"The Great and Secret Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

PART FOUR: PRIMAL SCENES

Grillo had never heard Abernethy happier. The

man fairly whooped when Grillo told him the Buddy

Vance story had taken a turn for the cataclysmic, and

that he'd been there to witness it all.

"Start writing!" he said. "Take a room in town#8212;charge

it to me#8212;and start writing! I'll hold the front page." If Abernethy sought to excite Grillo with B-movie clich#233;s he failed.

What had happened at the caves had left him numb. But the

suggestion that he take a room was welcome. Though he'd

dried off at the bar where he and Hotchkiss had given their

account to Spilmont, he felt dirty and exhausted.

"What about this Hotchkiss guy?" Abernethy said.

"What's his story?"

"I don't know."

"Find out. And get some more background on Vance. Have you been up to the house yet?"

"Give me time."

"You're on the spot," Abernethy said. "It's your story. Get to it."

He revenged himself on Abernethy, albeit pettily, by taking the most expensive room on offer at the Hotel Palomo, in Stillbrook Village, ordering up champagne and a rare hamburger, and tipping the waiter so well the man asked him if he hadn't made a mistake. The booze made him light-headed; his favorite condition in which to call Tesla. She wasn't in. He left a message stating his present locale. Then he looked up Hotchkiss in the directory and called him. He had heard the man give his account to Spilmont. No mention had been made of what they'd glimpsed escaping from the fissure. Grillo had similarly kept quiet on the subject, and the absence of any questions on the subject from Spilmont suggested nobody else had been close enough to the fissure to witness the sight. He wanted to compare notes with Hotchkiss, but he drew a blank. Either he wasn't in or he'd decided not to answer the telephone.

With that route of enquiry blocked, he turned his attention to the Vance mansion. It was almost nine in the evening, but there was no harm in his wandering up the Hill to have a look at the dead man's estate. He might even talk his way inside if the champagne hadn't got the better of his tongue. In some regards the timing was advantageous. This morning Vance had been the focal point of events in the Grove. His relatives, if they had a taste for the limelight#8212;and few didn't#8212;could bide their time before choosing between suitors for their story. But now Vance's demise had been superseded by a larger, and fresher, tragedy. Grillo might therefore find the contingent more eager to talk than he would have done at noon.

He regretted deciding to walk. The Hill was steeper than it had seemed from below, and badly lit. But there were compensations. He had the street to himself, and so could leave the sidewalk and wander up the center, admiring the stars as they appeared overhead. Vance's residence wasn't hard to locate. The road stopped at its gates. After Coney Eye, there was only sky.

The main gate was unguarded but locked. A side gate, however, gave him access to a path which wound through a colonnade of undisciplined evergreens, which were alternately flooded with green, yellow and red light, to the front of the house. It was vast, and utterly idiosyncratic; a palace which defied the aesthetic of the Grove in every way. There was no trace here of the pseudo-Mediterranean, or the ranch style, or the Spanish style, or the mock-Tudor, or the modern colonial. The whole mansion looked like a funfair ride, its facade painted in the same primaries that had lit the trees, its windows ringed with lights which were presently turned off. Coney Eye, Grillo now understood, was a little piece of the Island: Vance's homage to Carnival. There were lights burning inside. He knocked, aware that he was being scrutinized by cameras above the door. A woman of oriental extraction#8212; Vietnamese, perhaps#8212;opened it, and informed him that Mrs. Vance was indeed in residence. If he'd wait in the hallway, she told him, she'd see if the lady of the house was available. Grillo thanked her, and waited while the woman took herself off upstairs.

As outside, so in: a temple to fun. Every inch of the hallway was hung with panels from all manner of Carnival rides: brilliantly colored advertisements for Tunnels of Love, Ghost Train Rides, Carousels, Freak Shows, Wrestling Shows, Gal Shows, Waltzes, Dippers, and Mystic Swings. The renderings were for the most part crude, the work of painters who knew their craft was in the service of commerce, and had no lasting merit. Close scrutiny didn't flatter the displays; their gaudy self-confidence was to be viewed through the crush of a crowd rather than studied under the spotlight. Vance had not been blind to that fact. By hanging the items cheek by jowl on every wall he effectively drew the eye on from one to the next, preventing it from lingering too long on any detail. The display, for all its vulgarity, drew a smile from Grillo, as no doubt Vance had intended, a smile that fell from his face when Rochelle Vance appeared at the top of the stairs and began her descent.

Never in his life had he seen a face more flawless. With every step she took towards him he expected to find a compromise in its perfection, but there was none. She was of Caribbean blood, he guessed, her dark features had that ease about their line. Her hair was drawn back tight, emphasizing the dome of her forehead and the symmetry of her brows. She wore no jewelry, and only the simplest of black dresses.

"Mr. Grillo," she said, "I'm Buddy's widow." The word, despite the color of her dress, couldn't have seemed more inappropriate. This was not a woman who'd risen from a tear-soaked pillow. "How can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm a journalist#8212;"

"So Ellen told me."

"I wanted to ask you about your husband."

"It's a little late."

"I was in the woods most of the afternoon."

"Ah yes," she said. "You're that Mr. Grillo."

"I'm sorry?"

"I had one of the policemen..." She turned to Ellen. "What was his name?"

"Spilmont."

"Spilmont. He was here, to tell me what happened. He mentioned your great heroism."

"It wasn't so great."

"Enough to deserve a night's rest I would have thought," she said. "Rather than business."

"I'd like to get the story."

"Yes. Well come in."

Ellen opened a door to the left of the hallway. As Rochelle led Grillo in she laid out the ground rules.

"I'll answer your questions as best I can, as long as you limit them to Buddy's professional life." Her speech was devoid of accent. A European education, perhaps? "I know nothing about his other wives so don't bother prying. Nor will I speculate on his addictions. Would you like some coffee?"

"That'd be most welcome," Grillo said, aware that he was doing what he did so often during interviews: catching a tone from his interviewee.

"Coffee for Mr. Grillo, Ellen," Rochelle said, inviting her guest to sit. "And water for me."

The room they'd entered ran the full length of the house, and was two stories high, the second marked by a gallery which ran around all four walls. These, like the hallway walls, were a painted din. Invitations, seductions and warnings fought for his eye. "The Ride of a Lifetime!" one modestly promised; "All the Fun You Can Stand!" another announced, "And Then Some!"

"This is just part of Buddy's collection," Rochelle said. "There's more in New York. I believe it's the biggest in private hands."

"I didn't know anybody collected this stuff."

"Buddy called it the true art of America. It may be that it is, which says something..." She trailed off, her distaste for this hollering parade quite plain. The expression, crossing a face so devoid of sculptural error, carried distressing force.

"You'll break the collection up, I suppose," Grillo said.

"That depends on the Will," she said. "It may not be mine to sell."

"You've got no sentimental attachments to it?"

"I think that comes under the heading of private life," she said.

"Yes. I suppose it does."

"But I'm sure Buddy's obsession was harmless enough." She stood up and flipped a switch between two panels from a ghost-train facade. Multicolored lights came on beyond the glass wall at the far end of the room. "Allow me to show you," she said, wandering down the length of the room, and stepping out into the soup of colors. Pieces too big to be fitted into the house were assembled here. A carved face, maybe twelve feet high, the yawning, saw-toothed mouth of which had been the entrance to a ride. A placard advertising The Wall of Death, written out in lights. A full-size, bas-relief locomotive, driven by skeletons, appearing to burst from a tunnel.

"My God," was all Grillo could muster.

"Now you know why I left him," Rochelle said.

"I didn't realize," Grillo replied. "You didn't live here?"

"I tried," she said. "But look at the place. It's like walking into Buddy's mind. He liked to make his mark on everything. Everybody. There was no room for me here. Not if I wasn't prepared to play things his way."

She stared at the mammoth maw. "Ugly," she said. "Don't you think?"

"I'm no judge," Grillo said.

"It doesn't offend you?"

"It might get to me with a hangover."

"He used to tell me I had no sense of humor," she said. "Because I don't find this...stuff of his amusing. The fact is I didn't find him very amusing either. As a lover, yes...he was wonderful. But funny? No."

"Is all this off the record?" Grillo wondered.

"Does it matter if I say it is? I've had enough bad publicity in my life to know you don't give a fuck for my privacy."

"But you're telling me anyway."

She turned from the mouth to look at him. "Yes I am," she said. There was a pause. Then she said: "I'm cold," and stepped back inside. Ellen was pouring coffee.

"Leave it," Rochelle instructed. "I'll do it."

The Vietnamese woman lingered at the door a fraction of a moment too long for servility before exiting.

"So that's the Buddy Vance story," Rochelle said. "Wives, wealth and Carnival. Nothing terribly new in it I'm afraid."

"Do you know if he had any premonition of this?" Grillo asked as they resumed their seats.

"Of dying? I doubt it. He wasn't exactly attuned to that kind of thinking. Cream?"

"Yes, please. And sugar."

"Help yourself. Is that the kind of news your readers would like to hear? That Buddy had seen his death in a dream?"

"Stranger things have happened," Grillo said, his thoughts inevitably tripping back to the fissure and its escapees.

"I don't think so," Rochelle replied. "I don't see much sign of miracles. Not any more." She extinguished the lights outside. "When I was a child, my grandfather taught me to influence other children."

"How?"

"Just by thinking about it. It was something he'd done all his life, and he passed it on to me. It was easy. I could make kids drop their ice creams. Make them laugh and not know why: I thought nothing of it. There were miracles then. Waiting round the corner. But I lost the knack. We all lose it. Everything changes for the worse."

"Your life can't be that bad," Grillo said. "I know you're grieving at the#8212;"

"Fuck my grief," she said suddenly. "He's dead, and I'm here waiting to see what the last laugh's going to be."

"The Will?"

"The Will. The wives. The bastards who're going to pop up from nowhere. He's finally got me on one of his damn mystery rides." Her words were charged with feeling, but she spoke them calmly enough. "You can go home and turn all this into deathless prose."

"I'm going to stay in town," Grillo said. "Until your husband's body is found."

"It won't be," Rochelle replied. "They've given up the search."

"What?"

"That's what Spilmont came up to explain. They've already lost five men. Apparently the chances of finding him are slim anyhow. It's not worth the risk."

"Does that upset you?"

"Not having a body to bury? No, not really. It's better he be remembered smiling than being brought up out of a hole in the ground. So, you see, your story finishes here. There'll be a memorial service for him in Hollywood, presumably. The rest, as they say, is television history." She stood up, marking an end to the interview. Grillo had unasked questions aplenty, most of them about the one subject she'd pronounced herself willing to talk about yet hadn't touched: his professional life. There were a few loopholes Tesla couldn't plug, he knew. Rather than press the widow Vance beyond her patience he let the questions go. She'd supplied more insights than he'd expected.

"Thank you for seeing me," he said, shaking her hand. Her fingers were as thin as twigs. "You've been most kind."

"Ellen will see you out," she said.

"Thanks."

The girl was waiting in the hallway. As she opened the front door she touched Grillo's arm. He looked at her. She made a hushing face and pressed a scrap of paper into his hand. Without a word being exchanged he was ushered out on to the step and the door was closed behind him.

He waited until he was out of video range before he looked at the scrap. It bore the woman's name#8212;Ellen Nguyen#8212;and an address in Deerdell Village. Buddy Vance might be staying buried but his story, it seemed, was still digging its way out. Stories had a way of doing that, in Grillo's experience. It was his belief that nothing, but nothing, could stay secret, however powerful the forces with interests vested in silence. Conspirators might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approximation of same, would show itself sooner or later, very often in the unlikeliest form. It was seldom hard facts that revealed the life behind the life. It was rumor, graffiti, strip cartoons and love songs. It was what people gabbled about in their cups, or between fucks, or read on a toilet wall.

The art of the underground, like the figures he'd seen in the spurt, rising to change the world.

Jo-Beth lay on her bed in darkness and watched the breeze by turn belly the curtains then draw them out into the night. She had gone to talk to Momma as soon as she returned to the house, and told her that she would not be seeing Howie again. It had been a promise made in haste, but she doubted whether Momma had even heard it. She'd had a distracted air about her, pacing her room, wringing her hands and murmuring prayers to herself. The prayers reminded Jo-Beth that she'd promised to call the Pastor and hadn't. Composing herself as best she could, she went downstairs and called the church. Pastor John was not available, however. He'd gone to comfort Angelie Datlow, whose husband Bruce had been killed in the attempt to raise Buddy Vance's body. This was the first Jo-Beth had heard of the tragedy. She curtailed the conversation, and came off the telephone, trembling. She needed no detailed description of the deaths. She'd seen them, and so had Howie. Their shared dream had been interrupted by a live report from the shaft where Datlow and his colleagues had died.

She sat in the kitchen, the fridge humming, the birds and bugs in the backyard making blithe music, and tried to make sense of the senseless. Maybe she'd been sold an overly optimistic vision of the world, but she'd preceded thus far believing that if she couldn't grasp things personally there were those in her vicinity who could. It gave her comfort to know that. Now she was not sure. If she told anyone from church#8212; who made up most of her circle#8212;what had happened at the motel (the dream of water, the dream of death) they'd take the line Momma had taken: that this was the Devil's doing. When she'd said as much to Howie he'd told her she didn't believe it and he was right. It was nonsense. And if that was nonsense, what else that she'd been taught besides?

Unable to think her way through her confusions, and too tired to bully them, she took herself off to her room to lie down. She had no wish to sleep so soon after the trauma of her last slumber, but fatigue overcame her resistance. A string of scenes, black and white with a pearly sheen, appeared before her as she fell. Howie in Butrick's; Howie at the Mall, face to face with Tommy-Ray; his face on the pillow, when she'd thought him dead. Then the string broke and the pearls flew off. She sank into sleep.

The clock said eight-thirty-five when she woke. The house was completely hushed. She got up, moving as silently as she could to avoid a summons from Momma. Downstairs she fixed herself a sandwich and brought it back up to her room, where now#8212;sandwich consumed#8212;she lay, watching the curtains do the wind's will.

The evening light had been smooth as apricot cream, but it had gone now. Darkness was very close. She could feel its approach#8212;cancelling distance, silencing life#8212;and it distressed her as it never had before. In homes not so far from here families would be in mourning. Husbandless wives, fatherless children, facing their first night of grief. In others, sadnesses which had been put away would be brought out; studied; wept over. She had something of her own now, that made her part of that greater sorrow. Loss had touched her, and the darkness#8212;which took so much away from the world and gave so little back#8212;would never be the same again.

Tommy-Ray was woken by the window rattling. He sat up in bed. The day had passed in a self-created fever. Morning seemed more than a dozen hours away, yet what had he done in the intervening time? Just slept, and sweated, and waited for a sign.

Was that what he was hearing now; the chatter of the window, like a dying man's teeth? He threw off the covers. At some stage he'd stripped to his underwear. The body he caught sight of in the mirror was lean and shiny; like a healthy snake. Distracted by admiration, he stumbled, and in attempting to stand up realized he'd lost all grasp of the room. It was suddenly strange to him#8212;and he to it. The floor sloped as it never had before; the wardrobe had shrunk to the size of a suitcase, or else he'd grown grotesquely large. Nauseated, he reached out for something solid to orient himself. He intended the door but either his hand or the room undid his intention and it was the window frame he grasped. He stood still, clinging to the wood until the queasiness passed. As he waited he felt the all but imperceptible motion of the frame move up through the bones in his fingers into his wrists and arms, and thence across his shoulders to his spine. Its progress was a jittering dance in his marrow, which made no sense until it climbed his last few vertebrae and struck his skull. There the motion, which had been a chatter in the glass, became sound again: a loop of clicks and rattles which spoke a summons to him.

He didn't need to be called twice. Letting the window frame go, he turned giddily towards the door. His feet kicked the clothes he'd discarded in his sleep. He picked up his T-shirt and jeans, vaguely thinking that he should dress before leaving the house but not getting beyond dragging his clothes after him as he went, down the stairs and out into the blackness at the back of the house.

The yard was large, and chaotic, having been neglected over many years. The fencing had fallen into disrepair, and the shrubbery which had been planted to shield the yard from the road had grown into a solid wall of foliage. It was towards that little jungle he went now, drawn by the Geiger counter in his skull, which was getting louder with every step he took.

Jo-Beth rose from her pillow with an ache in her teeth. Tentatively she touched the side of her face. It felt tender; almost as though bruised. She got up and slipped down the hall to the bathroom. Tommy-Ray's bedroom door was open, she noticed, which it hadn't previously been. If he was there, she couldn't see him. The curtains were drawn, the interior pitch black.

A brief perusal of her face in the bathroom mirror reassured her that though her crying had taken its toll she was otherwise unmarked. The ache, however, continued in her jaw, creeping around to the base of her skull. She'd never felt anything like it before. The pressure was not consistent but rhythmic, like a pulse that was not her heart's doing, but had come into her from somewhere other.

"Stop," she murmured, clenching her teeth against the percussion. But it wouldn't be controlled. It simply tightened its hold on her head, as if to squeeze her thoughts out altogether.

In desperation she found herself conjuring Howie; an image of light and laughter to set against this mindless beat that had come out of the dark. It was a forbidden image#8212; one she had promised Momma she'd not dwell on#8212;but she was weaponless otherwise. If she didn't fight back the beat in her head would pulp her thoughts with its insistence; make her move to its rhythm and its alone.

Howie...

He smiled at her out of the past. She held on to the brightness of his memory, and bent to the sink to splash cold water on her face. Water and memory subdued the assault. Unsteady on her feet she stepped out of the bathroom and headed towards Tommy-Ray's room. Whatever this sickness was it would surely have afflicted him too. From their earliest childhood they'd caught every virus, and suffered it, together. Perhaps this new, strange affliction had caught him earlier than she, and his behavior at the Mall had been a consequence of it. The thought brought hope. If he was sick then he could be healed. Both of them, healed together.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she stepped

through the door. It smelt like a sickroom; unbearably hot,

and stale.

"Tommy-Ray? Are you there?"

She pushed the door open to throw a better light inside.

The room was empty, the bed heaped with bedclothes, the

carpet rucked up as though he'd danced a tarantella upon it.

She crossed to the window, intending to open it, but she got

no further than drawing the curtains aside. The sight she was

presented with was enough to take her down the stairs fast,

calling Tommy-Ray's name. By the light from the kitchen

door she saw him staggering across the yard, dragging his jeans

after him.

The thicket at the end of the garden was moving; and there was more than the wind in it.

"My son," said the man in the trees. "We meet at last."

Tommy-Ray could not see his summoner clearly, but there was no doubt that this was the man. The chatter in his head grew softer at the sight of him.

"Come closer," he instructed. There was something of the stranger with candy about his voice, and his half-concealment. That my son could not be literally true, could it? Wouldn't it be fine if it were? After giving up all hope of meeting that man, after the childhood taunts and the hours wasted trying to imagine him, to have his lost father here at last, calling him from the house with a code known only to fathers and sons. So fine, so very fine.

"Where's my daughter?" the man said. "Where's Jo-Beth?"

"I think she's in the house."

"Go fetch her for me, will you?"

"In a minute."

"Now!"

"I want to see you first. I want to know this isn't a trick."

The stranger laughed.

"Already I hear my voice in you," he said. "I've had tricks played on me, too. It makes us cautious, yes?"

"Yes."

"Of course you must see me," he said, stepping out of the trees. "I am your father. I am the Jaff."

As Jo-Beth reached the bottom of the stairs she heard Momma call from her room.

"Jo-Beth? What's happening?"

"It's all right, Momma."

"Come here! Something terrible...in my sleep..."

"A moment, Momma. Stay in bed."

"Terrible#8212;"

"I'll be back in a while. Just stay where you are."

He was here, in the flesh: the father Tommy-Ray had dreamed of in a thousand forms since he'd realized that other boys had a second parent, a parent whose sex they shared, who knew men's stuff, and passed it down to their sons. Sometimes he'd fantasized that he was some movie star's bastard, and that one day a limo would glide up the street and a famous smile step out and say exactly what the Jaff had just said. But this man was better than any movie star. He didn't look like much, but he shared with the faces the world idolized an eerie poise, as though he was beyond needing to demonstrate his power. Where that authority came from Tommy-Ray didn't yet know, but its signs were perfectly visible.

"I'm your father," the Jaff said again. "Do you believe me?"

Of course he did. He'd be a fool to deny a father like this.

"Yes," he said, "I believe you."

"And you'll obey me like a loving son?"

"Yes, I will."

"Good," the Jaff said, "so now, please fetch me my daughter. I called her but she refuses to come. You know why..."

"No."

"Think."

Tommy-Ray thought, but no answer immediately sprang to mind.

"My enemy," the Jaff said, "has touched her."

Katz, Tommy-Ray thought: he means that fuckwit Katz.

"I made you, and Jo-Beth, to be my agents. My enemy did the same. He made a child."

"Katz isn't your enemy?" Tommy-Ray said, struggling to put this together, "he's your enemy's son?"

"And now he's touched your sister. That's what keeps her from me. That taint."

"Not for long."

So saying Tommy-Ray turned and ran back to the house, calling Jo-Beth's name in a light, easy voice.

Inside the house, she heard his call and was reassured. It didn't sound like he was suffering. He was at the yard door by the time she stepped into the kitchen, arms spread across its width, leaning in, grinning. Wet with sweat, and almost naked like this, he looked like he'd just run up the beach.

"Something wonderful," he grinned.

"What?"

"Outside. Come with me."

Every vein in his body seemed to be bulging from his skin. In his eyes was a gleam she didn't trust. His smile only deepened her suspicion.

"I'm not going anywhere, Tommy..." she said.

"Why are you fighting?" he asked, cocking his head. "Just because he touched you it doesn't mean you belong to him."

"What are you talking about?"

"Katz. I know what he did. Don't be ashamed. You're forgiven. But you have to come and apologize in person."

"Forgiven?" she said, her raised voice encouraging the ache in her skull to new mischief. "You've got no right to forgive me, you asshole! You of all#8212;"

"Not me," Tommy-Ray said, the smile unwavering. "Our father."

"What?"

"Who art outside#8212;"

She shook her head. The ache was getting worse.

