I turned up the hot water and let it flow across my body. It should of scalded me but instead it felt good. I took the shampoo that Pederson had given me, poured a dose between my palms, and rubbed it into my scalp. As the medication penetrated the itching lessened and disappeared. I'd been through this routine before and knew relief would be temporary. Within hours it would again feel as if my scalp were infested by a colony of angry mites.
My life had seemed perfect until a few days ago. That was when the itching started. The dreams began. And the limousine pulled up across the street. In reverse order.

.
I had just started work on my latest novel. Actually I'd been working on it in my head for over a week. After thirty books in as many years I no longer need to put outlines on paper. Only a few of my titles have graced the best-seller lists, but they all sell respectably and are often translated abroad. Although there's never been a film, several books have been optioned. I may not be a literary lion but my writing provides me with an income and a life style that most envy.
The plot of the new book was clear in my mind and I'd set aside Thursday to begin work. I knew I'd have the apartment to myself. Hannah had started her latest commission: she's a design consultant and a successful one at that. The cleaning service had finished its weekly stint. We don't employ a cook because most of the time we eat at restaurants. When we don't dine out we can always fix something ourselves. Hannah has a lamb curry that will take the roof off your mouth and leave you begging for more.
Once I get rolling on a book nothing stops me. Yet wrestling with that first sentence, trying to catch the tone for the first few pages, can be like climbing Everest without a Sherpa. That was why I wanted the quiet of an empty apartment. Yet still it wasn't happening for me. On the blank screen the cursor winked insistently ... like the eye of an idiot in on some secret I knew nothing about.
I began to pace. The blocked writer's first resort.
My study is arranged for that purpose. Despite Hannah's objections, I've pushed the furniture against the walls. She's redecorated the apartment more than a dozen times in the seven years we've lived together. Twice it even made the pages of Interior Design. Yet my study, unfashionable as it may be, has remained inviolate.
While pacing I chanced to look out the window, across the street and down to the park. That was when I saw the limousine. It had pulled up in a no-parking zone opposite the building. Standing on the sidewalk beside it was a man in dark red livery. He was looking up at my study window. Since I was looking down, he was staring directly at me. There was an air of expectancy about him. He was clearly waiting for someone and had fastened upon the wrong apartment.
I went back to my desk and tried to concentrate. After several false starts I managed to knock out a few pages. But when I read them, they didn't seem right at all.
I decided to extend the limits of my pacing. I threw on a jacket and headed downstairs.
The limo was still parked across the street. As I came down the front steps of the building the chauffeur waved at me. I waited for a break in the traffic and crossed over. As I approached the man, my steps began to slow.
Large and heavily-muscled, he looked more like a bodyguard than a chauffeur. The kind of fellow that spends his spare time in a gym, pumping iron and lord knows what else. His face was one of the ugliest I'd ever seen. Long and sad with features crudely delineated, an unfinished sculpture slapped together from pieces of wet clay. Slitty eyes, red-rimmed and ripe with malice, glinted out at me from folds of gray flesh. It was the kind of face only a blind mother would call to dinner.
Yet as I drew to a halt several feet away I could see that there was nothing really threatening about the man. He took a few steps toward me and his manner seemed deferential, even hesitant.
"Can I help you?" I said
"Sir ... it's time." He glanced toward the car, shuffling from one foot to the other. His overdeveloped torso atop bandied legs gave him a top-heavy look.
"I'm afraid you've got me confused with someone else."
"Sir ... if you'll just step into the car."
He gestured toward the limo. He opened his mouth again but nothing came out. There was something he wanted to tell me, yet he seemed afraid to say it. Or at least he was pretending to be afraid. The man was considerably larger than I and if there had not been other pedestrians about he could have manhandled me into the car and whisked me away without anyone being the wiser.
"You've got me confused with someone else," I repeated "I did not call for a limousine."
I turned and walked away, heading across the grass and into the park. I glanced back several times. The driver was staring at me but made no attempt to follow.

