvia refocused on the bottom of the pit. Something moving there, struggling in the loose dirt. She strained to see in the last of the light.

A man. A man with red hair. And another man, helping him, pulling him free.

Glaeken? Jack? Alive? But … if they’d survived down there, it could only mean—

Suddenly Ba was at her side, pointing across the park toward the East Side.

“Look, Missus! Look!”

In all their years together, she had never heard such naked excitement in his voice. She looked.

The crowd below couldn’t see it yet, but from this elevation there could be no doubt. Sylvia didn’t need the field glasses. Straight ahead, down at the far end of one of the streets, a bright orange glow was firing the eastern sky, reaching for them along the concrete canyons that ran to the East River.

Manhattanhenge.

“The sun, Missus! The sun is rising!”

PART FOUR

DAWN

FRIDAY

In The Beginning …

Manhattan

Carol stood on Glaeken’s rooftop in the bright morning sunlight and wished she had the nerve to remove her blouse. Jack and Bill had pulled off their shirts as soon as they’d stepped out the door. Carol envied the males their casual ability to expose so much surface area to the warm light pouring through the cloudless sky.

Why not me? she thought, reaching for the top buttons on her blouse. After all we’ve been through together, what difference would it make?

But she stopped after two buttons. If it was just Bill, maybe. But not with Jack here.

I know I’ve been changed by all this—but not that much. An uptight Catholic girl still lived somewhere within her.

“Still hard to believe it’s over,” Jack said.

Bill stared out over the city. “What a mess.”

Carol followed his gaze. There didn’t seem to be an unbroken window in the city. Ruined buildings were everywhere, some torn apart by gravity holes, some crushed by debris falling from other gravity holes. Above them, pillars of smoke rose from fires still raging here and there about the boroughs. Below, a rare car picked its way through the cluttered streets. Dazed-looking people wandered the sidewalks or stood around the huge depression that only hours ago had been the Sheep Meadow hole.

“It’s not all bad,” Jack said. “When was the last time midtown air smelled this clean?”

He seemed a new man, energized. She knew why: The shortwave had come alive. He’d contacted his loved ones.

Bill nodded. “You’ve got a point. I’m just wondering how we’ll ever rebuild this.”

Jack made a face. “Who said we should?”

“We have to,” Carol said. “We now have a chance to start from scratch and do it right this time.”

Bill nodded. “Or at least give it our best shot.”

“Oh, wow!” Jack said through a laugh. “Polly, meet Anna. Anna, meet Polly.”

Carol turned to him. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Pie in the sky. Sure, there’ll be lots of talk about a new world and a new brotherhood, but believe me it won’t be long before we’re all back to the same old shit: The truly capable people, the ones you’d be proud to call leader, will be devoting all their time to the actual rebuilding, while the usual crew of blowhard leeches incapable of building anything will be pretending to lead while they position themselves for a driver seat once things get rolling again.”

“I disagree,” Carol said. “I think we can and will do better. And as for leaders…” She gestured below. “Do you think anyone down there knows what you two did?”

“No,” Jack said sharply. He suddenly seemed uneasy. He began slipping back into his shirt. “And let’s leave it that way.”

“Don’t want to be a hero?” Bill said, smiling.

“I don’t even want to be noticed.” He turned and started walking away.

“Leaving?” Carol said.

“Yeah. Soon as I find a car with gas I’m heading out to Pennsylvania.” A light glowed in his eyes. “Abe’s bringing Gia and Vicky back. I’m going to provide the escort.”

“Good luck,” Bill said.

Carol watched Jack go. As he reached the stairs, a little girl, maybe seven or eight with curly blond hair, approached him. She held a puppy. How on Earth had she got up here?

Jack skidded to a stop before her. They stared at each other. Jack spoke, the child nodded. Then Jack did the strangest thing: He dropped to one knee before her, wrapped her in his arms, and hugged her.

“Do you see that?” Carol said.

Bill nodded, frowning. “Are those tears in his eyes?”

Carol was pretty sure they were. “I wonder who she is?”

As she watched Jack wipe his eyes, something swooped through the air and landed on the little girl’s head: a pale blue parakeet.

Carol heard Jack cry, “Parabellum?” then laugh. “I’ll be damned!”

He took the child by the hand and led her, the dog, and the bird downstairs.

“What was that all about?”

Carol shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the little girl he’s been talking about.”

“No,” Bill said. “Something different—something very unchildlike about that child.”

“Whoever she is, he seems very protective. Heaven help anyone who tries to harm her.”

Bill slipped his arm around her waist and turned her toward the ruined cityscape before them.

“I doubt heaven helps anybody.”

“Just a figure of speech. But I do wonder who or what will get the credit for the sunrise.”

Bill laughed. “I heard a bunch of guys singing ‘Here Comes the Sun’ over and over. I’ll bet that becomes a new religious hymn. But you’re right. A whole new mythology could rise out of this. A new round of sun worship, that’s for sure. It’ll be interesting to see what develops.”

“But whatever it is, it will be wrong. They’ll be looking for some deity to praise and thank.”

“That’s nothing new.”

“But what about you? You deserve part of the credit.”

Bill shook his head. “No. I just ran an errand.” He looked into her eyes. “You’re the one who found the real key and put it to use. You saw that the answer was inside us rather than outside.”

“It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? We’ve always been in charge but we’ve never taken control. We just let ourselves get pushed this way and that.”

“Fear is like a disease, and I guess some of us have better immune systems than others. Sometimes we need a little help from others, but we all have the power to step aside and say I’m not going to be a part of this anymore.”

