--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

committed, right from the first, the littlest.
"What are you waiting for?" Homer said, seeing Jaffe linger. "You've got
work to do. The sooner it's started, the sooner I can find you more. "
Randolph stepped into the room. It was large, painted the same bilious
yellow and battleship gray as every other office and corridor in the
Omaha
Central Post Office. Not that much of the walls was visible. Piled higher
than head-height on every side was ma il. Sacks, satchels, boxes and
carts
of it, spilling out onto the cold concrete floor.
"Dead letters, " Homer said. "Stuff even the good ol' U.S. Post Office
can't
deliver. Quite a sight, huh?"
Jaffe was agog, but he made sure not to show it. He made sure to show
nothing, especially to wise guys like Homer.
"This is all yours, Randolph, " his superior said. "Your little corner of
heaven. "
"What am I supposed to do with it?" Jaffe said.
"Sort it. Open it, look for any important stuff so we don't end up putting
good money in the furnace. "
"There's money in them?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's the middle of the country," Jaffe  observed. "Gateway to the West.
Or 
East. Depending on which way you're facing."
"Ain't the dead center," Homer counte red. "But we still end up with all
the
crap. And it's all got to get sorted. By band. By you."
"All of it?" Jaffe said. What was in front of him was two weeks', three
weeks', four weeks' work.
"ALL of it," said Homer, and didn't make any attempt to conceal his
satisfaction. "All yours. You'll soon  get the hang of it. If the envelope's
got
some kind of government marking, put  it in the burn pile. Don't even
bother
to open it. Fuck 'em, right? But the rest, open. You never know what
we're
going to find." He grinned conspiratorially. "And what we find, we share,"
he.said.
Jaffe had been working for the U.S. Post Office only nine days, but that
was long enough, easily long enough, to know that a lot of mail was
intercepted by its hired deliverers. Packets were razored open and their
contents filched, checks were cashed, love-letters were laughed over.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the team, don't you?" He put a wide, heavy hand on Jaffe's shoulder.
"Share and share alike, right?"
"I hear," Jaffe said.
"Good," Homer replied. "So—" He opened his arms to the spectacle of
piled sacks. "It's all yours." He sniffed, grinned and took his leave.
One of the team, Jaffe thought as  the door clicked closed, was what
he'd
never be. Not that he was about to tell Homer that. He'd let the man
patronize him; play the willing slave.  But in his heart? In his heart, he
had
other plans, other ambitions. Problem  was, he wasn't any closer to re-
alizing
those ambitions than he'd been at  twenty. Now he was thirty-seven,
going
on thirty-eight. Not the kind of man women looked at more than once.
Not
the kind of character folks found exactly charismatic. Losing his hair the
way his father had. Bald at forty, most likely. Bald, and wifeless, and not
more than beer-change in his pocket because he'd never been able to
hold

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

write
anyway? I'm killing myself because I didn't get to be King of the World?
Ridiculous.
But...that was what he wanted to be. He'd never known how, he'd never
even had a sniff of the way, but t hat was the ambition that had nagged
him
from the first. Other men rose from nothing, didn't they? Messiahs,
presidents, movie stars. They pulled themselves up out of the mud the
way
the fishes had when they'd decided to go for a walk. Grown legs,
breathed
air, become more than what they'd  been. If fucking fishes could do it,
why
couldn't he? But it had to be soon. Before he was forty. Before he was
bald.
Before he was dead, and gone, and no one to even remember him, ex-
cept
maybe as a nameless asshole who'd spent three weeks in the winter of
1969 in a room full of dead letters, opening orphaned mail looking for
dollar.bills. Some epitaph.
He sat down and looked at the task heaped before him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
number.
First Jaffe sorted the interesting envelopes (bulky; rattling; perfumed)
from
dull; then the private correspondence  from official, and the scrawl from
the
Palmer method. Those decisions made, he began opening the enve-
lopes,
in the first week with his fingers, till his fingers became calloused, there-
after
with a short-bladed knife he bought es pecially for the purpose, digging
out
the contents like a pearl-fisher in se arch of a pearl, most of the time
finding
nothing, sometimes, as Homer had promised, finding money or a check,
which he dutifully declared to his boss.
"You're good at this," Homer said after the second week. "You're really
good. Maybe I should put you on this full time."
Randolph wanted to say fuck you, but he'd said that too many times to
bosses who'd fired him the minute a fter, and he couldn't afford to lose
this

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Homer had been right. Omaha, Nebraska, wasn't the geographical
center
of the USA, but as far as the Post Office was concerned, it may as well
have been.
The lines of communication crossed, and recrossed, and finally dropped
their orphans here, because nobody  in any other state wanted them.
These
letters had been sent from coast to coast looking for someone to open
them, and had found no takers. Finally they'd ended with him: with
Randolph Ernest Jaffe, a balding nobody with ambitions never spoken
and
rage not expressed, whose little knife slit them, and little eyes scanned
them, and who—sitting at his crossroads—began to see the private face
of 
the nation.
There were love-letters, hate-letters, ransom notes, pleadings, sheets
on 
which men had drawn round their hard-ons, valentines of pubic hair,
blackmail by wives, journalists, hustlers, lawyers and senators, junk-mail

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

love and death they told touched him only fleetingly. Far more persua-
sive,
far more moving, was another story, which could not be articulated so
easily.
Sitting at the crossroads he began to understand that America had a
secret life; one which he'd never even glimpsed before. Love and death
he 
knew about. Love and death were the great clichés; the twin obsessions
of 
songs and soap operas. But there was another life, which every fortieth
letter, or fiftieth, or hundredth,  hinted at, and every thousandth stated
with a
lunatic plainness. When they said it plain, it was not the whole truth, but
it 
was a beginning, and each of the  writers had their own mad way of
stating
something close to un-stateable.
What it came down to was this: the world was not as it seemed. Not
remotely as it seemed. Forces  conspired (governm ental, religious,
medical)
to conceal and silence those who had more than a passing grasp of that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of 
more than two for fear of attracti ng attention to themselves. But they
wrote.
Sometimes it was as if they had to, as if the secrets they kept sealed up
were too hot, and burned their way out. Sometimes it was because they
knew the hunters were on their  heels and they'd have no other chance
to 
describe the world to itself before they were caught, drugged and locked
up. Sometimes there was even a subversive glee in the scrawlings, sent
out with deliberately indistinct a ddresses in the hope that the letter
would
blow the mind of some innocent who' d received it by chance. Some of
the
missives were stream-of-consciousness rantings, others precise, even
clinical, descriptions of how to turn the world inside out by sex-magic or
mushroom-eating. Some used the  nonsense imagery of National En-
quirer
stories to veil another message. They spoke of UFO sightings and zom-
bie
cults; news from Venusian evangelists and psychics who tuned in to the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he 
welcomed the addition. The more letters, the more clues; the more clues
the more hope he had of a solution to the mystery. It was, he became
more
certain as the weeks turned into months and the winter mellowed, not
several mysteries but one. The writers whose letters were about the
Veil,
and how to draw it aside, were finding their own way forward towards
revelation; each had his own particular method and metaphor; but
somewhere in the cacophony a single hymn was striving to be sung.
It was not about love. At least not as the sentimentalists knew it. Nor
about
death, as a literalist would have understood the term. It was—in no
particular order—something to do with fishes, and the sea (sometimes
the
Sea of Seas); and three ways to swim there; and dreams (a lot about
dreams); and an island which Plato  had called Atlantis, but had known
all 
along was some other place. It was about the end of the World, which
was
in turn about its beginning. And it was about Art.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but
only one Art. And (here was a mystery) no Artist.
"So, are you happy here?" Homer said to him one May day.
Jaffe looked up from his work. There were letters strewn all around him.
His skin, which had never been too healthy, was as pale and etched
upon
as the pages in his hand.
"Sure," he said to Homer, scarcely bothering to focus on the man. "Have
you got some more for me?"
Homer didn't answer at first. Then he said: "What are you hiding, Jaffe?"
"Hiding? I'm not hiding anything."
"You're stashing stuff away you should be sharing with the rest of us."
"No I'm not," Jaffe said. He'd been meticulous in obeying Homer's first
edict, that anything found amon g the dead letters be shared. The
money,
the skin magazines, the cheap jewelry he'd come across once in a
while; it
all went to Homer, to be divided up. "You get everything," he said. "I
swear."
Homer looked at him with plain disbelief. "You spend every fucking hour
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you.think I am, a fucking fag?" He kept staring at Jaffe. After a pause he
said:
"I'm going to have somebody else come down here and take over.
You've
done five months. It's long enough. I'm going to move you."
"I don't want—"
"What?"
"I mean...what I mean to say is, I'm quite happy down here. Really. It's
work I like doing."
"Yeah," said Homer, clearly still suspicious. "Well from Monday you're
out."
"Why?"
"Because I say so! If you don't like it find yourself another job."
"I'm doing good work, aren't I?" Jaffe said.
Homer was already turning his back.
"It smells in here," he said as he exited. "Smells real bad."
There was a word Randolph had learned from his reading which he'd
never known before: synchronicity.  He'd had to go buy a dictionary to
look it
up, and found it meant that someti mes events coincided. The way the
letter

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hour
after Homer had left, Jaffe took his short-bladed knife, which was getting
blunt, to an envelope that felt heavier than most. He slit it open, and out
fell
a small medallion. It hit the concrete floor: a sweet ringing sound. He
picked
it up, with fingers that had been trembling since Homer's exit. There was
no 
chain attached to the medallion, nor did it have a loop for that purpose.
Indeed it wasn't attractive enough to be hung around a woman's neck as
a 
piece of jewelry, and though it was in  the form of a cross closer inspec-
tion
proved it not to be of Christian de sign. Its four arms were of equal
length,
the full span no more than an inch and a half. At the intersection was a
human figure, neither male nor female, arms outstretched as in a
crucifixion, but not nailed. Spreading out along the four routes were
abstract designs, each of which ended in a circle. The face was very
simply
rendered. It bore, he thought, the subtlest of smiles.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

spreading from the figure vaguely familiar from one of the letters he'd
read,.perhaps? He'd scanned thousands upon thousands in the last twenty
weeks, and many of them had carri ed little sketches, obscene some-
times,
often indecipherable. Those he'd judged the most interesting he'd
smuggled out of the Post Office, to study at night. They were bundled up
beneath the bed in his room. Perhaps he'd break the dream-code on the
medallion by- careful examination of those.
He decided to take lunch that day wi th the rest of the workers, figuring
it'd
be best to do as little as possible to irritate Homer any further. It was a
mistake. In the company of the  good ol' boys talking about news he'd
not
listened to in months, and the quality of last night's steak, and the fuck
they'd had, or failed to have, after the steak, and what the summer was
going to bring, he felt himself a tota l stranger. They knew it too. They
talked
with their backs half-turned to him,  dropping their voices at times to
whisper
about his weird look, his wild eyes. The more they shunned him the
more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

library of letters now. Without even wasting breath telling Homer, he did
just
that.
It was a brilliant, sunny day. He drew the curtains against the invasion of
light, turned on the lamp with the yellow shade, and there, in a jaundiced
fever, began his study, taping the letters with any trace of illustration to
the
bare walls, and when the walls were  full spreading them on the table,
bed,
chair and floor. Then he went from sheet to sheet, sign to sign, looking
for
anything that even faintly resembled the medallion in his hand. And as
he 
went, the same thought kept creeping back into his head: that he knew
there was an Art, but no Artist, a practice but no practitioner, and that
maybe he was that man.
The thought didn't have to creep for long. Within an hour of perusing the
letters it had pride of place in his skull. The medallion hadn't fallen into
his
hands by accident. It had come to him as a reward for his patient study,
and as a way to draw together the threads of his investigation and finally

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they'd all comprehended some part of the jigsaw, and their observations
about the part they had, whether haiku, dirty talk or alchemical formulas,
gave him a better grasp of the syst em behind the symbols..A term that
had cropped up regularly in the most perceptive of the letters
was the Shoal. He'd passed over it several times in his reading, and
never
thought much about it. There was a good deal of evolutionary talk in the
letters, and he'd assumed the term to be a part of that. Now he under-
stood
his error. The Shoal was a cult, or a church of some kind, and its symbol
was the object he held in the palm of  his hand. What it and the Art had
to 
do with each other was by no means clear, but his long-held suspicion
that
this was one mystery, one journey, was here confirmed, and he knew
that
with the medallion as a map he'd find his way from Shoal to Art eventu-
ally.
In the meantime there was a more urgent concern. When he thought
back
to the tribe of co-workers, with Homer at its head, he shuddered to think

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that
might put Homer on the right track. The medallion he'd keep, of course:
he'd been entrusted with it by higher powers, those faces he'd one day
get
to see. He'd also keep the twenty of  thirty letters that had proffered the
best
information on the Shoal; the rest (three hundred or so) had to be
burned.
As to the collection in the Dead Letter Room, they had to go into the
furnace too. All of them. It would take time, but it had to be done, and
the
sooner the better. He made a selection of the letters in his room, par-
celled
up those he didn't need to keep, and headed off back to the Sorting Of-
fice.
It was late afternoon now, and he travelled against the flow of human
traffic, entering the Office by the back door to avoid Homer, though he
knew the man's routine well enough to suspect he'd punched out at five-
thirty
to the second, and was already guzzling beer somewhere. The
furnace was a sweaty rattling antique, tended by another sweaty rattling

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

chair
under a bare bulb, going through the piles around him.
"So what's the scam?" he said as soon as Jaffe stepped through the
door.
It was useless trying to pretend innocence, Jaffe knew. His months of
study had carved knowledge into his face. He couldn't pass for a naďf
any
longer. Nor—now that it came to it—did he want to.
"No scam," he said to Homer, making his contempt for the man's puer-
ile.suspicions plain. "I'm not taking anything you'd want. Or could use."
"I'll be the judge of that, asshole," Homer said, throwing the letters he
was
examining down among the rest of the litter. "I want to know what you've
been up to down here. 'Sides jerking off."
Jaffe closed the door. He'd never r ealized it before, but the reverbera-
tions
of the furnace carried through the walls into the room. Everything here
trembled minutely. The sacks, the envelopes, the words on the pages
tucked inside. And the chair on which Homer was sitting. And the knife,
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nobody was going to find him. Nobody was going to blame him, or
judge
him, or put him on Death Row. He was his own law now.
"I should explain..." he said to Homer, finding a tone that was almost
flippant, "...what the scam really is."
"Yeah," Homer said, his lip curling. "Why don't you do that?"
"Well it's real simple..."
He started to walk towards Homer, and the chair, and the knife beside
the
chair. The speed of his approach made Homer nervous, but he kept his
seat.
"...I've found a secret," Jaffe went on.
"Huh?"
"You want to know what it is?"
Now Homer stood up, his gaze trembling the way everything else was.
Everything except Jaffe. All the tr emors had gone out of his hands, his
guts
and his head. He was steady in an unsteady world.
"I don't know what the fuck you're doing," Homer said. But I don't like it."
"I don't blame you," Jaffe said. He didn't have his eyes on the knife. He

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is that right?"
"Damn right."
Homer made a nervous little grin. He threw a glance towards the door.
"You want to go?" Jaffe said.
"Yeah." He looked at his watch, not seeing it. "Got to run. Only
came.down here—"
"You're afraid of me," Jaffe said. "And you should be. I'm not the man I
was."
"Is that right?"
"You said that already."
Again, Homer looked towards the doo r. It was five paces away; four if
he 
ran. He'd covered half the distance when Jaffe picked up the knife. He
had
the door handle clasped when he heard the man approaching behind
him.
He glanced round, and the knife came straight at his eye. It wasn't an
accidental stab. It was synchronicity. His eye glinted, the knife glinted.
Glints collided, and the next moment he was screaming as he fell back
against the door, Randolph following him to claim the letter-opener from
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He reached for the handle of the knife, and clenched it. Never before in
his
life had he shed blood; not even squash ed a bug, at least intentionally.
But
now his fist on the hot wet handle seemed wonderful. A prophecy; a
proof.
Grinning, he pulled the knife out of Homer's socket, and before his vic-
tim
could slide down the door stuck it into Homer's throat to the hilt. This
time
he didn't let it lie. He pulled it out as soon as he'd stopped Homer's
screams, and he stabbed the middl e of the man's chest. There was
bone
there, and he had to drive hard,  but he was suddenly very strong.
Homer
gagged, and blood came out of his mouth, and from the wound in his
throat. Jaffe pulled the knife out. He didn't stab again. Instead he wiped
the
blade on his handkerchief and turned  from the body to think about his
next
move. If he tried to lug the sacks of mail to the furnace he risked being