.
The clouds had burnt off and the day was pleasant. Yet as I walked a chill came over me. Rather than easing my mind as it usually did, the unabated green of the park seemed wrong. I had the urge to see it leveled, trees and bushes and grass burnt down to bare earth and charred stumps. Within minutes I decided I'd had enough. I headed back, crossing over at the far end of the block. I could see the limo was still there with the driver standing by its side.
Rather than invigorating me and clearing out my head, the walk had the opposite effect. I felt muddled and drained of energy. I decided to stretch out on the couch for a catnap before going back to work. That was when the first dream happened.
It was the kind of dream that mostly vanishes upon waking. The kind where you have too many things to do and you are rushing back and forth with no time to do them. A single scene from this hodgepodge remained vivid. I was walking down a shadowy corridor, a passage in some subterranean cavern. Along the walls torches were mounted at intervals, offering an uncertain light, imparting a raw smoky taste to the air. The driver from the limo was by my side. He was bare to the waist. Sweat glistened on his exaggerated musculature. He was leaning close to me, whispering in my ear, and I was trying to understand what he was saying. His breath reeked like the air from a dead refrigerator. His words were a hoarse jumble. His hand upon my shoulder had claws. Just as his meaning was about to come clear...
A woman was leaning over me and shaking me awake. She was young and blond and beautiful. I didn't have the slightest idea who she was.

.
As I said, my life had seemed perfect.
My writing could be deemed a success. My first wife Marie and I, with nothing left to say to one another after twenty years of marriage, had parted amicably. Both my children were grown and had done me proud. Miles, even if he lacked creativity, had chosen a literary life. He was a junior editor at Random House and showed every sign of going to the top. Melissa, a mathematician who worked at Princeton, was also working on my second grandchild. They didn't come by as often as I liked, though they were more dutiful than most children in this streamlined and barbarous age.
Yet the main reason my life seemed perfect was Hannah. No doubt there are more than a few who consider Hannah my trophy wife, and in that they are both right and wrong. She is a trophy, but I didn't acquire her in the way usually associated with that term. I 'd been separated a few months when I decided to redo the apartment. It held too many memories, most of them positive, but it was time for a change. That was when I met Hannah. It may not have been love at first sight, but it was lust. Spontaneous combustion. Bells and whistles. A hundred and one strings and a ton of heavy metal. Before she'd finished looking over the living room we were at each others buttons and snaps and zippers. And it's never let up since.

.
It was Hannah who was shaking me awake.
Why I didn't recognize her I couldn't say. At that moment I probably wouldn't have recognized myself. The dream had left me disoriented and I was shivering violently. The apartment felt cold as Frisco in June.
"What's the matter, darling? Are you all right?"
As soon as Hannah spoke, everything fell into place.
"I don't know. I was having the strangest dream." I was trembling, rubbing my arms for warmth. "Turn up the heat. It's freezing in here."
"Do you want some coffee?"
I thought about it for a second. "No," I said, "make me a Bloody Mary. With lots of Tabasco. That should warm me up."
One Bloody Mary led to another. Then we ordered out for Szechuan. One thing led to another and before you knew it we were naked on the living-room rug before a blazing fire. Our sweat-slickened bodies slid against one another as we tried it this way for awhile and that way for awhile and one or two other ways just to make sure everything was in working order. You'd think we'd been together a few weeks rather than seven years.
Before going to sleep we curled up in bed and watched the late news. For once all the hot spots of the world had cooled. Middle East peace talks were back on track. Both Ireland and the Balkans had been quiet for over a month. There weren't even any natural disasters to report. I was so used to a world full of trouble and strife, it was a bit hard to buy. I kept waiting for the other boot to hit the floor. Most likely with a goose step.
I slept fitfully that night and at some point began to dream. I was standing alone on the stage of an enclosed amphitheater. High above on the dome of its ceiling a stormy skyscape had been painted, a hemisphere filled with roiling thunderclouds and apocalyptic lightning flashes. Tiers of stone benches rose about me, inhabited by hunched and shadowy forms. They were all waiting for me to say something. My dream thoughts leapfrogged frantically, searching for how to begin. I cleared my throat and...
I came awake suddenly. Though it was not the dream that had awakened me. It was my scalp. It was itching like terminal dandruff. I'd already been scratching my head in my sleep and as I sat up on the side of the bed I began rubbing it even more vigorously. Again I was shivering and I pulled a blanket around my shoulders.
My antics soon woke Hannah, who came out of a sound sleep to minister to my needs. She made cocoa and found some tablets from an old sleeping pill prescription so that I could get back to bed.
"First thing tomorrow," she said "you need to see Dr. Pederson."