"Just come with me. He's in the yard." He left off holding the door frame and started across the kitchen towards her. "I know it hurts," he said. "But the Jaff'll make it better."

"Keep away from me!"

"This is me, Jo-Beth. This is Tommy-Ray. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Yes there is! I don't know what, but there is."

"You think that because you've been tainted by Katz," he said. "I'm not going to do anything to hurt you, you know that. We feel things together, don't we? What hurts you hurts me. I don't like pain." He laughed. "I'm weird but I'm not that weird."

Despite her doubts, he won her over with that argument, because it was the truth. They'd shared a womb for nine months; they were half of the same egg. He meant her no harm.

"Please come," he said, extending his hand.

She took it. Immediately the ache in her head subsided, for which she was grateful. In place of the chatter, her name, whispered.

"Jo-Beth."

"Yes?" she said.

"Not me," said Tommy-Ray. "The Jaff. He's calling you."

"Jo-Beth."

"Where is he?"

Tommy-Ray pointed to the trees. They were suddenly a long way from the house now; almost at the bottom of the yard. She wasn't quite sure how she got so far so quickly, but the wind that had toyed with the curtains now had her in thrall, ushering her forward, it seemed, towards the thicket. Tommy-Ray let his hand slip from hers.

Go on, she heard him say, this is what we've been waiting for...

She hesitated. There was something about the way the trees moved, their foliage churning, which reminded her of bad sights: a mushroom cloud, perhaps; or blood in water. But the voice that came to coax her was deep and reassuring, and the face that spoke it#8212;visible now#8212;moved her. If she was going to call any man father, this would be a good man to choose. She liked his beard and his heavy brow. She liked the way his lips shaped the words he spoke with a delicious precision.

"I'm the Jaff," he said. "Your father."

"Really?" she said.

"Really."

"Why are you here now? After all this time?"

"Come closer. I'll tell you."

She was about to make another step when she heard a cry from the house.

"Don't let it touch you!"

It was Momma, her voice raised to a volume Jo-Beth would never have believed her capable of. The shout stopped her in her tracks. She turned on her heel. Tommy-Ray was standing directly behind her. Beyond him, coming across the lawn barefoot, her nightgown unbuttoned, was Momma.

"Jo-Beth, come away from it!" she said.

"Momma?"

"Come away!"

It was almost five years since Momma had stepped out of the house; more than once in that time she'd said she'd never leave it again. Yet here she was, her expression all alarm, her cries not requests but commands.

"Come away, both of you!"

Tommy-Ray turned to face his mother. "Go inside," he said. "This is nothing to do with you."

Momma slowed her approach to a walk.

"You don't know, son," she said. "You can't begin to understand."

"This is our father," Tommy-Ray replied. "He's come home. You should be grateful."

"For that?" Momma said, her eyes huge. "That's what broke my heart. And it'll break yours too if you let it." She stood a yard from Tommy now. "Don't let it," she said softly, reaching out to touch his face. "Don't let it hurt us."

Tommy-Ray dashed Momma's hand away.

"I warned you," he said. "This is nothing to do with you!"

Momma's response was instant. She took a step towards Tommy-Ray and struck him across the face; an openhanded slap which echoed against the house.

"Stupid!" she yelled at him. "Don't you know evil when you see it?"

"I know a fucking lunatic when I see one," Tommy-Ray spat back. "All your prayers and talk of the Devil...You make me sick! You try and spoil my life. Now you want to spoil this. Well, no way! Poppa's home! So fuck you!"

His display seemed to amuse the man in the trees; Jo-Beth heard laughter from him. She glanced round. He had apparently not anticipated her glance because he'd let the mask he was wearing slip a little. The face she'd found so fatherly had swelled; or something behind it had. His eyes and forehead were enlarged; the bearded chin, and his mouth, which she'd thought so fine, almost vestigial. Where her father had been was a monstrous infant. She cried out at the sight of him.

Instantly the thicket around threw itself into a frenzy. The branches lashed at themselves like flagellants, stripping bark and shredding foliage, their motion so violent she was sure they would uproot themselves and come for her.

"Momma!" she said, turning back towards the house.

"Where are you going?" Tommy-Ray said.

"That's not our father!" she said. "It's a trick! Look! It's a terrible trick!"

Tommy-Ray either knew and didn't care or was so deeply under the Jaff's influence he only saw what the Jaff wanted him to see.

"You're staying with me!" he said, grabbing hold of Jo-Beth's arm, "with us!"

She struggled to be free of him but his grip was too fierce. It was Momma who intervened, with a downward stroke of her fist which broke his hold. Before. Tommy-Ray could recapture her, Jo-Beth made a dash for the house. The storm of foliage followed her across the grass, as did Momma, whose hand she took as they raced for the door.

"Lock it! Lock it!" Momma said, as they got inside.

She did so. No sooner had she turned the key than Momma was calling her to follow.

"Where?" Jo-Beth said.

"My room. I know how to stop it. Hurry!"

The room smelt of Momma's perfume, and stale linen, but for once its familiarity offered comfort. Whether the room also offered safety was moot. Jo-Beth could hear the back door kicked open downstairs, then a ruckus that sounded as though the contents of the refrigerator was being pitched around the kitchen. Silence followed.

"Are you looking for the key?" Jo-Beth said, seeing Momma reaching beneath her pillows. "I think it's on the outside."

"Then get it!" Momma said. "And be quick!"

There was a creak on the other side of the door which made Jo-Beth think twice about opening it. But with the door unlocked they had no means of defense whatsoever. Momma talked of stopping the Jaff, but if it wasn't the key she was digging for it was her prayer-book, and prayers weren't going to stop anything. People died all the time with supplication on their lips. She had no choice but to fling the door open.

Her eyes went to the stairs. The Jaff was there, a bearded fetus, his vast eyes fixing her. His tiny mouth grinned. She reached for the key as he climbed. "We're here," he said.

The key wouldn't come out of the lock. She jiggled it, and it suddenly freed itself, slipping from both the lock and her fingers. The Jaff was within three steps of the top of the stairs. He didn't rush. She went down on her haunches to pick up the key, aware for the first time since entering the house that the percussion that had first alerted her to his presence had begun again. Its din confounded her thoughts. Why was she stooping? What was she looking for? The sight of the key reminded her. Snatching it up (the Jaff at the summit) she stood, retreated, slammed the door and locked it.

"He's here!" she said to Momma, glancing her way.

"Of course," said Momma. She'd found what she was looking for. It was not a prayer-book, it was a knife, an eight-inch kitchen knife which had gone missing some while ago.

"Momma?"

"I knew it would come. I'm ready."

"You can't fight him with that," she said. "He's not even human. Is he?"

Momma's eyes went to the door.

"Tell me, Momma."

"I don't know what he is," she said. "I've tried to think...all these years. Maybe the Devil. Maybe not." She looked back at Jo-Beth. "I've been afraid for so long," she said. "And now he's here and it all seems so simple."

"Then explain it," Jo-Beth said. "Because I don't understand. Who is he? What has he done to Tommy-Ray?"

"He told the truth," Momma said. "After a fashion. He is your father. Or rather one of them."

"How many do I need?"

"He made a whore of me. He drove me half mad with desires I didn't want. The man who slept with me is your father; but this#8212;" she pointed the knife in the direction of the door, from the far side of which came the sound of tapping "#8212;this is what really made you."

"I hear you," the Jaff murmured. "Loud and clear."

"Keep away," Momma said, moving towards the door. Jo-Beth tried to shoo her back but she ignored the instruction. And with reason. It wasn't the door she wanted to stand beside but her daughter. She seized Jo-Beth's arm and dragged her close, putting the knife to her throat.

"I'll kill her," she said to the thing on the landing. "So help me as there's a God in Heaven I mean it. Try and come in here and your daughter's dead." Her grip on Jo-Beth was as strong as Tommy-Ray's. Minutes ago he'd called her a lunatic. Either her present performance was a bluff of Oscar-winning skill or else he'd been right. Either way, Jo-Beth was forfeit.

The Jaff was tapping on the door again.

"Daughter?" he said.

"Answer him," Momma told her.

"Daughter?"

"...Yes..."

"Do you fear for your life? Honestly now. Tell me honestly. Because I love you and I want no harm to come to you "

"She fears," Momma said.

"Let her answer," the Jaff said.

Jo-Beth had no hesitation in replying. "Yes," she said. "Yes. She's got a knife and#8212;"

"You would be a fool," the Jaff said to Momma, "to kill the only thing that made your life worth living. But you might, mightn't you?"

"I won't let you have her," Momma said.

There was a silence from the other side of the door. Then the Jaff said:

"Fine by me..." He laughed softly. "There's always tomorrow."

He rattled the door one last time, as though to be certain that he was indeed locked out. Then the laughter and the rattling ceased, to be replaced by a low, guttural sound that might have been the groan of something being born into pain, knowing with its first breath there was no escape from its condition. The distress in the sound was at least as chilling as the seductions and threats that had gone before. Then it began to fade.

"It's leaving," Jo-Beth said. Momma still held the blade at her neck. "It's leaving, Momma. Let me go."

The fifth stair from the bottom of the flight creaked twice, confirming Jo-Beth's belief that their tormentors were indeed exiting the house. But it was another thirty seconds before Momma relaxed her hold on Jo-Beth's arm, and another minute still before she let her daughter go entirely.

"It's gone from the house," she said. "But stay here a while."

"What about Tommy?" Jo-Beth said. "We have to go and find him."

Momma shook her head. "I was bound to lose him," she said. "No use now."

"We've got to try," Jo-Beth said.

She opened the door. Across the landing, leaning against the banister, was what could only be Tommy-Ray's handiwork. When they were children he'd made dolls for Jo-Beth by the dozen, makeshift toys that nevertheless bore the imprint of his disposition. Always, they had smiles. Now he had created a new doll; a father for the family, made from food. A head of hamburger, with thumb-press eyes; legs and arms of vegetables; a torso of a milk carton, the contents of which spilled out between its legs, pooling around the chili pepper and garlic bulbs placed there. Jo-Beth stared at its crudity: the meat-face stared back at her. No smile this time. No mouth even. Just two holes in the hamburger. At its groin the milk of manhood spread, and stained the carpet. Momma was right. They'd lost Tommy-Ray.

"You knew that bastard was coming back," she said.

"I guessed it would come, given time. Not for me. It didn't come for me. I was just a convenient womb, like all of us#8212;"

"The League of Virgins," Jo-Beth said.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Oh, Momma...people have been talking since I was a kid..."

"I was so ashamed," Momma said. She put her hand to her face; the other, still holding the knife, hung at her side. "So very ashamed. I wanted to kill myself. But the Pastor kept me from it. Said I had to live. For the Lord. And for you and Tommy-Ray."

"You must have been very strong," Jo-Beth said, turning away from the doll to face her. "I love you, Momma. I know I said I was afraid but I know you wouldn't have hurt me."

Momma looked up at her, the tears running steadily from her eyes and dripping from her jaw.

Without thinking she said:

"I would have killed you stone dead."

"My enemy is still here," said the Jaff.

Tommy-Ray had led him along a path unknown to any but the children of the Grove, which took them round the back of the Hill to a giddy vantage point. It was too rocky for a trysting place and too unstable to be built upon, but it gave those who troubled to climb so high an unsurpassed view over Laureltree and Windbluff.

There they stood, Tommy-Ray and his father, taking in the sights. There were no stars overhead; and barely any lights burning in the houses below. Clouds dulled the sky; sleep, the town. Untroubled by witnesses, father and son stood and talked.

"Who is your enemy?" Tommy-Ray said. "Tell me and I'll tear his throat out for you."

"I doubt he'd allow that."

"Don't be sarcastic," Tommy-Ray said. "I'm not dumb, you know. I know when you're treating me like a kid. I'm not a kid."

"You'll have to prove that to me."

"I will. I'm not afraid of anything."

"We'll see about that."

"Are you trying to frighten me?"

"No. Merely prepare you."

"For what? Your enemy? Just tell me what he's like."

"His name is Fletcher. He and I were partners, before you were born. But he cheated me. Or at least he tried to."

"What was your business?"

"Ah!" The Jaff laughed, a sound Tommy-Ray had heard many times now, and liked more each time he heard it. The man had a sense of humor, even if Tommy-Ray#8212;as now#8212; didn't quite get the gag. "Our business?" said the Jaff. "It was, in essence, the getting of power. More specifically, one particular power. It's called the Art, and with it I will be able to step into the dreams of America."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Not all the dreams. Just the important ones. You see, Tommy-Ray, I'm an explorer."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Only what's left to explore outside in the world? Not much. A few pockets of desert; a rain-forest#8212;"

"Space," Tommy-Ray suggested, glancing up.

"More desert, and a lot of nothing between," the Jaff said. "No, the real mystery#8212;the only mystery#8212;is inside our heads. And I'm going to get to it."

"You don't mean like a shrink, do you? You mean being there, somehow."

"That's right."

"And the Art is the way in?"

"Right again."

"But you said it's just dreams. We all dream. You can get in there any time you like, just by falling asleep."

"Most dreams are just juggling acts. Folks picking up their memories and trying to put them in some kind of order. But there's another kind of dream, Tommy-Ray. It's a dream of what it means to be born, and fall in love, and die. A dream that explains what being is for. I know this is confusing..."

"Go on. I like to hear anyhow."

"There's a sea of mind. It's called Quiddity," the Jaff said. "And floating in that sea is an island which appears in the dreams of every one of us at least twice in our lives: at the beginning and at the end. It was first discovered by the Greeks. Plato wrote of it in a code. He called it Atlantis..." He faltered, distracted from the telling by the substance of his tale.

"You want this place very much, don't you?" Tommy-Ray said.

"Very much," said the Jaff. "I want to swim in that sea when I choose, and go to the shore where the great stories are told."

"Rad."

"Huh?"

"It sounds awesome."

The Jaff laughed. "You're reassuringly crass, son. We're going to get on fine, I can tell. You can be my agent in the field, right?"

"Sure," said Tommy-Ray with a grin. Then: "What's that?"

"I can't show my face to just anybody," the Jaff said. "Nor do I much like the daylight. It's very...unmysterious. But you can get out and about for me."

"You're staying then? I thought maybe we'd go off someplace."

"We will, later. But first, my enemy must be killed. He's weak. He won't try to leave the Grove until he has some protection. He'll look for his own child, I'd guess."

"Katz?"

"That's right."

"So I should kill Katz."

"That sounds like a useful thing to do, if the opportunity presents itself."

"I'll make sure it does."

"Though you should thank him."

"Why?"

"Were it not for him I'd still be underground. Still be waiting for you or Jo-Beth to put the pieces together and come and find me. What she and Katz did#8212;"

"What did they do? Did they fuck?"

"That matters to you?"

"Sure it does."

"To me too. The thought of Fletcher's child touching your sister sickens me. For what it's worth, it sickened Fletcher too. For once, we agreed on something. The question was, which one of us would make it to the surface first, and which would be strongest when we got here?"

"You."

"Yes, me. I have an advantage Fletcher lacks. My army, my terata, are best drawn out of dying men. I drew one from Buddy Vance."

"Where is it?"

"When we were coming up here you thought somebody was following us, remember? I told you it was a dog. I lied."

"Show me."

"You may not be so eager when you see it."

"Show me, Poppa. Please!"

The Jaff whistled. At the sound, the trees a little way behind him began to move, identifying the face that had thrashed the thicket to fragments in the yard. This time, however, that face came into view. It was like something the tide had washed up: a deep-sea monster that had died and floated to the surface, been baked by the sun and pecked at by gulls, so that by the time it reached the human world it had fifty eye-holes and a dozen mouths, and its skin was half flayed from it.

"Gross," Tommy-Ray said softly. "You got that from a comedian? Don't look too funny to me."

"It came from a man on the brink of death," the Jaff said. "Frightened and alone. They always produce fine specimens. I'll tell you sometime the places I've gone looking for lost souls to produce terata from. The things I've seen. The scum I've met..." He looked out over the town. "But here?" he said. "Where will I find such subjects here?"

"You mean people dying?"

"I mean people vulnerable. People without mythologies to protect them. Frightened people. Lost people. Mad people."

"You could begin with Momma."

"She's not mad. She may wish she were; she may wish she could dismiss all she's seen and suffered as hallucinations, but she knows better. And she's protected herself. She has a faith, however idiot it is. No...I need naked people, Tommy-Ray. Folks without deities. Lost folk."

"I know a few."

Tommy-Ray could have taken his father to literally hundreds of households, had he been able to read the minds behind the faces that he passed every day of his life. People shopping in the Mall, loading their carts up with fresh fruit and wholesome cereals, people with good complexions, like his own, and clear eyes, like his own, who seemed in every regard self-possessed and happy. Maybe they'd see an analyst once in a while, just to keep themselves on an even keel; maybe they'd raise their voices to the children, or cry to themselves when another birthday marked another year, but they considered themselves to all intents and purposes souls at peace. They had more than enough money in the bank; the sun was warm most days, and when it wasn't they lit fires and thought themselves robust to survive the chill. If asked, they would have called themselves believers in something. But nobody asked. Not here; not now. It was too late in the century to talk about faith without a twinge of embarrassment, and embarrassment was a trauma they labored to keep from spoiling their lives. Safer not to speak of faith, then, or the divinities who inspired it, except at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and only then by rote.

So. Behind their eyes the hope in them was sickening, and in many, dead. They lived from event to event with a subtle terror of the gap between, filling up their lives with distractions to avoid the emptiness where curiosity should have been, and breathing a sigh of relief when the children passed the point of asking questions about what life was for.

Not everyone hid their fears so well, however.

At the age of thirteen Ted Elizando's class was told by a forward-thinking teacher that the superpowers held enough missiles between them to destroy civilization many hundreds of times over. The thought had bothered him far more than it seemed to bother his classmates, so he'd kept his nightmares of Armageddon to himself for fear of being laughed at. The deception worked; on Ted as much as the classmates. Through his teens he'd virtually forgotten the fears. At twenty-one, with a good job in Thousand Oaks, he married Loretta. They were parents the following year. One night, a few months after the birth of baby Dawn, the nightmare of the final fire came back. Sweaty and shaking, Ted got up and went to check on his daughter. She was asleep in her cot, sprawled on her stomach, the way she liked to sleep. He watched her slumbers for an hour or more, then went back to bed. The sequence of events repeated itself almost every night thereafter, until it had the predictability of ritual. Sometimes the baby would turn over in her sleep and her long-lashed eyes would flicker open. Seeing her daddy there by her cot she would smile. The vigil took its toll on Ted, however. Night after night of broken sleep drained him of strength; he found it steadily more difficult to prevent the horrors that came by the hours of darkness invading those of light. Sitting at his desk in the middle of the working day the terrors would visit him. The spring sun, shining on the papers before him, became the blinding brightness mushrooming in front of him. Every breeze, however balmy, carried distant cries to his ears.

And then, one night, standing guard at Dawn's cot, he heard the missiles coming. Terrified, he picked Dawn up, trying to hush her as she wept. Her complaints woke Loretta, who came after her husband. She found him in the dining room, unable to speak for the terror he felt, staring at his daughter, whom he'd let fall when he'd seen her body carbonized in his arms, her skin blackening, her limbs becoming smoking sticks.

He was hospitalized for a month, then returned to the Grove, the medical consensus being that his best hopes for a return to full health lay in the bosom of his family. A year later, Loretta filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. It was granted, as was the custody of the child.

Very few people visited Ted these days. In the four years since his breakdown he'd worked in the pet store in the Mall, a job which had made mercifully few demands upon him. He was happy among the animals, who were, like him, bad dissemblers. There was about him the air of a man who knew no home now but a razor's edge. Tommy-Ray, forbidden pets by Momma, had been indulged by Ted: allowed free access to the store (even minding it on one or two occasions, when Ted had to run errands), playing with the dogs and the snakes. He'd got to know Ted and his story well, though they'd never been friends. He'd never visited Ted at home, for instance, as he did tonight.

"I brought someone to see you, Teddy. Someone I want you to meet."

"It's late."

"This can't wait. See, it's really good news and I had no one to share it with but you."

"Good news?"

"My dad. He came home."

"He did? Well, I'm really happy for you, Tommy-Ray."

"Don't you want to meet him?"

"Well, I#8212;"

"Of course he does," said the Jaff stepping out of the shadow, and extending his hand to Ted. "Any friend of my son's is a friend of mine."

Seeing the power Tommy-Ray had introduced as his father, Teddy took a frightened step back into his house. This was another species of nightmare altogether. Even in the bad old times they'd never come calling. They'd crept up, stealthily. This one talked and smiled and invited itself in.

"I want something from you," the Jaff said.

"What's going on, Tommy-Ray? This is my house. You can't just come in here and take stuff."

"This is something you don't want," the Jaff said, reaching towards Ted, "something you 'II be much happier without."

Tommy-Ray watched, amazed and impressed, as Ted's eyes began to roll up beneath his lids, and he started to make noises that suggested he was about to throw up. But nothing came; at least from his throat. It was out of his pores the prize appeared, the juices of his body bubbling up and thickening, paling, and rising off his skin, soaking through his shirt, through his trousers.

Tommy-Ray danced from side to side, enthralled. It was like some grotesque magic act. The drops of moisture were defying gravity, hanging in the air in front of Ted, touching each other and forming larger drops, those drops in turn meeting and joining, until pieces of solid matter, like a sickly gray cheese, were floating in front of his chest. And still the waters came at the Jaff's call, each mote adding bulk to the body. It had form now, too: the first rough sketches of Ted's private horror. Tommy-Ray grinned to see it: its twitching legs, its mismatched eyes. Poor Ted, to have had this baby inside him and been unable to let it go. Like the Jaff had said, he'd be better off without it.

That was the first of several visits that night, and each time there was some new beast out of the lost soul. All pale, all vaguely reptilian, but in every other regard a personal creation. The Jaff put it best, when the night's adventures were drawing to a close:

"It's an art," he said. "This drawing forth. Don't you think?"

"Yeah. I like it."

"Not the Art, of course. But an echo of it. As, I suppose, is every art."

"Where are we going now?"

"I need to rest. Find somewhere shady, and cool."

"I know some places."

"No. You've got to go home."

"Why?"

"Because I want the Grove to wake up tomorrow morning and believe the world is just as it was."