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

out, and went over to the satchels.
Sadness surprised him as he prepared to put a flame to the dead let-
ters.
He'd spent so many weeks here, lost in a kind of delirium, drunk with
mysteries. This was good-bye to all that. After this—Homer dead, the
letters burnt—he was a fugitive, a man without a history, beckoned by
an 
Art he knew nothing about, but which he wished more than anything to
practice.
He began to screw up a few of the pages, to provide some initial fodder
for.the flame. Once begun, he didn't doubt that the fire would sustain itself:
there was nothing in the room— paper, fabric, flesh—that wasn't
combustible. With three heaps of paper made, he struck a match. The
flame was bright, and looking at it he realized how much he hated
brightness. The dark was so much more interesting; full of secrets, full
of 
threats. He put the flame to the piles of paper and watched while the
fires
gained strength. Then he repeated to the door.
Homer was slumped against it, of course, bleeding from three places,
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fanned the flames.
It was only when he was clearing out his room of any sign of himself—
eradicating every trace of Randolph  Ernest Jaffe—that he regretted do-
ing
what he'd done. Not the burning—that had been altogether wise—but
leaving Homer's body in the room to be consumed along with the dead
letters. He should have taken a more elaborate revenge, he realized. He
should have hacked the body into pieces, packaged it up, tongue, eyes,
testicles, guts, skin, skull, divided piece from piece—and sent the pieces
out into the system with scrawled  addresses that made no real sense,
so 
that chance (or synchronicity) wa s allowed to elect the doorstep on
which
Homer's flesh would land. The mailman mailed. He promised himself
not to
miss such ironic possibilities in the future.
The task of clearing his room didn't take long; He had very few
belongings, and most of what he had meant little to him. When it came
down to basics, he barely existed.  He was the sum of a few dollars, a
few

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JAFFE had lived a small life. Born within fifty miles of Omaha, he'd been
educated there, he'd buried his parents there, he'd courted and failed to
persuade to the altar two women of that city. He'd left the state a few
times, and even thought (after the second of his failed courtships) of
retreating to Orlando, where his sister lived, but she'd persuaded him
against it, saying he wouldn't get on with the people, or the incessant
sun.
So he'd stayed in Omaha, losing jobs and getting others, never commit-
ting
himself to anything or anybody for very long, and in turn not being
committed to.
But in the solitary confinement of the Dead Letter Room he'd had a taste
of horizons he'd never known exist ed, and it had given him an appetite
for
the open road. When there'd only been sun, suburbs and Mickey Mouse
out there he'd not given a damn. Why bother to go looking for such
banalities? But now he knew better. There were mysteries to be un-
veiled,
and powers to be seized, and when he was King of the World he'd pull
down the suburbs (and the sun if he could) and make the world over in a

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the writers had spoken of  crossroads they hadn't meant one
highway
intersecting with another. They'd meant places where states of being
crossed, where the human system met the alien, and both moved on,
changed. In the flow and flurry of such places there was hope of finding
revelation.
He had very little money, of course, but that didn't seem to matter. In the
weeks that followed his escape from the scene of his crime, all that he
wanted simply came to him. He h ad only to stick out his thumb and a
car
squealed to a halt. When a driver asked him where he was headed, and
he 
said he was headed as far as he, Jaffe, wanted to go, that was exactly
as 
far as the driver took him. It was  as if he was blessed. When he stum-
bled,
there was someone to pick him up. When he got hungry, there was
someone to feed him.
It was a woman in Illinois, who'd given him a lift then asked him if he
wanted to stay the night with her, who confirmed his blessedness.
"You've seen something extraordinary, haven't you?" she whispered to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every now and then, moving from state to state, he got a glimpse of
what
the letters had schooled him in. He saw the secrets peeping out, only
daring to show themselves because he was passing through and they
knew
him as a coming man of power. In Kentucky he chanced to witness the
corpse of an adolescent being hauled from a river, the body left
sprawled
on the grass, arms spread, fingers spread, while a woman howled and
sobbed beside it. The boy's eyes were open; so were the buttons of his
trousers. Watching from a short distance, the only witness not to be
ordered away by the cops (the eyes , again) he took a moment to savor
the
way the boy was arrayed, like t he figure on the medallion, and half
wanted
to throw himself into the river just  for the thrill of drowning. In Idaho, he
met
a man who'd lost an arm in an automobile accident and while they sat
and
drank together he explained that he  still had feeling in the lost limb,
which

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that his attention ss drawn to the fact it seemed he could.
"How'd you learn to do that?"
"I didn't."
"Astral eyes, maybe."
"Maybe."
"You want me to suck your cock again?"
"No."
He was gathering up experiences,  one of each, passing through peo-
ple's
lives and out the other side leaving them obsessed or dead or weeping.
He
indulged his every whim, going wherever instinct pointed, the secret life
coming to find him the moment he arrived in town.
There was no sign of pursuit from the forces of law. Perhaps Homer's
body had never been found in the gutted  building, or if it had the police
had
assumed he was simply a victim of  the fire. For whatever reason, no-
body
came sniffing after him. He went  wherever he wanted and did whatever
he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

light-headedness. Starved of sustenance, and whipped up by vodka, his
thoughts ran riot, devouring themselves and shitting each other out,
barbaric and baroque by turns. The  roaches came out in the darkness,
and
ran over his body as he lay on the floor. He let them come and go,
pouring
vodka on his groin when they got too busy there, and made him hard,
which was a distraction. He wanted only to think. To float and think.
He'd had all he needed of the physical; felt hot and cold, sexy and sex-
less;
fucked and fucker. He wanted none of that again: at least not as
Randolph
Jaffe. There was another way to be, another place to feel from, where
sex
and murder and grief and hunger and all of it might be interesting again,
but
that would not be until he'd got bey ond his present condition; become
an 
Artist; remade the world.
Just before dawn, with even the roaches sluggish, he felt the invitation.
A great calm was in him. His heart was slow and steady. His bladder

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

kept tugging as the cold night li fted and the sun began to rise. He'd
come
barefoot. His feet bled, but his body wa sn't of great interest to him, and
he 
kept the discomfort at bay with furt her helpings of vodka. By noon, the
last
of the drink gone, he was in the middle of the desert, just walking in the
direction he was called, barely aware of one foot moving ahead of the
other. There were no thoughts in his head now, except the Art and its
getting, and even that ambition came and went.
So, finally, did the desert itself. Somewhere towards evening, he came
to 
a place where even the simplest facts—the ground beneath him, the
darkening sky above his head—were in doubt. He wasn't even sure if he
was walking. The absence of everythi ng was pleasant, but it didn't last.
The
summons must have pulled him on wit hout his even being aware of its
call,
because the night he'd left became a sudden day, and he found himself
standing—alive, again; Randolph Ernest Jaffe again—in a desert barer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

last
vestiges of his strength left him, and he fell across its threshold..III
"You found your way through," he said, after a time. "I thought you were
going to die before you made it. A lot of people have. It takes real will."
"Through to where?" Jaffe managed to ask.
"We're in a Loop. A loop in time, encompassing a few minutes. I tied it,
as 
a refuge. It's the only place I'm safe."
"Who are you?"
"My name's Kissoon."
"Are you one of the Shoal?"
The face beyond the fire registered surprise.
"You know a great deal."
"No. Not really. Just bits and pieces."
"Very few people know about the Shoal."
"I know of several," said Jaffe.
"Really?" said Kissoon, his tone toughening. "I'd like their names."
"I had letters from them..." Jaffe said, but faltered when he realized he
no 
longer knew where he'd left them, those precious clues that had brought
him through so much hell and heaven.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes. I would."
"And in return for this education?"  Kissoon said. "What are you offer-
ing?"
"I don't have anything."
"Let me be the judge of that," Kissoon said, turning his eyes up to the
roof
of the hut as though he saw something in the smoke that roiled there.
"OK," Jaffe said. "Whatever I've got that you want. You can have it."
"That sounds fair."
"I need to know. I want the Art."
"Of course. Of course."
"I've had all the living I need," Jaffe said.
Kissoon's eyes came back to rest on him.
The door was closed when he came round, but his mind wide open. On
the other side of a guttering fire sat an old man with doleful, slightly stu-
pid
features, like those of a clown who'd worn and wiped off fifty years of
makeup, his pores enlarged and greasy, his hair, what was left of it, long
and gray. He was sitting cross-legged. Occasionally, while Jaffe worked
up

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Have you ever been in love?" Kissoon replied.
"Yes. I think so."
"Then you've been to Quiddity twice. Once the first night you slept out of
the womb. The second occasion the night you lay beside that woman
you
loved. Or man, was it?" He laughed. "Whichever."
"Quiddity is the sea."
"Quiddity is the sea. And in it are islands, called the Ephemeris."
"I want to go there," Jaffe breathed.
"You will. One more time, you will."
"When?"
"The last night of your life. That's all we ever get. Three dips in the
dream-sea.
Any less, and we'd be insane. Any more—"
"And?"
"And we wouldn't be human."
"And the Art?"
"Ah, well...opinions differ about that."
"Do you have it?"
"Have it?"
"This Art. Do you have it? Can you do it? Can you teach me?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm not going to leave empty-handed, Kissoon. If I get the Art I can en-
ter
Quiddity, right? That's the way it works."
"Where'd you get your information?"
"Isn't it?"
"Yes. And I say again: where'd you get your information?"
"I can put the clues together. I'm still doing it." He grinned as the pieces
fitted in his head. "Quiddity's somehow behind the world, isn't it? And
the
Art lets you step through, so y ou can be there any time you like.  The
Finger
in the Pie."."Huh?"
"That's what somebody called it. The Finger in the Pie."
"Why stop with a finger?" Kissoon remarked.
"Right! Why not my whole fucking arm?"
Kissoon's expression was almost admiring. "What a pity," he said, "you
couldn't be more evolved. Then maybe I could have shared all this with
you."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you're too much of an ape. I couldn't give you the secrets in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What?"
"That's all you've got to bargain with. Do you want to give me that?"
The reply flummoxed Jaffe.
"You want sex?" he said.
"Christ, no."
"What then? I don't understand."
"The flesh and blood. The vessel. I want to occupy your body."
Jaffe watched Kissoon watching him.
"Well?" the old man said.
"You can't just climb into my skin," Jaffe said.
"Oh but I can, as soon as it's vacated."
"I don't believe you."
"Jaffe, you of all people should never say I don't believe. The
extraordinary's the norm. There are loops in time. We're in one now.
There
are armies in our minds, waiting to  march. And suns in our groins and
cunts
in the sky. Suits being wrought in every state—"
"Suits?"
"Petitions! Conjurations! Magic, magic! It's everywhere. And you're right,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

while. And the flesh and blood's yours again."
"Why do you even want my body?" Jaffe said. "It's utterly fucked up."
"That's my business," Kissoon replied.."I need to know."
"And I choose not to tell you. If y ou want the Art then you damn well do
as 
I say. You've got no choice."
The old man's manner—his arrogant little smile, his shrugs, the way he
half closed his lids as though using all his gaze on his guest would be a
waste of eyesight—all of this made  Jaffe think of Homer. They could
have
been two halves of a double-act; the lumpen boor and the wily old goat.
When he thought of Homer he inevit ably thought of the knife in his
pocket.
How many times would he need to slice Kissoon's stringy carcass be-
fore
the agonies made him speak? Would he have to take off the old man's
fingers, joint by joint? If so, he was ready. Maybe cut off his ears. Per-
haps
scoop out his eyes. Whatever it took, he'd do. It was too late now for
squeamishness, much too late.
He slid his hand into his pocket, and around the knife.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I said you were an ape."
"Yeah, you did."
"I insulted the ape."
Jaffe's hold on the knife tightened. He started to get to his feet.
"Don't you dare," Kissoon said.
"Red rag to a bull," Jaffe said, his head spinning from the effort of rising,
"—saying dare to me. I've seen stuff...done stuff..." He started to take
the
knife out of his pocket
"...I'm not afraid of you."
Kissoon's eyes stopped their speed-reading and settled on the blade.
There was no surprise on his face, the way there'd been on Homer's;
but
there was fear. A small thrill of pleasure coursed through Jaffe, seeing
that
expression.
Kissoon began to get to his feet. He was a good deal shorter than Jaffe,
almost stunted, and every angle slightly askew, as though all his bones
and
joints had once been bro-ken and reset in haste.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

up.meat. I know the business."
Kissoon was very frightened now. He'd backed against the wall of the
hut,
his arms spread out to either side  of him for support, looking, Jaffe
thought,
like a silent-movie heroine. His ey es weren't half-open now, but huge
and
wet. So was his mouth, huge and wet. He couldn't even bring himself to
make threats; he just shook.
Jaffe reached out and put his hand around the man's tui-key throat. He
gripped hard, fingers and thumb digging into the sinew. Then he brought
his other hand, bearing the blunt knife, up to the corner of Kissoon's left
eye. The old man's breath smelled like a sick man's fart. Jaffe didn't
want to
inhale it, but he had no choice, and the moment he did he realized he'd
been fucked. The breath was more than sour air. There was something
else in it, being expelled from Kissoon's body and snaking its way into
him—or at least attempting to. Jaffe took his hand from the scrawn of
the
neck, and stepped away.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I felt the breath!" Jaffe yelled, slamming his fist against his chest.
"You're
trying to get inside me!"
"No," Kissoon protested.
"Don't fucking lie to me. I felt it!"
He still could. A weight in his lungs where there'd not been weight be-
fore.
He backed towards the door, knowing that if he stayed the fucker would
have the better of him.
"Don't leave," Kissoon said. "Don't open the door."
"There's other ways to the Art," Jaffe said.
"No," Kissoon said. "Only me. The rest are dead There's nobody can
help
you but me."
He tried that little smile of his, bowing his wretched body, but the humil-
ity 
was as much a sham as the fear had been. All tricks to keep his victim
near, so as to have his flesh and blood. Jaffe wasn't buying the routine a
second time. He tried to block out Kissoon's seductions with memories.
Pleasures taken, that he'd take again if he could only get out of this trap
alive. The woman in Illinois, the one-armed man in Idaho, the caress of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

could take it with you. Out there.  Back into the world. Arm in the pie!
Only
stay. Stay, Jaffe. I've been alone here a long time. I need company.
Someone to explain it all to. Share it with."
Jaffe turned the handle. As he did so he felt the earth beneath his feet
shudder, and a brightness seemed  to appear momentarily beyond the
door.
It seemed too livid to be mere daylight, but it must have been, because
there was only sun awaiting him on the step outside.
"Don't leave me!" he heard Kissoon yelling, and with the yell felt the man
clutching at his innards the way he  had bringing him here. But the hold
was
nowhere near as strong as it had bee n. Either Kissoon had burned up
too
much of his energy in attempting to breathe his spirit into Jaffe, or his
fury
was weakening him. Whichever, the hol d was resist-able, and the far-
ther
Jaffe ran the weaker it became.
A hundred yards from the hut he glanced back, and thought he saw a
patch of darkness moving across the ground towards him, like dark rope

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

staggering through on his way here, its street empty not only of people
and
vehicles but of any distinguishing ma rks whatsoever, like a film-set yet
to 
be dressed for shooting.
Half a mile beyond it an agitation in the air signalled that he had reached
the perimeters of the Loop. He braved its confusions willingly, passing
through a place of sickening disorientation in which he was not certain
he 
was even walking, and suddenly he was out the other side, and back in
a 
calm, starlit night.
Forty-eight hours later, drunk in an alleyway in Santa Fe, he made two
momentous decisions. One, that he'd keep the beard he'd grown in the
last
few weeks, as a reminder of his  search. Two, that every wit he pos-
sessed,
every hint of knowledge he'd gained  about the occult life of America,
every
iota of power his astral eyes lent him, would go to the possessing of the
Art