.
"Yes, there is definitely some redness. And there seems to be a little swelling, too."
With her usual insistence, Hannah had managed to wrangle an appointment the very next day. Pederson, who was apparently sacrificing his lunch hour to see me, leaned back and stopped pawing at my scalp.
"I don't think it's anything we need worry about." He gave me a grin that could have charmed Attila in the morning.
Pederson boasted a first-rate reputation and an exclusive clientele. Affidavits posted on the walls proclaimed that he had done more than his share of pro bono work. Still I had never liked the man. He was too jovial. His ever present smile resembled that of some swamified fanatic. I could see him flashing his pearlies with the same beatific radiance whether he was meting out a clean bill of health or a death sentence.
He turned away from me and began digging in a cabinet.
When Pederson turned back, with several small plastic bottle in hand, I nearly jumped out of my hide. "You can start with these samples. I'll write a prescription in case you need more."
I barely heard what he was saying. The man's entire skull was swathed in a flickering golden aura. It made my flesh crawl just to look at it.
"Try to stop scratching. That irritates it. Be sure to keep it clean. Shampoo as often as you need to relieve the itching. If it isn't any better in a week, I'll refer you to a dermatologist."

I took the bottles and shoved them into my coat pocket. I wanted out of there as soon as possible, but the good doctor wasn't through.
"How have you been feeling in general? Anything else bothering you?"
I hadn't mentioned the chills. Or my inability to concentrate on the book. And I for sure wasn't going to say anything about the aurora borealis dancing around his skull.
"All right," I mumbled glancing out the window, at the floor, at my own hands as they clenched the sides of the metal examining table. Anyplace but at that unearthly light.
"You seem a little tense. Maybe you've been working too hard. Maybe you should take it easy for awhile. Think about a vacation. Everyone needs a vacation now and again."
A vacation! I've got a rash on my scalp and the man tells me to take a vacation. What kind of a moron was he? A vacation was the last thing I needed. What I needed was to do some writing.

.
I'd taken a cab to the appointment, but decided to hoof it on the way home. It was about a mile and I thought the exercise might do me some good. I couldn't have been more mistaken. Once I was on the street the hallucination visited upon me in Pederson's office persisted and multiplied.
A blue-haired dowager with a yappy Pomeranian in tow. A cabbie with the hood of his car up, shaking his head in disgust. A bike messenger pedaling at breakneck speed. Two Madison Avenue types in heated sidewalk debate. Everyone I saw sported either an aura like Pederson's, or their faces were grossly distorted -- eyes askew, foreheads bulging, mouths twisted in crooked snarls -- as if I were seeing them reflected in a funhouse mirror. I was nearly running by the time I reached our building
No sign of the driver, but the limo hadn't budged an inch.
As Sam the doorman ushered me in I could see his right cheek was a mass of swollen tissue, discolored and oozing clear fluid.