She locked her arms around his waist and smoothed his wind-ruffled gray hair.

“Do you think things will be different?”

He shook his head. “I like to think I’m more optimistic than Jack, but I fear he’s right. Nothing changes.”

“That’s not true, Bill. I’m changed, you’re changed, we’ve all been changed by this.”

“Especially Glaeken.”

Yes, she thought with a pang of anguish. Especially poor Glaeken. What would he do, where would he go when Magda was gone?

And Sylvia and Jeffy—what about them? And Nick … would he ever recover?

So many questions, so many uncertainties.

She locked her arms around Bill’s waist and snuggled against him.

At least there were a few things of which she could be sure—her love for Bill, for one, and the certainty that no one alive today would ever again take sunrise for granted.

And beneath their feet, in the apartment directly below, a red-haired man with an ageless thirty-five-year-old body spoon-feeds applesauce to the twisted, empty-minded woman he loved so dearly and with whom he had hoped to grow old. A little girl, older than Glaeken, enters with a puppy in her arms. Glaeken embraces her. The Veilleur household has just expanded.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed them below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.

Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.

THE PAST

“Demonsong” (prehistory)

“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923–1924)

Black Wind (1926–1945)

The Keep (1941)

Reborn (February–March 1968)

“Dat Tay Vao” + (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories (1983)

Jack: Secret Circles (1983)

Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)

“Faces”* (1989)

YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE

Sibs (February)

The Tomb (summer)

“The Barrens”* (ends in September)

“A Day in the Life”* (October)

“The Long Way Home” ++

Legacies (December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO

“Interlude at Duane’s”** (April)

Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs” ++)

All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh” ++)

Hosts (June)

The Haunted Air (August)

Gateways (September)

Crisscross (November)

Infernal (December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE

Harbingers (January)

Bloodline (April)

By the Sword (May)

Ground Zero (July)

The Touch (ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)

“Tenants”*

YEAR ZERO

“Pelts”*

Reprisal (ends in February)

Fatal Error (February) (includes “The Wringer” ++)

The Dark at the End (March)

Nightworld (May)

* available in The Barrens and Others

** available in Aftershock & Others

+ available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch

++ available in Quick Fixes—Tales of Repairman Jack

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

Repairman Jack[*]

The Tomb

Legacies

Conspiracies

All the Rage

Hosts

The Haunted Air

Gateways

Crisscross

Infernal

Harbingers

Bloodline

By the Sword

Ground Zero

Fatal Error

The Dark at the End

Young Adult[*]

Jack: Secret Histories

Jack: Secret Circles

Jack: Secret Vengeance

The Adversary Cycle[*]

The Keep

The Tomb

The Touch

Reborn

Reprisal

Nightworld

Other Novels

Healer

Wheels Within Wheels

An Enemy of the State

Black Wind[*]

Dydeetown World

The Tery

Sibs[*]

The Select

Virgin

Implant

Deep as the Marrow

Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

The Christmas Thingy

Sims

The Fifth Harmonic

Midnight Mass

Short Fiction

Soft and Others[*]

The Barrens and Others[*]

Aftershock & Others[*]

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling

Circus & Oddity Emporium[*]

Quick Fixes[*]

Editor

Freak Show

Diagnosis: Terminal

[*] See “The Secret History of the World”.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

NIGHTWORLD

Copyright © 2012 by F. Paul Wilson

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2167-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781429948012 (e-book)

First Edition: May 2012

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Rasalom went …

Part I: Sunset

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Part II: Twilight

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Part III: Night

End Play

Part IV: Dawn

Friday

The Secret History of the World

Also by F. Paul Wilson

Copyright

Table of Contents

The Keep

- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Map
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Epilogue
- The Secret History of the World
- Acknowledgments
- Also by F. Paul Wilson
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
- Table of Contents
- Copyright

The Tomb

Acknowledgements
chapter one

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21

chapter two
chapter three

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10

chapter four
chapter five

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15

chapter six
chapter seven

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16

chapter eight

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11

chapter nine

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34

The Touch

- APRIL
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- MAY
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- JUNE
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- JULY
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapter 49
- Chapter 50
- Chapter 51
- AUGUST
- Chapter 52
- Afterword
- Foreword
- DAT-TAY-VAO
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9

Reborn

Prologue

One

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4

Two

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6

Three

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6

Four

Five

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14

Six

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4

Seven

- 1
- 2
- 3

Eight

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4

Nine

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Ten

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6

Eleven

Twelve

- 1

- 2

Thirteen

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4

Fourteen

- 1
- 2
- 3

Fifteen

- 1

Sixteen

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18

Seventeen

Eighteen

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6

Nineteen

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7

Twenty

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9

Twenty-three

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24

Twenty-four

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Epilogue

Reprisal

- Title Page
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note

- Part I: Now

- September

- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- The Boy
- Chapter Four

- October

- Chapter Five

- November

- Chapter Six

- December

- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen

- Part II: Then

- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen

- Part III: Now

- January

- Chapter Twenty

- Chapter Twenty-One

- February

- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Chapter Thirty

- The Secret History of the World
- Also by F. Paul Wilson
- Praise for The Adversary Cycle
- Copyright

Nightworld

- Title Page
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Rasalom went …
- Part I: Sunset
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- Part II: Twilight
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Part III: Night
- End Play
- Part IV: Dawn
- Friday
- The Secret History of the World
- Also by F. Paul Wilson
- Copyright