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in his search. It was two months before his enquiries threw up the name
and reputation of a man perfectly su ited to that role. That man was
Richard
Wesley Fletcher, who'd been—until  his recent fall from grace—one of
the
most lauded and revolutionary minds in the field of evolutionary studies;
the
head of several research programs in Boston and Washington; a theo-
rist
whose every remark was scrutinized by his peers for clues to his next
breakthrough. But his genius had be en flawed by addiction. Mescaline
and
its derivatives had brought him low,  much to the satisfaction of many of
his
colleagues, who made no bones about their contempt for the man once
his
guilty secret came out. In article after article Jaffe found the same smug
tone, as the academic community rounded on the deposed Wunderkind,
condemning his theories as ludicrous and his morals as reprehensible.
Jaffe couldn't have cared less about Fletcher's moral standing. It was
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

on the brink of complete mental breakdown. Jaffe was cautious. He did-
n't 
press his suit at first, but instead in gratiated himself by supplying drugs
of a
quality Fletcher had long since been too poor to afford. Only when he'd
gained the addict's trust did he begin to make oblique reference to
Fletcher's studies. Fletcher was less than lucid on the subject at first,
but
Jaffe gently fanned the embers of hi s obsession, and in time the fire
flared.
Once burning, Fletcher had much to tell. He believed he'd twice come
close to isolating what he called the  Nuncio, the messenger. But the fi-
nal
processes had always eluded him. Jaffe offered a few observations of
his
own on the subject, garnered from his readings in the occult. The two of
them, he gently suggested, were fellow seekers. Though he, Jaffe, used
the vocabulary of the ancients—of alchemists and magicians—and
Fletcher the language of science, they had the same desire to nudge
evolution's elbow; to advance the flesh, and perhaps the spirit, by artifi-
cial

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

would
reappear from the wilderness and put his vilifiers to flight. It was an offer
no 
obsessive could have resisted.
Eleven months later, Richard Wesley Fletcher stood on a granite head-
land
on the Pacific Coast of the Baja and cursed himself for succumbing to
Jaffe's temptations. Behind him, in the Mision de Santa Catrina where
he'd
labored for the best part of a year, the Great Work (as Jaffe liked to call
it) 
had been achieved. The Nuncio was a reality. There were surely few
less
likely places for labors most of the world would have judged ungodly
than
an abandoned Jesuit Mission, but then from the outset this endeavor
had
been shot through with paradox.
For one, the liaison between Jaffe and himself. For another, the
intermingling of disciplines that had made the Great Work possible. And
for

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But
if the change that he and Raul wrought on the evidence was thorough
enough it was his belief that nobody would easily reconstruct the
experiment he'd conducted here in the  wilds of Baja California. He and
the
boy (it was still difficult to think of Raul as a boy) had to be like perfect
thieves, rifling their own house to remove every last trace of themselves.
When they'd burned all the resear ch notes and trashed all the equip-
ment it
had to be as though the Nuncio had never been made. Only then could
he 
take the boy, who was still busy feeding the fires in front of the Mission,
to 
this cliff edge, so that hand in hand t hey could fling themselves off. The
fall
was steep, and the rocks below plenty sharp enough to kill them. The
tide
would wash their blood and bodies out into the Pacific. Then, between
fire
and water, the job would have been done.
None of which would prevent some future investigator from finding the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

would.not have been made, and how often did men of science sit down
with men
of magic (the suit-mongers, as Jaffe called them) and attempt a mingling
of 
crafts? It was good they didn't. There was too much dangerous stuff to
discover. The occultists whose codes Jaffe had broken knew more
about
the nature of things than Fletcher would ever have suspected. Beneath
their metaphors, their talk of the Bath of Rebirth, and of golden Progeny
begotten by fathers of lead, they were ambitious for the same solutions
he'd
sought all his life. Artificial ways  to advance the evolutionary urge: to
take
the human beyond itself. Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius,
they advised. Let the obscure be explained by the more obscure, the
unknown by the more unknown. They  knew whereof they wrote. Be-
tween
his science and theirs Fletcher had  solved the problem. Synthesized a
fluid
that would carry evolution's glad  tidings through any living system,
pressing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

clothes. After years of  going naked, he  was still unable to get used to
their
constrictions. And once again he used that damn word.
"I'm not your father," Fletcher reminded him. "I never was and never will
be. Can't you get that into your head?"
As ever, Raul listened. His eyes lacked whites, and were difficult to
read,
but his steady gaze never failed to mellow Fletcher.
"What do you want?" he said more softly.
"The fires," the boy replied.
"What about them?"
"The wind, father—" he began.
It had got up in the last few minutes, coming straight off the ocean.
When Fletcher followed Raul round to the front of the Mission, in the lee
of which they'd built the Nuncio's pyres, he found the notes being
scattered, many of them far from consumed.
"Damn you," Fletcher said, as much irritated by his own lack of
attention to the task as the boy's. "I told you: don't put too much paper
on at the same time."
He took hold of Raul's arm, which was covered in silky hair, as was his
entire body. There was a distinct smell of singeing, where the flames

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

calendar, day after day of pain and inspiration. Even if one or two of
them were to be found, and that was unlikely along such a barren
stretch of coast, nobody should be able to make any sense of them. It
was only his ob-sessiveness that made him want to wipe the slate
completely clean, and shouldn't he kn ow better, when that very obses-
siveness
had been one of the qualities that had brought this and
tragedy about?
The boy detached himself from around Fletcher and turned back to the
fires.
"No Raul..." he said, "...forget them...let them go..."
The boy chose not to hear; a trick he'd always had, even before the
changes the Nuncio's touch had brought about. How many times had
Fletcher summoned the ape Raul had been only to have the wretched
animal willfully ignore him? It was in no small measure that very perver-
sity
which had encouraged Fletcher to test the Great Work on him: a whis-
per of
the human in the simian which the Nuncio turned into a shout.
Raul wasn't making an attempt to collect the dispersed papers, how-
ever.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fletcher, could hear and smell nothing was simply a testament to the
decadence of his senses. Nor did he need to ask from which direction
their
visitor was coming. There was only one route up to the Mission. Forging
a 
single road through such inhospitable terrain, then up a steep hill, must
have taxed even the masochism of Je suits. They'd built one road, and
the
Mission, and then, perhaps failing to find God up here, vacated the
place. If
their ghosts ever drifted through,  they'd find a deity now, Fletcher
thought,
in three vials of blue fluid. So would the man coming up the hill. It could
only be Jaffe. Nobody else knew of their presence here.
"Damn him," Fletcher said. "Why now? Why now?"
It was a foolish question. Jaffe had chosen to come now because he
knew
his Great Work was being conspired against. He had a way of main-
taining
a presence in a place where he wasn't; a spying echo of himself.
Fletcher

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Both
were vital. First, the killing and di sposal of Raul, from whose trans-
formed
system an educated enquirer might glean the nature of the Nuncio.
Second, the destruction of the three vials inside the Mission.
It was there he returned now, through the chaos he had gladly wreaked
on 
the place. Raul followed, walking barefoot through the smashed
instrumentation and splintered furniture, to the inner sanctum. This was
the
only room that had not been invaded by the clutter of the Great Work. A
plain cell that boasted only a desk,  a chair, and an antiquated stereo.
The
chair was set in front of the window which overlooked the ocean. Here,
in 
the first days following Raul's successful transmutation, before the full
realization of the Nuncio's purpose and consequence had soiled
Fletcher's
triumph, man ind boy had sat, and watched the sky, and listened to Mo-
zart
together. All the mysteries, Fletcher had said, in one of his first lessons,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes."
"We should go outside," the boy said. "To the edge."
"No. There isn't time. I've...I've got some work to do before I join you."
"But you said together."
"I know."
"You promised together."
"Jesus, Raul! I said: I know! But it can't be helped. He's coming. And if
he 
takes you from me, alive or dead,  he'll use you. He'll cut you up. Find
out
how the Nuncio works in you."
His words were intended to scare, and they succeeded. Had let out a
sob,
his face knotted up with terror. He took a step backwards as Fletcher
raised
the gun.
"I'll be with you soon," Fletcher said. "I swear it. Just
as soon as I can."
"Please, father..."
"I'm not your father! Once and for all, I'm nobody's father!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to follow Raul. Better to use those minutes to dispose of the Nuncio.
There
was precious little of the stuff,  but enough to wreak evolutionary havoc
in 
any system that it tainted. He'd  plotted against it for days and nights
now,
working out the safest way to be rid of it. He knew it couldn't simply be
poured away. What might it do if it  got into the earth? His best hope,
he'd
decided—indeed his only hope—was to throw it into the Pacific. There
was
a pleasing neatness about that. The long climb to his species' present
rung
had begun in the ocean, and it was t here—in the myriad configurations
of 
certain marine animals—that he'd first observed the urge things had to
become something other than themselv es. Clues to which the three vi-
als of
Nuncio were the solution. Now he'd give that answer back to the ele-
ment

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

knew he was approaching, did it also know his intention? He had so little
idea of what he'd created. Perhaps it could read his mind.
He stopped in his tracks, still too much the man of science not to be
fascinated by this phenomenon. He'd  known the liquor was powerful,
but
that it possessed the talent for self-fermentation it was now displaying—
even a primitive propulsion, it seemed; it was climbing the walls of the
vials— astonished him. His convic tion faltered. Did he really have the
right
to put this miracle out of the world's sight? Was its appetite really so
unhealthy? All it wanted to do was speed the ascent of things. Make fur
of 
scales. Make flesh of fur. Make spirit, perhaps, of flesh. A pretty thought.
Then he remembered Randolph Jaffe, of Omaha, Nebraska, sometime
butcher and opener of Dead Letters; collector of other people's secrets.
Would such a man use the Nuncio well? In the hands of someone
sweet-natured
and loving, the Great Work might begin a universal papacy, every
living being in touch with the meaning of its Creation. But Jaffe wasn't
loving, nor sweet-natured. He was a thief of revelations, a magician who
didn't care to understand the principles of his craft, only to rise by it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

intention. It didn't simply desire escape. It wanted to work its wonders on
the very flesh that was plotting its harm.
It wanted to recreate its Creator.
The realization came too late to be acted upon. Before he could with-
draw
his outstretched hand, or shield himself, one of the vials shattered.
Fletcher
felt the glass cut his palm, and the Nuncio splash against him. He
staggered away from it, raising his hand in front of his face. There-were
several cuts there, but one particular ly large, in the middle of his palm,
for
all the world as though someone had driven a nail through it. The pain
made him giddy, but it lasted only a moment, giddiness and pain. Com-
ing
after was another sensation entirely. Not even sensation. That was too
trivial a description. It was like mainlining on Mozart; a music that by-
passed
the ears and went straight to the soul. Hearing it, he would never be the
same again..Randolph had seen the smoke rising from the fires outside
the Mission as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Work be accomplished so far from civilization, though it had required a
good deal of persuasion on his part to get equipped a laboratory of the
sophistication Fletcher had demanded in a setting so remote. But then
persuasion was easy nowadays. The trip into the Loop had stoked the
fires
in Jaffe's eyes. What the woman  in Illinois, whose name he'd never
known,
had said: You've seen something extraordinary, haven't you?  was true
now
as never before. He'd seen a place out of time, and himself in it, driven
beyond sanity by his hunger for t he Art. People knew all that though
they
could never have put words to the thought. They saw it in his look, and
either out of fear or awe simply did as he asked.
But Fletcher had been an exception to that rule from the outset. His
peccadilloes, and his desperation, had made him pliable, but the man
still
had a will of his own. Four times he'd refused Jaffe's offer to come out of
hiding and recommence his experiments, though Jaffe had reminded
him

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

known from first reading about Fletcher's radical theories that here was
the
way to cheat the system that stood between him and the Art. He didn't
doubt that the route to Quiddity was thronged with tests and trials, de-
signed
by high-minded gmws or lunatic shamans like Kissoon to keep what
they
judged lower-class minds from approaching the Holy of Holies. Nothing
new about that. But with Fletcher's help he could trip the gurus; get to
power over their backs. The Great Work would evolve him beyond the
condition of any of the self-elected  wise men, and the Art would sing in
his
fingers.
At first, having set up the laboratory to Fletcher's specifications, and
offered the man some thoughts on the problem he'd gleaned from the
Dead
V.Letters, Jaffe left the maestro alone, dispatching supplies (starfish,
sea
urchins; mescaline; an ape) as and wh en they were requested, but vis-
iting
only once a month. On each occasion he'd spent twenty-four hours with

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mismatched struggle. Fletcher was no fighter. His stooping,
undernourished body was that of a man who'd been bent at his studies
since adolescence. Beaten, he'd been  obliged to allow access. Inside,
Jaffe
had found the ape, transformed by Fl etcher's distillation, the Nuncio,
into an
ugly but undeniably human child. Even then, in the midst of this triumph,
there'd been hints of the breakdown which Jaffe couldn't doubt Fletcher
had finally succumbed to. The man had been uneasy about what they'd
achieved. But Jaffe had been too damned pleased to take the warning
signs seriously. He'd even suggested he try the Nuncio for himself,
there
and then. Fletcher had counselled against it; suggested several months
of 
further study to be undertaken before Jaffe risk such a step. The Nuncio
was still too volatile, he argued.  He wanted to examine the way it
worked
on the boy's system before any furthe r tests. Suppose it simply proved
fatal
to the child in a week? Or a day? That argument was enough to cool
Jaffe's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he 
cursed his trust. He stepped from the jeep and began to make his way
through the scattered fires towards the Mission. There had always been
an 
apocalyptic air about this spot. The earth so dry and sandy it could sus-
tain
little more than a few stunted yucca;  the Mission, perched so close to
the
cliff-edge that one winter the Pacifi c would inevitably claim it, the boo-
bies
and tropic birds making din overhead.
Today there were only words on the wing. The Mission's walls were
stained with smoke where fires had  been built close to them. The earth
was
dusted with ash, even less fertile than sand.
Nothing was as it had been.
He called Fletcher's name as he stepped through the open door, the
anxiety he'd felt coming up the hill now close to fear, not for himself but
for

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him what he asked for just to get Jaffe's eyes off them—destroyed; ta-
ble-tops
cleared with the sweep of an arm. The windows had all been thrown
open and the Pacific wind blew through the place, hot and salty. Jaffe
navigated the wreckage and made his way through to Fletcher's favorite
room, the cell he'd once (high on mescaline) called the plug in the hole
in 
his heart.
He was there, alive, sitting in his chair in front of the flung window, star-
ing
up at the sun: the very act that had blinded him in his right eye. He was
dressed in the same shabby shirt and overlarge trousers he always
wore;
his face presented the same pinched, unshaven profile; the pony-tail of
graying hair (his only concession to vanity), was in place. Even his
posture—hands at his lap, the body sagging—was one Jaffe had seen
innumerable times. And yet there was something subtly wrong with the
scene, enough to hold Jaffe at the door, refusing to step into the cell. It
was
as if Fletcher was  too much himself. This was too perfect an image of
him:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

detail. The rest of the room—the  walls, the window, even the chair on
which
Fletcher sat—swam out of focus, unable to compete with the too-
thorough
reality of this man.
Jaffe closed his eyes against the portrait. It overloaded his senses.
Made
him nauseous. In the darkness, he heard Fletcher's voice, as unmusical
as 
ever.
"Bad news," he said, very quietly.
"Why?" Jaffe said, not opening his eyes. Even with them closed he
knew
damn well the prodigy was speaking  to him without use of tongue or
lips.
"Just leave," Fletcher said. "And yes. "
"Yes what?"
"You're right. I don't need my throat any longer."
"I didn't say—"
"You don't need to, Jaffe. I'm in your head. It's in there, Jaffe. Worse
than I