.
I peered through the slit in the curtains. He was concealed by the limo's tinted windows but I knew he was down there, behind the wheel, staring up at me with those red-rimmed eyes. I watched several motorcycle police and one squad car drive past. Not one of them slowed down. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the limousine was parked in a red zone.
I'd showered and used Pederson's shampoo as soon as I'd gotten home. Although the itching had stopped, I was feeling far from normal. All at once our spacious apartment felt like a prison. Yet I knew that if I went out I'd have to confront the chauffeur. His face was one hell of a sight already without a light show dancing around it.
I sat at my desk and through a sheer effort of will forced myself to begin writing. And then it happened. The world I was creating took over and it began to flow for me. I knocked out page after page, making up for the time I had been idle. By late afternoon I took a break because the itching had returned. It was back into the shower for another respite. Then back to my desk, writing like a demon on speed. It was dark outside before I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast.
I was on my own for the evening. Hannah was entertaining clients or being entertained by them. I pawed through the refrigerator, found some leftover chile verde and popped it in the microwave. A few days ago it had been deliciously spicy. By now it seemed to have lost its flavor. Even when I drenched it with salsa it proved a lost cause. After a few bites I threw the rest in the trash.
Except for one more shower I spent the evening at my desk. I was writing like I never had before. At this rate the book would be finished in weeks. Maybe I could afford to take a vacation after all.
Hannah came tottering in at half past ten, halfway through the news. I could see she'd had more than a few. I was beginning to wonder about these late meetings with clients.
"So what's happening in the world?" she asked.
"Absolutely nothing," I told her. "Dull as a Unitarian sing-along."
If you believed the statistics the talking heads were spouting, crime, drug addiction, and teen pregnancy were all down. Most of the broadcast was devoted to sappy human interest stories because there was nothing else to report. If the news stayed this bland, no one was going watch.
"How did your dinner go?"
"Same old ... same old," Hannah muttered.
She was so out of it she forgot to ask what happened at Pederson's. Once she was undressed and in bed, leaving a trail of clothes across the floor, she came after me as usual. I could smell wine and garlic on her breath. For once I wasn't in the mood.
"We don't have to make love every night!" I snapped.
She turned away with an odorous snort and was asleep in seconds. I popped a couple of pills and after some tossing and turning ... found myself ... back in the cave with the driver by my side.
We were approaching the end of the tunnel. There was a room from which a red-orange glow and a loud clanging noise emanated. I knew there was something horrible in that room, so horrible it was beyond human imagination. Yet I wasn't in the least afraid. My pace quickened. I was anxious to see what the room would reveal....
The itching woke me before I had the chance.

.
I stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Morning light was eddying in around the curtains. Hannah was sound asleep, her mouth open, snores escaping from her lips. Her familiar face looked strange to me. As I came closer I saw that it was covered with pink scabs.
In my study I looked over what I'd written the day before ... and it made no sense whatsoever. Most of it was gibberish. Words and sentences strung together at random.
Already I could feel a tingling spreading across my scalp. The shampoo was losing its effectiveness.
The dreams and visions. The itching. The chauffeur and the limousine. I didn't know how, but I knew they were all part of the same lumpy stew. I pulled on a sweat shirt and baggy corduroys and slipped into my running shoes. I couldn't do anything about the itching or the visions, but I could at least take care of that limo.
The driver was out of the car before I crossed the street.
I strode up to him. "Just what are you doing here? What do you want from me?"
"Sir..." he held the rear door open. "If you'll just step inside, I can explain everything."
I could see the interior was upholstered in a deep blood red that matched the man's livery. Somehow I knew it would be that way. I hesitated for a moment. They tell you never to get into a car with a stranger, even if you are being held at gun point. Yet the chauffeur had been so present in my life the last few days, both in fact and in my dreams, he hardly seemed a stranger anymore.
As soon as I sank into the calves leather of the seats and saw the minibar stocked with expensive liqueurs, as soon as the door swung shut and the unearthly warmth of the car's interior enveloped me, it all came back in an instant.
Everyone needs a vacation now and again. And what better vacation than one where you can leave your everyday worries behind and lose yourself completely in another world, an entirely different life? Which was exactly what I had done. The reason it felt as if I'd been with Hannah only a few weeks was because I had been with her only a few weeks. I was not a novelist with thirty books to my credit. I had children to be sure, both living and dead, but none of them worked for Random House or taught at Princeton. Their work and their lives were of more import than that.
I leaned back and surrendered to the itching. Within moments I felt my scalp begin to part and the horns breaking through. I felt my stature growing and saw the talons sprouting from my fingers. Of course I now recognized the man in the livery. I understood why he had approached me so circumspectly. He was my right hand man and had been so on and off for centuries. He had also experienced my wrath more than once and been banished to the deepest pits. He had now taken his place behind the wheel and was looking back at me expectantly.
"Take me down, Asmodeus," I said. "It's time to get back to work."
I watched the news that night with satisfaction. Things were starting to heat up again. As they always did.