"What do I tell Jo-Beth?"

"Tell her you remember nothing. If she presses you, apologize."

"I don't want to go," Tommy-Ray said.

"I know," the Jaff said, reaching out to put his hand on Tommy-Ray's shoulder. He massaged the muscle as he spoke. "But we don't want a search party out looking for you. They could discover things we only intend to reveal in our time!"

Tommy-Ray grinned at this.

"How long will that be?"

"You want to see the Grove turned upside down, don't you?"

"I'm counting the hours."

The Jaff laughed.

"Like father, like son," he said. "Hang loose, boy. I'll be back."

And laughing, he led his beasts off into the dark.

The girl of his dreams had been wrong, Howie thought when he woke: the sun doesn't shine in the state of California every day. The dawn was sluggish when he opened the blinds; the sky showing no hint of blue. He dutifully ran through his exercises#8212;the barest minimum his conscience would allow him. They did little or nothing to enliven his system; they simply made him sweat. Having showered and shaved, he dressed and went down to the Mall. He didn't yet have the words of reclamation he was going to need when he saw Jo-Beth. He knew from past experience that any attempt on his part to plan a speech would only result in a hopeless, stammering tangle when he opened his mouth. It would be better to respond to the moment as it came. If she was dismissive, he'd be forceful. If she was contrite, he'd be forgiving. All that mattered was that he mend the breach of the previous day.

If there was some explanation for whatever had happened to them at the motel, hours of soul-searching on his part hadn't unearthed it. All he could conclude was that somehow their shared dream#8212;the idea of which, given the strength of feeling between them, didn't seem so difficult to understand#8212;had been rerouted by an inept telepathic switchboard towards a nightmare which they neither understood nor deserved. It was an astral error of some kind. Nothing to do with them; best forgotten. With a little will on both sides they could pick up their relationship where they'd left it outside Butrick's Steak House, when there'd still been so much promise in the air.

He went straight to the book store. Lois#8212;Mrs. Knapp#8212; was at the counter. Otherwise, the store was empty. He offered a smile, and a hello, then asked if Jo-Beth had yet arrived. Mrs. Knapp consulted her watch before frostily informing him that no, she hadn't, and that she was late.

"I'll wait then," he said, not about to be dissuaded from his purpose by the woman's lack of geniality. He wandered over to the bookstack closest to the window, where he could browse and watch for Jo-Beth's arrival at the same time.

The books before him were all religious. One in particular caught his eye: The Story of the Savior. Its cover carried a painting of a man on his knees before a blinding light and the pronouncement that its pages contained the Greatest Message of the Age. He thumbed through it. The slim volume#8212;it was scarcely more than a pamphlet#8212;was published by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and presented in easily assimilated paragraphs and paintings the story of the Great White God of ancient America. To judge by the pictures whatever incarnation this Lord appeared in#8212; Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Tonga-Loa god of the ocean sun in Polynesia, Illa-Tici, Kukulean or half a dozen other guises#8212; he always looked like the perfect whitebread hero: tall, aquiline, pale-skinned, blue-eyed. Now, the pamphlet claimed, he was back in America to celebrate the millennium. This time he'd be called by his true name: Jesus Christ.

Howie moved on to another shelf, looking for a book more suited to his mood. Love poetry perhaps; or a sex-manual. But as he scanned the rows of volumes it became apparent that every single book in the store was published by the same press or one of its subsidiaries. There were books of prayers, of inspirational songs for the family, heavy duty tomes on the building of Zim, the city of God on earth, or on the significance of baptism. Among them, a picture book on the life of Joseph Smith, with photographs of his homestead, and the sacred grove where he'd apparently seen a vision. The text beside it caught Howie's eye.

I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said#8212;

"I called Jo-Beth's house. There's no answer there. Something must have called them away."

Howie looked up from the text. "That's a pity," he said, not entirely believing the woman. If she'd made the call, she'd made it very quietly.

"She's probably not going to come in today," Mrs. Knapp went on, avoiding meeting Howie's gaze as she spoke. "I've got a very informal arrangement with her. She works whatever hours suit her best."

He knew this to be a lie. Only the morning before he'd heard her chide Jo-Beth for being unpunctual; there was nothing informal about her working hours. But Mrs. Knapp, good Christian that she was, seemed determined to have him out of the shop. Perhaps she'd caught him smirking as he browsed.

"It's not the least use you waiting," she told him. "You could be here all day."

"I'm not scaring off the customers, am I?" Howie said, defying her to make her objections to him plain.

"No," she said, with a joyless little smile. "I'm not trying to say you are."

He approached the counter. She took an involuntary step backwards, almost as though she was in fear of him.

"Then what exactly are you saying?" he asked, barely able to preserve his civility. "What is it about me you don't like? My deodorant? My haircut?"

Again, she tried the little smile, but this time, despite her versing in hypocrisy, she couldn't make it. Instead, her face twitched.

"I'm not the Devil," Howie said. "I haven't come here to do anybody any harm."

She made no answer to this.

"I was...b...b...I was born here," he went on. "In Palomo Grove."

"I know," she said.

Well, well, he thought, here's a revelation.

"What else do you know?" he asked her, gently enough.

Her eyes went to the door, and he knew she was reciting a silent prayer to her Great White God that somebody open it and save her from this damn boy and his questions. Neither God nor customer obliged.

"What do you know about me?" Howie asked again. "It can't be that bad...can it?"

Lois Knapp made a small shrug. "I suppose not," she said.

"Well then."

"I knew your mother," she said, stopping there as though that might satisfy him. He didn't reply, but left her to fill the charged silence with further information. "I didn't know her well of course," she continued. "She was slightly younger than me. But everybody-knew everybody back then. It's a long time ago. Then of course when the accident happened#8212;"

"You can s...s...say it," Howie told her.

"Say what?"

"You call it an accident but it was...was...was rape, right?"

By the look on her face she'd thought never to hear that word (or anything remotely so obscene) voiced in her shop.

"I don't remember," she replied, with a kind of defiance. "And even if I could#8212;" She stopped, took a breath, then started on a fresh tack. "Why don't you just go back where you came from?" she said.

"But I am back," he told her. "This is my home town."

"That's not what I meant," she said, finally allowing her exasperation to show. "Don't you know how things look? You come back here, just at the same time Mr. Vance is killed."

"What the hell's that got to do with it?" Howie wanted to know. He hadn't taken all that much notice of the news in the last twenty-four hours, but he knew that the retrieval of the comedian's corpse he'd seen in progress the previous day had turned into a major tragedy. What he didn't understand was the connection.

"I didn't kill Buddy Vance. And my mother certainly didn't."

Apparently resigned to her function as messenger, Lois gave up on innuendo and told the rest plainly, and quickly, so as to get the business done with.

"The place where your mother was raped," she said, "is the same place Mr. Vance fell to his death."

"The very same?" Howie said.

"Yes," came the reply, "I'm told the very same. I'm not about to go and look for myself. There's enough evil in the world without going out to find it."

"And you think I'm part of this somehow?"

"I didn't say that."

"No. But th...th...that's what you think."

"As you ask me: yes it is."

"And you'd like me out of your shop so I'll stop spreading my influence around."

"Yes," she said plainly, "I would."

He nodded. "OK," he said, "I'll go. Just as long as you promise me you'll tell To-Beth I was here."

Mrs. Knapp's face was all reluctance. But her fear of him gave him a power over her he couldn't help but relish.

"Not much to ask is it?" he said. "You won't be telling any lies."

"No."

"So you'll tell her?"

"Yes."

"On the Great White God of America?" he said. "What's his name...Quetzalcoatl?" She looked confounded. "Never mind," he said, "I'll leave. I'm sorry if I've crippled the morning's trade."

Leaving her looking panicky, he stepped out into the open air. In the twenty minutes he'd spent in the shop the cloud layer had broken, and the sun was coming through, shining on the Hill. In a few minutes it would break through on the mortals in the Mall, like himself. The girl of his dreams had spoken the truth after all.

Grillo woke to the sound of the telephone, lashed out, knocked over a half-filled glass of champagne#8212; his last drunken toast of the previous night: To Buddy, gone but not forgotten#8212;cursed, claimed the receiver and put it to his ear.

"Hello?" he growled.

"Did I wake you?"

"Tesla?"

"I love a man who remembers my name," she said.

"What time is it?"

"Late. You should be up and working. I want you to be free of your labors for Abernethy by the time I arrive."

"What are you saying? You're coming here?"

"You owe me dinner, for all the gossip on Vance," she said. "So find somewhere expensive."

"What time are you planning to be here?" he asked her.

"Oh I don't know. About#8212;" With her in mid-sentence he put down the receiver, and grinned at the telephone, thinking of her cursing herself at the other end. The smile dropped from his face when he stood up, however. His head throbbed to beat the band: if he'd emptied that last half-glass he doubted he could have even stood up. He punched Suite Service and ordered up coffee.

"Any juice with that, sir?" came the voice in the kitchen.

"No. Just coffee."

"Eggs, croissant#8212;"

"Oh Jesus, no. No eggs. No nothing. Just coffee."

The idea of sitting down to write was almost as repugnant as the thought of breakfast. He decided instead to contact the woman from the Vance house, Ellen Nguyen, whose address, minus a telephone number, was still in his pocket.

His system jazzed by a substantial caffeine intake he got in the car and drove down to Deerdell. The house, when he finally found it, contrasted forcibly with the woman's workplace on the Hill. It was small, unglamorous and badly in need of repair. Grillo already had his suspicions about the conversation that lay ahead: the disgruntled employee dishing the dirt on her paymaster. On occasion in the past such informants had proved fruitful, though just as often they'd been suppliers of malicious fabrications. In this case he doubted that. Was it because Ellen looked at him with such vulnerability in her open features as she welcomed him in and brewed him a further fix of coffee; or because when her child kept calling from the next room#8212;he was sick with the flu, she explained#8212;each time she returned from tending to him and picked up her story afresh the facts remained consistent; or simply that the story she told not only bruised Buddy Vance's reputation but her own as well? The latter fact, perhaps, more than any of the others, convinced him she was a reliable source. The story told spread the blemishes democratically.

"I was his mistress," she 'explained. "For almost five years. Even when Rochelle was in the house#8212;which wasn't long of course#8212;we used to find ways to be together. Often. I think she knew all along. That's why she got rid of me the first chance she could."

"You're no longer employed up at Coney, then?"

"No. She was just waiting for an excuse to dismiss me, and you provided it."

"Me?" said Grillo. "How?" .

"She said I was flirting with you. Typical that she'd use that kind of reason." Not for the first time in their exchanges Grillo heard a depth of feeling#8212;in this instance, contempt#8212; which the woman's passive demeanor scarcely betrayed. "She judges everyone by her standards," she went on. "And you know what those are."

"No," Grillo said frankly, "I don't."

Ellen looked astonished. "Wait here," she told him. "I don't want Philip listening to all this."

She got up and went to her son's bedroom, spoke a few words to him Grillo didn't hear, then closed the door before coming back to continue her story.

"He's already learned too many words I wish he hadn't, just in one year at school. I want him to have a chance to be...I don't know, innocent? Yes, innocent, if it's only for a little while. The ugly things come along soon enough, don't they?"

"The ugly things?"

"You know: the people who cheat you and betray you. Sex things. Power things."

"Oh sure," Grillo replied. "They come along."

"So I was telling you about Rochelle, right?"

"Yes, you were."

"Well, it's simple enough. Before she married Buddy she was a hooker."

"She was what?"

"You heard right. Why are you so surprised?"

"I don't know. She's so beautiful. There must have been other ways to make a buck."

"She has an expensive habit," Ellen replied. Again, the contempt, mingled with disgust.

"Did Buddy know when he married her?"

"About what? The habits or the hooking?"

"Both."

"I'm sure he did. That's part of why he married her, I guess. See, there's this thick streak of perversity in Buddy. Sorry, I mean there was. I can't quite get over the fact that he's dead."

"It must be extremely difficult talking about this so close to losing him. I'm sorry to put you through it."

"I volunteered, didn't I?" she replied. "I want somebody to know all this. In fact I want everybody to know. It was me he loved, Mr. Grillo. Me he really loved, all those years."

"And I presume you loved him?"

"Oh yes," she said softly. "Very much. He was self-centered, of course, but all men are self-centered, aren't they?" She didn't leave time for Grillo to exclude himself before heading on. "You're all brought up to think the world revolves around you. I make the same mistake with Philip. I can see myself doing it. The difference with Buddy was that for a time at least the world did revolve around him. He was one of the best-loved men in America. For a few years. Everybody knew his face, everyone had his routines by heart. And of course they wanted to know all about his private life."

"So he took a real risk, marrying a woman like Rochelle?"

"I'd say so, wouldn't you? Especially when he was trying to clean up his act, and get one of the networks to give him another show. But there was this streak of perversity, like I said. A lot of the time it was plain self-destructiveness."

"He should have married you," Grillo said.

"He could have done worse," she observed. "He could have done a lot worse." The thought brought a show of feeling that had been conspicuous by its absence through her account of her own place in this. Tears welled in her eyes. At the same moment the boy called from his bedroom. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

"I'll go," said Grillo, getting up. "His name's Philip?"

"Yes," she said, the word almost incoherent.

"I'll take care of him, don't worry."

He left her wiping the tears from beneath her eyes with the heels of her hands. Opening the door to the boy's room, he said:

"Hi, I'm Grillo."

The boy, in whose face his mother's solemn symmetry was much apparent, was sitting up in bed, surrounded by a chaos of toys, crayons and scrawled-upon sheets of paper. The TV was playing in the corner of the room, its cartoon show silent.

"You're Philip, right?"

"Where's Mommy?" the boy wanted to know. He made no bones about being suspicious of Grillo, peering past him for a glimpse of his mother.

"She'll be here in a moment," Grillo reassured him, approaching the bed. The drawings, many of which had slipped from the comforter and were scattered underfoot, all seemed to picture the same bulbous character. Grillo went down on his haunches and picked one of them up. "Who's this?" he asked.

"Balloon Man," Philip replied, gravely.

"Does he have a name?"

"Balloon Man," came the response, with an edge of impatience.

"Is he from the TV?" Grillo asked, studying the multicolored nonsense creature on the page.

"Nope."

"Where's he from then?"

"Out of my head," Philip replied.

"Is he friendly?"

The boy shook his head.

"He bites does he?"

"Only you," came the response.

"That's not very polite," Grillo heard Ellen say. He glanced over his shoulder. She'd made an attempt to conceal her tears but it clearly didn't convince her son, who gave Grillo an accusing look.

"You shouldn't get too close to him," Ellen told Grillo. "He's been really sick, haven't you?"

"I'm OK now."

"No you're not. You're to stay in bed while I take Mr. Grillo to the door."

Grillo stood up, laying the picture on the bed among the other portraits.

"Thank you for showing me the Balloon Man," he said.

Philip made no reply, but returned to his handiwork, coloring another drawing scarlet.

"What I was telling you..." Ellen said, once they were out of the child's earshot, "...that's not all the story. There's a lot more, believe me. But I'm not quite ready to tell it yet."

"When you are, I'm ready to hear," Grillo said. "You can find me at the hotel."

"Maybe I'll call. Maybe I won't. Anything I tell you is only part of the truth, isn't it? The most important piece is Buddy, and you'll never be able to write him down. Never."

This parting thought went with Grillo as he drove back through the Grove to the hotel. It was a simple enough observation, but one that carried much weight. Buddy Vance was indeed at the center of this story. His death had been both enigmatic and tragic; but more enigmatic still, surely, was the life that had preceded it. He had enough clues to that life to intrigue him mightily. The Carnival collection crowding the walls of Coney Eye (the True Art of America); the moral mistress who still loved him, the hooker wife who most likely did not, nor ever had. Even without that singularly absurd death as a punchline it was one hell of a story. The question was not whether to tell it but how.

Abernethy's view on the subject would be unequivocal. He should favor supposition over fact, and dirt over dignity. But there were mysteries here in the Grove. Grillo had seen them, breaking out of Buddy Vance's grave, no less; taking to the sky. It was important to tell this story honestly and well, or he'd simply be adding to the sum of confusions here, which would do nobody any favors.

First things first; he had to set the facts down as he'd learned them in the last twenty-four hours: from Tesla, from Hotchkiss, from Rochelle and now from Ellen. This he set to doing as soon as he got back to the hotel, producing an initial draft of the Buddy Vance Story in longhand, poring over the tiny desk in his room. His back began to ache as he labored, and the first signs of a fever brought sweat to his brow. He didn't notice, however#8212;at least not until he'd generated twenty odd pages of cross-referenced notes. Only then, stretching as he rose from his work, did he realize that even if the Balloon Man hadn't bitten him, its creator's flu had.

On the trek up from the Mall to Jo-Beth's house it became very clear to Howie why she'd made so much of events between them#8212;particularly that shared terror in the motel#8212;being the Devil's doing. It was little wonder, given that she worked alongside a highly devout woman in a store stocked from floor to ceiling with Mormon literature. Difficult as his exchange with Lois Knapp had been it had given him a better sense of the challenge that lay before him than he would have had without it. Somehow he had to convince Jo-Beth that there was no crime against God or man in their affection for each other; and nothing demonic lurking in him. As pitches went, he could envisage easier.

As it was, he didn't get much of a chance at persuasion. At first even his attempts to get the door opened to him failed. He rapped and rang for fully five minutes, knowing instinctively that there was somebody in the house to answer. It was only when he stood back in the street and started to holler up at the blinded windows that he heard the sound of the safety chains being taken off the door and returned to the step to request from the woman who peered through the sliver at him, Joyce McGuire presumably, a word with her daughter. He'd usually been successful with mothers. His stammer and his spectacles gave him the air of a diligent and somewhat introspective student; quite safe company. But Mrs. McGuire knew appearances deceived. Her advice was a re-run of Lois Knapp's.

"You're not wanted here," she told him. "Go back home. Leave us alone."

"I just need a few moments with Jo-Beth," he said. "She's here, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's here. But she doesn't want to see you."

"I'd like to hear that from her if you don't mind."

"Oh would you?" said Mrs. McGuire, and, much to his surprise, opened the door.

It was dark inside the house, and bright on the step, but he could see Jo-Beth standing in the gloom, at the far end of the hall. She was dressed in dark clothes, as though a funeral was in the offing. It made her look even more ashen than she was. Only her eyes caught any light from the step.

"Tell him," her mother instructed.

"Jo-Beth?" Howie said. "Could we talk?"

"You mustn't come here," Jo-Beth said softly. Her voice barely carried from the interior. The air between them was dead. "It's dangerous for us all. You mustn't come here ever again."

"But I have to talk to you."

"It's no use, Howie. Terrible things are going to happen to us if you don't go."

"What things?" he wanted to know.

It wasn't she who answered, however, but her mother.

"You're not to blame," the woman said, the fierceness he'd been greeted with all gone from her now. "Nobody blames you. But you must understand, Howard, what happened to your mother, and to me, isn't over."

"No, I'm afraid I don't understand that," he returned. "I don't understand that at all."

"Maybe it's better you don't," came the reply. "Better you just leave. Now." She started to close the door.

"W#8230;w...w..." Howie began. Before he could say wait he was looking at wood panelling, two inches from his nose.

"Shit," he managed, without a slip.

He stood like a fool staring at the closed door for several seconds, while the bolts and chains were put back in place on the opposite side. A more comprehensive defeat was scarcely imaginable. Not only had Mrs. McGuire sent him packing, Jo-Beth had added her voice to the chorus. Rather than make another attempt, and fail, he let the problem be.

His next port of call was already planned, even before he turned from the step and started off down the street.

Somewhere in the woods, at the far side of the Grove, was the spot where Mrs. McGuire, and his mother, and the comedian had all come to their various griefs. Rape, death and disaster marked the spot. Perhaps somewhere there was a door that would not be so readily closed.

"It's for the best," said Momma, when the sound of Howard Katz's footsteps had finally faded.

"I know," Jo-Beth said, still staring at the bolted door.

Momma was right. If the events of the previous night#8212; the Jaff's appearance at the house, and his claiming of Tommy-Ray#8212;proved anything it was that nobody could be trusted. A brother she'd thought she'd known and known she'd loved had been taken from her, body and soul, by a power that had come out of the past. Howie too had come out of the past; from Momma's past. Whatever was now happening in the Grove, he was a part of it. Perhaps its victim, perhaps its invoker. But whether innocent or guilty, to invite him over the threshold of their house was to put at risk the small hope for salvation they'd won from the previous night's assault.

None of which made it any easier to see the door closed against him. Even now her fingers itched to pull back the bolts and haul the door open; to call him back and hug him to her; tell him things could be made good between them. What was good now? Their being together, living the adventure her heart had been aching for all her life, to claim and kiss this boy who was perhaps her own brother? Or to hold on to the old virtues in this flood, though with every wave another was swept away.

Momma had an answer; the answer she always offered when adversity presented itself.

"We must pray, Jo-Beth. Pray for delivery from our oppressors. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming#8212; "

"I don't see any brightness, Momma. I don't think I ever did."

"It'll come," Momma insisted. "Everything will be made clear."

"I don't think so," Jo-Beth said. She pictured Tommy-Ray, who'd returned to the house late last night and smiled his innocent smile when she'd asked him about the Jaff, as though nothing had happened. Was he one of the Wicked whose destruction Momma was now praying so fervently for? Would the Lord consume him with the spirit of His mouth? She hoped not. Indeed she prayed not, when she and Momma knelt to speak with God; prayed that the Lord not judge Tommy-Ray too harshly. Nor her, for wanting to follow the face on the step out into the sun, and off wherever he had gone.

Though the day beat hard on the woods, the atmosphere beneath its canopy was that of a place under the spell of night. Whatever animals and birds made their dwelling here they were keeping to their nests and dens. Light, or something that lived in light, had silenced them. Howie felt their scrutiny however. They observed his every step, as though he were a hunter coming among them under a too-bright moon. He was not welcome here. And yet the urge to go forward increased with every yard he covered. A whisper had brought him down here the day before; a whisper he'd later dismissed as his dizzied mind playing tricks. But now no cell in his system doubted that the call had been genuine. There was somebody here who wanted to see him; to meet him; to know him. Yesterday he'd rejected the summons. Today he would not.