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The feeling's mutual. But still...you should open your eyes. See the
miracle at work."
"What miracle?"
"Just look."
He did as Fletcher urged. The scene was exactly as it had been when
he'd
closed them. The wide window; the man sitting before it. The same ex-
actly.
"The Nuncio's in me," Fletcher announced in Jaffe's head. His face did-
n't 
move at all. Not a twitch of the lips. Not a flicker of an eyelash. Just the
same terrible finishedness.
"You mean you tested it on yourself?" Jaffe said. "After all you told me?"
"It changes everything, Jaffe. It's the whip to the back of the world."
"You took it! It was supposed to be me!"
"I didn't take it. It took me. It's got a life of its own, Jaffe. I wanted to
destroy it, but it wouldn't let me."
"Why destroy it in the first place? It's the Great Work."
"Because it doesn't operate the way I thought it would. It's not interested
in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, telepathy's in the future of the species," Jaffe replied. "No surprise
there. You've just accelerated t he process. Leap-frogged a few thou-
sand
years."
"Will I be sky?" Fletcher said again. "That's what I want to be."
"Then be it," Jaffe said. "I've got more ambition than that."
"Yes. Yes, you have, more's the pity. That was why I tried to keep it out
of 
your hands. Stop it using you. But  it distracted me. I saw the window
open
and I couldn't keep away. The Nuncio made me so dreamy. Made me
sit,
and wonder: will I...will I be sky?"
"It stopped you cheating me," Jaffe said. "It wants to be used, that's all."
"Mmmm."
"So where's the rest? You didn't take it all."
"No," Fletcher said. The power to  deceive had been sluiced from him.
"But
please, don't..."
"Where?" Jaffe said, advancing into  the room now. "You've got it on
you?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

red—breaking against him like a pollen storm.
In his head he heard the genius begin to laugh, not, Jaffe knew, at his
expense but at the sheer liberation of  shrugging off this skin of dulling
dust,
which had begun to gather upon him at  birth, accruing steadily until all
but
the brightest hints of brightness were stopped. Now, when the dust blew
away, Fletcher was still sitting in t he chair as he had been. But now he
was
incandescent.
"I am too bright?" he said. "I'm sorry."
He turned down his flame.
"I want this too!" Jaffe said. "I want it now."
"I know," Fletcher replied. "I can taste your need. Messy, Jaffe, messy.
You're dangerous. I don't think I ever really knew till now how dangerous
you are. I can see you inside out. Read your past." He stopped for a
moment, then let out a long, pained moan. "You killed a man," he said.
"He deserved it."
"Stood in your way. And this other I'm seeing...Kis-soon is it? Did he die
too?"
"No."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing outside that doesn't begin  inside. Nothing real that isn't
dreamed
first. Me? I never wanted my body e xcept as a vehicle. Never really
wanted
anything at all, except to be sky. But you, Jaffe. You! Your mind's full of
shit. Think of that. Think what the Nuncio's going to magnify. I beg
you—"
The entreaty, breathed in his skull, made Jaffe halt a moment, and look
back at the portrait. It had risen from its chair, though by the expression
on 
Fletcher's face it was a torment to tear himself away from the view.
"I beg you," he said again. "Don't let it use you."
Fletcher extended a hand towards Jaffe's shoulder, but he retreated out
of 
touching range, stepping through into the laboratory. His eyes almost
instantly came to rest on the bench and the two vials left in the rack,
their
contents boiling up against the glass.
"Beautiful," Jaffe said, and stepped towards them, the Nuncio leaping
up.in the vials at his approach, like a  dog wanting to lick its master's face.
Its

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

reaching for the nearest of the vials. The Nuncio couldn't wait. It broke
the
glass, its contents jumping to meet his skin. His knowledge (and his ter-
ror)
were instantaneous, the Nuncio communicating its message on contact.
The moment Jaffe realized Fletcher was right was the same moment he
became powerless to correct the error.
The Nuncio had little or no interest in changing the order of his cells. If
that
happened it would only be as a consequence of a profounder alteration.
It 
viewed his anatomy as a cul-de-sac. What minor improvements it could
make in the system were beneath it s notice. It wasn't going to waste
time
sophisticating finger-joints or taking t he kinks out of the lower bowel. It
was
an evangelist not a beautician. Mi nd was its target. Mind which used
body
for its gratification, even when that gratification harmed the vehicle. Mind
which was the source of the hunger for transformation and its most ar-
dent

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

some,
perfecting work.
Its first act was to throw his memory into reverse, shooting him back
through his life from the moment it touched him, piercing each event un-
til 
he struck the waters of his mother's womb. He was granted a moment
of 
agonizing nostalgia for that place—it s calm, its safety—before his life
came
to drag him out again, and began the return journey, revisiting his little
life
in Omaha. From the beginning of his conscious life there'd been so
much
rage. Against the petty and the politic; against the achievers and the
seducers, the ones who made the girls and the grades. He felt it all over
again, but intensified: like a cancer cell getting fat in the flick of an eye,
distorting him. He saw his parent s fading away, and him unable to hold
on 
to them, or—when they'd gone—to mo urn them, but raged neverthe-
less,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

understanding why he'd been made—why anyone was made, when
everything was a cheat and a sham and went to nothing anyway.
Then, the room at the crossroads, filled with Dead Letters, and suddenly
his rage had echoes from coast to coast, wild, bewildered people like
him
stabbing at their confusion and hoping to see sense when it bled. Some
of 
them had. They'd tumbled mysteries, albeit fleetingly. And he had the
evidence. Signs and codes; the Medallion of the Shoal, falling into his
hands. A moment later he had his knife buried in Homer's head, and he
was away, with only a parcel of cl ues, on a trip that had taken him,
growing
more powerful with every step, to Los Alamos, and the Loop, and finally
to 
the Mision de Santa Catrina.
And still he didn't know why he'd been made, but he'd accrued enough
in 
his four decades for the Nuncio to give him a temporary answer. For
rage's
sake. For revenge's sake. For the having of power and the using of
power.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

came apart, like the portrait at the window. Jaffe howled as his dislo-
cated
spirit was claimed for the substance on the floor, drawn down into his
Nunciate anatomy.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the man who'd struck off his crust,
seeing Fletcher with new comprehension.
From the beginning they'd been an uneasy partnership, the fundamental
principles of which had confounded both. But now Jaffe saw the
mechanism clearly. Each was the other's nemesis. No two entities on
earth
were so perfectly opposed. Fletcher loving light as only a man in terror
of 
ignorance could; one eye gone from  looking at the sun's face. He was
no 
longer Randolph Jaffe, but the  Jaff, the one and only, in love with the
dark
where his rage had found its sustenance and its expression. The dark
where sleep came, and the trip to the dream-sea beyond sleep began.
Painful as the Nuncio's education had been, it was good to be reminded
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But in reaching this new self he had accidentally created a force that
would, if he didn't stop here and now, oppose him every step of the way.
He
got to his feet, not needing to hear a challenge from Fletcher's lips to
know
that the enmity between them was perfectly understood. He read the
revulsion in the flame that flared behind his enemy's eye. The genius
sauvage, the dope-fiend and Pollyanna Fletcher had been dissolved
and
reconstructed: joyless, dreamy and bright. Minutes ago he'd been ready
to 
sit by the window, longing to be sky, until longing or death did its work.
But
not now.
"I see the whole thing," he announced, choosing to use his voice-box
now
that they were equal and opposite. "You tempted me to raise you up, so
you could steal your way to revelation."
"And I will," the Jaff replied. "I'm halfway there already."
"Quiddity won't open to the likes of you."
"It'll have no choice," the Jaff replied. "I'm inevitable now." He raised his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You can try." A question came into the Jaff mind as he spoke, which
Fletcher had begun to answer before the other had even voiced it.
"Why did I touch your body? I don't know. It demanded I did. I kept try-
ing
to shout it down, but it called."
He paused, then said:
"Maybe opposites attract, even in our condition."
"Then the sooner you're dead, the better," the Jaff said, and reached to
tear out his enemy's throat.
In the darkness that was creeping ov er the Mission from the Pacific,
Raul
heard the first din of battle begin. He knew from echoes in his own Nun-
ciate
system that the distillation had been at work behind the walls. His father,
Fletcher, had gone out of his own life and into something new. So had
the
other man, the one he'd always di strusted, even when words like evil
were
just sounds from a human palate. He  understood them now; or at least
put

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

more sitting together by the window , listening to "the sublime Mozart"
and.watching the clouds change shape.
As the first stars appeared, the sounds from the Mission ceased. Raul
waited, hoping that Jaffe had been destroyed, but fearing his father had
gone too. After an hour in the cold  he decided to venture inside. Wher-
ever
they'd gone— Heaven or Hell—he couldn't follow. The best he could do
was put on his clothes, which he'd always despised wearing (they
chafed
and caged) but which were now a reminder of his master's tuition. He'd
wear them always, so as not to forget the Good Man Fletcher.
Reaching the door, he realized that the Mission had not been vacated.
Fletcher was still there. So was  his enemy. Both men still possessed
bodies
that resembled their former selves, but there was a change in them.
Shapes hovered over each: a huge-he aded infant, the color of smoke,
over
Jaffe; a cloud, with the sun somewhere in its cushion, over Fletcher. The
men had their hands at each other's  throats and eyes. Their subtle
bodies
were similarly intertwined. Perfectly matched, neither could gain victory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

himself a little way down the slope be fore the leeway side of the Mis-
sion—
walls which had been built to surv ive until the end of faith—shattered
before
an eruption of energy. He didn't cover his eyes against it. Instead he
watched, glimpsing the forms of Jaffe and the Good Man Fletcher, twin
powers locked together in the same wind, fly out from the center of the
blast over his head, and away into the night.
The force of the explosion had sc attered the bonfires. Hundreds of
smaller
fires now burned around the Mission. The roof had been almost entirely
blown off. The walls bore gaping wounds.
Lonely already, Raul limped back towards his only refuge..VI
Not only was the combat without precedent, but its nature developed as
the weeks went by. The combatants  had left the Mision de Santa Ca-
trina
with only a rudimentary understanding of their new condition and the
powers that went with it. They so on explored and learned to exploit
those
powers, however, as the necessity of conflict threw their invention into

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
lives barely longer than that of butterf lies. They soon lost their particu-
larity,
becoming smoky and vague. But gossamer as they were, they several
times carried the day against the Jaff and his legions, the terata, primal
fears which Randolph now had the power to call forth from his victims,
and
make solid for a time. The terata were no less fleeting than the battal-
ions
shaped against them. In that, as in everything else, the Jaff and Good
Man
Fletcher were equally matched.
So it proceeded, in feints and counterfeints, pincer movements and
sweeps, the intention of each army to  slaughter the leader of the other.
It 
was not a war the natural world took kindly to. Fears and fantasies were
not
supposed to take physical form. Their arena was the mind. Now they
were
solid, their combat raging across Arizona and Colorado, and into Kan-
sas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it went unreported, because it we nt unnoticed. Or rather its conse-
quences
(which were many, and often traumatic) seemed so unlike the effects of
battle they were consistently misinterpreted. But then this was a war
without precedent. Even the most cr ackpot prophets, the kind who an-
nually
predicted Armageddon, didn't know how to interpret the shaking of
America's entrails. They knew so mething of consequence was afoot,
and
had Jaffe still been in the Dead Letter Room in the Omaha Post Office
he 
would have discovered countless letters flying back and forth, filled with
theories and suppositions. None, however—even from correspondents
who'd known in some oblique fashion about the Shoal .and the Art—
came
close to the truth..thunderheads, came  late to their resting grounds, or
lost their way entirely
and perished. There was in every state a trail of stampedes and gorings,
the panicked response of animals who sensed the scale of the conflict
being waged to extinction around them. Stallions set their sights on cat-
tle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

where the armies, too equally matched for anything but a war of attrition,
fought each other to a complete st andstill. It was the end of the begin-
ning,
or near it. The sheer scale of the energies required by Good Man
Fletcher
and the Jaff to create and lead these armies (no warlords these, by any
stretch of the definition; they were merely men in hate with each other)
had
taken a terrible toll. Weakened to the point of near collapse they
punched
on like boxers who'd been battered into a stupor, but who fought be-
cause
they knew no other sport. Neither would be satisfied until the other was
dead.
On the night of July 16th the Jaff broke from the field of battle, shedding
the remnants of his army as he made a dash for the southwest. His
intended destination was the Baja . Knowing that the war against
Fletcher
could not be won under present condi tions, he wanted access to the
third
vial of the Nuncio, with which he might re-invest his much diminished

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by a passion for each other's destruction which had long ago escalated
beyond the issue of the Art and its possessing, and was now as devoted
and as intimate as love, they fought for five nights. Again, neither
triumphed. They beat and tore at each  other, dark matched with bright,
until
they were barely coherent. When t he Wind took them they lacked all
power
to resist it. What little strength  remained they used to prevent one an-
other
from making a break for the Missi on, and the sustenance there. The
Wind
carried them over the border into California, dropping them closer to the
earth with every mile they covered. South-southeast over Fresno, and
towards Bakersfield they travell ed, until— on Friday, July 27th, 1971,
their
powers so depleted they could no lo nger keep themselves aloft—they
fell in
Ventura County, on the wooded edge of a town called Palomo Grove,
during a minor electrical storm which brought not so much as a flicker to
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

enty-one.
Today she felt her age; that vital few months that separated her from
her closest friend, Joyce, and even  further from Carolyn and Trudi,
whose
mere seventeen was an age away for a mature woman like herself. She
had much to tell on the subject of  experience that day, as they saun-
tered
through the empty streets of Palomo Grove. It was good to be out on a
day
like this, without being ogled by the men in the town—they knew them
all by
name—whose wives had taken to sleeping in the spare room; or their
sexual banter being overheard by one of their mothers' friends. They
wandered, like Amazons in shorts, through a town taken by some invisi-
ble
fire which blistered the air and turned brick into mirage but did not kill. It
merely laid the inhabitants stricken beside their open fridges.
"Is it love?" Joyce asked Arleen.
The older girl had a swift answer.
"Hell no," she said. "You are so dumb sometimes."
"I just thought...with you talking about him that way."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
rainstorm that had broken over Ve ntura County, shedding more water
on 
the small town of Palomo Grove in  a single night than its inhabitants
might
have reasonably expected in a year. The downpour, however mon-
soonal,
had not mellowed the heat. With what Me wind there was coming off the
desert, the town baked in the high nineties. Children who'd exhausted
themselves playing in the heat through the morning wailed away the
afternoon indoors. Dogs cursed their coats; birds declined to make mu-
sic.
Old folks took to their beds. Adulterers did the same, dressed in sweat.
Those unfortunates with tasks to per-form that couldn't be delayed until
evening, when (God wiling) the temperature dropped, went about their
labors with their eyes to the shimme ring sidewalks, every step a trial,
every
breath sticky in their lungs.."So stop it with the names. We all know that
boys like you. And we all
know why."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

something?"
"Nope."
"Are you sulking?"
"Nope."
"Good," said Trudi. " 'Cause it's too hot to argue." The two girls headed
into Marvin's Food and Drug, leaving Arleen and Joyce on the street
corner.
"I'm sorry..." Joyce said.
"What about?"
"Asking you about Randy. I t hought maybe you...you know...maybe it
was
serious."
"There's no one in the Grove that's worth two cents," Arleen murmured.
"I 
can't wait to get out."
"Where will you go? Los Angeles?"
Arleen pulled her sunglasses down her nose and peered at Joyce.
"Why would I want to do that?" sh e said. "I've got more sense than to
join
the line there. No. I'm going to New York. It's better to study there. Then
work on Broadway. If they want me they can come and get me."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

possessor of a smile that brought the opposite sex to their knees. If that
weren't advantage enough she had a mother who'd been an actress,
and
already treated her daughter like a Star.
Joyce had no such blessings. No mother to pave the way, no glamour to
get her through the bad times. She couldn't even drink a Coke without
getting acne. Sensitive skin, Doctor  Briskman kept saying, you'll grow
out of
it. But the promised transformation was like the end of the world that the
Reverend talked about on a Sunday; delayed and delayed.
With my luck, Joyce thought, the day I lose my zits and get my tits is the
day the Reverend's right. I'll wake up perfect, open the curtains, and the
Grove will be gone. I'll never get to kiss Randy Krentzman.
There, of course, lay the real reason behind her close questioning
of.Arleen. Randy was in Joyce's every thought, or every other, though
she'd
only met him three times and spoken to him twice. She'd been with
Arleen
during the first encounter, and Randy had scarcely looked her way when
she was introduced, so she'd said nothing. The second occasion she'd
not