I turned up the hot water and let it flow across my body. It should of scalded me but instead it felt good. I took the shampoo that Pederson had given me, poured a dose between my palms, and rubbed it into my scalp. As the medication penetrated the itching lessened and disappeared. I'd been through this routine before and knew relief would be temporary. Within hours it would again feel as if my scalp were infested by a colony of angry mites.
My life had seemed perfect until a few days ago. That was when the itching started. The dreams began. And the limousine pulled up across the street. In reverse order.

.
I had just started work on my latest novel. Actually I'd been working on it in my head for over a week. After thirty books in as many years I no longer need to put outlines on paper. Only a few of my titles have graced the best-seller lists, but they all sell respectably and are often translated abroad. Although there's never been a film, several books have been optioned. I may not be a literary lion but my writing provides me with an income and a life style that most envy.
The plot of the new book was clear in my mind and I'd set aside Thursday to begin work. I knew I'd have the apartment to myself. Hannah had started her latest commission: she's a design consultant and a successful one at that. The cleaning service had finished its weekly stint. We don't employ a cook because most of the time we eat at restaurants. When we don't dine out we can always fix something ourselves. Hannah has a lamb curry that will take the roof off your mouth and leave you begging for more.
Once I get rolling on a book nothing stops me. Yet wrestling with that first sentence, trying to catch the tone for the first few pages, can be like climbing Everest without a Sherpa. That was why I wanted the quiet of an empty apartment. Yet still it wasn't happening for me. On the blank screen the cursor winked insistently ... like the eye of an idiot in on some secret I knew nothing about.
I began to pace. The blocked writer's first resort.
My study is arranged for that purpose. Despite Hannah's objections, I've pushed the furniture against the walls. She's redecorated the apartment more than a dozen times in the seven years we've lived together. Twice it even made the pages of Interior Design. Yet my study, unfashionable as it may be, has remained inviolate.
While pacing I chanced to look out the window, across the street and down to the park. That was when I saw the limousine. It had pulled up in a no-parking zone opposite the building. Standing on the sidewalk beside it was a man in dark red livery. He was looking up at my study window. Since I was looking down, he was staring directly at me. There was an air of expectancy about him. He was clearly waiting for someone and had fastened upon the wrong apartment.
I went back to my desk and tried to concentrate. After several false starts I managed to knock out a few pages. But when I read them, they didn't seem right at all.
I decided to extend the limits of my pacing. I threw on a jacket and headed downstairs.
The limo was still parked across the street. As I came down the front steps of the building the chauffeur waved at me. I waited for a break in the traffic and crossed over. As I approached the man, my steps began to slow.
Large and heavily-muscled, he looked more like a bodyguard than a chauffeur. The kind of fellow that spends his spare time in a gym, pumping iron and lord knows what else. His face was one of the ugliest I'd ever seen. Long and sad with features crudely delineated, an unfinished sculpture slapped together from pieces of wet clay. Slitty eyes, red-rimmed and ripe with malice, glinted out at me from folds of gray flesh. It was the kind of face only a blind mother would call to dinner.
Yet as I drew to a halt several feet away I could see that there was nothing really threatening about the man. He took a few steps toward me and his manner seemed deferential, even hesitant.
"Can I help you?" I said
"Sir ... it's time." He glanced toward the car, shuffling from one foot to the other. His overdeveloped torso atop bandied legs gave him a top-heavy look.
"I'm afraid you've got me confused with someone else."
"Sir ... if you'll just step into the car."
He gestured toward the limo. He opened his mouth again but nothing came out. There was something he wanted to tell me, yet he seemed afraid to say it. Or at least he was pretending to be afraid. The man was considerably larger than I and if there had not been other pedestrians about he could have manhandled me into the car and whisked me away without anyone being the wiser.
"You've got me confused with someone else," I repeated "I did not call for a limousine."
I turned and walked away, heading across the grass and into the park. I glanced back several times. The driver was staring at me but made no attempt to follow.