Some impulse, not entirely his own, made him throw back his head as he walked, so that the sun piercing the foliage struck his upturned face like a blow. He didn't flinch from its glare, but rather opened his eyes wider to it. The brightness, and the rhythmic way it struck his retina, seemed to mesmerize him. In most circumstances he hated to relinquish control of his mental processes. He drank only when browbeaten by his peers, stopping the moment he felt his hold over the machine slipping; drugs were unthinkable. But here he was welcoming this intoxication; inviting the sun to burn out the real.

It worked. When he looked back at the scene around him he was half-blinded with colors no blade of grass could have laid claim to. His mind's eye was quick to seize the space vacated by the palpable. Suddenly his sight was filling up, brimming and spilling over with images he must have dredged up from some uncharted place in his cortex, because he had no memory of having lived them.

He saw a window in front of him, as solid#8212;no, more solid#8212;than the trees he was wandering between. It was open, this window, and it let on to a view of sea and sky.

That vision gave way to another; this less peaceful. Fires sprang up around him, in which pages of books seemed to be burning. He walked through the fires fearlessly, knowing these visions could do him no harm; only wanting them more.

He was granted a third far stranger than its predecessors. Even as the fires dimmed fishes appeared out of the colors in his eyes, darting ahead of him in rainbow shoals.

He laughed out loud at the sheer incongruity of the sight, and his laughter inspired another wonder, as the three hallucinations synthesized, drawing into their pattern the very woods he was walking, until fires, fishes, sky, sea and trees became one brilliant mosaic.

The fishes swam with fire for fins. The sky grew green and threw down starfish blossom. The grass rippled like a tide beneath his feet; or rather beneath the mind that saw the feet, because feet were suddenly nothing to him; nor legs, not any part of the machine. In the mosaic he was mind: a pebble skipped from its place, and roving.

In this joy, a question came to trouble him. If he was only mind, what was the machine? Nothing at all? Something to be cast off? To be drowned with the fishes, burned with the words?

Somewhere in him, a tick of panic began.

I'm out of control, he told himself, I've lost my body and I'm out of control. My God. My God. My God!

Hush, somebody murmured in his head. There's nothing wrong.

He stopped walking; or hoped he had.

"Who's there?" he said; or hoped he'd said.

The mosaic was still in place all around him, inventing new paradoxes by the moment. He tried to shatter it with a shout; to be out of this place into somewhere simpler.

"I want to see!" he yelled.

"I'm here!" came the answer. "Howard, I'm here"

"Make it stop," he begged.

"Make what stop?"

"The pictures. Make the pictures stop!"

"Don't be afraid. It's the real world."

"No!" he yelled back. "It isn't! It isn't!"

He put his hands up to his face in the hope of blotting the confusion out, but they#8212;his own hands#8212;were conspiring with the enemy.

There, in the middle of his palms, were his eyes, looking back at him. It was too much. He unleashed a howl of horror, and started to fall forward. The fish brightened; the fires flared; he felt them ready to consume him.

As he struck the ground they disappeared, as though somebody had flipped a switch.

He lay still a moment to be certain this wasn't another trick, then, turning his hands palm upwards to confirm they were sightless, hauled himself to his feet. Even then he clung on to a low-hanging branch, to keep himself in touch with the world.

"You disappoint me, Howard," said his summoner.

For the first time since he'd heard the voice it had a clear point of origin: a spot some ten yards from him, where the trees made a glade within a glade, at its center a pool of light. Bathing there, a man with a pony-tail and one dead eye. Its living twin studied Howie with great intensity.

"Can you see me clearly enough?" he asked.

"Yes," said Howie. "I see you fine. Who are you?"

"My name is Fletcher," came the reply. "And you're my son."

Howie took even firmer hold of the branch.

"I'm what?" he said.

There was no smile on Fletcher's wasted face. Clearly what he'd said, however preposterous, was not intended as a joke. He stepped out of the ring of trees.

"I hate to hide," he said. "Especially from you. But there's been so many people back and forth#8212;" He gestured wildly with his arms. "Back and forth! All to watch an exhumation. Can you imagine? What a waste of a day."

"Did you say son?" said Howie.

"I did," said Fletcher. "My favorite word! As above, so below, isn't that right? One ball in the sky. Two between the legs."

"It is a joke," Howie said.

"You know better than that," Fletcher replied, deadly serious. "I've been calling you for a long time: father to son."

"How did you get in my head?" Howie wanted to know.

Fletcher didn't bother to reply to the question.

"I needed you down here, to help me," he said. "But you kept resisting me. I suppose I would have done the same in your situation. Turned my back on the burning bush. We 're the same in that. Family resemblance."

"I don't believe you."

"You should have let the visions run awhile. We were tripping there, weren't we? Haven't done that in a long while. I always favored mescaline, though that's out of fashion by now I suppose."

"I wouldn't know," Howie replied.

"You don't approve."

"No."

"Well, that's a bad start, but I suppose it can only get better from here on in. Your father, you see, was addicted to mescaline. I wanted the visions so badly. You like them too. Or at least you did for a while."

"They made me sick."

"Too much too soon, that's all. You'll get used to it."

"No way."

"But you'll have to learn, Howard. That wasn't an indulgence; it was a lesson."

"In what?"

"In the science of being and becoming. Alchemy, biology and metaphysics in one discipline. It took me a long time to grasp it, but it made me the man I am"#8212;Fletcher tapped at his lips with his forefinger#8212;"which is, I realize, a somewhat pathetic sight. There are better ways to meet your progenitor, but I did my best to give you a taste of the miracle before you saw its maker in the flesh."

"This is just a dream," Howie said. "I stared too much at the sun and it's cooked my brains."

"I like to look at the sun too, "said Fletcher. "And no#8212; this isn't a dream. We 're both here in the same moment, sharing our thoughts like civilized beings. This is as real as life gets." He opened his arms. "Come closer, Howard. Embrace me."

"No way."

"What are you afraid of?"

"You're not my father."

"All right," said Fletcher. "I'm just one of them. There was another. But believe me, Howard, I'm the important one."

"You talk shit, you know that?"

"Why are you so angry?" Fletcher wanted to know. "Is it your desperate affair with the Jaff's child? Forget her, Howard."

Howie pulled his spectacles from his face and narrowed his eyes at Fletcher. "How do you know about Jo-Beth?" he said.

"Whatever's in your mind, son, is in mine. At least since you fell in love. Let me tell you, I don't like it any better than you do."

"Who said I don't like it?"

"I never fell in love in my life, but I'm getting a taste of it through you, and it's not too sweet."

"If you've got some hold on Jo-Beth#8212;"

"She's not my daughter, she's the Jaff's. He's in her head the way I'm in yours."

"This is a dream," Howie said again. "It's got to be. It's all a fucking dream."

"So try waking," said Fletcher.

"Huh?"

"If it's a dream, boy, try waking. Then we can get the skepticism over with and get down to some work."

Howie put his spectacles on again, bringing Fletcher's face back into focus. There was no smile on it.

"Go on," Fletcher said. "Get your doubts sorted through, because we haven't much time. This isn't a game. This isn't a dream. This is the world. And if you don't help me then there's more than your dime-store romance in jeopardy."

"Fuck you!" said Howie, making a fist. "I can wake up Watch!"

Mustering all his strength he delivered a punch to the tree beside him that shook the foliage overhead.

A few leaves dropped around him. Again he punched the coarse bark. The second blow hurt, as had the first. So did the third and the fourth. There was no wavering in Fletcher's image, however: he remained solid in the sunlight. Howie punched the tree again, feeling the skin on his knuckles break, and begin to bleed. Though the pain he felt mounted with each successive blow the scene around him offered no sign of capitulation. Determined to defy its hold he beat at the trunk again and again, as though this were some new exercise, designed not to strengthen the machine but to

wound it. No pain, no gain.

"Just a dream," he said to himself.

"You're not going to wake," Fletcher warned him. "Stop it now before you break something. Fingers aren't easy to come by. Took a few eons to get fingers#8212;"

"It's just a dream," Howie said. "Just a dream."

"Stop, will you?"

There was more than an urge to break the dream fuelling Howie, however. Half a dozen other furies had risen to give momentum to these blows. Rage against Jo-Beth, and her mother, and his mother too come to that; against himself for his ignorance, for being a holy fool when the rest of the world was so damn wise, running rings around him. If he could shatter this illusion's hold on him he'd never be a fool again.

"You're going to break your hand, Howard#8212;"

"I'm going to wake."

"Then what will you do?"

"I'm going to wake."

"But with a broken hand, what will you do when she wants you to touch her?"

He stopped, and looked round at Fletcher. The pain was suddenly excruciating. From the corner of his eye he could see that the bark of the tree was bright scarlet. He felt nauseous.

"She doesn't...want...me to touch her," he murmured. "She...locked me out..."

He let his wounded hand fall to his side. Blood was dripping from it, he knew, but he couldn't bear to look. The sweat on his face had suddenly turned to prickles of icy water. His joints had gone to water too. Giddily, he swung his throbbing hand away from Fletcher's eyes (dark, like his own; even the dead one) and up towards the sun.

A beam found him, shot between the leaves on to his face.

"It's...not...a dream," he murmured.

"There are easier proofs," he heard Fletcher remark through the whine that was filling his head.

"I'm...going to throw up..." he said. "I hate the sight..."

"Can't hear you, son."

"I hate the sight...of my...own..."

"Blood?" said Fletcher.

Howie nodded. It was an error. His brain spun in his skull, the connections confounded. His tongue gained sight, his ears tasted wax, his eyes felt the wet touch of his lids as they closed.

"I'm out of here," he thought, and collapsed.

Such a long time, son, waiting in the rock for a glimpse of the light. And now I'm here, I won't have a chance to enjoy it. Or you. No time to have fun with you, the way fathers should enjoy the company of their sons.

Howie moaned. The world was just out of sight. If he wanted to open his eyes it would be there, waiting for him. But Fletcher told him not to try too hard.

I've got you, he said.

It was true. Howie felt his father's arms surrounding him in the dark, wrapping him up. They felt huge. Or perhaps he'd shrunk; become a babe again.

I never had plans to be a father, Fletcher was saying. It was pretty much forced upon me by circumstance. The Jaff decided to make some children, you see, to have his agents in flesh. I was obliged to do the same.

"Jo-Beth?" Howie muttered.

Yes?

"Is she his or yours?"

His, of course. His.

"So we're not...brother and sister?"

No, of course not. She and her brother are of his making, you're of mine. That's why you have to help me, Howie. I'm weaker than he is. A dreamer. I always was. A drugged dreamer. He's already out there, raising his damn terata#8212;

"His what?"

His creatures. His army. That's what he got from the comedian: something to carry him away. Me? I got nothing. Dying people don't have many fantasies. It's all fear. He loves fear.

"Who is he?"

The Jaff? My enemy.

"And who are you?"

His enemy.

"That's not an answer. I want a better answer than that."

It'd take too much time. We don't have time, Howie.

"Just the bones."

Howie felt Fletcher smile inside his head.

Oh...bones I can give you, his father said. Bones of birds and fishes. Things buried in the ground. Like memories. Back to the first cause.

"Am I stupid, or are you talking nonsense?"

I've so much to tell you, and so little time. Best I show you, maybe.

His voice had taken on a strained quality; Howie felt anxiety in it.

"What are you going to do?" he said.

I'm going to open up my mind, son.

"You're afraid..."

It'll be quite a ride. But I don't know any other way.

"I don't think I want to."

Too late, said Fletcher.

Howie felt the arms encircling him loosen their grip; felt himself falling from his parent's hold. This was the first of all nightmares surely; to be dropped. But gravity was askew in this thought-world. Instead of his father's face receding from him as he was released it appeared#8212;vast, and growing vaster#8212;as he toppled into it.

There were no words now, to reduce thought: only thoughts themselves, and those in abundance. Too much to understand. It was all Howie could do not to drown.

Don't fight, he heard his father instruct. Don't even try to swim. Let go. Sink into me. Be in me.

I won't be myself any longer, he returned. If I drown I won't be me. I'll be you. I don't want to be you.

Take the risk. There's no other way.

I won't! I can't! I have to...control.

He started to struggle against the element that surrounded him. Ideas and images kept breaking through his mind however. Thoughts fixed in his mind by another mind, that were beyond his present comprehension.

#8212;Between this world, called the Cosm#8212;also called the Clay, also called the Helter Incendo#8212;between this world and the Metacosm, also called the Alibi, also called the Exordium and the Lonely Place, is a sea called Quiddity#8212;

An image of that sea appeared in Howie's head, and amid the confusion was a sight he knew. He'd floated here, during the brief dream he'd shared with Jo-Beth. They'd been carried on a gentle tide, their hair tangled, their bodies brushing against each other. Recognition calmed his fears. He listened to Fletcher's instruction more closely now.

#8212;and on that sea, there's an island#8212;

He glimpsed it, albeit distantly.

It's called Ephemeris#8212;

A beautiful word, and a beautiful place. Its head was couched in cloud, but there was light on its lower slopes. Not sunlight; the light of spirit.

I want to be there, Howie thought, I want to be there with Jo-Beth.

Forget her.

Tell me what's there. What's on Ephemeris?

The Great and Secret Show, his father's thoughts returned, which we see three times. At birth, at death and for one night when we sleep beside the love of our lives.

Jo-Beth.

I told you, forget her.

I went with Jo-Beth! We were floating there, together.

No.

Yes. That means she's the love of my life. You just said so.

I told you to forget her.

It does! My God! It does!

Something that the Jaff fathered is too tainted to be loved. Too corrupt.

She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

She rejected you, Fletcher reminded him.

Then I'll win her back.

His image of her was clear in his head; clearer than the island now, or the dream-sea it floated upon. He reached for her memory and by it hauled himself out of the grip of his father's mind. Back came the nausea, and then the light, splashing through the foliage above his head.

He opened his eyes. Fletcher was not holding him, if indeed he ever had. Howie was lying on his back on the grass. His arm was numb from elbow to wrist, but the hand beyond felt twice its proper size. The pain in it was the first proof that he wasn't dreaming. The second, that he had just woken from a dream. The man with the pony-tail was real; no doubt of it. Which meant that the news he brought could be true. This was his father, for better or worse. He raised his head from the grass as Fletcher spoke:

"You don't understand how desperate our situation is," he said. "Quiddity will be invaded by the Jaff if I don't stop him."

"I don't want to know," Howie said.

"You have a responsibility," Fletcher stated. "I wouldn't have fathered you if I didn't think you could help me."

"Oh that's very touching," said Howie. "That really makes me feel wanted."

He started to get to his feet, avoiding the sight of his injured hand. "You shouldn't have shown me the island, Fletcher#8212;" he said. "Now I know what's between Jo-Beth and me's the real thing. She's not tainted. And she's not my sister. That means I can get her back."

"Obey me!" Fletcher said. "You're my child. You're supposed to obey!"

"You want a slave, go find one," Howie said. "I've got better things to do."

He turned his back on Fletcher, or at least believed he had, until the man appeared in front of him.

"How the hell did you do that?"

"There's a lot I can do. Little stuff. I'll teach you. Only don't leave me alone, Howard."

"Nobody calls me Howard," Howie said, raising his hand to push Fletcher away. He'd momentarily forgotten his injury: now it came into sight. His knuckles were puffed up, the back of his hand and his fingers gummy with blood. Blades of grass had stuck to it, bright green on bright red. Fletcher took a step back, repulsed.

"Don't like the sight of blood, either, huh?" Howie said.

As he retreated something about Fletcher's appearance altered, too subtle for Howie to quite grasp. Was it that he'd backed away into a patch of sunlight, and that it somehow pierced him? Or that a piece of sky locked in his belly came undone and floated up into his eyes? Whatever, it was there and gone.

"I'll make a deal," Howie said.

"What's that?"

"You leave me alone; I'll leave you#8212;"

"There's only us, son. Against the whole world."

"You're fucking crazy, you know that?" Howie said. He

took his eyes off Fletcher and set them on the route he'd come. "That's where I got it from. This holy fool shit! Well, not me! No more. I've got people who love me!"

"I love you!" Fletcher said.

"Liar."

"All right, then I'll learn."

Howie started away from him, his bloody arm outstretched.

"I can learn!" he heard his father call from behind him. "Howard, listen to me! I can learn!"

He didn't run. He didn't have the strength. But he reached the road without falling down, which was a victory of mind over matter, given how weak his legs felt. There he rested for a short time, content that Fletcher wouldn't follow him into such open territory. The man had secrets he didn't want mere human eyes to see. While resting, he planned. First he'd return to the motel, and tend to his hand. Then? Back to Jo-Beth's house. He had good news to impart, and he'd find a way to tell it if he had to wait all night for the opportunity. The sun was hot and bright. It threw his shadow in front of him as he went. He fixed his eyes on the sidewalk, and followed his pattern there, step for step, back towards sanity.

In the woods behind him, Fletcher cursed his inadequacy. He'd never been much good at persuasion, leaping from banality to visions with no proper grasp of the middle ground between: the simple social skills which most people were proficient in by the age of ten. He had failed to win his son over by straightforward argument, and Howard in his turn had resisted the revelations which might have made him comprehend his father's jeopardy. Not just his; the world's. Not for an instant did Fletcher doubt that the Jaff was as dangerous now as he'd been back in the Mision de Santa Catrina, when the Nuncio had first rarefied him. More so. He had his agents in the Cosm; children who would obey him because he had a way with words. Howard was heading back into the embrace of one of those agents even now. As good as lost. Which left him with no alternative but to go into the Grove on his own, and look for people from whom he might raise hallucigenia.

There was no value in putting off the moment. He had a few hours before dusk, when the day turned towards darkness, and the Jaff would have an even greater advantage than he had already. Even though he didn't much like the idea of walking the streets of the Grove for all to see and study, what choice did he have? Maybe there would be a few he could catch dreaming, even in the light of day.

He looked up at the sky, and thought of his room in the Mission, in which he'd sat with Raul for so many blissful hours, listening to Mozart and watching the clouds change as they came off the ocean. Changing, always changing. A flux of forms in which they'd find echoes of earthly things: a tree, a dog, a human face. One day, he would join those clouds, when his war with the Jaff was over. Then the sadness of parting he felt now#8212;Raul gone, Howard gone, everything sliding away from him#8212;would be extinguished.

Only the fixed felt pain. The protean lived in everything, always. One country, living one immortal day.

Oh, to be there!

For William Witt, Palomo Grove's Boswell, the morning had seen his worst nightmare become reality. He'd stepped out of his attractive, one-story residence in Stillbrook, which he boasted to clients had appreciated by thirty thousand dollars in the five years since he'd purchased, to do a normal day's real estate business in his favorite town on earth. But things were different this morning. Had he been asked to say what exactly, he couldn't have offered a cogent answer, but he knew by instinct that his beloved Grove was sickening. He spent most of the morning standing at the window of his offices, which looked directly across at the supermarket. Almost everybody in the Grove used the market at least once a week; it had for many the double function of suppliers and meeting place. William prided himself on the fact that he could name fully ninety-eight percent of the people who entered its doors. He'd been instrumental in finding houses for a good number of them; rehousing them when their families outgrew their first purchase as newlyweds; often rehousing those in middle-age when the children left; finally selling houses on when the occupants died. And he in turn was known by most of them. They called him by his first name, they commented on his bow ties (which were his trademark; he owned one hundred and eleven), they introduced him to visiting friends.

But today, as he watched from his window, he took no joy in the ritual. Was it simply the fact of Buddy Vance's death, and the tragedy that had come as its consequence, that subdued folks so mightily; that kept them from greeting each other as they passed on the parking lot? Or was it that they, like he, had woken with a strange expectation, as though some event was in the offing that they'd neglected to write in their diaries, but at which they'd be sorely missed were they not to attend.

Simply standing and watching, unable to interpret what he saw or felt, dragged his spirits to their knees. He decided to go on a round of appraisals. There were three houses#8212;two in Deerdell, one in Windbluff#8212;that needed looking over, and prices determined. His anxiety didn't diminish as he drove over to Deerdell. The sun that beat on the sidewalks and the lawns beat to bruise; the air above shimmered as if to dissolve brick and slate: to take his precious Grove away entirely.

The two properties in Deerdell were in very different states of repair; both required his full attention as he went through them, totting up their merits and demerits. By the time he'd finished with them, and begun towards the Wind-bluff house, he'd been long enough distracted from his fears to think that maybe he'd been over-reacting. The task ahead, he knew, would afford him considerable pleasure. The house on Wild Cherry Glade, just below the Crescents, was large and desirable. He was already creating the Better Homes Bulletin pitch as he stepped from the car:

Be King of the Hill! The perfect family home is waiting for you!

He selected the front door key from the two on the ring, and opened up. Legal wrangles had kept the property empty and off the market since the spring; the air inside was dusty and stale. He liked the smell. There was something about empty places that touched him. He liked to think of them as homes in waiting; blank canvases upon which buyers would paint their own particular paradise. He wandered through the house, making meticulous notes in each room, turning seductive phrases over in his head as he went:

Spacious and Immaculate. A Home to Delight even the Choosiest Buyer. 3 Bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, with Terrazzo floors, Birch panelling in formal living room, kitchen fully equipped, covered patio...

Given its size and location the house would, he knew, command a good price. Having made a circuit of the lower floor he unlocked the yard door and stepped outside. The houses, even on the lower parts of the Hill, were well spread. The yard was not overlooked by either of the neighbors' houses. Had it been, they might well have complained of its condition. The lawn was shin-high, patchy and sere; the trees needed cutting back. He walked across the sun-baked ground to measure the pool. It had not been drained after Mrs. Lloyd, who'd owned the property, had died. The water was low, its surface encrusted with an algae greener than the grass which sprang between the tiling at the pool's edge. It smelt rank. Rather than linger to measure the pool, he guessed its dimensions, knowing his practiced eye was virtually as accurate as his tape. He was jotting the figures down when a ripple started in the center of the pool, crawling over the sluggish surface towards him. He stepped away from the edge, making a note to get the Pool Services up here soonest. Whatever was breeding in the filth#8212;fungus or fish#8212;could count their teeming tenancy in hours.