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

decided, had been a tactical error. Next time she'd use Arleen's ap-
proach,
and treat the boy as though his presence was barely endurable; never
look
at him; only smile if it was absolutely necessary. Then, when you were
about to saunter away look straight into his eyes, and purr something
vaguely dirty. The law of mixed messages. It worked for Arleen, why not
for
her? And now that the great beauty had publicly announced her
indifference to Joyce's idol she had some sliver of hope. If Arleen had
been
seriously interested in Randy's affections then Joyce might have gone
right
around to the Reverend Meuse and asked him if he could hurry the
Apocalypse up a little.
She took off her glasses and squinted up at the white hot sky, vaguely
wondering if it was already on its way. The day was strange.
"Shouldn't do that," Carolyn said, emerging from Mar-vin's Food and
Drug
with Trudi following, "the sun'll burn out your eyes."
"It will not."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

as boring as being at home. And we'll cook in the sun."
She looked roasted already. The heavie st of the four by twenty pounds
or 
more, and a redhead, the combination of her weight, and skin that never
tanned, should have driven her indoors. But she seemed indifferent to
the
discomfort, as she was to every other physical stimulus but that of taste.
The previous November the entire  Hotchkiss family had been involved
in a
freeway pile-up. Carolyn had crawled free of the wreckage, slightly
concussed, and had subsequently been found by the police some way
down the freeway, with half-chewed Hershey bars in both hands. There
was more chocolate on her face than blood, and she'd screamed
blue.murder—or so rumor went—when one of the cops attempted to dis-
suade
her from her snack. Only later wa s it discovered that she'd sustained
half a
dozen cracked ribs.
"So where?" said Trudi, returning to the burning issue of the day. "In this
heat: where?"
"We'll just walk," said Joyce. "Maybe down to the woods. It'll be cooler

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wealthy, less wealthy from poor. Palomo Grove, the population of which
was in that year, 1971, a mere one thousand two hundred, was no
exception. Built on the fl anks of a gently sloping hillside, the town had
been
designed as an embodiment of democratic principles, in which every
occupant was intended to have equal  access to the center of power in
the
town, the Mall. It lay at the bottom of  Sunrise Hill, known simply as the
Hill,
with four villages—Stillbrook, Deerdell, Laureltree and Windbluff—radi-
ating
from its hub, their feed thoroughfare s aligned with the compass points.
But
that was as far as the planners' idealism went. Thereafter the subtle
differences in the geography of the villages made each quite different in
character. Wind-bluff, which lay on the southwest flank of the hill,
commanded the best views, and its pr operties the highest prices. The
top
third of the Hill was dominated by  half a dozen grand residences, their
roofs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

downhill. Here the hous es lacked pools and ne eded paint. For some,
the
locale was a hip retreat. There were, even in 1971, a few artists living in
Deerdell; that community would ste adily grow. But if there was any-
where in
the Grove where people went in fear  for their automobiles' paintwork, it
was
here.
Between these two extremes, socially and geographically, lay Stillbrook
and Laureltree, the latter thought marginally more upscale because
several
of its streets were built  on the second flank of  the Hill, their scale and
their
prices less modest with every bend the streets took as they climbed.
None of the quartet were residents of Deerdell. Arleen lived on Emer-
son,
the second highest of t he Crescents, Joyce and Carolyn within a block
of 
each other on Steeple Chase Drive in Stillbrook Village, and Trudi in
Laureltree. So there was a certain  adventure in treading the streets of
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the heat still found its way between  the branches. Trapped, it made
the.damp air steamy.
"I haven't been here for years," Trudi said, whipping a switch of stripped
twig back and forth through a cloud of gnats. "I used to come with my
brother."
"How is he?" Joyce enquired.
"Still in the hospital. He's never going to come out. All the family knows
that but nobody ever says it. Makes me sick."
Sam Katz had been drafted and gone to Vietnam fit in mind and body. In
the third month of his tour of  duty all that had been undone by a land
mine,
which had killed two of his comrades and badly injured him. There'd
been a
squirmingly uneasy homecoming, the Grove's little mighty lined up to
greet
the crippled hero. What followed was much talk of heroism and sacrifice;
much drinking; some hidden tears. Through it all Sam Katz had sat
stony
featured, not setting his face against the celebrations but detached from
them, as though his mind were still  rehearsing the moment when his
youth

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wounds had healed adequately well. But his mind had not proved so
resilient. The detachment he'd evidenced at his homecoming party had
deepened into cata-tonia.
All the other girls had known Sam, though the age difference between
Joyce and her brother had been sufficient for them to have looked upon
him almost as another species. Not simply male, which was strange
enough, but old, too. Once past puberty, however, the roller-coaster ride
began to speed. They could see twenty-five up ahead: a little way yet,
but
visible. And the waste of Sam's lif e began to make sense to them the
way it
could never have made sense to an  eleven-year-old. Fond, sad memo-
ries
of him silenced them for a while. They walked on through the heat, their
bodies side by side, arms occasionally brushing arms, their minds
diverging. Trudi's thoughts were of those childhood games, played with
Sam in these thickets. He'd been an indulgent older brother, allowing
her to
tag along when she was seven or eight, and he thirteen. A year later,
when

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Carolyn, there were few hurts,  at least in her waking life. And to-
day—
barring her wishing she'd bought a second ice cream—none. Night
was.quite a different matter. She had bad dreams; of earthquakes. In them
Palomo Grove would fold up like a canvas chair and disappear into the
earth. That was the penalty for knowing too much, her father had told
her.
She'd inherited his fierce curiosity,  and had applied it— from first hear-
ing of
the San Andreas Fault—to a study of the earth they walked upon. Its
solidity could not be trusted. Beneat h their feet, she knew, the ground
was
riddled with fissures, which might at any moment gape, as they would
gape
beneath Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, all the way up and down the
West Coast, swallowing the lot. She kept her anxieties at bay with
swallowings of her own: a sort of  sympathetic magic. She was fat be-
cause
the earth's crust was thin; an irrefutable excuse for gluttony.
Arleen cast a glance over at the Fat Girl. It never hurt, her mother had

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they
were reminders of a life from wh ich she could not escape quickly
enough.
But how else was she going to spend the time till her parole came
through?
Even the joys of sitting in front of the mirror palled after a time. The
sooner
I'm out of here, she thought, the sooner I'm happy.
Had she been able to read Arleen's mind Joyce would have applauded
the
urgency. But she was lost in thoughts of how best to arrange an acci-
dental
encounter with Randy. If she made a casual enquiry about his routines
Arleen would guess her purpose,  and she might be selfish enough to
spike
Joyce's chances even though she had  no interest in the boy herself.
Joyce
was a fine reader of character, and knew it was quite within Arleen's
capabilities to be so perverse. But then who was she to condemn
perversity? She was pursuing a male who'd three times made his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Anyone we know?" Trudi said. Before Joyce could muster an ade-
quately
disparaging reply she caught sight of something glittering through the
trees
ahead.
"Water," she said.
Carolyn had seen it too. Its brightness made her squint.
"Lots of it," she said.."I didn't know there was a lake down here," Joyce
remarked, turning to
Trudi.
"There wasn't," came the reply. "Not that I remember."
"Well there is now," said Carolyn.
She was already forging ahead throug h the foliage, not caring to take
the
less thronged route. Her blundering passage cleared a way for the oth-
ers.
"Looks like we're going to get cool a fter all," Trudi said, and went after
her
at a run.
It was indeed a lake, maybe fifty feet wide, its placid surface broken by
half-submerged trees, and islands of shrubbery.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ise:
refreshingly cold. She crouched down, and put her hand in the lake,
bringing a palmful of it up to splash her face.
"I wouldn't do that," Carolyn cautioned. "It's probably full of chemicals."
"It's only rainwater," Trudi replied. "What's cleaner than that?"
Carolyn shrugged. "Please yourself," she said.
"I wonder how deep it is?" Joyce mused. "Deep enough to swim, do you
think?"
"Shouldn't have thought so," Carolyn commented.
"Don't know till we try," Trudi said, and began to wade out into the lake.
She could see grass and flowers b eneath her feet; drowned now. The
earth
itself was soft, and her steps stirred up clouds of mud, but she advanced
until she was in deep enough for the hem of her shorts to be soaked.
The water was cold. It brought gooseflesh. But that was preferable to
the
sweat that had stuck her blouse to  her breasts and spine. She looked
back
towards the shore.
"Feels great," she said. "I'm going in."
"Like that?" Arleen said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Anybody going to join me?" she asked as she stepped back among the
others.."I am," Joyce said, already unknotting her sneakers.
"I think we should keep our shoes on," Trudi said. "We don't know
what's
underfoot."
"It's only grass," said Joyce. She sat down and worked on the knots,
grinning. "This is great," she said.
Arleen was watching her whooping enthusiasm with disdain.
"You two not joining us?" Trudi said.
"No," Arleen said.
"Afraid your mascara'll run?" Joyce replied, her grin widening.
"Nobody's going to see," said Trudi, before a rift developed. "Carolyn?
What about you?"
The girl shrugged. "Can't swim," she said.
"It's not deep enough to swim in."
"You don't know that," Carolyn observed. "You only waded out a few
yards."
"So stay close to the shore. You'll be safe there."
"Maybe," Carolyn said, far from convinced.
"Trudi's right," Joyce said, sensing Carolyn's reluctance was as much to
do with uncovering her fat as with swimming. "Who's going to see us?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

which was their bedroom window; a feat of memory which he declined
to 
boast of to any of his schoolmates  for fear they spread it around.
Though
he could see nothing wrong with looking through windows he knew
enough
to know it was frowned upon. And yet he'd been born with eyes, hadn't
he?
Why shouldn't he use them? Where was the harm in watching? It wasn't
like stealing, or lying, or killing people. It was just doing what God had
created eyes to do, and he couldn't see what was criminal in that.
He crouched, hidden by trees, half a dozen yards from the edge of the
water, and twice that distance from the girls, watching them undress.
Arleen Farrell was hanging back, he saw, which frustrated him. To see
her
naked would be an achievement even  he'd not be able to keep to him-
self.
She was the most beautiful girl in Palomo Grove: sleek and blonde and
snooty, the way movie stars were supposed to be. The other two, Trudi
Katz and Joyce McGuire, were already in the water, so he turned his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nose
or hips. The other, the part he didn't like any of the words for, seemed to
him quite uninteresting: a patch of hair with a slit buried in the middle.
What
was the big deal about that?
He watched as Carolyn stepped into the water, only just suppressing a
giggle of pleasure when she responded to the cold water with a half step
backwards which set her flesh jiggling like jello.
"Come on! It's wonderful!" the Katz girl was coaxing her.
Plucking up her courage, Carolyn advanced a few more steps.
And now—William could scarcely be lieve his luck—Ar-leen was taking
off 
her hat and unbuttoning her halter top. She was joining them after all.
He
forgot the others and fixed his gaze on Miss Sleek. As soon as he'd
realized what the girls—whom he'd been following for an hour,
unsuspected— were planning to do,  his heart had started thumping so
hard
he thought he'd be ill. Now that thump redoubled, as the prospect of
Arleen's breasts came before him. Nothing—not even fear of death—
would

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dark
nipples like Joyce's. But the overall impression, when she stepped from
her
cut-off jeans and slid down her panties, was wonderful. It made him feel
almost panicky to see her. His teet h chattered like he had the flu. His
face
got hot, his innards seemed to rattle. Later in life William would tell his
analyst that this was the first moment he realized that he was going to
die.
In fact that was hindsight speaking.  Death was very far from his mind
now.
And yet the sight of Arleen's nakedness, and his invisibility as he wit-
nessed
it, did mark this moment as one which he would never quite outgrow.
Events were about to occur that would temporarily make him wish he'd
never come peeping (he'd live in fear of the memory, in fact), but when,
after several years, the terror mellowed, he returned to the image of
Arleen
Farrell stepping into the waters of this sudden lake, as to an icon.
It was not the moment that he first knew he was going to die; but it was
perhaps the first time he understood that ceasing would not be so bad, if

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that contrary to expectation the water was getting deeper all the time. It
must have gathered where the ground dipped naturally, she reasoned,
perhaps even in a place where there'd once been a small lake, though
she
could remember no such spot from her ramblings with Sam. The grass
had
now gone from beneath her toes, which brushed instead bare rock.
"Don't go too far," Joyce called to her.
She turned. The shore was further than she'd estimated, the glaze of
water in her eyes reducing her friends to three pink blurs, one blonde,
two
brunettes, half submerged in the same sweet-tasting element as she. It
would be impossible to keep this fragment of Eden to themselves
unfortunately. Arleen would be bound to talk about it. By evening the
secret
would be out. By tomorrow, thronged. They'd better make the most of
their
privacy. So thinking, she struck out for the middle of the lake.
Ten yards closer to shore, sculling along on her back in water no more
than navel-deep, Joyce watched Arleen at the lake's edge, stooping to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

possessed her so suddenly and so forcibly she lost her balance in the
water, and swallowed a mouthful as she tried to right herself. Once she
had, she turned her back on Arleen, and with a splashing stroke headed
into deeper waters.
Up ahead Trudi was shouting something to her.
"What did you say?" Joyce yelled back, subduing her stroke so as to
hear
better.
Trudi was laughing. "Warm!" she said, splashing around, "it's warm out
here!"
"Are you kidding?"
"Come and feel!" Trudi replied.
Joyce began to swim out to where Trudi was treading water, but her
friend
was already turning from her to follow the call-of the warmth. Joyce
could
not resist glancing back at Arleen. She had finally deigned to join the
swimming party, immersing herself till her long hair spread around her
neck
like a golden collar, then starting an even-paced stroke towards the
center

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

warmer,
but it was becoming more agitated, bubbling up around her like a Ja-
cuzzi.
Suddenly unnerved she tried to touch bottom, but the ground had gone
from beneath her. Mere yards behind her the water had been at most
four
and a half feet deep; now her toes didn't even graze solid earth. The
ground must have slid away violently, at almost the same spot that the
warm current had appeared. Taking courage from the fact that three
strokes would take her back to safety she ducked her head below the
water.
Though her eyes were bad at a distance her short-range sight was
good,
and the water was clear. She could s ee down the length of her body to
her
pedalling feet. Beyond them, solid darkness. The ground had simply
vanished. Shock made her gasp. S he breathed water in through her
nose.
Spluttering and flailing she threw her head up to snatch some air.
Joyce was yelling to her.
"Trudi? What's wrong? Trudi?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fish that were only just submerged. Some were breaking off and sliding
towards the other girls. He didn't dare cry out. If he did they'd know he'd
been spying on them. All he could do was watch with mounting trepida-
tion
as the events in the lake unfolded.
Joyce felt the warmth next. It ran over her skin and inside her too, like a
swallow of Christmas brandy, coati ng her innards. The sensation dis-
tracted
her from Trudi's splashing, and indeed from her own jeopardy. She
watched the darting water, and the  bubbles breaking the surface all
around
her, popping like lava, slow and thick, with an odd detachment. Even
when
she tried to touch bottom, and c ouldn't, the thought that she might
drown
was a casual one. There were more important feelings. One, that the air
breaking from the bubbles around her was the lake's breath, and
breathing
it was like kissing the lake. Two, that Arleen would be swimming this
way