.
The clouds had burnt off and the day was pleasant. Yet as I walked a chill came over me. Rather than easing my mind as it usually did, the unabated green of the park seemed wrong. I had the urge to see it leveled, trees and bushes and grass burnt down to bare earth and charred stumps. Within minutes I decided I'd had enough. I headed back, crossing over at the far end of the block. I could see the limo was still there with the driver standing by its side.
Rather than invigorating me and clearing out my head, the walk had the opposite effect. I felt muddled and drained of energy. I decided to stretch out on the couch for a catnap before going back to work. That was when the first dream happened.
It was the kind of dream that mostly vanishes upon waking. The kind where you have too many things to do and you are rushing back and forth with no time to do them. A single scene from this hodgepodge remained vivid. I was walking down a shadowy corridor, a passage in some subterranean cavern. Along the walls torches were mounted at intervals, offering an uncertain light, imparting a raw smoky taste to the air. The driver from the limo was by my side. He was bare to the waist. Sweat glistened on his exaggerated musculature. He was leaning close to me, whispering in my ear, and I was trying to understand what he was saying. His breath reeked like the air from a dead refrigerator. His words were a hoarse jumble. His hand upon my shoulder had claws. Just as his meaning was about to come clear...
A woman was leaning over me and shaking me awake. She was young and blond and beautiful. I didn't have the slightest idea who she was.

.
As I said, my life had seemed perfect.
My writing could be deemed a success. My first wife Marie and I, with nothing left to say to one another after twenty years of marriage, had parted amicably. Both my children were grown and had done me proud. Miles, even if he lacked creativity, had chosen a literary life. He was a junior editor at Random House and showed every sign of going to the top. Melissa, a mathematician who worked at Princeton, was also working on my second grandchild. They didn't come by as often as I liked, though they were more dutiful than most children in this streamlined and barbarous age.
Yet the main reason my life seemed perfect was Hannah. No doubt there are more than a few who consider Hannah my trophy wife, and in that they are both right and wrong. She is a trophy, but I didn't acquire her in the way usually associated with that term. I 'd been separated a few months when I decided to redo the apartment. It held too many memories, most of them positive, but it was time for a change. That was when I met Hannah. It may not have been love at first sight, but it was lust. Spontaneous combustion. Bells and whistles. A hundred and one strings and a ton of heavy metal. Before she'd finished looking over the living room we were at each others buttons and snaps and zippers. And it's never let up since.

.
It was Hannah who was shaking me awake.
Why I didn't recognize her I couldn't say. At that moment I probably wouldn't have recognized myself. The dream had left me disoriented and I was shivering violently. The apartment felt cold as Frisco in June.
"What's the matter, darling? Are you all right?"
As soon as Hannah spoke, everything fell into place.
"I don't know. I was having the strangest dream." I was trembling, rubbing my arms for warmth. "Turn up the heat. It's freezing in here."
"Do you want some coffee?"
I thought about it for a second. "No," I said, "make me a Bloody Mary. With lots of Tabasco. That should warm me up."
One Bloody Mary led to another. Then we ordered out for Szechuan. One thing led to another and before you knew it we were naked on the living-room rug before a blazing fire. Our sweat-slickened bodies slid against one another as we tried it this way for awhile and that way for awhile and one or two other ways just to make sure everything was in working order. You'd think we'd been together a few weeks rather than seven years.
Before going to sleep we curled up in bed and watched the late news. For once all the hot spots of the world had cooled. Middle East peace talks were back on track. Both Ireland and the Balkans had been quiet for over a month. There weren't even any natural disasters to report. I was so used to a world full of trouble and strife, it was a bit hard to buy. I kept waiting for the other boot to hit the floor. Most likely with a goose step.
I slept fitfully that night and at some point began to dream. I was standing alone on the stage of an enclosed amphitheater. High above on the dome of its ceiling a stormy skyscape had been painted, a hemisphere filled with roiling thunderclouds and apocalyptic lightning flashes. Tiers of stone benches rose about me, inhabited by hunched and shadowy forms. They were all waiting for me to say something. My dream thoughts leapfrogged frantically, searching for how to begin. I cleared my throat and...
I came awake suddenly. Though it was not the dream that had awakened me. It was my scalp. It was itching like terminal dandruff. I'd already been scratching my head in my sleep and as I sat up on the side of the bed I began rubbing it even more vigorously. Again I was shivering and I pulled a blanket around my shoulders.
My antics soon woke Hannah, who came out of a sound sleep to minister to my needs. She made cocoa and found some tablets from an old sleeping pill prescription so that I could get back to bed.
"First thing tomorrow," she said "you need to see Dr. Pederson."