The water moved again; darting motions that put him in mind of another day entirely, and of another body of haunted water. He put the memory from his head#8212;or at least tried to#8212;and, turning his back on the pool, began towards the house. But the memory had been too long alone; it insisted on going with him. He could see the four girls#8212;Carolyn, Trudi, Joyce and Arleen, lovely Arleen#8212;as clearly as if it were just yesterday he'd spied on them. He watched them in his mind's eyes, stripping off their clothes. He heard their chatter; their laughter.

He stopped walking, and glanced back at the pool. The soup was once more still. Whatever it had bred or was a bed for had gone back to sleep. He glanced at his watch. He'd been away from the office only an hour and three quarters. If he picked up his pace and finished here quickly, he could slip back home for a while, and watch a video from his collection. The notion, fuelled in part by the erotic recollections the pool had stirred, took him back into the house with renewed zeal. He locked up the back, and started upstairs.

Halfway up, a noise from above brought him to a halt.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

There was no reply, but the noise came again. He made his demand a second time; a dialogue of question and sound, question and sound. Were there children in the house, perhaps? Breaking into empty properties, which had been a fad some years before, was once again on the increase. This was the first time he'd had the opportunity to catch a culprit in the act of trespass however.

"Are you coming down?" he said, giving as much basso profundo to his question as he could muster. "Or am I coming up to bring you down?"

The only reply was the same skittering sound he'd heard twice already, like a small dog with unclipped nails running over a hardwood floor.

So be it, William thought. He began up the stairs again, making his steps as heavy as possible to intimidate the trespassers. He knew most of the Grove's children by their names and nicknames. Those that he didn't he could readily point out in the schoolyard. He'd make an example of them, and so dissuade further offenders.

By the time he reached the top of the stairs all was silent. The afternoon sun poured through the window, its warmth calming what small anxiety ticked in him. There was no danger here. Danger was a midnight street in L.A., and the sound of a knife scraping brick as someone came in pursuit. This was the Grove, on a sunny Friday afternoon.

As if to confirm that thought a wind-up toy came scuttling through the green door of the master bedroom; a foot-and-a-half-long white centipede, its plastic feet tapping the floor in rhythm. He smiled at the gesture. The child was sending his toy out to signal surrender. Smiling indulgently, William stooped to pick it up, his eyes on the floor through the door.

His gaze flickered back to the toy as his fingers made contact, however, his touch confirming what sight comprehended too late to act upon: that the thing he was picking up was not a toy at all. Its shell was soft, hot and damp beneath his hand, its peristaltic motion repulsive. He tried to let it go but its body adhered to his hand, working against his palm. Dropping notebook and pencil, he snatched the creature from one hand with the other, and threw it down. It fell on its segmented back, its dozen legs pedalling like an overturned shrimp. Gasping, he staggered back against the wall, until a voice from beyond the door said:

"Don't stand on ceremony. You're welcome inside."

The speaker was no child, William realized, but then he'd decided several seconds ago that his first scenario had been optimistic.

"Mr. Witt," said a second voice. It was lighter than the first; and recognizable.

"Tommy-Ray?" William said, unable to disguise the relief he felt. "Is that you, Tommy-Ray?"

"Sure is. Come on in. Meet the gang."

"What's going on here?" William said, stepping clear of the struggling beast and pushing open the door. Mrs. Lloyd's chintz drapes had been drawn against the sun, and after the blaze of light outside the room seemed doubly dark. But he could make out Tommy-Ray McGuire, standing in the middle of the room, and behind him, sitting in the darkest corner, another presence. One of them had been dipping in the rank water of the pool, it seemed; the sickly smell pricked William's sinuses.

"You shouldn't be in here," he chided Tommy-Ray. "Do you realize you're trespassing? This house#8212;"

"You're not going to tell on us, are you?" said Tommy-Ray. He took a step towards William, eclipsing his colleague entirely.

"It's not that simple#8212;" William began.

"Yes it is," said Tommy-Ray flatly. He took another step, and another, suddenly moving past William to the door, and slamming it. The sound excited Tommy-Ray's companion#8212;or rather, his companion's companions#8212;for William's eyes were now sufficiently accustomed to the murk to see that the bearded man slumped in the corner was swarming with creatures that bore a family resemblance to the centipede outside. They covered him like a living armor. They crawled over his face, lingering at his lips and eyes; they gathered around his groin, massaging him. They drank at his armpits, they cavorted on his stomach. There were so many of them his bulk was swelled to twice human size.

"Jesus Lord," said William.

"Unreal, huh?" said Tommy-Ray.

"You and Tommy-Ray know each other from way back, I hear," said the Jaff. "Tell all. Was he a considerate child?"

"What the hell is this?" William said, glancing back at Tommy-Ray. The youth's eyes gleamed as they roved.

"This is my father," came his reply. "This is the Jaff."

"We'd like you to show us the secret of your soul," said the Jaff.

Instantly, William thought of his private collection, locked up back at home. How did this obscenity know about that? Had Tommy-Ray spied on him? The peeper peeped upon?

William shook his head. "I don't have any secrets," he said softly.

"Probably right," said Tommy-Ray. "Boring little shit."

"Unkind," said the Jaff.

"Everybody says it," said Tommy-Ray. "Look at him, with his fucking bow ties and his little nods at everyone."

Tommy-Ray's words stung William. It was they as much as the sight of the Jaff which brought a tremor to his cheek.

"Most boring little shit in the whole fucking town," Tommy-Ray said.

In response the Jaff snatched one of the beasts from his belly and lobbed it at Tommy-Ray. His aim was true. The creature, which had tails like whips, and a minuscule head, fixed itself to Tommy-Ray's face, pressing its belly against his mouth. He lost his balance, toppling sideways as he clawed at the parasite. It came away from his face with a comical kissing sound, revealing Tommy-Ray's grin, which was echoed with laughter from the Jaff. Tommy-Ray tossed the creature back in its master's direction, a half-hearted throw which left the thing a foot from where William stood. He retreated from it, bringing a fresh sound of laughter from father and son.

"It won't harm you," the Jaff said. "Unless I want it to."

He called to the creature that he and the boy had made a game of; it skulked back to the comfort of the Jaff's belly.

"You probably know most of these folks," the Jaff said.

"Yeah," Tommy-Ray murmured. "And they know him."

"This one, for instance," the Jaff said, hauling a cat-sized beast from behind him. "This one came from that woman...what was her name, Tommy?"

"I don't remember."

The Jaff slid the creature, which resembled a vast bleached scorpion, around to his feet. The thing seemed almost shy; it wanted to retreat back to its hiding place.

"The woman with the dogs, Tommy#8212;" the Jaff said. "Mildred something."

"Duffin," said William.

"Good! Good!" the Jaff said, jabbing a thick thumb in his direction. "Duffin! How easily we forget! Duffin!"

William knew Mildred. He'd seen her that very morning#8212;minus the poodle pack#8212;standing in the lot staring ahead of her as though she'd driven down here only to forget why she'd come. What she and the scorpion had in common was beyond him.

"I can see you're flummoxed, Witt," the Jaff said. "You're wondering: is this Mildred's new pet? The answer is no. The answer is, this is Mildred's deepest secret, made flesh. And that's what I want from you, William. The deep stuff. The secret stuff."

Red-blooded heterosexual voyeur that he was, William grasped instantly the cocksucking sub-text of the Jaff's request. He and Tommy-Ray weren't father and son, they were fucking each other. All this talk of the deep stuff, the secret stuff, was a veil over that.

"I don't want any part of this," William said. "Tommy-Ray'll tell you, I don't do any weird stuff."

"Nothing weird about fear," the Jaff said.

"Everybody's got it," Tommy-Ray put in.

"Some more than others. You...I suspect...more than most. Fess up, William. You've got some bad stuff in your head. I just want to take it out and make it mine."

More innuendo. William heard Tommy-Ray make a step in his direction.

"Keep your distance," William warned. It was pure bluff, and by the grin on Tommy-Ray's face he knew it.

"You'll feel better afterwards," said the Jaff.

"Much," said Tommy-Ray.

"It doesn't hurt. Well...maybe a little, at the start. But once you get the bad stuff out into the open you'll be a different person."

"Mildred was just one," said Tommy-Ray. "He visited a whole bunch last night."

"Sure I did."

"I pointed the way, and he went."

"I get a scent off some people, you know? I get a real strong scent."

"Louise Doyle...Chris Seapara...Harry O'Connor..."

William knew them all.

"...Gunther Rothbery...Martine Nesbitt..."

"Martine had some really impressive sights to show," the Jaff said. "One of them's outside. Keeping cool."

"The pool?" William murmured.

"You saw it?"

William shook his head.

"You really must. It's important to know what people have been hiding from you all these years." That touched a nerve, though William guessed the Jaff was ignorant of the fact. "You think you know these people," he went on, "but they've all got fears they never confess; dark places they cover up with smiles. These..." he raised his arm, to which a creature resembling a furless monkey clung, "...are what live in those places. I just call them forth."

"Martine, too?" William said, the vaguest glint of escape showing itself.

"Oh sure," said Tommy-Ray. "She had one of the best."

"I call them terata," the Jaff said. "Which means a monstrous birth; a prodigy. How do you like that?"

"I'd...I'd like to see what Martine produced," William replied.

"A pretty lady," said the Jaff, "with an ugly fuck in her head. Go show him, Tommy-Ray. Then bring him back up."

"Sure."

Tommy-Ray turned the handle but hesitated before opening the door, as though he'd read the thoughts going through William's head.

"You really want to see?" the youth said.

"I want to see," said Witt. "Martine and I..." He let the line trail a little. The Jaff bit.

"You and that woman, William? Together?"

"Once or twice," he lied. He'd not so much as touched Martine, nor indeed ever wanted to, but he hoped it gave motive to his curiosity.

The Jaff seemed persuaded.

"All the more reason to see what she was keeping from you," he said. "Take him, Tommy-Ray! Take him!"

The McGuire boy did as ordered, leading William downstairs. He whistled tunelessly as he went, his easy gait and his casual manner all belying the hellish company he was keeping. More than once William was tempted to ask the kid why, just so he could better understand what was happening to the Grove. How could it be that evil was so happy-go-lucky? How could souls so plainly corrupted as Tommy-Ray saunter, and sing, and exchange repartee like ordinary folks?

"Freaky, huh?" Tommy-Ray said, as he took the rear door key from William. He's read my mind, Witt thought, but Tommy-Ray's next remark gave the lie to that.

"Empty houses. Freaky places. 'Cept for you, I guess. You're used to 'em, right?"

"I've got that way."

"The Jaff doesn't much like the sun, so I found him this place. Somewhere he could hide away."

Tommy-Ray squinted against the bright sky as they headed outside. "Guess I must be getting like him," he commented. "Used to love the beach, y'know. Topanga; Malibu. Now it kinda makes me sick to think about all that...brightness."

He started to lead the way to the pool, keeping his head down and the chatter up.

"So you and Martine had a thing goin', huh? She's no Miss World, you know what I'm saying? And she sure had some freaky stuff inside her. You should see the way it comes out...Boy oh boy. That's a sight. They kinda sweat it out. Right out through the little holes#8212;"

"Pores."

"Huh?"

"The little holes. Pores."

"Yeah. Neat."

They had reached the pool. Tommy-Ray approached, saying:

"The Jaff's got this way of calling them, you know? With his mind. I just call 'em by their names; or the names of the people they belonged to." He glanced back at William, catching him in the act of scanning the fencing around the yard, looking for a break in it. "Getting bored?" Tommy-Ray said.

"No. No...I just...no, I'm not bored."

The youth looked back towards the pool. "Martine?" he called. There was a disturbance on the surface of the water. "Here she comes," said Tommy-Ray. "You're going to be real impressed."

"I bet I am," said William, taking a step towards the edge. As whatever it was in the water began to break surface he threw out his arms and pushed Tommy-Ray in the small of the back. The boy yelled, and lost his balance. William got a glimpse of the terata in the pool#8212;like a man o' war with legs. Then Tommy-Ray was falling on top of it, boy and beast thrashing around. William didn't linger to see who bit whom. He was racing for the weakest place in the fence, and clambering over, and away.

"You let him slip," said the Jaff, when, after a time, Tommy-Ray returned to the nest upstairs. "I'm not going to be able to rely upon you, I can see that."

"He tricked me."

"You shouldn't sound so damn surprised. Haven't you learned yet? Folk have secret faces. That's what makes them interesting."

"I tried to chase him, but he'd got away already. You want me to go to his home? Kill him, maybe?"

"Easy, easy," said the Jaff. "We can live with him spreading rumors for a day or two. Who's going to believe him, anyhow? We'll just have to vacate this place after dark."

"There's other empty houses."

"We won't need to look," said the Jaff. "I found us a permanent residence last night."

"Where?"

"She's not quite ready for us, but she will be."

"Who?"

"You'll see. Meanwhile, I'm going to need you to take a little journey for me."

"Sure."

"You won't have to be away long. But there's a place down the coast where I left something important to me, a long time ago. I want you to get it back for me, while I dispatch Fletcher."

"I want to be here for that."

"You like the idea of death, don't you?"

Tommy-Ray grinned. "Yeah. I do. My friend Andy, he had this neat tattoo, of a skull, right there." Tommy-Ray pointed to his chest. "Right over his heart. He used to say he'd die young. He said he'd go down to Bombora, the peaks are real dangerous there#8212;waves just drop away, you know?#8212; and he'd wait for one last wave, and when he was really travelling he'd just throw himself off the board. Just So it. Like that. Ride and die."

"Did he?" asked the Jaff. "Die, I mean?"

"Did he fuck," said Tommy-Ray contemptuously. "Didn't have the balls."

"But you could."

"Right now? Sure as shit."

"Well, don't be in too much of a hurry. There's going to be a party."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah. A major party. This town never saw the likes of this party."

"Who's invited?"

"Half of Hollywood. And the other half'll wish it had been."

"And us?"

"Oh yes, we'll be there. You can be sure of that. We'll be there, ready and waiting."

At last, William thought as he stood on Spilmont's doorstep on Peaseblossom Drive, at last a story I can tell. He'd escaped the horrors of the Jaff's court with a tale he could unburden himself of, and be dubbed a hero for the warning.

Spilmont was one of the many William had guided through a house purchase; two, in fact. They knew each other well enough to be on first name terms.

"Billy?" Spilmont said, looking William up and down. 'You don't look too good."

"I'm not."

"Come on in."

"Something terrible's happened, Oscar," William said, allowing himself to be ushered inside. "I never saw anything worse."

"Sit. Sit," said Spilmont. "Judith? It's Bill Witt. What do you need, Billy? Something to drink? Jeeze, you're shaking like a leaf."

Judith Spilmont was a perfect earth mother, broad-hipped and big-breasted. She appeared from the kitchen, and repeated her husband's observations. William requested a glass of ice water, but couldn't hold off starting his story before it was in his hands. He knew even as he began how ludicrous it would sound. It was a campfire tale, not meant to be told in broad daylight while the listener's kids yelled as they danced in and out of the lawn sprinklers, just beyond the window. But Spilmont listened dutifully, shooing his wife away once she'd supplied the water. William persevered through his account, even remembering the names of those whom the Jaff had touched the night before, explaining once in a while that he knew all this sounded preposterous but it had really happened. It was with that observation he finished the telling:

"I know how this must sound," he said.

"Can't say it's not some story," Spilmont replied. "If it came from anyone but you I think I'd be less willing to listen. But shit, Bill...Tommy-Ray McGuire? He's a nice kid."

"I'll take you back up there," William said. "As long as we go armed."

"No, you're in no state for that."

"You mustn't go alone," William said.

"Hey, neighbor, you're looking at a man who loves his kids. Think I'd leave 'em orphans?" Spilmont laughed. "Listen, you go back home. Stay there. I'll call you when I've got some news. Deal?"

"Deal."

"You sure you're fit to drive? I could get somebody#8212;"

"I got this far."

"Right."

"I'll be OK."

"Meanwhile, keep it to yourself, Bill, OK? I don't want anyone getting trigger-happy."

"No. Sure. I understand."

Spilmont watched while William downed the rest of his ice water then escorted him to the door, shook his hand, and waved him off. William did as instructed. He drove straight home, called in to Valerie and told her he wouldn't be coming back to the office, locked all the doors and windows, undressed, threw up, showered and waited by the telephone for further news of the depravity that had come to Palomo Grove.

Suddenly dog-tired, Grillo had taken to his bed around three-fifteen, instructing the switchboard to hold all calls through to his suite until further notice. It was therefore a rapping on the door that woke him. He sat up, his head so light it almost floated off.

"Room Service," a woman said.

"I didn't order anything," he replied. Then he realized: "Tesla?"

Tesla it was, looking good in her usual defiant fashion. Grillo had long ago concluded that it took a kind of genius to transform, in the wearing of certain clothes and items of jewelry, the tacky into the glamorous, and the tasteful into the kitsch. Tesla managed the transition in both directions without seeming to try. Today, she wore a man's white shirt, too big for her small, slim frame, with a cheap Mexican bola at the neck, bearing an image of the Madonna, slinky blue trousers, high heels (which still only brought her up to shoulder height on him), and silver snake earrings that lurked in red hair she'd had streaked with blonde, but only streaked because, as she'd explained, blondes did indeed have more fun but a whole head's worth was sheer indulgence.

"You were asleep," she said.

"Yep."

"Sorry."

"I have to take a piss."

"Take it. Take it."

"Will you check my calls?" he yelled back to her as he met his reflection in the mirror. He looked wretched, he thought: like the undernourished poet he'd given up trying to be the first time he went hungry. It was only as he swayed at the bowl, one hand on his dick#8212;which had never looked so far from him, or so small#8212;the other holding on to the door frame to keep himself from keeling over, that he admitted to himself just how sick he was feeling.

"You'd better stay away from me," he told Tesla as he staggered back. "I think I got flu."

"Then go back to bed. Who gave you flu?"

"Some kid."

"Abernethy called," Tesla informed him. "So did a woman called Ellen."

"Her kid."

"Who she?"

"She nice lady. What's the message?"

"Needs to talk to you urgently. No number."

"Don't think she's got a phone," Grillo said. "I should find out what she wants. She used to work for Vance."

"Scandal?"

"Yeah." His teeth had begun to chatter. "Shit," he said. "I feel like I'm burning up."

"Maybe I should take you back to L.A."

"No way. There's a story here, Tesla."

"There's stories every place. Abernethy can put somebody on this."

"This one's strange, "Grillo said. "Something's going on here I don't understand." He sat down, his head thumping.

"You know I was there when the men who were looking for Vance's body got killed?"

"No. What happened?"

"Whatever they said on the news, it wasn't some underground dam burst. Or at least it wasn't just that. For one thing I heard shouts long before the water. I think they were yelling prayers down there, Tesla. Prayers. And then there was this fucking geyser. Water, smoke, dirt. Bodies. And something else. No: two something elses. Coming out of the ground, under cover."

"Climbing?"

"Flying."

Tesla gave him a long, hard look.

"I swear, Tesla," Grillo said. "Maybe they were human...maybe not. They seemed more like...I don't know...more like energies maybe. And before you ask, I was clean and sober."

"Were you the only one who saw this?"

"No, there was a guy called Hotchkiss with me. I think he saw most of it too. Only he won't answer his phone to corroborate."

"You realize you sound certifiable?"

"Well that just confirms what you've always thought, right? Working for Abernethy digging up dirt on the rich and famous#8212;"

"Not falling in love with me."

"Not falling in love with you."

"Lunatic."

"Insane."

"Listen, Grillo, I'm a lousy nurse, so don't expect sympathy. But if you want more practical help while you're sick, just point me in the right direction."

"You could look in on Ellen. Tell her the kid gave me the flu. Get her feeling guilty. There's a story there, and I've only got a piece of it so far."

"That's my Grillo. Sick but never shamed."

It was late afternoon by the time Tesla set out for Ellen Nguyen's house, refusing to take the car even though Grillo warned her she'd have quite a walk. A breeze had mustered itself, and escorted her through the town. It was the kind of community she rather fancied setting a thriller in; something about a man with an atom bomb in his suitcase, maybe. It had been done before, of course, but she had a twist on the tale. Rather than telling it as a parable of evil she'd tell it of apathy. People simply choosing not to believe what they were told; just going about their daily business with expressions of blithe indifference. And the heroine would try to galvanize these people into a recognition of their own danger, and fail, and at the end she'd be dumped outside the town limits by a mob who resented her stirring up the mud, just as the ground rocked and the bomb went off. Fade out. The End. Of course it would never get made that way, but then she was a past mistress at writing screenplays that never saw-celluloid. The stories kept coming, however. She couldn't walk in a new place or meet new faces without dramatizing them. She didn't analyze too closely the stories her mind created for each cast and setting, unless#8212;as now#8212;it was so obvious as to be unavoidable. Presumably her gut told her that Palomo Grove was a town that would one day go bang.

Her sense of direction was unfailingly good. She found her way to the Nguyen residence without need of backtracking. The woman who answered the door looked so delicate Tesla feared to speak above a whisper, much less try to pry some evidence of indiscretion from her. She just stated the facts simply: that she'd come at Grillo's request because he had caught the flu.

"Don't worry, he'll survive," she said, when Ellen looked distressed. "I just came over to explain why he wouldn't be coming over to see you."

"Come in, please," Ellen said.

Tesla resisted. She was in no mood for a fragile soul. But the woman would not be denied.

"I can't talk here," she said as she closed the door. "And I can't leave Philip for too long. I don't have a phone any longer. I had to use my neighbor's to call Mr. Grillo. Will you take a message to him?"

"Sure," Tesla said, thinking: if it's a love letter I'm trashing it. The Nguyen woman was Grillo's type, she knew. Sweetly feminine, soft-spoken. In sum, utterly unlike her.

The contagious child was sitting on the sofa.

"Mr. Grillo has flu," his mother told him. "Why don't you send him one of your drawings, so he gets better?"

The boy padded through to his bedroom, giving Ellen an opportunity to pass her message along.

"Will you tell him that things have changed at Coney?" Ellen said.

"Changed at Coney," Tesla repeated. "What does that mean exactly?"