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

echoes of their every motion back  and forth. Perhaps they would dis-
solve in
the water, their bodies become fluid,  until they mingled in the lake. She
and
Arleen, one mixture, released from any need for shame; beyond sex into
blissful singularity.
The possibility was too exquisite to be postponed a moment longer. She
threw her arms above her head and let herself sink. The spell of the
lake,
however, powerful as it was, couldn't  quite discipline the animal panic
that
rose in her as the water closed over her head. Without her willing it, her
body began to resist the pact she'd made with the water. She began to
struggle wildly, reaching up to the su rface as if to snatch a handhold of
air.
Both Arleen and Trudi saw Joyce go under. Arleen instantly went to her
aid, shouting as she swam. Her agitation was matched by the water
around
her. Bubbles rose on all sides. She  felt their passage, like hands brush-
ing
her belly, her breasts and between her legs. At their caress the same

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She
threw up her arms and let the waters take. her.
From the safety of the shallows Carolyn watched the behavior of her
friends, appalled. Seeing Joyce go under she'd assumed there was
something in the water, dragging her down. But the behavior of Arleen
and
Trudi gave the lie to that. She witnessed them plainly giving up. Nor was
this simple suicide. She'd been close enough to Arleen to observe a
look of
pleasure crossing that beautiful face before it sank. She'd even smiled!
Smiled, then let herself go.
These three girls were Carolyn's only friends in the world. She could not
simply watch them drown. Though  the water where they'd disappeared
was
becoming more frenzied by the moment she struck out for the place us-
ing
the only stroke she was faintly proficient in: an ungainly mixture of
doggy-paddle
and crawl. Natural laws, she knew, were on her side. Fat floated.
But that was little comfort as she saw the ground falling away beneath
her

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world went out like a pinched fl ame. Her senses deserted her. If
she
was still holding somebody's fingers she couldn't feel them. Nor, though
her
eyes were open, could she see anything in the murk. Vaguely, distantly,
she was aware that  her body was drowning; t hat her lungs were filling
with
water through her gaping mouth, her last breath leaving her. But her
mind
had forsaken its casing and was drifting away from the flesh it had been
hostage to. She saw that flesh now:  not with her physical eyes (they
were
still in her head, rolling wildly) but with her mind's sight. A barrel of fat,
rolling and pitching as it sank. She felt nothing for its demise, except
perhaps disgust at the rolls of blubber, and the absurd inelegance of her
distress. In the water beyond her body the other girls still resisted. Their
thrashings were also, she presumed, merely instinctual. Their minds,
like
hers, had probably floated out of their heads, and were watching the
spectacle with the same dispassion. True, their bodies were more at-
tractive

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it, but she felt it. A power—no, two powers—whose breaths were the
bubbles that had broken around them and whose arms the eddies that
beckoned them to be corpses. She looked back at her body, which still
struggled for air. Her legs were pedalling the water madly. Between
them,
her virgin cunt. Momentarily she felt a pang for pleasures that she'd
never
risked pursuing, and would never now have. Damn fool that she was, to
have valued pride over sensation.  Mere ego seemed a nonsense now.
She
should have asked for the act from every man who'd looked at her
twice,
and not been content till one had said yes. All that system of nerves and
tubes and eggs, going to death unused.  The waste of it was the only
thing
here that smacked of tragedy.
Her gaze returned to the darkness of the fissure. The twin forces she'd
sensed there were still approaching. She could see them now; vague
forms, like stains in the water. One  was bright; or at least brighter than
the
other. But that was the only distinction she could make. If either had

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

were now mercifully disconnected.  Let them have their bounty, she
thought.
It had been a burden, that body, and she was glad to be rid of it. The
rising.powers had no jurisdiction over  her thoughts; nor sought any. Flesh
was
their ambition; and they each wanted the entire quartet. Why else were
they
struggling with each other, stains  light and dark interwoven like a bar-
ber's
pole as they rose to snatch the bodies down?
She had assumed herself free prematur ely. As the first tendrils of min-
gled
spirit touched her foot the precious moments of liberation ceased. She
was
called back into her cranium, the door of her skull slamming behind her
with
a crack. Eyesight replaced mindsight; pain and panic, that sweet
detachment. She saw the warring spir its wrap themselves around her.
She
was a morsel, pulled back and forth between them as they each fought
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even as she relinquished the last bubble of breath from her throat, a
gleam of sunlight hit her eyes. C ould it be she was rising again? Had
they
dismissed her body as redundant to  their purpose, and let the fat float?
She
snatched the chance, however small it was, pushing up towards the
surface. A new shoal of bubbles rose  with her, that almost seemed to
bear
her up towards the air. It was closer by the instant. If she could hold on
to 
consciousness a heartbeat longer she might yet survive.
God loved her! She broke the surf ace face-first, puking water then
drinking
air. Her limbs were numb, but the very forces that had been so intent on
drowning her now kept her afloat. A fter three or four breaths she real-
ized
the others had also been released. They choked and splashed around
her.
Joyce was already maki ng towards the sh ore, pulling Trudi after her.
Arleen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in 
the middle of the lake was completely placid.
Before they'd reached the shore, hy steria took hold of Arleen. She be-
gan
to wail, and shudder. Nobody went to comfort her. They had barely
suEcient energy to advance one foot  in front of the other, never mind
waste
breath in trying to calm the girl. She overtook Trudi and Joyce to reach
the
grass first, dropping down on the ground where she'd left her clothes
and
attempting to drag on her blouse, her sobs redoubling as she struggled,
failing to find the armholes. A yard from the shore Trudi fell to her knees
and threw up. Carolyn trudged down-wi nd of her, knowing that if she
caught
a whiff of vomit she'd end up doing the same. It was a wasted maneu-
ver..The gagging sound was sufficient cue. She felt her stomach flip; then
she
was painting the grass in bile and ice cream.
Even now, though the scene he was watching had moved from the
erotic

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

other
than an accident had occurred in front of him? There was something
alive
in the lake. The fact that he'd seen only its consequences—the Sailings,
the
screams—rather than the thing itself, shook him to the gut. Nor would
he 
ever be able to quiz the girls as to their assailants' nature. He was alone
with what he'd seen.
For the first time in his life his self -elected role as voyeur weighed
heavily
upon him. He swore to himself he'd never spy on anyone again. It was
an 
oath he kept for a day before breaking.
As to this event, he'd had enough of it. All he could see of the girls now
were the outlines of their hips and bu ttocks as they lay in the grass. All
he 
could hear, with the vomiting over, was weeping.
As quietly as he could, he slipped away.
Joyce heard him go. She sat up in the grass.
"Somebody's watching us," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What in Christ's name happened?" she said. "I thought it was
just...flood
water."
It was Carolyn who supplied the answer, her voice without inflection, but
shaking.
"There are caves under the whole town," she said. "They must have
filled
with water during the storm. We sw am out over the mouth of one of
them."
"It was so dark," Trudi said. "Did you look down?"
"There was something else," Arleen said. "Besides the darkness.
Something in the water."
Joyce's sobs intensified in response to this.
"I didn't see anything," Carolyn said . "But I felt it." She looked at
Trudi.."We all felt the same, didn't we?"
"No," Trudi replied, shaking her head. "It was currents out of the caves."
"It tried to drown me," Arleen said.
"Just currents," Trudi reiterated. " It's happened to me before, at the
beach.
Undertow. Pulled the legs from under me."
"You don't believe that," Arleen ^said flatly. "Why bother to lie? We all

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not fishes. Nothing like fishes." She looked away from Trudi, down be-
tween
her legs. "I felt them touch me," she said, shuddering. "Touch me in-
side."
"Shut up!" Joyce suddenly erupted. "Don't say it."
"It's true, isn't it?" Arleen replied. "Isn 't it?"She looked up again. First at
Joyce, then at Carolyn; finally at Trudi, who nodded.
"Whatever's out there wanted us because we're women."
Joyce's sobs climbed to a fresh plateau.
"Keep quiet," Trudi snapped. "We've got to think about this."
"What's to think?" Carolyn said.
"What we're going to say for one thing," Trudi replied.
"We say we went swimming—" Carolyn began.
"Then what?"
"—we went swimming and—"
"Something attacked us? Tried to get inside us? Something not hu-
man?"
"Yes," said Carolyn. "It's the truth."
"Don't be so stupid," Trudi said. "They'll laugh at us."
"But it's still true, " Carolyn insisted.
"You think that makes any difference? They'll say we were idiots to go

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

anything everyone in town will talk about us. We'll never live it down. It'll
spoil the rest of our lives."
"Don't be such an actress," Trudi said. "We're none of us going to do
anything we don't all agree on. Right? Right, Joyce?" There was a sti-
fled.sob of acknowledgment from Joyce. "Carolyn?"
"I suppose so," came the reply.
"We just have to agree on a story."
"We say nothing," Arleen replied.
"Nothing?" said Joyce. "Look at us."
"Never explain. Never apologize," Trudi murmured.
"Huh?"
"It's what my daddy says all the time." The thought of this being a family
philosophy seemed to brighten her. "Never explain..."
"We heard," said Carolyn.
"So it's agreed," Arleen went on. She stood up, gathering the rest of her
clothes from the ground.
"We all keep quiet about it."
There was no further sound of argume nt from any source. Taking their
cue
from Arleen, they all proceeded to dress then headed back towards the
road, leaving the lake to its secrets and its silences..II

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

strange pleasure in the memory, which she didn't dare confess, even to
the
other three. In fact they spoke to each other scarcely at all. They didn't
need to. The same strange conviction  moved in all of them: that they
were,
in some extraordinary fashion, t he chosen. Only Trudi, who'd always
had a
love of the Messianic, would have put such a word to what she Felt. For
Arleen, the feeling was sim-ply a reinforcing of what she'd always known
about herself: that she was a uniquely glamorous creature, for whom the
rules by which the rest of the world was run did not apply. For Carolyn, it
meant a new confidence in herself which was a dim echo of that revela-
tion
she'd had when death had seemed imminent: that every hour without
appetites fulfilled was wasted. For Jo yce, the feeling was simpler still.
She
had been saved from death for Randy Krentzman.
She wasted no time in making her  passion known. The very day after
the
events at the lake she went directly to the Krentzman house in Stillbrook

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fragile.
Yes, she told him, you do know me. We've met several times before.
But I
don't care if you remember me or not. I love you and I want you to make
love to me. He went on staring at her through this speech, then said:
this is
some joke, right? To which she replied that it absolutely was not a joke,
that
she meant every word she said, and given that the day was warm and
the
house empty but for the two of them was there any time better than the
present?
Bewilderment had not undone the Krentzman libido. Though he didn't
understand why this girl was offering herself gratis, an opportunity like
this
came along too infrequently to be despised. Thus, attempting the tone
of 
one to whom such proposals come daily, he accepted. They spent the
afternoon together, performing the act not once but three times. She left
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
rest of life, past, future and present, it was a blur.
Early the next morning, having slept more deeply than she had for
years,
she called him up, and suggested a second liaison, that very afternoon.
Was I that good? he enquired. She told him he was better than good; he
was a bull; his dick the world's eighth wonder. He readily agreed, both to
the flattery and the liaison.
Of the quartet she turned out to be perhaps the luckiest in her choice of
mates. Vain and empty-headed though Krentzman was, he was also
harmless, and in his inept way, tender.  The urge that took Joyce to his
bed,
working with equal vigor upon Arleen, Trudi and Carolyn, drove the oth-
ers
into less conventional embraces.
Carolyn made overtures to one Edgar Lott, a man in his mid-fifties who
had moved down the street from he r parents' house the year before.
None
of the neighbors had become friendly with him. He was a loner; his only
company two dachshunds. These, the absence of female visitors, and
most

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him as he took the dachshunds for their morning constitutional she got
to 
talking with him, then asked—when  the dogs had marked their territory
for
the day—if maybe she could come home with him. Later, he would tell
her
that his intentions had been perfe ctly honorable, and if she hadn't
thrown
herself upon him, demanding his devotion on the kitchen table, he would
not have laid a finger on her. But with  the offer there, how could he ref-
use?
Mismatched in years and anatomy t hey nevertheless coupled with a
rare
fury, the dachshunds sent into a frenzy  of jealousy as they did so, yap-
ping
and chasing their tails till they exhausted themselves. After the first bout
he 
told her he hadn't touched a woman in the six years since his wife's
death,
which had driven him to alcohol. She too, he said, had been a substan-
tial

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

their
bodies to do, careless of the frills. Not for them the candlelit romance.
Day
in, day out she went visiting Mr. Lott, as she referred to him in her par-
ents'.company, only to have his face between her breasts seconds after the
door
was closed.
Edgar could hardly believe his luck. That she'd seduced him was
extraordinary enough (even in his y outh no woman had ever paid him
that
compliment); that she came back, and back again, unable to keep her
hands off him until the act was thoroughly performed, verged on the
miraculous. He was not surprised therefore when, after two weeks and
four
days, she stopped visiting. A little saddened, but not surprised. After a
week of her absence he saw her on the street and he asked her politely
if—
quote, unquote—we could resume our hanky-panky? She looked at him
strangely, then told him no. He hadn't sought an explanation, but she
offered one anyway. I don't need you any more, she told him lightly, and
tapped her stomach. Only later, sitting in his stale house with his third

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

unspoken dictate as the rest, took he r into the kind of company which
wore
their hearts not on their sleeves, but on their forearms, in Prussian blue
ink.
It had begun for her, as it had for Joyce, the day after their near-
drowning.
She'd dressed up in her finest clothe s, got in her mother's car, and
taken
herself off down to Eclipse Point, a small stretch of beach north of
Zuma,
notorious for its bars and its bikers. The occupants of the area were not
all 
that surprised to see a rich girl in their midst. Such types regularly drove
down from their fancy houses to taste  the low-life, or have the low-life
taste
them. A couple of hours was usually enough, before they beat a retreat,
back to where the closest they got to rough trade was the chauffeur.
In its time the Point had seen some famous faces come, incognito,
looking
to suck on its underbelly a while. Jimmy Dean had been a regular in his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

luxury's lap to the squalor of a bar she chose for no better reason than
its 
name: The Slick. Unlike many  who had preceded her, however, she
didn't
need a drink to give her an excuse  for licentiousness. She simply of-
fered
herself. There were any number of takers, among whom she made no
distinction whatsoever.  Nobody who came seeking failed to find..The
next night she came back for more, and for more the night after, her
eyes fixing on her paramours as though she were addicted to them. Not
all 
took advantage. Some, after that first night, viewed her warily, suspect-
ing
that such largesse was only offered by the mad or the diseased. Others
found a streak of gallantry in them  they'd not suspected, and tried to
coax
her up off the floor before the line had reached the runts of the pack. But
she protested loudly and ripely at any  such intervention; told them to
leave
her be. They withdrew. Some even joined the line again.
While Carolyn and Joyce were able to keep their affairs to themselves,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

crowd—
footballers, maybe, or hippies—then he might be obliged to give her
some
advice. Once out of the Grove she drove like one demented, and he had
to 
put his foot down just to keep a disc reet distance. A mile or two shy of
the
beach he lost her. It took him an hour of scouring the parking lots before
he 
found the car, parked outside The S lick. The bar's reputation had
reached
even his liberally plugged ears. He entered, fearing for his jacket and his
wallet. There was great commotion inside; a howling ring of men, beer-
gutted
animals with hair to the middle of their backs, gathered around some
floor show at the far end of the ba r. There was no sign of Arleen. Satis-
fied
that he'd made a mistake (she was probably simply walking the beach,
watching the surf) he was about to leave when somebody began chant-
ing
his princess's name.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this man; or rather, as her mother had looked that long ago when she'd
still
been capable of arousal. Thrashing and grinning, mad for the man on
top of
her. Lawrence yelled Arleen's name, and stepped forward to pull the
brute
from his labor. Somebody told him to wait his turn. He hit the man on the
jaw, a blow which sent the slob staggering back into the crowd, many of
whom were already unzipped and primed. The fellow spat out a wad of
blood, and launched himself at Lawrence, who complained as he was
beaten to his knees that this wa s his daughter, his daughter...my God,
his
daughter. He didn't give up his protests  till his mouth was no longer ca-
pable.of making the words. Even then he tried to crawl to where Arleen was
lying,
and slap her into recognition of what she was doing. But her admirers
simply dragged him out and dumped him on the edge of the highway.
There he lay for a while, until he could  muster the energy to get to his
feet.
He staggered back to the car, and waited several hours, crying some-
times,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing was said that day. She stay ed in her room, and played the ra-
dio,
while Lawrence spoke to his lawyer about closing down The Slick, to the
cops about bringing his assailants to justice, and his analyst about
where
he'd failed. That night she left again,  in the early evening, or at least
tried
to. He intercepted her in the driveway however, and the round of
recriminations postponed from the prev ious night erupted. All the time,
she
just stared at him, glassy-eyed.  Her indifference inflamed him. She
wouldn't
come inside when he asked her, nor would she tell why she was doing
what she was doing. His concern beca me fury, his voice rising in deci-
bels
and his vocabulary in venom until he was calling her a whore at the top
of 
his voice, and there were drapes being twitched aside all around the
Crescent. Eventually, blinded by tears of sheer incomprehension, he
struck