.
"Yes, there is definitely some redness. And there seems to be a little swelling, too."
With her usual insistence, Hannah had managed to wrangle an appointment the very next day. Pederson, who was apparently sacrificing his lunch hour to see me, leaned back and stopped pawing at my scalp.
"I don't think it's anything we need worry about." He gave me a grin that could have charmed Attila in the morning.
Pederson boasted a first-rate reputation and an exclusive clientele. Affidavits posted on the walls proclaimed that he had done more than his share of pro bono work. Still I had never liked the man. He was too jovial. His ever present smile resembled that of some swamified fanatic. I could see him flashing his pearlies with the same beatific radiance whether he was meting out a clean bill of health or a death sentence.
He turned away from me and began digging in a cabinet.
When Pederson turned back, with several small plastic bottle in hand, I nearly jumped out of my hide. "You can start with these samples. I'll write a prescription in case you need more."
I barely heard what he was saying. The man's entire skull was swathed in a flickering golden aura. It made my flesh crawl just to look at it.
"Try to stop scratching. That irritates it. Be sure to keep it clean. Shampoo as often as you need to relieve the itching. If it isn't any better in a week, I'll refer you to a dermatologist."
I took the bottles and shoved them into my coat pocket. I wanted out of there as soon as possible, but the good doctor wasn't through.
"How have you been feeling in general? Anything else bothering you?"
I hadn't mentioned the chills. Or my inability to concentrate on the book. And I for sure wasn't going to say anything about the aurora borealis dancing around his skull.
"All right," I mumbled glancing out the window, at the floor, at my own hands as they clenched the sides of the metal examining table. Anyplace but at that unearthly light.
"You seem a little tense. Maybe you've been working too hard. Maybe you should take it easy for awhile. Think about a vacation. Everyone needs a vacation now and again."
A vacation! I've got a rash on my scalp and the man tells me to take a vacation. What kind of a moron was he? A vacation was the last thing I needed. What I needed was to do some writing.

.
I'd taken a cab to the appointment, but decided to hoof it on the way home. It was about a mile and I thought the exercise might do me some good. I couldn't have been more mistaken. Once I was on the street the hallucination visited upon me in Pederson's office persisted and multiplied.
A blue-haired dowager with a yappy Pomeranian in tow. A cabbie with the hood of his car up, shaking his head in disgust. A bike messenger pedaling at breakneck speed. Two Madison Avenue types in heated sidewalk debate. Everyone I saw sported either an aura like Pederson's, or their faces were grossly distorted -- eyes askew, foreheads bulging, mouths twisted in crooked snarls -- as if I were seeing them reflected in a funhouse mirror. I was nearly running by the time I reached our building
No sign of the driver, but the limo hadn't budged an inch.
As Sam the doorman ushered me in I could see his right cheek was a mass of swollen tissue, discolored and oozing clear fluid.