"There's going to be a Memorial Party for Buddy, at his house. Mr. Grillo will understand. Rochelle, his wife, sent the chauffeur down. Summoned me to help."

"So what's Grillo to do about all of this?"

"I want to know if he needs an invitation."

"I think you can take the answer as yes. When's this to be?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Short notice."

"People will come for Buddy," Ellen said. "He was very much loved."

"Lucky man," Tesla remarked. "So if Grillo wants you he can contact you up at Vance's house?"

"No.-He mustn't call there. Tell him to leave a message with next door. Mr. Fulmer. He'll be looking after Philip."

"Fulmer. Right. I got that."

There was little else to say. Tesla accepted a picture from the invalid to take back to Grillo, along with the best wishes of mother and son, then set out on the homeward journey, inventing stories as she went.

"William?"

It was Spilmont on the line, finally. The children were no longer laughing in the background. Evening had fallen, and with the sun gone the lawn-sprinkler's water would be more chilly than pleasurable.

"I haven't much time," he said. "I've wasted enough this afternoon as it is."

"What?" said William. He'd spent the afternoon in a frenzy of anticipation. "Tell me."

"I went up there to Wild Cherry Glade, just as soon as you left."

"And?"

"And nothing, guy. Big fat zero. The place was deserted and I looked like an asshole, going in ready for Christ knows what. Guess that's what you planned, right?"

"No, Oscar. You've got it wrong."

"Only once, guy. Once I can take a joke, OK? I'm not going to have anyone say I haven't got a sense of humor."

"It wasn't a joke."

"You really had me going for a moment there, you know? You should be writing books not selling real estate."

"The whole place was empty? There wasn't a trace of anything? Did you look in the pool?"

"Give me a break!" Spilmont said. "Yeah, it was empty. Pool; house; garage. All empty."

"Then they skipped. They got away before you arrived. Only I don't see how. Tommy-Ray said the Jaff didn't like#8212;"

"Enough!" said Spilmont. "I've got too many wackoes on the block without the likes of you. Straighten up, will you? And don't try this on any of the other guys, Witt. They're warned, see? Like I say: once is enough!"

Without signing off Spilmont terminated the call, leaving William to listen to the disconnected tone for fully half a minute before he let the receiver slip from his grasp.

"Who'd have thought?" the Jaff said, stroking his newest charge. "There's fear in the unlikeliest places."

"I want to hold it," said Tommy-Ray.

"Consider it yours," the Jaff said, allowing the youth to claim the terata from his arms. "What belongs to you belongs to me."

"It doesn't look much like Spilmont."

"Oh but it does," said the Jaff. "There was never a truer portrait of the man. This is his root. His core. A man's fear is what makes him what he is."

"Is that right?"

"What's walking out there tonight, calling itself Spilmont, is just the husk. The residue."

He wandered to the window as he spoke, and drew the drapes aside. The terata that had been fawning over him when William came visiting dogged his heels. He shooed them away. They retreated respectfully only to creep back into his shadow when he returned 'from them.

"The sun's almost gone," he said. "We should get going. Fletcher is already in the Grove."

"Yes?"

"Oh yes. He appeared in the middle of the afternoon."

"How do you know?"

"It's impossible to hate someone as much as I hate Fletcher without knowing his whereabouts."

"So do we go kill him?"

"When we've got enough assassins," the Jaff said. "I don't want any mistakes, like Mr. Witt."

"I'll fetch Jo-Beth first."

"Why bother?" said the Jaff. "We don't need her."

Tommy-Ray threw Spilmont's terata to the ground. "I need her," he said.

"It's purely Platonic, of course."

"What does that mean?"

"It's irony, Tommy-Ray. What I mean to say is: you want her body."

Tommy-Ray chewed on this a moment. Then said:

"Maybe."

"Be honest."

"I don't know what I want," came the reply, "but I sure as shit know what I don't want. I don't want that fucker Katz touching her. She's family, right? You told me that was important."

The Jaff nodded. "You're very persuasive," he said.

"So, we go fetch her?" Tommy-Ray said.

"If it's that important," his father replied. "Yes, we'll go and fetch her."

Seeing Palomo Grove for the first time Fletcher had come close to despair. He had passed through towns like this aplenty in his months of warfare with the Jaff; planned communities that had every facility but the facility to feel; places that gave every impression of life but in truth had little or none. Twice, cornered in such vacuums, he'd come close to being annihilated by his enemy. Though beyond superstition he nevertheless found himself wondering if the third time would prove fatal.

The Jaff had already established his bridgehead here, of that Fletcher had no doubt. It would not be difficult to find here the weak and unprotected souls he liked to batten upon. But for Fletcher, whose hallucigenia were born of rich and pungent dream lives, the town, withered by comfort and complacency, offered little hope of sustenance. He'd have had more luck in a ghetto or a madhouse, where life was lived close to the edge, than in this well-watered wasteland. But he had no choice. Without a human agent to point the way he was obliged to go among these people like a dog, sniffing for some hint of a dreamer. He found a few down at the Mall, but he was given short shrift when he attempted to engage them in conversation. Though he did his best to keep up some pretence of normality it was a long time since he'd been human. The people he approached stared at him strangely, as though there was some part of his performance he'd overlooked and they were able to see through to the Nunciate beneath. Seeing, they retreated. There were one or two who lingered in his vicinity. An old woman who stood a little way off from him and simply smiled whenever he looked her way; two children who gave up looking in the pet shop window to come and stare at him, until their mother called them to her side. The pickings were as thin as Fletcher had feared. Had the Jaff been able to choose their final battlefield personally he could not have chosen better. If the war between them was to finish in Palomo Grove#8212;and in his gut Fletcher sensed that one of them would perish here#8212;the Jaff would surely be the victor.

As evening came, and the Mall emptied, he too left it, wandering through the empty streets. There were no pedestrians. Not so much as a dog-walker. He knew why. The human sphere, willfully insensitive as it was, couldn't entirely block out the presence of supernatural forces in its midst. The inhabitants of the Grove, though they could not have put words to their anxiety, knew their town was haunted tonight, and were taking refuge beside their televisions. Fletcher could see the screens glimmering in home after home, the sound of each set turned up abnormally loud, as if to block any songs the sirens abroad tonight might sing. Rocked in the arms of game-show hosts and soap-opera queens, the little minds of the Grove were lulled into innocent sleep, leaving the creature that might have kept them from extinction locked out on the street, and alone.

Watching from the corner of the street as dusk deepened into night, Howie saw a man he would later know to be the Pastor appear at the McGuire house, announce himself through the closed door, and#8212;after a pause for the unlocking of locks and unbolting of bolts#8212; be received into the sanctuary. Another such diversion would not present itself tonight, he suspected. If there was to be any opportunity to slip past the guardian mother and reach Jo-Beth this was it. He crossed the street, checking first that nobody was coming in either direction. He needn't have feared. The street was uncommonly quiet. It was from the houses the din came: televisions turned up so loud he'd been able to distinguish nine channels playing while he'd waited; hummed along to theme tunes, laughed with pay-off lines. Unwitnessed, therefore, he slipped to the side of the house, clambered over the gate, and started down the passage to the backyard. As he did so the light in the kitchen was turned on. He backed away from the window. It wasn't Mrs. McGuire who'd entered however, but Jo-Beth, dutifully preparing some supper for her mother's guest. He watched her, mesmerized. Going about this commonplace activity in a plain, dark dress, lit by a neon strip, she was still the most extraordinary sight he'd ever seen. When she came close to the window, with tomatoes to rinse at the sink, he stepped out of hiding. She caught his movement, and looked up. His finger was already at his lips to hush her. She waved him away#8212;panic on her face. He obeyed not an instant too soon, as her mother appeared at the kitchen door. There was a short exchange between them, which Howie didn't catch, then Mrs. McGuire returned to the lounge. Jo-Beth glanced over her shoulder to check that her mother had gone, then crossed to the back door, and gingerly unbolted it. She refused to open it sufficiently to give him access however. Instead she put her face to the gap and whispered:

"You shouldn't be here."

"Well I am," he said. "And you're glad I am."

"No I'm not."

"You should be. I've got news. Great news. Come outside."

"I can't do that," she whispered. "Keep your voice down."

"We have to talk. It's life or death. No...it's more than life or death."

"What have you done to yourself?" she said. "Look at your hand."

His attempt to clean the wound had been perfunctory at best, squeamish as he was about picking pieces of bark from the flesh.

"This is all part of it," he said. "If you won't come out, let me in."

"I can't."

"Please. Let me in."

Was it his wound or his words that made her relent? Either way, she opened the door. He went to put his arms around her but she shook her head with such a look of terror on her face he backed off.

"Go upstairs," she said, not even whispering now but mouthing the word.

"Where?" he returned.

"Second door on the left," she said, obliged to raise her volume a little for these instructions. "My room. Pink door. Wait until I take the food through."

He wanted so much to kiss her. But instead he let her go about her preparations. With a glance in his direction, she headed through to the lounge. Howie heard an expression of welcome from the visitor, which he took as his cue to slip from the kitchen. There was a moment of danger when#8212;visible at the lounge door#8212;he hesitated before finding the stairs. Then he was away up them, hoping the exchange below would conceal the sound of his footfalls. It seemed they did. There was no change in the rhythm of the dialogue. He reached the pink door and took refuge behind it without incident.

Jo-Beth's bedroom! He'd not dared hope he'd be standing there, among these marshmallow colors, looking at the place where she slept and at the towel she used for showering and at her underwear. When she finally came up the stairs and entered behind him he felt like a thief interrupted in the act of stealing. She caught his embarrassment off him, a flushing sickness that left them avoiding each other's eyes.

"It's a mess," she said softly.

"It's OK," he said. "You weren't expecting me."

"No." She didn't move to hug him. She didn't even smile. "Momma would go mad if she knew you were here. All the time#8212;when she was saying there were terrible things in the Grove#8212;she was right. One of them came here last night, Howie. Came for me and Tommy-Ray."

"The Jaff?"

"You know about him?"

"Something came for me too. Not so much came as called. Fletcher his name is. He says he's my father."

"Do you believe him?"

"Yes," Howie said. "I believe him."

Jo-Beth's eyes were filling up. "Don't cry," he said. "Don't you see what all this means? We're not brother and sister. What's between us isn't wrong."

"It's us being together that caused all this," she said. "Don't you understand that? If we hadn't met#8212;"

"But we did."

"If we hadn't met they'd never have come from wherever they came from."

"Isn't it better we know the truth about them#8212;about ourselves? I don't give a fuck for their damn war. And I won't let it pull us apart."

He reached for her, and took hold of her right hand with his unwounded left. She didn't resist, but let his gentle pressure draw her closer. "We have to leave Palomo Grove," he said. "And leave together. Go somewhere they can't find us."

"What about Momma? Tommy-Ray's lost, Howie. She said so herself. That only leaves me to look after her."

"And what use are you if the Jaff gets to you?" Howie argued. "If we leave now, our fathers won't have anything to fight over."

"It's not just about us," Jo-Beth reminded him.

"No, you're right," he conceded, remembering what he'd learned from Fletcher. "It's about this place called Quiddity." His hold on her hand tightened. "We went there, you and me. Or almost went. I want to finish that trip#8212;"

"I don't understand."

"You will. When we go we'll go knowing what kind of journey it is. It'll be like a waking dream." It occurred to him as he spoke that not once had he stumbled or stammered. "We're supposed to hate each other, you know? That was their plan#8212;Fletcher and the Jaff#8212;to have us continue their war. Only we're not going to."

For the first time, she smiled:

"No, we're not," she said.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"I love you, Jo-Beth."

"Howie#8212;"

"Too late to stop me. I said it."

She kissed him suddenly, a small sweet stab which he sucked against his mouth before she could deny him, opening the seal of her lips with his tongue, which at that instant would have opened a safe had the taste of her mouth been locked up there. She pressed to him with a force which matched his own, their teeth touching, their tongues playing tag.

Her left hand, which had wrapped around him, now found his tender right and drew it towards her. He could feel the softness of her breast, despite the demure dress and his numbed fingers. He started to fumble with the buttons at her neck, undoing enough to slide his hand inside so that his flesh met hers. She smiled against his lips, and her hand, having guided him to where he'd be most good, went to the front of his jeans. The hard-on he'd begun to sport upon sight of her bed had gone west, bested by nerves. But her touch, and her kisses, which were one indistinguishable blur of mouth on mouth now, raised him again.

"I want to be naked," he said.

She took her lips off his.

"With them downstairs?" she said.

"They're occupied, aren't they?"

"They talk for hours."

"We'll need hours," he whispered.

"Do you have any kind of...protection?"

"We don't have to do everything. I just want that we can at least touch each other properly. Skin to skin."

She looked unpersuaded when she stepped back from him, but her actions belied her expression, as she proceeded to unbutton her dress. He started to strip off his jacket and T-shirt; then began the difficult task of unbuttoning his belt with one hand virtually useless. She came to his aid, doing the job for him.

"It's stifling in here," he said. "Can I open a window?"

"Momma locked them all. In case the Devil got in."

"He did," Howie quipped.

She looked up at him, her dress now open, her breasts bare.

"Don't say that," she said. Instinctively her hands went to cover her nakedness.

"You don't think I'm the Devil," he said. Then: "...do you?"

"I don't know if anything that feels this...this..."

"Say it."

"...this forbidden...can be good for my soul," she replied with perfect seriousness.

"You'll see," he said, moving towards her. "I promise you. You'll see."

"I think I should speak to Jo-Beth," Pastor John said. He'd got past the point of humoring the McGuire woman once she started talking about the beast that had raped her all those years ago, and how it had come back to claim her son. Pontificating on abstractions was one thing (it drew female devotees to him in droves) but when the talk took a turn for the lunatic he beat a diplomatic retreat. Clearly Mrs. McGuire was verging on a mental breakdown. He needed a chaperone, or she might end up inventing all manner of overheated nonsense. It had happened before. He wouldn't be the first man of God to fall victim to a woman of a certain age.

"I don't want Jo-Beth to think about this any more than she has already," came the reply. "The creature that made her in me#8212;"

"Her father was a man, Mrs. McGuire."

"I know that," she said, well aware of the condescension in his voice. "But people are flesh and spirit."

"Of course."

"The man made her flesh. But who made her spirit?"

"God in Heaven," he replied, grateful for this return to safer terrain. "And He made her flesh too, through the man you chose. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect. "

"It wasn't God," Joyce replied. "I know it wasn't. The Jaff's nothing like God. You should see him. You'd know."

"If he exists then he's human, Mrs. McGuire. And I believe I should talk with Jo-Beth about his visit. If indeed he was here."

"He was here!" she said, her agitation increasing.

He stood up to detach the madwoman's hand from his sleeve.

"I'm sure Jo-Beth will have some valuable insights..." he said, taking a step back. "Why don't I fetch her?"

"You don't believe me," Joyce said. She was close to shouting now; and to tears.

"I do! But really...allow me a moment with Jo-Beth. Is she upstairs? I believe she is. Jo-Beth! Are you there? Jo-Beth?"

"What does he want?" she said, breaking their kiss.

"Ignore him," said Howie.

"Suppose he comes looking for me?"

She sat up, and swung her feet over the edge of th\e bed, listening for the sound of the Pastor's step on the stairs. Howie put his face against her back, reaching beneath her arm#8212;his hand damming a trickle of sweat#8212;and gently touching her breast. She made a small, almost agonized, sigh.

"We mustn't..." she murmured.

"He wouldn't come in."

"I hear him."

"No."

"I do," she hissed.

Again, the call from below:

"Jo-Beth! I'd like a word with you. So would your mother."

"I've got to get dressed," she said. She reached down to pick up her clothes. A pleasantly perverse thought passed through Howie's mind as he watched her: that he'd like it if in her haste she put his underwear on instead of her own, and vice versa. To push his cock into a space sanctified by her cunt, perfumed by it, dampened by it, would keep him the way he was#8212;too hard for comfort#8212;until the Crack of Doom.

And wouldn't she look sexy, with her slit just out of sight behind the slit of his briefs? Next time, he promised himself. There'd be no hesitation from now on. She'd allowed the desperado into her bed. Though they'd done no more than put their bodies side by side, that invitation had changed everything between them. Frustrating as it was to see her dress again so soon after their undressing, the fact of their having been naked together would be souvenir enough.

He plucked his jeans and T-shirt up, and began to put them on, watching her watching him as he clothed the machine.

He caught that thought, and modified it. The bone and muscle he occupied was no machine. It was a body, and it was frail. His hand hurt; his hard-on hurt; his heart hurt, or at least some heaviness in his chest gave him the impression of heart-ache. He was too tender to be a machine; and too much loved.

She stopped what she was doing for a moment, and glanced towards the window.

"Did you hear that?" she said.

"No. What?"

"Somebody calling."

"The Pastor?"

She shook her head, realizing that the voice she'd heard (was hearing still) was not outside the house or the room but in her head.

"The Jaff," she said.

Parched by protestations, Pastor John went to the sink, picked up a tumbler, ran the tap-water until it chilled, filled the glass and drank. It was almost ten. Time to bring this visit to an end, with or without seeing the daughter. He'd had enough talk of the darkness in humanity's soul to last a week. Pouring away the dregs of his water, he looked up and caught sight of his reflection in the glass. As his gaze lingered in self-appraisal and approval, something in the night outside moved. He put the tumbler in the sink. It rolled back and forth on its rim.

"Pastor?"

Joyce McGuire had appeared behind him.

"It's all right," he said, not certain which of them he hoped to soothe. The woman had got to him with her halfwitted fantasies. He returned his gaze to the window.

"I thought I saw somebody in your yard," he said. "But there's nothing#8212;"

There! There! A pale, blurred bulk, moving towards the house.

"No it's not," he said.

"Not what?"

"Not all right," he replied, taking a step back from the sink. "It's not all right at all."

"He's come back," Joyce said.

The last reply in all the world he wanted to give was yes, so he kept his peace, just stepping back from the window another foot, another two feet, shaking his head in denial. It saw his defiance. He saw it see. Eager to undo his hope it came out of the shadows suddenly, and made its presence plain.

"Lord God Almighty," he said. "What is this?"

Behind him he heard the McGuire woman start to pray. Nothing manufactured (who could write a prayer in anticipation of this?) but an outpouring of entreaties.

"Jesus help us! Lord, help us! Keep us from Satan! Keep us from the unrighteous!"

"Listen!" Jo-Beth said. "It's Momma."

"I hear."

"Something's wrong!"

As she crossed the room Howie overtook her, putting his back to the door.

"She's only praying."

"Never like that."

"Kiss me."

"Howie?"

"If she's praying, she's occupied. If she's occupied she can wait. I can't. I don't have any prayers, Jo-Beth. I've only got you." This flow of words astonished him, even as they came. "Kiss me, Jo-Beth."

As she leaned to do so a window downstairs shattered, and Momma's guest unleashed a yell that had Jo-Beth pushing Howie aside, hauling open the door.

"Momma!" she yelled. "Momma!"

Sometimes a man was wrong. Born into ignorance, it was inevitable. But to perish for that ignorance, and brutally, seemed so unfair. Nursing his bloodied face, and half a dozen such complaints, Pastor John crawled across the kitchen to take refuge as far from the broken window#8212;and what had broken it#8212;as his trembling limbs could carry him. How was it possible he'd come to such desperate straits as this? His life was not entirely blameless, but his sins were far from large, and he'd paid his dues to the Lord. He'd visited the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, the way the Gospels instructed, he'd done his level best to keep himself unspotted from the world. And still the demons came. He heard them, though he had his eyes closed. Their myriad legs were making a din as they clambered over the sink and the dishes piled beside it. He heard their wet bodies flopping on to the tiles as their tide overflowed on to the floor, and their passage across the kitchen, urged on by the figure he'd glimpsed outside (The Jaff! The Jaff!), who'd been wearing them from head to toe, like a beekeeper too much in love with his swarm. The McGuire woman had ceased her prayers. Perhaps she was dead; their first victim. And perhaps that would be enough for them, and they'd pass him over. That was a prayer worth finding words for. Please Lord, he muttered, trying to make himself as small as possible. Please Lord, make them blind to me, deaf to me, and only you hear my supplications and keep me in your forgiving eye. World without End#8212;

His requests were interrupted by a violent beating on the back door, and, rising above it, the voice of Tommy-Ray, the prodigal.

"Momma? Can you hear me? Momma? Let me in, will you? Let me in, and I swear I'll stop them coming. I swear I will. Only let me in."

Pastor John heard a sob from the McGuire woman by way of response, which became, without warning, a howl. Alive she was; and in a fury.

"How dare you!" she shrieked. "How dare you!"

Such was her din, he opened his eyes. The flow of demons from the window had stopped. That is, it had stopped advancing, though there was still motion across the pale stream. Antennae weaving, limbs readying themselves for new instructions, eyes bristling on stalks. There was nothing among them that resembled anything he knew; and yet he knew them. He didn't dare ask himself how, or from where.

"Open the door, Momma," Tommy-Ray said again. "I have to see Jo-Beth."

"Leave us alone."

"I have to see her and you're not going to stop me," Tommy-Ray raged. His demand was followed by the sound of splintering wood as he kicked at the door. Both the bolts and the lock were unseated. There was a moment's hiatus. Then he gently pushed the door open. His eyes had a vile sheen about them; a sheen Pastor John had seen in the eyes of people about to die. Some interior light informed them. He'd taken it as beatific until now. He couldn't make that error again. Tommy-Ray's glance flitted first to his mother, who was standing at the kitchen door, barring it, then to her guest.

"Company, Momma?" he said.

Pastor John shook.

"You've got a hold on her," Tommy-Ray said to him. "She listens to you. Tell her to give me Jo-Beth, will you? Make it easier on all of us."

The Pastor looked round at Joyce McGuire:

"Do it," he said, plainly. "Do it or we're all dead."

"See, Momma?" came Tommy-Ray's response. "Advice from the holy man. He knows when he's beat. Call her down, Momma, or I'm going to get mad, and when I get mad so do Poppa's friends. Call her!"

"No need."

Tommy-Ray grinned at the sound of his sister's voice, the combination of gleaming eyes and ravishing smile chilling enough to teach ice a trick or two.