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

arrived Lawrence Farrell's princess was performing the same bump and
grind number she'd been performing nightly for over a week. It was a
story
not even Lawrence's crude attempts at bribery could keep out of the
newspapers. It became prime reading material up and down the coast.
Arleen was put into the hospital for a full medical check-up. She was
found
to have two sexually transmitted dise ases, plus an infestation of crabs,
and
was suffering the kind of wear and tear her exploits had been bound to
induce. But at least she wasn't pregnant. Lawrence and Kathleen Farrell
thanked the Lord for that small mercy.
The revelations about Arleen's forays to The Slick brought a severe
tightening of parental controls around the town. Even in the East Grove
there were noticeably fewer kids wandering the streets after dark. Illicit
romance became tough to come by.  Even Trudi, the last of the four,
would
soon be obliged to give up her partner, though she'd found a near-
perfect

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

technique, as he valiantly played the male for her. He was simply a
functionary. When he had completed his duties—and her body would
tell
her when that moment came—she  would not think of him again. At
least, so
she told herself.
As it was, the affairs they were all having (Trudi's included) were—
because of Arleen's indiscretions—quickly to become public knowledge.
Though she might have found it easy to forget her trysts with Ralph the
Silent, Palomo Grove would not..II
The newspaper reports about the scandalous secret life of small-town
beauty Arleen Farrell were as explicit as the legal departments of those
journals would permit, but the details had to be left for rumor to supply.
A 
small black market in what were claimed to be photographs of the orgy
proved lucrative, though the pictures were so dingy it was difficult to be
sure they were of the real thing.  The family itself—Lawrence, Kate, sis-
ter
Jocelyn and brother Craig—had a brighter light thrown upon them. Folks
living on the other side of the Grove  rerouted their shopping trips so as
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Arleen had been snatched back from the bikers' den an interview pur-
porting
to be with one of Arleen's nurses appeared in the Chronicle. It said that
the
Farrell girl spent most of her time in a sexual frenzy, her talk one ob-
scenity
after another, interrupted only by tears of frustration. This in itself was
newsworthy enough. But, the report went on, the patient's sickness went
beyond that of an overheated libido. Arleen Farrell believed herself
possessed.
The tale she told was elaborate, and bizarre. She, plus three of her
friends, had gone swimming in a lake close to Palomo Grove, and been
attacked by something that had entered them all. What this occupying
entity had demanded of Arleen, and—presumably—of her fellow bath-
ers,
was that she get herself with child  by whomever was available to pro-
vide
the service. Hence her adventures at  The Slick. The Devil in her womb
had
simply been looking for a surrogate father amid that rank company.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

name
Joyce, Carolyn or Trudi the quartet were known to be fast friends. There
could be no doubt in the minds of any who had a passing acquaintance
with Arleen whom she'd written into her Satanic fantasies.
It rapidly became apparent that the girls would have to be shielded from
the fallout following Arleen's preposterous claims. In the McGuire, Katz
and
Hotchkiss households the same exchange, give or take an endearment,
took place.
The parent asked: "Do you want to  leave the Grove for a while, until
the.worst of this blows over?" To wh ich the child replied; "No, I'm fine.
Never
better."
"Are you sure it's not upsetting you, sweetheart?"
"Do I look upset?"
"No."
"Then I'm not upset."
Such well-balanced children, the parents thought, to face the tragedy of
a 
friend's lunacy with this show of calm; aren't they a credit to us?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

with such fastidiousness. First, the parents noticed their offspring keep-
ing
odd hours: sleeping at noon, and  pacing at midnight. Food-fads ap-
peared.
Even Carolyn, who had never been known to refuse the edible, took a
near
pathological dislike to certain items:  seafood in particular. The girls' air
of 
serenity disappeared. It its place came moods that swung from the
monosyllabic to the garrulous, the glacial to the crazed. It was Betty
Katz
who first suggested her daughter see the family doctor. Trudi didn't ob-
ject.
Nor did she seem in the slightest surprised when Doctor Gottlieb
pronounced her healthy in every respect; and pregnant.
Carolyn's parents were the next to f ear that the mystery of their off-
spring's
behavior merited medical investigation. The news was the same, with
the
added rider that if their daughter intended to carry her child to full-term
then

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and Trudi, was in good health. She too was pregnant. The news called
for a
reassessment of Arleen Farrell's stor y. Was it possible that lurking be-
neath
her insane ramblings was a shred of truth?
The parents met, and talked together. Between them they beat out the
only scenario that made any sens e. There had clearly been a pact of
some
kind made between the girls. They'd decided—for some reason known
only
to them—to become pregnant. Three of them had succeeded. Arleen
had
failed, and it had pitched what had always been a highly strung girl into
the
throes of a nervous breakdown. The problems that now had to be
addressed were threefold. First, to locate the would-be fathers and then
prosecute them for their sexual opportunism. Second, to terminate the
pregnancies as quickly and safely as possible. Thirdly, to keep the
whole.business quiet so that the reputations of the three families would not
suffer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

be 
browbeaten into giving up what t hey'd wasted no little sweat procuring.
And
finally, in their attempts to keep the whole sorry business under wraps,
because scandal likes the light, and it only took one indiscreet doctor's
receptionist to begin the journalists sniffing after fresh evidence of
delinquency.
The story broke two days after t he parents' meeting, and Palomo
Grove—
which had been rocked by Arleen's disclosures, but not overturned—
sustained an almost mortal blow.
The Mad Girl's Tale had made interesting reading for the UFO sighting
and Cancer Cure crowd, but it was essentially a bust. These new
developments, however, touched a much more sensitive nerve. Here
were
four families whose solid, well-heeled lives had been shattered by a pact
made by their own daughters. Was there some kind of cult involved, the
press demanded to know? Was the anonymous father conceivably the
same man, a seducer of young women whose very namelessness left
endless room for speculation. And what of the Farrell child, who'd first

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

could
only get better from here.
As the pregnancies advanced the press could follow the progress. And
with luck there'd be some start ling payoff. The children would be all
triplets,
or black, or born dead.
Oh, the possibilities!.III
Nor did they seek each other out during this time. Their interest in each
other, and indeed in the outside world,  dwindled to zero. All they cared
to 
do was sit at home growing fuller, while controversy raged around them.
That too, despite its early promise, dwindled as the months went by, and
new scandals claimed the public's attention. But the damage to the
Grove's
equilibrium had been done. The League of Virgins had put the town on
the
Ventura County map in a fashion it would never have wished upon itself,
but, given the fact, was determined to profit by. The Grove had more
visitors that autumn than it had enjoyed since its creation, people
determined to be able to boast that they'd visited that place; Crazy-ville;
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

taken
for granted. These domestic frays cracked several families, and broke
some entirely. The alcohol intakes went up correspondingly; Marvin's
Food
and Drug did exceptional business in hard liquor during October and
November, the demand taking off into the stratosphere over the Christ-
mas
period, when, in addition to the usual  festivities, incidents of drunken-
ness,
adultery, wife-beating and exhibitionism turned Pa-lomo Grove into a
sinners' paradise.
With the public holidays, and their private woundings, over, several
families decided to move out of the Grove altogether, and a subtle
reorganization of the town's social structure began, as properties
thought
desirable—such as those in the Crescents (now marred by the Farrells'
presence)—fell in value, and were bought up by individuals who could
never have dreamt of living in that neighborhood the summer before.
So many consequences, from a battle in troubled waters.
That battle had not gone unwitnessed, of course. What William Witt had
learned of secrecy in his short life as a voyeur proved invaluable as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

minds as it had, and did, their bodies. They were calm as the lake was
calm; their surface so placid the most violent attack upon it left not so
much
as a ripple..knowing that the brief stardom he'd earn from it would have
to be set
against suspicion and possible punishment. Not only that; there was
every
chance he'd not even be believed. He kept the memory alive in his own
head, however, by going back to where it had happened on a regular
basis.
In fact he'd returned there the day after it had all happened, to see if he
could spot the occupants of the lake. But the water was already retreat-
ing.
It had shrunk by perhaps a third overnight. After a week it had gone
entirely, revealing a fissure in the ground which was evidently a point of
access to the caves that ran beneath the town.
He wasn't the only visitor to the spot. Once Arleen had unburdened her-
self
of what had happened there that afternoon, countless sightseers came
looking for the spot. The more pe rceptive among them quickly recog-
nized

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

strange satisfaction, going there, despite the fear he felt. A sense of
complicity' with the caves and their secret, not to mention the erotic rris-
son
that came when he stood wher e he'd stood that day, and imagined
again
the nakedness of the bathers.
The fate of the girls didn't much in terest him. He read about them once
in 
a while, and heard them talked about,  but out of sight for William was
pretty
much out of mind. There were better things to watch. With the town in
disarray he had much to spy on: casual seductions and abject slavery;
furies; beatings; bloody-nosed farewells. One day, he thought, I'll write
all of
this down. It'll be called  Witt's Book, and everyone in it will know, when
it's
published, that their secrets all belong to me.
When, on the infrequent occasions he did think of the girls' present
condition, it was thoughts of Arleen he favored, simply because she was
in 
a hospital where he couldn't see her even if he wanted to, and his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

trace
of her glamour.
"She looks half dead" was the way he'd heard it put. "Drugged and
dead."
After that, it was as if Arleen Farrell no longer existed, except as a
beautiful vision, shedding her clothe s on the edge of a silver lake. Of
what
that lake had done to her he cleansed his mind thoroughly.
Unfortunately the wombs of the quartet's remaining members could not
cast the experience and its consequenc e out except as a bawling real-
ity,.which new stage in the humiliati on of Palomo Grove began on April
2nd,
when the first of the League of Virgins gave birth.
Howard Ralph Katz was born to his eighteen-year-old mother Trudi at
3:46
a.m., by cesarean section. He was  frail, weighing a mere four pounds
and
two ounces when he first saw the light of the delivery room. A child, it
was
agreed, who resembled his mother, for which his grandparents were
duly

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
place she knew best.
Two weeks after Howard Katz saw the light, the second of the League
of 
Virgins gave birth. This time there was something more for the press to
elaborate on than the production of  a sickly baby boy. Joyce McGuire
gave
birth to twins, one of each, born with in a minute of each other in a per-
fectly
uncomplicated fashion. She named  them Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray,
names
she'd chosen (though she would never admit this, not to the end of her
days) because they had two fathers: one in Randy Krentzman, one in
the
lake. Three, if she counted their Father in Heaven, though she feared
he'd
long passed her over in favor of more compatible souls.
Just over a week after the birth of the McGuire twins Carolyn also
produced twins, boy and girl, but t he boy was delivered dead. The girl,
who

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Virgins had besmirched Palomo Grove's good name, and despite the
profit
the town had earned from the scandal there was now a general desire
to 
forget that the incident had ever occurred.
Pained by the rejection they sens ed from every side the Katz family
made
plans to leave the Grove and return to Alan Katz's home city, Chicago.
They sold their home in late June to an out-of-towner who got a bargain,
a 
fine property and a reputation in one  fell swoop. The Katz family were
gone
two weeks later.
It proved to be good timing. Had they delayed their departure by a few
more days they would have been caught up in the last tragedy of the
League's story. On the evening of Ju ly 26th the Hotchkiss family went
out
for a short while, leaving Carolyn at home with baby Linda. They stayed
out
longer than they intended, and it wa s well after midnight, and therefore
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her,
and in the child, ever since, and it was evil. That was why she had
smothered Linda. That was why she was now going to slit her wrists.
Don't
judge me too harshly, she asked. I never wanted to hurt anybody in my
life.
The letter was interpreted by the parents thus: that the girls had indeed
been attacked and raped by somebody , and for reasons of their own
had
kept the identity of the culprit or  culprits to themselves. With Carolyn
dead,
Arleen insane and Trudi gone to Chicago, it fell upon Joyce McGuire to
tell
the whole truth, without excision or addition, and to lay the story of the
League of Virgins to rest.
At first, she refused. She couldn't  remember anything about that day,
she
claimed. The trauma had wiped the memory from her mind. Neither
Hotchkiss or Farrell were content with that, however. They kept applying
the pressure, through Joyce's father. Dick McGuire was not a strong
man,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McGuires
dining room listening to the pale, thin girl whose hands went first to one
cradle then to the other as she ro cked her children to sleep telling, as
she
rocked, of their conception. First  she warned her audience that they
weren't
going to like what she was about to te ll. Then she justified her warning
with
the telling. She gave them the whole story. The walk; the lake; the swim;
the things that had fought over thei r bodies in the water; their escape;
her
passion for Randy Krentzman— whose family had been one of those to
leave the Grove months before, presumably because he'd made a quiet
confession of his own; the desire she'd shared with all the girls to get
pregnant as efficiently as possible—
"So Randy Krentzman was responsible for them all?" Carolyn's father
said.
"Him?" she said. "He wasn't capable."
"So who was?"
"You promised to tell the whole story," the Pastor reminded her.
"So I am," she replied. "As far as I know it. Randy Krentzman was my

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and
Tommy-Ray aren't possessed. At least not the way you mean. They just
aren't Randy's children. Maybe they 've got some of his good looks..."
she
allowed herself a tiny smile. "...I'd lik e that," she said. "Because he was
so 
very handsome. But the spirit that made them is in the lake."
"There is no lake," Arleen's father pointed out.
"There was that day. And maybe there will be again, if it rains hard
enough."
"Not if I can help it."
Whether he entirely believed Joyce's story or not Farrell was as good as
his word. He and Hotchkiss rapidly raised sufficient donations from
around
town to have the entrance to the caves sealed up. Most of the contribu-
tors
signed a check simply to get Farrell  off their doorstep. Since his prin-
cess
had lost her mind he had all the conversational skill of a ticking bomb.
In October, a few days short of fifteen months after the girls had first
gone

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

liam's
mind far more telling—were subtler signs of the reality behind the scene
he 
was witnessing. The times when a performer, offered a multitude of sins
and not certain which hole to pleasure next, glanced off camera for
instruction; or when a leg was sp eedily shifted because the power be-
hind
the lens had yelled that it obscured the field of action.
At such times, when the ficti on he was aroused by— which was not
quite
a fiction, because hard was hard, and could not be faked—William felt
he 
understood Palomo Grove better. Something lived behind the life of the
town, directing its daily processes with such selflessness no one but he
knew it was there. And even he w ould forget. Months would go by, and
he'd
go about his business, which was real estate, forgetting the hidden
hand.
Then, like in the porno, he'd glimpse something. Maybe a look in the
eye of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

be faked), and he was one of the performers in its strange story.
That story had proceeded without a drama to equal that of the League in
the years since the sealing of the caves. Marked town though it was, the
Grove prospered, and Witt with it. As Los Angeles grew in size and
affluence towns out in the Simi Valley, the Grove among them, became
dormitories for the metropolis. The price of the town's real estate rose
steeply in the late seventies, just  about the time when William entered
the
business. It rose again, particular ly in Windbluff, when several minor
stars
elected to take houses on the Hill, conferring on the locale a chic it had
hitherto lacked. The biggest of the houses, a palatial residence with a
panoramic view of the town, and the valley beyond, was bought by the
comedian Buddy Vance, who at the time had the highest-rated TV show
on 
Of the hundreds of erotic magazines and films which William Witt
purchased as he grew to manhood  over the next seventeen years, first
by 
mail order then later taking trips into Los Angeles for that express pur-
pose,
his favorites were always those in which he was able to glimpse a life