.
I peered through the slit in the curtains. He was concealed by the limo's tinted windows but I knew he was down there, behind the wheel, staring up at me with those red-rimmed eyes. I watched several motorcycle police and one squad car drive past. Not one of them slowed down. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the limousine was parked in a red zone.
I'd showered and used Pederson's shampoo as soon as I'd gotten home. Although the itching had stopped, I was feeling far from normal. All at once our spacious apartment felt like a prison. Yet I knew that if I went out I'd have to confront the chauffeur. His face was one hell of a sight already without a light show dancing around it.
I sat at my desk and through a sheer effort of will forced myself to begin writing. And then it happened. The world I was creating took over and it began to flow for me. I knocked out page after page, making up for the time I had been idle. By late afternoon I took a break because the itching had returned. It was back into the shower for another respite. Then back to my desk, writing like a demon on speed. It was dark outside before I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast.
I was on my own for the evening. Hannah was entertaining clients or being entertained by them. I pawed through the refrigerator, found some leftover chile verde and popped it in the microwave. A few days ago it had been deliciously spicy. By now it seemed to have lost its flavor. Even when I drenched it with salsa it proved a lost cause. After a few bites I threw the rest in the trash.
Except for one more shower I spent the evening at my desk. I was writing like I never had before. At this rate the book would be finished in weeks. Maybe I could afford to take a vacation after all.
Hannah came tottering in at half past ten, halfway through the news. I could see she'd had more than a few. I was beginning to wonder about these late meetings with clients.
"So what's happening in the world?" she asked.
"Absolutely nothing," I told her. "Dull as a Unitarian sing-along."
If you believed the statistics the talking heads were spouting, crime, drug addiction, and teen pregnancy were all down. Most of the broadcast was devoted to sappy human interest stories because there was nothing else to report. If the news stayed this bland, no one was going watch.
"How did your dinner go?"
"Same old ... same old," Hannah muttered.
She was so out of it she forgot to ask what happened at Pederson's. Once she was undressed and in bed, leaving a trail of clothes across the floor, she came after me as usual. I could smell wine and garlic on her breath. For once I wasn't in the mood.
"We don't have to make love every night!" I snapped.
She turned away with an odorous snort and was asleep in seconds. I popped a couple of pills and after some tossing and turning ... found myself ... back in the cave with the driver by my side.
We were approaching the end of the tunnel. There was a room from which a red-orange glow and a loud clanging noise emanated. I knew there was something horrible in that room, so horrible it was beyond human imagination. Yet I wasn't in the least afraid. My pace quickened. I was anxious to see what the room would reveal....
The itching woke me before I had the chance.

.
I stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Morning light was eddying in around the curtains. Hannah was sound asleep, her mouth open, snores escaping from her lips. Her familiar face looked strange to me. As I came closer I saw that it was covered with pink scabs.
In my study I looked over what I'd written the day before ... and it made no sense whatsoever. Most of it was gibberish. Words and sentences strung together at random.
Already I could feel a tingling spreading across my scalp. The shampoo was losing its effectiveness.
The dreams and visions. The itching. The chauffeur and the limousine. I didn't know how, but I knew they were all part of the same lumpy stew. I pulled on a sweat shirt and baggy corduroys and slipped into my running shoes. I couldn't do anything about the itching or the visions, but I could at least take care of that limo.
The driver was out of the car before I crossed the street.
I strode up to him. "Just what are you doing here? What do you want from me?"
"Sir..." he held the rear door open. "If you'll just step inside, I can explain everything."
I could see the interior was upholstered in a deep blood red that matched the man's livery. Somehow I knew it would be that way. I hesitated for a moment. They tell you never to get into a car with a stranger, even if you are being held at gun point. Yet the chauffeur had been so present in my life the last few days, both in fact and in my dreams, he hardly seemed a stranger anymore.
As soon as I sank into the calves leather of the seats and saw the minibar stocked with expensive liqueurs, as soon as the door swung shut and the unearthly warmth of the car's interior enveloped me, it all came back in an instant.
Everyone needs a vacation now and again. And what better vacation than one where you can leave your everyday worries behind and lose yourself completely in another world, an entirely different life? Which was exactly what I had done. The reason it felt as if I'd been with Hannah only a few weeks was because I had been with her only a few weeks. I was not a novelist with thirty books to my credit. I had children to be sure, both living and dead, but none of them worked for Random House or taught at Princeton. Their work and their lives were of more import than that.
I leaned back and surrendered to the itching. Within moments I felt my scalp begin to part and the horns breaking through. I felt my stature growing and saw the talons sprouting from my fingers. Of course I now recognized the man in the livery. I understood why he had approached me so circumspectly. He was my right hand man and had been so on and off for centuries. He had also experienced my wrath more than once and been banished to the deepest pits. He had now taken his place behind the wheel and was looking back at me expectantly.
"Take me down, Asmodeus," I said. "It's time to get back to work."
I watched the news that night with satisfaction. Things were starting to heat up again. As they always did.