"There you are," he said.

She was standing in the doorway, behind her mother.

"Are you ready to leave?" he asked her politely, for all the world like a boy inviting his girl out on a first date.

"You have to promise to leave Momma alone," Jo-Beth said.

"I will," Tommy-Ray replied, his tone that of a man wronged by accusation. "I don't want to hurt Momma. You know that."

"If you leave her alone...I'll come with you."

Halfway down the stairs Howie heard Jo-Beth striking this bargain, and mouthed a silent no. He couldn't see what horrors Tommy-Ray had brought with him but he could hear them, like the sound his head heard in nightmares: phlegm-sounds, panting-sounds. He didn't give his imagination room enough to put pictures to the text; he'd see the truth for himself all too soon. Instead he took another step down the stairs, turning his wits to the problem of stopping Tommy-Ray in the theft of his sister. His concentration was such he failed to interpret the sounds emerging from the kitchen. By the time he'd reached the bottom stair he'd got himself a plan, however. It was simple enough. To cause as much chaos as he possibly could, and hope that under its cover Jo-Beth and her mother could escape to safety. If in running wild he managed to deliver Tommy-Ray a blow, that would be the cherry on the cake; a satisfying cherry.

That thought and intention in mind he took a deep breath, and rounded the corner.

Jo-Beth was not there. Nor was Tommy-Ray; or the horrors he'd come here with. The door was open to the night, and slumped in front of it, face to the threshold, was Momma, her arms outstretched as though her last conscious act had been to reach out after her children. Howie went to her, across tiles that were gummy beneath his bare feet.

"Is she dead?" a gravel voice enquired. Howie turned. Pastor John had wedged himself between the wall and the refrigerator, as far from sight as he could get his overfed ass.

"No, she's not," Howie said, gently turning Mrs. McGuire over. "Much thanks to you."

"What could I do?"

"You tell me. I thought you had tricks of the trade." He moved towards the door.

"Don't go after them, boy," the Pastor said, "stay here with me."

"They took Jo-Beth."

"The way I hear it she was halfway theirs anyhow. The Devil's children, her and Tommy-Ray."

Do you think I'm the Devil? Howie had asked her, half an hour ago. Now it was she damned to hell; and from the mouth of her own minister, no less. Did that mean they were both tainted then? Or was it not a question of sin and innocence; darkness and light? Did they somehow stand between the extremes, in a place reserved for lovers?

These thoughts came and went in a flash, but they were sufficient to fuel his motion through the door to meet whatever lay in the -night outside.

"Kill 'em all!" he heard the God-fearer yell after him. "There's not a clean soul among them! Kill 'em all!"

The sentiment enraged Howie, but he could think of no adequate riposte. In lieu of wit he yelled:

"Fuck you," back through the door, and headed out in search of Jo-Beth.

There was sufficient light spilling from the kitchen for him to grasp the general geography of the yard. He could see a bank of trees bordering its perimeter, and an unkempt lawn between the trees and where he stood. As inside, so out here: there was no sign of brother, sister or the force that had set its sights on both. Knowing that he had no hope of surprising the enemy, given that he was stepping out of a well-lit interior with a hollered curse on his lips, he advanced calling Jo-Beth's name at the top of his voice in the hope that she might find breath to answer. There was no reply forthcoming. Just a chorus of barking dogs, roused by his shouts. Go ahead and bark, he thought. Get your masters moving. This was no time for them to be sitting watching game shows. There was another show out here in the night. Mysteries were walking; the earth was opening, spitting out wonders. It was a Great and Secret Show and it was playing tonight on the streets of Palomo Grove.

The same wind that carried the sound of the dogs moved the trees. Their sibilance distracted Howie from the sound of the army until he was a little way from the house. Then he heard the chorus of mutterings and duckings behind him. He turned on his heel. The wall around the door through which he'd just stepped was a solid mass of living creatures. The roof, which sloped from two stories to one above the kitchen, was similarly occupied. Larger forms roamed there, shambling back and forth across the slates, muttering in their throats. They were too high to catch the light; just silhouettes against a sky which showed no stars. Neither Jo-Beth nor Tommy-Ray were among them. There was not a single outline in that clan that approximated the human.

Howie was on the point of turning away from the sight when he heard Tommy-Ray's voice behind him.

"Bet you never saw nothing like that, Katz," he said.

"You know I never did," said Howie, the politeness of his reply shaped by the knife point he felt pricking the small of his back.

"Why don't you turn round, real slow," said Tommy-Ray. "The Jaff wants a word with you."

"More than one," came a second voice.

It was low#8212;scarcely louder than the wind in the trees#8212; but every syllable was exquisitely, musically shaped.

"My son here thinks we should kill you, Katz. He says he can smell his sister on you. God knows I'm not sure brothers should know what their sisters smell like in the first place, but I suppose I'm old-fashioned. This is too late in the millennium to be fretting about incest. Doubtless you have a view on that."

Howie had turned, and could see the Jaff standing several yards behind Tommy-Ray. After all that Fletcher had said about the man, he'd expected a warlord. But there was nothing massively impressive about his father's enemy. He had the appearance of a patrician run part way to dereliction. An undisciplined beard grown over strong, persuasive features; the stance of someone barely concealing great weariness. Clinging to his chest was one of the terata; a wiry, skinned thing more distressing by far than the Jaff himself.

"You were saying, Katz?"

"I wasn't saying anything."

"About how woefully unnatural Tommy-Ray's passion for his sister is. Or are you of the opinion that we're all unnatural? You. Me. Them. I'd suppose we'd all of us have gone to the flames in Salem. Anyhow...he's very keen to do you mischief. Talks about castration a good deal."

Upon cue Tommy-Ray dropped his knife blade a few inches, from Howie's belly to his groin.

"Tell him," said the Jaff. "About how you'd like to cut him up."

Tommy-Ray grinned. "Let me just do it," he said.

"See?" said the Jaff. "It's taking all my parental skills to hold him in check. So here's what I'm going to do, Katz. I'm going to let you have a head start. I'm going to set you free and see if Fletcher's stock is the equal of my own. You never knew your father before the Nuncio. Better hope he was a runner, eh?" Tommy-Ray's grin became a laugh; the knife point turned against the weave of Howie's jeans. "And just to keep you entertained#8212;"

At this, Tommy-Ray took hold of Howie and spun him round, hauling his captive's T-shirt from his jeans and slitting it from hem to neck, exposing Howie's back. There was a moment's delay while the night air cooled his sweaty skin. Then something touched his back. Tommy-Ray's fingers, licked and wet, spreading to right and left of Howie's spine, following the line of his ribs. Howie shuddered, and arched his back to avoid the contact. As he did so the touches multiplied 'til there were too many to be fingers; a dozen or more on each side, gripping the muscle so hard his skin broke.

Howie glanced over his shoulder, in time to see a white, many-jointed limb, pencil-thin and barbed, pressing its point into his flesh. He cried out, and wrenched himself round, his revulsion outweighing his fear of Tommy-Ray's knife. The Jaff was watching him. His arms were empty. The thing that he'd been nursing was now on Howie's back. He felt its cold abdomen against his vertebrae; its mouthparts sucked at his nape.

"Get it off me!" he said to the Jaff. "Get it the fuck off me!"

Tommy-Ray applauded the sight of Howie, spinning around like a dog with a flea on its tail.

"Go, man, go!" he whooped.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you," the Jaff said.

Before Howie could wonder why, he got his answer. The creature bit down hard on his neck. He yelled out, falling to his knees. The expression of pain brought a chorus of clicks and mutters from the roof and kitchen wall. Agonized, Howie turned back towards the Jaff. The patrician had let his face slip; the fetus-headed thing behind was vast and gleaming. He had only an instant to glimpse it before the sound of Jo-Beth's sobs took his gaze to the trees, where she was in Tommy-Ray's grip. That glimpse too (her wet eyes, her open mouth) was horribly brief. Then the ache at his neck made him close his eyes, and when he opened them again she, and Tommy, and their unborn father were gone.

He got to his feet. There was a wave of motion going through the Jaff's army. Those lowest on the wall were dropping to the ground, followed by those higher up, the process ascending at such a rate the battalions were soon three or four deep on the lawn. Some struggled free of the crush and began towards Howie by whatever means of propulsion they possessed. The larger creatures were skipping down the roof to join the pursuit. With what little lead the Jaff had offered eroded with every second he delayed, Howie ran pell-mell for the open street.

Fletcher felt the boy's terror and revulsion all too clearly, but he labored to put it from his mind. Howie had rejected his father to go in search of the Jaff's wretched offspring, blinded no doubt by mere appearance. If he was suffering the consequence of such willfulness then that was his burden, and let him carry it alone. If he survived, perhaps he'd be the wiser. If not, then his life, whose purpose he'd flown in the face of the moment he'd turned his back on his creator, would end in as wretched a fashion as Fletcher's, and there'd be justice in that.

Hard thoughts, but Fletcher did his best to keep them in focus, summoning up the image of his son's reflection every time he felt the boy's pain. It was not enough, however. Try as he might to expunge Howie's terrors, they demanded a hearing, and he had no choice, at the last, but to let them in. In a sense they completed this night of despair, and had to be embraced. He and his child were interlocking pieces in a pattern of defeat and failure.

He called to the boy:

Howardhowardhowardhow#8212; the same call he'd put out after first rising from the rock.

Howardhowardhowardhow#8212;

He sent the message out rhythmically, like a cliff-top beacon. Hoping that his son was not too weak to hear, he turned his attention back to the end-game. With the Jaff's victory looming, he had one final gambit available to him, a hand he didn't want to tempt himself with, knowing how strong his desire for transformation was. It had been a torment to him all these years, being morally bound to stay on this level of being in the hope of defeating the evil he'd helped create, when an hour didn't pass without his thoughts turning to escape. He wanted so much to be free of this world and its nonsenses; to unhitch himself from this anatomy and aspire, as Schiller had said of all art, to the condition of music. Could it be that the time was now ripe to give in to that instinct, and in the last moments of his life as Fletcher hope to snatch a fragment of victory from near inevitable defeat? If so, he had to plan well, both the method of self-dispatch and its arena. There could be no repeat performance for the tribe who occupied Palomo Grove. If he, their rejected shaman, died unnoticed then more than a few hundred souls would be forfeit.

He had tried not to think too hard of the consequences of the Jaff's triumph, knowing that the sense of responsibility might well overwhelm him. But now, as the final confrontation approached, he'd bullied himself into facing it. If the Jaff secured the Art, and through it gained free access to Quiddity, what would it mean?

For one, a being not purified by the rigors of self-denial would have power over a place kept from all but the purged and the perfect. Fletcher did not entirely understand what Quiddity was (perhaps no human could), but he was certain the }aff, who'd used the Nuncio to cheat his way out of his limitations, would wreak havoc there. The dream-sea and its island (islands perhaps; he'd heard Jaff once say there were archipelagos) were visited by humanity at three vital times, in innocence, extremis, and love. On the shores of Ephemeris they mingled briefly with absolutes; saw sights and heard stories that would keep them from insanity in the face of being alive. There, briefly, was pattern and purpose; there was a glimpse of continuity; there was the Show, the Great and Secret Show, which rhyme and ritual were created to be keepsakes of. If that island were to become the Jaff's playground, the damage would be incalculable. What was secret would become commonplace; what was holy, desanctified; and a species kept from lunacy by its dream journeys there would be left unhealed.

There was another fear in Fletcher, less easily thought through because less coherent. It centered on the tale the Jaff had first presented him with, when he'd appeared in Washington with his offer of funds to pursue the riddle of the Nuncio. There had been, he'd said, a man called Kissoon: a shaman who'd known about the Art and its powers, whom the Jaff had finally found in a place that he'd claimed was a loop of time. Fletcher had listened to the account not really believing much of it, but subsequent events had spiralled to such fantastical heights the idea of Kissoon's Loop seemed small beer now. What part the shaman, with his attempt to have the Jaff murder him, played in the grand scheme, Fletcher couldn't know, but his instinct told him it was by no means finished with. Kissoon had been the last surviving member of the Shoal; an order of elevated human beings who had guarded the Art from the likes of the Jaff since Homo sapiens began to dream. Why then had he allowed a man like Jaff, who must have stunk of ambition from the outset, access to his Loop? Why indeed had he been in hiding there at all? And what had happened to the other members of the Shoal?

It was too late now to pursue answers to these questions; but he wanted to put them into somebody else's head besides his own. He would make one last attempt to bridge the gap between himself and his own. If Howard were not the recipient of these observations then they'd go to nothing when he, Fletcher, made his exit.

Which brought him back to the grim business ahead; its method and its setting. It had to be a piece of theater; a spectacular last act that would coax the people of Palomo Grove away from their television screens and into the streets, wide-eyed. After some weighing up of alternatives he chose one, and, still calling his son to him, started towards the site of his final liberation.

Howie had heard Fletcher's call as he fled before the Jaff's army, but the waves of panic that kept breaking over him kept him from fixing their place of origin. He ran blindly, the terata on his heels. It was only when he felt he'd gained sufficient lead to take a breath that his confounded senses heard his name called clearly enough for him to change his route, and follow the summons. When he went, he went with a speed in his heels he'd not believed himself capable of; and even though his lungs labored he squeezed from them sufficient breath for a few words in answer to Fletcher.

"I hear you," he said as he ran, "I hear you. Father...I hear you."

Tesla had told it right. A lousy nurse she was; but a very capable bully. The moment Grillo woke land found her back in his room she told him plainly that suffering in an alien bed was the act of a martyr and became him all too well. If he wanted to avoid clich#233; he should allow her to take him back to L.A. and deposit his sickly frame where he could be reassured by the scent of his own unwashed laundry.

"I don't want to go," he protested.

"What's the use of staying here, besides costing Abernethy a heap of money?"

"That's a start."

"Don't be petty, Grillo."

"I'm sick. I'm allowed to be petty. Besides, this is where the story is."

"You can write it better at home than lying here in a pool of sweat feeling sorry for yourself."

"Maybe you're right."

"Oh...is the great man conceding something?"

"I'll go back for twenty-four hours. Get my shit together."

"You know you look about thirteen," Tesla said, mellowing her tone. "I never saw you like this before. It's kind of sexy. I like you vulnerable."

"Now she tells me."

"Old news, old news. There was a time I'd have given my right arm for you#8212;"

"Now?"

"The most I'll do is take you home."

The Grove could have been a set for a post-holocaust movie, Tesla thought as she drove Grillo out towards the freeway: the streets were deserted in every direction. Despite all that Grillo had told her about what he'd seen or suspected was going on here, she was leaving without getting so much as a glimpse.

Hold that thought. Forty yards ahead of the car a young man stumbled around the corner and raced across the road. At the opposite sidewalk his legs gave out beneath him. He fell, and seemed to have some difficulty getting up again. The distance was too great and the light too dim for her to grasp much of his condition but he was evidently hurt. There was something misshapen about his body; hunched or swollen. She drove on towards him. At her side, Grillo, whom she'd instructed to doze until they reached L.A., opened his eyes.

"Are we there already?"

"That guy#8212;" she said, nodding in the hunchback's direction. "Look at him. He looks even sicker than you do."

From the corner of her eye she saw Grillo sit bolt upright, and peer through the windshield.

"There's something on his back," he muttered.

"I can't see."

She brought the car to a halt a little way from where the youth was still struggling to get to his feet; and still failing.

Grillo was right, she saw. He was indeed wearing something. "It's a backpack," she said.

"No way, Tesla," Grillo said. He reached for the door handle. "It's alive. Whatever it is, it's alive."

"Stay here," she told him.

"Are you kidding?"

As he pushed the door open#8212;that effort alone enough to set his head spinning#8212;he caught sight of Tesla rummaging in the glove compartment.

"What've you lost?"

"When Yvonne was killed#8212;" she said, grunting as she dug through the detritus "#8212;I swore I'd never leave home unarmed again."

"What are you saying?"

She pulled a gun out of hiding. "And I never have."

"Do you know how to use that?"

"Wish I didn't," she said, and got out of the car. Grillo went to follow. As he did so the car began to roll backwards down the mild incline of the street. He pitched himself across the seat to the handbrake, an action violent enough to spin his head around. When he started to haul himself up again it was almost like tripping: total disorientation.

A few yards from where Grillo was clutching the car door, waiting for his high to pass, Tesla was almost at the boy's side. He was still attempting to get to his feet. She told him to hold on, help was coming, but all she got in reply was a panic-stricken look. He had reason. Grillo had been right. What she'd taken to be a backpack was indeed alive. It was an animal of some kind (or of many kinds). It glistered as it battened upon him.

"What the fuck is that?" she said.

This time he did reply; a warning wrapped in moans.

"Get...away..." she heard him say, "...they're...coming after me..."

She glanced back at Grillo, who was still clinging to the car door, his teeth chattering. No help to be had there, and the boy's situation seemed to be worsening. With every twitch of the parasite's limbs#8212;there were so many limbs; and joints; and eyes#8212;his face knotted up.

"...Get away..." he growled at her, "...please...in God's name...they're coming."

He'd turned giddily to squint behind him. She followed the line of his agonized gaze, down the street from which he'd pelted. There she saw his pursuers. Seeing, she wished she'd taken his advice before she'd locked eyes with him, and all hope of playing the Pharisee was denied her. His plight was hers now. She couldn't turn her back on him. Her eyes#8212;tutored in the real#8212;tried to reject the lesson they saw coming down the street, but they couldn't. No use trying to deny the horror. It was there in all its absurdity: a pale, muttering tide creeping towards them.

"Grillo!" she yelled. "Get in the car!" The pale army heard her, and picked up its speed. "The car, Grillo, get in the fucking car!" She saw him fumble for the door, barely in control of his responses. Some of the smaller beasts at the head of the tide were already scuttling towards the vehicle at speed, leaving their larger brethren to come after the boy. There were enough, more than enough, to take all three of them apart joint by joint, and the car too. Despite their multiplicity (no two alike, it seemed) there was the same blank-eyed, relentless intention in every one. They were destroyers.

She leaned down and took hold of the boy's arm, avoiding the racheting limbs of the parasite as best she could. Its hold on him was too intimate to be undone, she saw. Any attempt to separate them would only invite reprisals. "Get up," she told him. "We can make it."

"You go," he murmured. He was utterly wasted.

"No," she said. "We both go. No heroics. We both go." She glanced back at the car. Grillo was in the act of slamming the door as the army's foot-runners came at the car, hopping up on to the roof and hood. One, the size of a baboon, began to throw its body against the windshield repeatedly.

The others tore at the door handle and worked their barbs between the windows and their frames.

"It's me they want," the boy said.

"If we go, they follow?" Tesla said.

He nodded. Hauling him to his feet, and turning his right arm (the hand badly injured, she saw) over her shoulder, she fired one shot into the approaching mass#8212;which hit one of the larger beasts but didn't slow it a beat#8212;then turned her back on it and began to haul them both away.

He had directions to give.

"Down the Hill," he said.

"Why?"

"The Mall..."

Again: "Why?"

"My father...is there."

She didn't argue. She just hoped father, whoever he was, had some help to offer, because if they succeeded in outrunning the army they were going to be in no fit state to defend themselves at the end of the race.

As she turned the next corner, the boy offering muttered instructions, she heard the car's windshield shatter.

A short distance from the drama just played out, the Jaff and Tommy-Ray, with Jo-Beth in tow, watched Grillo fumbling for the ignition, succeeding#8212;after some effort#8212;in getting the car started, and driving off, throwing from the hood the terata that had shattered the windshield.

"Bastard," said Tommy-Ray.

"It doesn't matter," the Jaff said. "There's plenty more where he came from. You wait 'til the party tomorrow. Such pickings."

The creature was not quite dead; it let out a thin whine of complaint.

"What do we do with it?" Tommy-Ray wondered.

"Leave it there."

"Some roadkill," came the boy's reply. "People are going to notice."

"It won't survive the night," the Jaff replied. '"By the time the scavengers have got to it nobody'll know what the hell it was."

"What the fuck's going to eat that?" Tommy-Ray asked.

"Anything hungry enough," came the Jaff's reply. "And there's always something hungry enough. Isn't that right, Jo-Beth?" The girl said nothing. She'd given up weeping and talking. All she did was watch her brother with pitiful confusion on her face.

"Where's Katz going?" the Jaff wondered aloud.

"Down to the Mall," Tommy-Ray informed him.

"Fletcher's calling him."

"Yeah?"

"Just as I hoped. Wherever the son ends up, that's where we'll find the father."

"Unless the terata get him first."

"They won't. They have their instructions."

"What about the woman with him?"

"Wasn't that too perfect? What a Samaritan. She's going to die, of course, but what a great way to go, full of how big-fucking-hearted you are."

The remark elicited a response from the girl.

"Isn't there anything touches you?" she said.

The Jaff studied her. "Too much," he said. "Too much touches me. The look on your face. The look on his." He glanced at Tommy-Ray, who grinned, then back at Jo-Beth. "All I want to do is see clearly. Past the feelings, to the reasons. "

"And this is how? Killing Howie? Destroying the Grove?"

"Tommy-Ray learned to understand, after his fashion. You can do the same if you'll give me time to explain. It's a long story. But trust me when I say that Fletcher's our enemy, and his son our enemy too. They'd kill me if they could#8212;"

"Not Howie."

"Oh yes. He's his father's son even if he doesn't know it. There's a prize to be won soon, Jo-Beth. It's called the Art. And when I have it, I'll share it#8212;"

"I don't want anything from you."

"I'll show you an island#8212;"

"No."

"#8212;and a shore#8212;"

He reached to her, stroking her cheek. Against her better judgment his words soothed her. It was not the fetus-head she saw in front of her, but a face that had seen hardship; had been plowed by it, and perhaps had wisdom planted.

"Later," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to talk. On that island, the day never ends."

''Why don't they overtake us?" Tesla said to Howie.

Twice the pursuing forces had seemed certain to overtake and overwhelm them, and twice their ranks had slowed at the very moment they were able to realize their ambition. The suspicion was growing on her that the chase was being choreographed. If so, she fretted, by whom? And what was their intention?

The boy#8212;he'd muttered his name, Howie, several streets back#8212;was heavier by the yard. The last quarter mile to the Mall stretched before her like a Marine assault course. Where was Grillo when she needed him? Lost in the maze of crescents and cul-de-sacs which made this town such a trial to traverse, or a victim of the creatures that had assaulted the car?

The answer was neither. Trusting that Tesla's wit would keep her ahead of the horde long enough for him to muster help, he drove like a wild man, first to a public telephone, then on to the address he found in it. Though his limbs felt like lead, and his teeth still chattered, his mental processes seemed to him quite clear, though he knew#8212;from the months after the debacle, which he'd spent in a more or less constant alcoholic stupor#8212;that such clarity could be self-deception. How many screeds had he written under the influence, which had seemed lucidity in ink but read like Finnegans Wake once he was sober? Perhaps that was the case now, and he was wasting valuable time when he should have been knocking on the first door he found and rousing help. His instinct told him he'd get none. The appearance of an unshaven individual talking monsters would earn a quick dismissal on any doorstep but that of Hotchkiss.

The man was at home, and awake.

"Grillo? Jesus, man, what the hell's wrong with you?"

Hotchkiss had no right to boast; he looked as used up as Grillo felt. He had a beer in his hand and several of its brothers in his eyes.

"Just come with me," Grillo said, "I'll explain as we go."

"Where?"

"Have you got guns?"

"I've got a handgun, yeah."

"Get it."

"Wait, I need#8212;"

"No talk," Grillo said. "I don't know which way they've gone, and we#8212;"

"Listen," Hotchkiss said.

"What?"

"Alarms. I hear alarms."

They'd begun to ring in the supermarket the moment Fletcher began to smash the windows. They rang in Marvin's Food and Drug, just as loudly, and in the pet store#8212;the din here swelled by the animals woken from their sleep. He encouraged their chorus. The sooner the Grove shook off its lethargy the better, and he knew no surer way of stirring it than assaulting its commercial heart. The summons begun, he raided two of the six stores for props. The drama he had planned would need perfect timing if he was to touch the minds of those who came to watch. If he failed, at least he would not see the consequences of that failure. He'd had too much grief in his life, and too few friends to help him bear it. Of them all he'd perhaps been closest to Raul. Where was he now? Dead, most likely, his ghost haunting the ruins of the Mision de Santa Catrina.

Picturing the place, Fletcher stopped in his tracks. What about the Nuncio? Was it possible the remains of the Great Work, as Jaffe had liked to call it, was still there on the cliff-top? If so, and some innocent ever stumbled upon it, the whole sorry story might repeat itself. The self-invited martyrdom he was presently orchestrating would be rendered worthless. That was another task to charge Howard with, before they were parted forever.

Alarms seldom rang for long in the Grove; and certainly never so many at the same time. Their cacophony floated through the town from the wooded perimeter of Deerdell to the widow Vance's house, on the top of the Hill. Though it was too early for the adults of the Grove to be asleep, most of them#8212;whether touched by the Jaff or not#8212;were feeling oddly dislocated. They talked with their partners in whispers, when they spoke at all; they stood in doorways or in the middle of their dining rooms having forgotten why they'd first risen from the comfort of their armchairs. If asked, many might have stumbled over their own names.

But the alarms commanded their attention, confirming what their animal instincts had known from daybreak: that things were not good tonight; not normal, not rational. The only place of safety was behind doors locked and locked again.

Not everyone was so passive however. Some drew blinds aside to see if anyone in the neighborhood was on the street; others got as far as going to the front door (husbands or wives calling them back, telling them there was no need to step outside; that there was nothing to see that couldn't be seen on the television). It only took one individual to venture out, however, before others followed.

"Clever," said the Jaff.

"What's he up to?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know. "Why the noise?"

"He wants people to see the terata," the Jaff said. "Maybe he's hoping they'll rise up in revolution against us. He's tried this before."

"When?"

"On our travels across America. There was no revolution then and there won't be now. People don't have the faith; don't have the dreams. And he needs both. This is sheer desperation. He's defeated and he knows it." He turned to Jo-Beth. "You'll be pleased to know I'm calling the hounds off Katz's heels. We know where Fletcher is now. And where he is his son's going to be."

"They stopped following us," Tesla said.

The horde had indeed halted.

"What the hell does that mean?"

Her burden didn't reply. He could barely raise his head. But when he did it was towards the supermarket, which was one of several stores in the Mall whose windows had been smashed.

"We're going shopping?" she said.

He grunted.

"Whatever you say."

Inside the store, Fletcher raised his head from his labors. The boy was within sight of him. He was not alone. A woman bore him up, half-carrying him across the lot towards the litter of shattered glass. Fletcher left off his preparations and went to the window.

"Howard?" he called.

It was Tesla who looked up; Howie didn't waste valuable energy in the attempt. The man she saw emerging from the store didn't look like a vandal. Nor did he look anything like the boy's father; but then she'd never been very good with family resemblances. He was a tall, sallow individual, who to judge by his ragged gait was in as wretched a condition as his offspring. His clothes were drenched, she saw. Her stinging sinuses identified the fluid as gasoline. He left a trail of it as he walked. She suddenly feared the chase had taken them into the grasp of a lunatic.

"Keep away," she said.

"I have to speak with Howard, before the Jaff arrives."

"The who?"

"You led him here. He and his army."

"It couldn't be helped. Howie's real sick. This thing on his back#8212;"

"Let me see#8212;"

"No naked flames," Tesla warned, "or I'm out of here."

"I understand," said the man, raising his palms like a magician to prove them empty of tricks. Tesla nodded, and let him approach.

"Lay him down," the man instructed.

She did so, her muscles buzzing with gratitude. No sooner was Howie on the ground than his father took a two-handed grip of the parasite. It immediately began to thrash wildly, its limbs tightening around its victim. Barely conscious, Howie began to gasp for breath.

"It's killing him!" Tesla yelled.

"Take hold of its head!"

"What?"

"You heard me! Its head. Just take hold!"

She glanced at the man, then at the beast, then at Howie. Three beats. On the fourth she took hold of the beast. Its mouthparts were fixed on Howie's neck, but it loosed them long enough to chew on her hand. In that moment the gasoline man pulled. Body and beast separated.

"Let go!" the man yelled.

She needed no persuasion, pulling her hands free despite the sacrifice of flesh to its maw. Howie's father threw it backwards, into the market, where it struck a pyramid of cans, and was buried.

Tesla studied her hand. The palm was punctured in the center. She was not the only one interested in the wound.

"You have a journey to undertake," the man said.

"What is this, palm-reading?"

"I wanted the boy to go for me, but I see now...you came instead."

"Hey, I've done all I can do, guy," Tesla said.

"My name's Fletcher, and I beg you, don't desert me now. This wound reminds me of the first cut the Nuncio gave me#8212;" He showed her his palm, which did indeed bear a scar, for all the world as though someone had driven a nail through it. "I have a great deal to tell you. Howie resisted my telling him. You won't. I know you won't. You're part of the story. You were born to be here, now, with me."

"I don't understand any of this."

"Analyze tomorrow. Do, now. Help me. We have very little time."

"I want to warn you," Grillo said as he drove Hotchkiss down towards the Mall, "what we saw coming out of the ground was just the beginning. There's creatures in the Grove tonight like nothing I ever saw before."

He slowed as two citizens crossed the path of the car, heading on foot to the source of the summons. They weren't alone. There were others, converging on the Mall as though heading to a Carnival.

"Tell them to go back," Grillo said, leaning out of his side of the car and yelling a warning. Neither his calls nor those of Hotchkiss were attended to. "If they see what I've seen," Grillo said, "there's going to be such panic."

"Might do them some good," Hotchkiss said, bitterly. "All those years they thought I was crazy, because I closed the caves. Because I talked about Carolyn's death as murder#8212;"

"I don't follow."

"My daughter, Carolyn..."

"What about her?"

"Another time, Grillo. When you've got time for tears."

They'd reached the Mall's parking lot. Maybe thirty or forty Grovers were already gathered there, some wandering around examining the damage that had been visited on several of the stores, others simply standing and listening to the alarms as if to celestial music. Grillo and Hotchkiss got out of the car, and started across the lot towards the supermarket.

"I smell gasoline," Grillo said.

Hotchkiss concurred. "We should get these people out of here," he said. Raising his voice and his gun he instigated some primitive crowd control. His attempts drew the attention of a small, bald man.

"Hotchkiss, are you in charge?"

"Not if you want to be, Marvin."

"Where's Spilmont? There should be somebody in authority. My windows have all been smashed."

"I'm sure the police are on their way," Hotchkiss said.

"Pure vandalism," Marvin went on. "Kids up from L.A., joy-riding."

"I don't think so," said Grillo, The smell of gasoline was making his head spin.

"And who the hell are you?" Marvin demanded, his shouts shrill.

Before Grillo could respond somebody else joined the hollering match.

"There's somebody in there!"

Grillo looked towards the market. His stinging eyes verified the claim. There were indeed figures moving in the murk of the store. He began to walk through the shards towards the window, as one of the figures came clear.

"Tesla?"

She heard him; looked up; shouted.

"Stay away, Grillo!"

"What's going on?"

"Just stay away."

He ignored her advice, climbing in through the hole in the shattered pane. The boy she'd gone to save lay face down and naked to the waist on the tiles. Behind him, a man Grillo knew and didn't know. That is, a face to which he could put no name, but a presence which he instinctively recognized. It took him moments only to work from where. This was one of the escapees from the fissure.

"Hotchkiss," he yelled. "Get in here!"

"Enough's enough," Tesla said. "Don't bring anyone near us."

"Us?" said Grillo. "Since when was it us?"

"His name's Fletcher," Tesla said, as if in reply to the first question in Grillo's head. "The boy is Howard Katz." To the third question: "They're father and son." And the fourth? "It's all going to blow, Grillo. And I'm going to stay till it does."

Hotchkiss was at Grillo's side. "Holy shit," he breathed.

"The caves, right?"

"Right."

"Can we take the boy?" Grillo said.

Tesla nodded. "But be quick," she said. "Or it's over for us all." Her gaze had left Grillo's face and was directed out to the lot, or to the night beyond it. Somebody was expected at this party. The other wraith, surely.

Grillo and Hotchkiss took hold of the boy, and hauled him to his feet.

"Wait." Fletcher approached the trio, the smell of gasoline intensifying with his proximity. There was more than fumes off the man, however. Something akin to a mild electric shock passed through Grillo as the man reached to his son, and contact was made through all three systems. His mind momentarily soared, all bodily frailty forgotten, into a space where dreams hung like midnight stars. It was gone all too suddenly, almost brutally, as Fletcher dropped his hand from his son's face. Grillo looked towards Hotchkiss. By the expression on his face he too had shared the brief splendor. His eyes had filled with tears.

"What's going to happen?" Grillo said, looking back at Tesla.

"Fletcher is leaving."

"Why? Where?"

"Nowhere and everywhere," Tesla said.

"How do you know?"

"Because I told her," came Fletcher's response. "Quiddity must be preserved."

He looked at Grillo and the faintest murmur of a smile was on his face.

"Take my son, gentlemen," he said. "Keep him out of the line of fire."

"What?"

"Just go, Grillo," Tesla said. "Whatever happens from here on it's the way he wants it to be."

They took Howie out through the window as instructed, Hotchkiss stepping ahead to receive the boy's body, which was as limp as a fresh cadaver. As Grillo relinquished the boy's weight he heard Tesla speak behind him.

She simply said:

"The Jaff!"

The other escapee, Fletcher's enemy, was standing at the perimeter of the parking lot. The crowd, which had swelled to five or six times its earlier size, had parted, without being overtly requested to do so, leaving a corridor between the enemies. The Jaff had not come alone. Behind him were two Californian perfects Grillo could not name. Hotchkiss could.

"Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray," he said.

At the name of one, or both, Howie raised his head.

"Where?" he murmured, but his eyes found them before there was time for a reply. "Let me go," he said, struggling to push Hotchkiss off. "They'll kill her if we don't stop them. Don't you see, they'll kill her."

"There's more than your girlfriend at stake," Tesla said, leaving Grillo once again wondering how she'd got to know so much so quickly. Her source, Fletcher, now stepped out of the market, and walked past them all#8212;Tesla, Grillo, Howie and Hotchkiss#8212;to stand at the other end of the human corridor to the Jaff.

It was the Jaff who spoke first:

"What is all this about?" he demanded. "Your antics have woken half the town."

"The half you haven't poisoned," Fletcher returned.

"Now don't talk yourself into the grave. Beg a little. Tell me you'll give your balls if I let you live."

"That was never much to me."

"Your balls?"

"Living."

"You had ambition," the Jaff said, starting to walk towards Fletcher very slowly. "Don't deny it."

"Not like yours."

"True. I had scope."

"You must not have the Art."

The Jaff raised his hand and rubbed thumb and forefinger together, as though preparing to count money.

"Too late. I feel it in my fingers already," he said.

"All right," Fletcher replied. "If you want me to beg, I'll beg. Quiddity must be preserved. I beg you not to touch it."

"You don't get it, do you?" the Jaff said. He had come to a halt some distance from Fletcher. Now the youth came, bringing his sister.

"My flesh," the Jaff said, indicating his children, "will do anything for me. Isn't that right, Tommy-Ray?"

The boy grinned.

"Anything."

Intent on the exchange between the two men, Tesla had not noticed Howie slipping free of Hotchkiss until he turned to her and whispered:

"Gun."

She'd brought the weapon out of the market with her. Reluctantly she passed it into Howie's wounded hand.

"He's going to kill her," Howie murmured.

"That's his daughter," Tesla whispered in reply.

"You think he cares?"

Looking back, she saw the boy's point. Whatever changes Fletcher's Great Work (the Nuncio, he'd called it) had wrought in the Jaff they'd taken the man over the brink of sanity. Though she'd had all too short a time drinking down the visions Fletcher had shared with her, and had only a tenuous grasp of the complexities of the Art, Quiddity, Cosm and Metacosm, she knew enough to be sure that such power in this entity's hands would be power for immeasurable evil.

"You lost, Fletcher," the Jaff said. "You and your child don't have what it takes to be...modern." He smiled. "These two, on the other hand, are at the cutting edge. Everything is experiment. Right?"

Tommy-Ray had his hand on Jo-Beth's shoulder; now it moved down to her breast. Somebody in the crowd began to speak out at this, but was hushed as the Jaff looked in their direction. Jo-Beth pulled away from her brother, but Tommy-Ray was not about to relinquish her. He pulled her back towards him, inclining his head towards hers.

A shot stopped the kiss, the bullet plowing the asphalt at Tommy-Ray's feet.

"Let go of her," Howie said. His voice was not strong, but it carried.

Tommy-Ray did as he was instructed, looking at Howie with mild puzzlement on his face. He slid his knife from his back pocket. The imminence of bloodshed was not lost on the crowd. Some backed away, especially those with children. Most stayed.

Behind Fletcher, Grillo leaned over and whispered to Hotchkiss.

"Could you take him out from here?"

"The kid?"

"No. The Jaff."

"Don't bother to try," Tesla murmured. "It won't stop him."

"What will?"

"Christ knows."

"Going to shoot me down in cold blood in front of all these nice people?" Tommy-Ray said to Howie. "Go on, I dare you. Blow me away. I'm not afraid. I like death and death likes me. Pull the trigger, Katz. If you've got the balls."

As he spoke he slowly walked towards Howie, who was barely keeping himself upright. But he kept the gun pointed at Tommy-Ray.

It was the Jaff who brought the impasse to an end, seizing hold of Jo-Beth. His grip brought a cry. Howie looked towards her, and Tommy-Ray charged him, knife raised. It took only a push from Tommy-Ray to throw Howie down. The gun flew from his hand. Tommy-Ray kicked Howie hard between the legs then threw himself upon his victim.

"Don't kill him!" the Jaff commanded.

He let Jo-Beth go, and advanced towards Fletcher. From the fingers in which he'd claimed he could already feel the Art quickening beads of power oozed like ectoplasm, bursting in the air. He had reached the fighters, and seemed about to intervene, but instead simply cast a glance down at them, as at two brawling dogs, then stepped past them to continue his advance upon Fletcher.

"We'd better back off," Tesla murmured to Grillo and Hotchkiss. "It's out of our hands now."

Proof of that came seconds later, as Fletcher reached into his pocket, and pulled out a book of matches, marked Martin's Food and Drug. What was about to happen could not have been lost on any of the spectators. They'd smelled the gasoline. They knew its source. Now here were the matches. An immolation was imminent. But there were no further retreats. Though none of them comprehended much, if any, of the exchange between the protagonists there were few among the crowd who didn't know in their guts that they were witnessing events of consequence. How could they look away, when for the first time they had a chance of peeking at the gods?

Fletcher opened the book; pulled a match from it. He was in the act of striking when fresh darts of power broke from the Jaff's hand and flew at Fletcher. They struck his fingers like bullets, their violence carrying match and matchbook out of Fletcher's hands.

"Don't waste your time with tricks," the Jaff said. "You know fire's not going to do me any harm. Nor you, unless you want it to. And if you want extinction then all you have to do is ask."

This time he took his poison to Fletcher rather than letting it fly from his hand. He approached his enemy, and touched him. A shudder went through Fletcher. With agonizing slowness he turned his head far enough around to be able to see Tesla. In his eyes she saw so much vulnerability; he'd opened himself up to perform whatever end-game he had in mind, and the Jaff's malice had direct access to his essence. The appeal in his expression was unambiguous. A message of chaos was spreading through his system from the Jaff's touch. The only way he sought to be saved from it was death.

She had no matches, but she had Hotchkiss's gun. Without a word she snatched it from his hand. Her motion drew the Jaff's glance, and for a chilling moment she met his mad eyes#8212;saw a phantom head swelling around them; another Jaff in hiding behind the first.

Then she aimed the gun at the ground behind Fletcher, and fired. There was no spark, as she'd hoped there'd be. She aimed again, emptying her head of all thoughts but the will for ignition. She'd made fires before. On the page, to catch the mind. Now one for the flesh.

She exhaled slowly through her mouth, the way she did when she first sat down at her typewriter in the morning, and pulled the trigger.

It seemed she saw the fire coming before it actually ignited. Like a bright storm; the spark the lightning that ran before. The air around Fletcher turned yellow. Then it sprang into flame.

The heat was sudden, and intense. She dropped the gun and ran to where she could better see what followed. Fletcher caught her gaze through the blistering conflagration, and there was a sweetness in his expression that she'd carry through the adventures the future had planned for her as a reminder of how little she understood the workings of the world. That a man might enjoy to burn; might profit by it, might come to fruition in fire, that was a lesson no schoolmarm had come close to teaching. But here was the fact, made true by her own hand.

Beyond the fire she saw the Jaff stepping away with a shrug of ridicule. The fire had caught his fingers, where they'd touched Fletcher. It blew them out, like five candles. Behind him, Howie and Tommy-Ray were backing off before the heat, their hatred postponed. These sights held her only a beat, however, before she returned to the spectacle of the burning Fletcher. Even in that brief time his status had changed. The fire, which raged around him like a pillar, was not consuming him but transforming, the process throwing out flashes of bright matter.

The Jaff's response to these lights#8212;which was to retreat like a rabid dog before thrown water#8212;gave her a clue to their nature. They were to Fletcher what the beads that had snatched the matches were to the Jaff: some essential power released. The Jaff hated them. Their brightness made the face behind his face come clear. The sight of it, and of the miraculous change in Fletcher, drew her closer to the fire than was safe. She could smell her hair singeing. But she was too intrigued to be driven back. This was her doing, after all. She was the creator. Like the first ape to nurture a flame, and so transform the tribe.

That, she understood, was Fletcher's hope: the transformation of the tribe. This was not simply spectacle. The burning motes coming off Fletcher's body had their progenitor's intention in them. They went out from the column like bright seeds, weaving through the air in search of fertile ground. The Grovers were that ground, and the fireflies found them waiting. What struck her as miraculous was that nobody fled. Perhaps the previous violence had frightened off the weak-hearted. The rest were game for the magic, some actually breaking rank and walking to greet the lights, like communicants to an altar rail. Children went first, snatching at the motes, proving them innocent of harm. The light broke against their open hands, or against their welcoming faces, the fire echoed momentarily in their eyes. The parents of these adventurers were next to be touched. Some, having been struck, called back to their spouses: "It's OK. It doesn't hurt. It's just...light!"

It was more than that, Tesla knew. It was Fletcher. And in giving himself away in this fashion his physical self was gradually deteriorating. Already his chest, hands and groin had all but disappeared, his head and neck attached to his shoulders and his shoulders to his lower torso by strands of dusty matter that were prey to every whim of the flames. As she watched they too broke, and went to become light. Watching, a childhood hymn tripped into her head. Her mind sang Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. An old song for a new age.

The opening act of that age was already coming to a conclusion. Fletcher's self was almost used up, his face eaten away at the eyes and the mouth, the skull fragmenting, his brain melted to brightness and being blown from its pan like a dandelion head in an August wind.

With its going the pieces of Fletcher that remained simply vanished in the fire. Bereft of fuel, the flame went out. There was no dwindling; no ashes; not even smoke. One moment brightness, heat and wonders. The next, nothing.

She had been watching Fletcher too closely to count how many of the witnesses had been touched by his light. Many, certainly. Possibly all. Perhaps it was their sheer numbers that prevented the Jaff from any attempt at reprisal. He had an army waiting in the night, after all. But he chose not to summon it. Instead, with the minimum of show, he left. Tommy-Ray went with him. Jo-Beth did not. Howie had positioned himself beside her during Fletcher's dissolution, gun in hand. All Tommy-Ray could do was offer a few barely coherent threats, then follow in his father's footsteps.

That, in essence, was the Shaman Fletcher's last performance. There would be repercussions of course, but not until the recipients of his light had slept on their gift for a few hours. There were some more immediate consequences. For Grillo and Hotchkiss the satisfaction of knowing their senses hadn't deceived them at the caves; for Jo-Beth and Howie, reunion after events that had brought them close to death; and for Tesla, the knowledge that with Fletcher's going a great weight of responsibility had passed to her.

It was the Grove itself, however, which had borne the brunt of the night's magic. Its streets had seen horrors. Its citizens had been touched by spirits.

Soon, war.