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the hill the cowboy actor Raymond
Cobb demolished a house and built on the spot his own sprawling
ranch,
complete with a pool in the shape of a sheriff's badge. Between Vance's
house and Cobb's lay a house entirely concealed by trees occupied by
the
silent star Helena Davis, who in  her day had been the most gossiped-
about
actress in Hollywood. Now in her late seventies she was a complete
recluse, which only fuelled rumors in the Grove whenever a young man
appeared in town—always six foot, always blond—and declared himself
a 
friend of Miss Davis. Their presence earned the house its nickname:
Iniquity's Den.
There were other imports from Los Angeles. A Health Club opened up in
the Mall, and was quickly oversubscribed. The craze for Szechuan
restaurants brought two such esta blishments, both sufficiently patron-
ized to
survive the competition. Style stores flourished, offering Deco, American
Naive and simple kitsch. The demand for space was so heavy the Mall
gained a second floor. Businesses which the Grove would never have

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

way
back when? If there was a long-standing Grover in the vicinity the
conversation would very quickly be stee red into less controversial terri-
tory.
Although a generation had grown up in the intervening years there was
still
a sense among the natives, as they liked to call themselves, that the
League of Virgins was better forgotten.
There were some in the town, however, who would never be able to
forget. William was one, of course. The others he still followed as they
went
about their lives. Joyce McGuire, a quiet, intensely religious woman who
had brought up Tommy-Ray  and Jo-Beth without the benefit of a hus-
band.
Her folks had moved to Florida some years back, leaving the house to
their
daughter and grandchildren. She was now virtually unseen beyond its
walls. Hotchkiss, who had lost his wife to a lawyer from San Diego
seventeen years her senior, and seemed never quite to have recovered
from her desertion. The Farrell family, who had moved out of town to
Thousand Oaks, only to find that their reputations had followed them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jocelyn
Farrell—there was never a word exchanged between them.
There didn't need to be. They all knew what they knew.
And knowing, lived in expectation..II
Even the Pontiac convertible he parked in the Mall was white, though its
bodywork had been rusted by snow and salt from a dozen Chicago
winters.
It had got him across country, but  there'd been a few close calls along
the
way. The time was coming when he was going to have to take it out into
a 
field and shoot it. Meanwhile, if any one needed evidence of a stranger
in 
Palomo Grove they only had to cast  their eye along the row of automo-
biles.
Or indeed, over him. He felt hopelessly out of place in his corduroys and
his shabby jacket—(too long in the arms, too tight across the chest, like
every jacket he'd ever bought).
This was a town where they measured your worth by the name on your
sneakers. He didn't wear sneakers; he wore black leather high-tops that
he'd use day in, day out until they fell apart, whereupon he'd buy an

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hi! How can I help you?"
"I'm...new," he said. Dumb remark, he thought. "What I mean is, is there
any place...any place I can buy a map?"
"You mean of California?"
"No. Palomo Grove," he said, keeping the sentences short. That way he
stammered less.
The grin on the far side of the counter broadened.
"Don't need a map," it said. "The town's not that big."
"OK. How about a hotel?"
"Sure. Easy. There's one real close. Or else there's a new place, up in
Stillbrook Village."
"Which is the cheapest?"
"The Terrace. It's just two minutes' drive, round the back of the Mall."
"Sounds perfect."
The smile he got in return said: everything's perfect here. He could al-
most
believe it too. The polished cars shone in the lot; the signs pointing him
round to the back of the shopping  center gleamed; the motel facade—
with
another sign— Welcome to Palomo Grove, The Prosperous Haven—
was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

little.
The last stretch of the drive had le ft him weary, so he decided to perk
his
system up with some exercises and a shower. The machine, as he re-
ferred
to his body, had been in a driver's  seat too long; it needed a working
over.
He warmed up with ten minutes of shadow sparrings, a combination of
kicks and punches, followed by a favorite cocktail of specialized kicks:
axe,
jump crescent, spinning hook and jump spinning back kicks. As usual,
what
warmed up his muscles heated his mind. By the time he got to his leg-
lifts
and sirups he was ready to take on half of Palomo Grove to get an an-
swer
to the question he'd come here asking.
Which was: who is Howard Katz? Me wasn't a good enough answer any
more. Me was just the machine. He needed more information than that.
It was Wendy who'd asked the question , in that long night of debate
which

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ple—
ambition, opinion, religion—he just had this pitiful unfixedness. Those
who
liked him—Wendy, Ritchie, Lem—were patient with him. They waited
through his stumblings and stammerings to hear what he had to say,
and
seemed to find some value in his comments. (You're my holy fool, Lem
had
once told Howie; a remark which Howie was still pondering.) But to the
rest
of the world he was Katz the klutz. They didn't bait him openly—he was
too
fit to be taken on hand to hand, even by heavyweights—but he knew
what
they said behind his back, and it  always amounted to the same thing:
Katz
had a piece missing.
That Wendy had finally given up on him was too much to bear. Too hurt
to 
show his face he'd brooded on the c onversation for the best part of a
week.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cago.
Now that she was dead (suddenly, in her sleep) he would have to solve
that
mystery for himself; and perhaps, in its solving, fill the hole that haunted
the
machine..Just as she reached the front room, Momma called down from
her room,
her timing as faultless as ever.
"Jo-Beth? Are you there? Jo-Beth?"
Always the same falling note in the vo ice, that seemed to warn: be lov-
ing
to me now because I may not be here tomorrow. Perhaps not even the
next
hour.
"Honey, are you still there?"
"You know I am, Momma."
"Can I have a word?"
"I'm late for work."
"Just a minute. Please. What's a minute?"
"I'm coming. Don't get upset. I'm coming."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and left again shrugging. Nothing wron g physically, they said. Sound
heart,
sound lungs, sound spine. It's between her ears she's not so well. But
that
was news Momma didn't want to hear. Momma had once known a girl
who'd gone mad, and been hospitalized, and never come out again.
That
made her more afraid of madness  than of anything. She wouldn't have
the
word spoken in the house.
"Will you have the Pastor call me?" Joyce said. "Maybe he'll come over
tonight."
"He's a very busy man, Momma."
"Not too busy for me," Joyce said. She was in her thirty-ninth year but
she
behaved like a woman twice that age. The slow way she raised her
head
from the pillow as if every inch was a triumph over gravity; the fluttering
hands and eyelids; that perpetual sigh in her voice. She had cast herself
as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of a woman tottering on the tip of the abyss. All in all, Jo-Beth was glad
Momma no longer went out in public. People would talk. But that left her
here, in the house, calling her daughter up and down the stairs. Up and
down, up and down.
When, as now, Jo-Beth's irritati on reached screaming pitch she re-
minded.herself that her mother had he r reasons for this withdrawal. Life
hadn't been
easy for an unmarried woman bringing up her children in a town as
judgmental as the Grove. She'd earned her malady in censure and
humiliation.
"I'll get Pastor John to call," Jo-Beth said. "Now listen, Momma, I've got
to 
go."
"I know, honey, I know."
Jo-Beth returned to the door, but Joyce called after her.
"No kiss?" she said.
"Momma—"
"You never miss kissing me."
Dutifully Jo-Beth went back to the window, and kissed her mother on the
cheek.
"You take care," Joyce said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

another, since childhood. Talk of the world as a Valley of Death,
haunted by
faces capable of unspeakable malice. That was the chief comfort Pastor
John gave Momma. They agreed on t he presence of the Devil in the
world;
in Palomo Grove.
"I'll see you in the morning," Jo-Beth said.
"I love you, honey."
"I love you too, Momma."
Jo-Beth closed the door and started downstairs.
"Is she asleep?"
Tommy-Ray was at the foot of the flight.
"No. She's not."
"Damn."
"You should go in and see her."
"I know I should. Only she's going to give me a hard time about
Wednesday."
"You were drunk," she said. "Hard liquor, she kept saying. True?"
"What do you think? If we'd been brought up like normal kids, with liquor
around the house, it wouldn't go to my head."
"So it's her fault you got drunk?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Your ego," she said. "It's getting worse."
"That's why you love me," he said, gazing at their twin reflections. "Am I
growing more like you or you like me?"
"Neither."
"Ever seen two faces more alike?"
She smiled. There was an extraordinary resemblance between them. A
delicacy in Tommy-Ray's bones matc hed by clarity in hers which had
both
of them idolized. She liked nothing better than to walk out hand in hand
with
her brother, knowing she had beside her a companion as attractive as
any
girl could wish, and knowing he felt the same. Even among the forced
beauties of the Venice boardwalk they turned heads.
But in the last few months they hadn't gone out together. She'd been
working long hours at the Steak House, and he'd been out with his pals
among the beach crowd: Scan, Andy and the rest. She missed the
contact.
"Have you been feeling weird these last couple of days?" he asked, out
of 
nowhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

waiting,
and I don't know what for."
"So don't."
"Don't what?"
"Wait. Take off somewhere."
"I want to. But..." He studied her face in the mirror. "Is it true? You don't
feel...strange?"
She returned his look, not certain she wanted to admit to the dreams
she'd
been having, in which she was being carried by the tide, and all her life
was
waving to her from the shore. But if not to Tommy, whom she loved and
trusted more than any creature alive, to whom?
"OK. I admit it." she said, "I do feel something."
"What'"
She shrugged. 'I don't know. May be I'm waiting too."."Do you know
whatfor?"
"Nope."
"Neither do I."
"Don't we make a pair?"
She reran the conversation with Tommy as she drove down to the Mall.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a 
race now, between the fuse on her patience and the something on the
horizon. If it hadn't come by summer, she thought (whatever it was,
however unlikely), then she'd up and go looking for it..II
Nobody seemed to walk much in this town, Howie noticed. On his three-
quarter-
hour stroll up and back down the Hill he encountered only five
pedestrians, and they all had children or dogs in tow to justify their
waywardness. Short though this initial journey was it took him to a fair
vantage point from which to grasp something of the town's lay-out. It
also
sharpened his appetite.
Beef for the desperado, he though t, and selected But-rick's Steak
House
from the eating places available in the Mall. It was not large, and not
more
than half full. He took a table at the window, opened the tattered copy of
Hesse's Siddhartha, and continued his struggle with the text, which was
in 
the original German. The book had belonged to his mother, who had
read

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jo-Beth stepped over the threshold of Butrick's the way she had three
nights a week for the last seven mont hs, but tonight it was as if every
other
time had been a rehearsal for this stepping; this turning; this meeting of
eyes with the young man sitting at table five. She took him in with a
glance.
His mouth was half open. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. There was
a 
book in his hand. Its owner's name  she didn't know, couldn 't know.
She'd
never set eyes on him before. Yet he watched her with the same
recognition she knew was on her own face.
It was like being born, he thought, seeing this face. Like coming out of a
safe place into an adventure that would take his breath away. There
was
nothing more beautiful in all the wo rld than the soft curve of her lips as
she
smiled at him.
And smiling now, like a perfect flirt. Stop it, she told herself, look away!
He'll think you're out of your mind staring. But then he's staring too, isn't
he?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her.
"Yes," she saw him say.
The word was for her, she knew.  Yes, go, he said, I'll still be here..She
nodded, and went.
The whole encounter occupied maybe five seconds, but it left them both
trembling.
In the kitchen Murray was his usual martyred self.
"Where have you been?"
"Two minutes late, Murray."
"I make it ten. There's a party of three in the corner It's your table."
"I'm putting my apron on."
"Hurry."
Howie watched the kitchen, door for her re-emergence Siddhartha
forgotten. When she appeared she didn't look his way but went to serve
a 
table on the far side of the restaur ant He wasn't distressed that she
failed to
look. An understanding had been reached between them in that first
exchange of gazes. He would wait all night if need be, and all through
tomorrow if that was what it t ook, until she had finished the work and
looked

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had been more ambitious than that. It was the making of children he
was
about, and, squalid as it was, Fletcher had been obliged to do the same.
He
was not proud of his assault. As news of its consequences had reached
them his shame had deepened. Once, sitting by a window with Raul, he
had dreamed of being sky. Instead his war with the Jaff had reduced
him to
a spoiler of innocents, whose future s they had blighted with touch. The
Jaff
had taken no little pleasure in Fletcher's distress. Many times, as the
years
in darkness passed, Fletcher would sense his enemy's thoughts turning
to 
the children they'd made, and wondering which would come first to save
their true father.
Time did not mean to them what it had meant before the Nuncio. They
didn't hunger, nor did they sleep. Buried together like lovers, they waited
in 
the rock. Sometimes they could he ar voices from the overground,
echoing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

seeing their perfect opposites, and had unwittingly opened their minds
to.the creators. Fletcher found hims elf in the head of a youth called How-
ard,
the son of Trudi Katz. Through the boy's eyes he saw his enemy's child
just
as the Jaff saw Howie from his daughter's head.
This was the moment they'd waited for. The war they'd fought half way
across America had exhausted them both. But their children were in the
world to fight for them now; to finish the battle that had been left unre-
solved
for two decades. This time, it would be to the death.
Or so they'd expected. Now, for the first time in their lives, Fletcher and
the Jaff shared the same pain—like a single spike thrust through both
their
souls.
This was not war, damn it. This was nothing like war.
"Lost your appetite?" the waitress wanted to know.
"Guess I have," Howie replied.
"You want me to take it away?"
"Yeah."
"You want coffee? Dessert?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Thanks. Will you look after my table?"
"Just call me Cupid."
Jo-Beth had managed to keep her mind on her job and her eyes off the
boy for half an hour: enough was enough. She poured a Coke, and took
it 
out. To her horror, the table was em pty. She almost dropped the glass;
the
sight of the empty chair made her feel physically sick. Then, out of the
corner of her eye, the sight of him emerging from the restroom, and
returning to the table. He saw her, and smiled. She crossed to the table,
ignoring two calls for service en rout e. She already knew the question
she
was going to ask first: it had been on her mind from the start. But he
was
there with the same enquiry before her.
"Do we know each other?"
And of course she knew the answer.
"No," she said.
"Only when you...you...you..." He was stumbling over the word, the
muscles in his jaw working like he was chewing gum. "...You..." he kept
saying, "...you..."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm Jo-Beth..."
"What time do you finish here?"
"Around eleven. It's good you came in tonight. I'm only here Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays. If you'd come in tomorrow you would have
missed me."
"We'd have found each other," he said , and the certainty in his state-
ment
made her want to cry.
"I have to go back to work," she told him.
"I'll wait," he replied.
* * *
At eleven-ten they stepped out of  Butrick's together. The night was
warm.
Not a pleasant, breezy warmth, but humid.
"Why did you come to the Grove?" she asked him as they walked to her
car.
"To meet you."
She laughed.
"Why not?" he said.
"All right. So why did you leave in the first place?"
"My mother moved us to Chicago when I was only a few weeks old. She

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it, 
and won. "I never knew him," he said.
"This gets weirder."
"Why?"
"It's the same for me. I don't know who my father is either."
"Doesn't matter much, does it?"
"It used to. Less now. I've got a twin, see? Tommy-Ray. He's always
been
there for me. You must meet To mmy. You'll love him. Everybody
does."."And you. I bet every...every...everybody loves you too."
"Meaning?"
"You're beautiful. I'm going to be competing with half the guys in
Ventura
County, right?"
"Nope."
"Don't believe you."
"Oh they look. But they don't touch."
"Me included?"
She stopped walking. "I don't know you, Howie. At least, I do and I don't.
Like when I saw you in the Steak House, I recognized you from

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Eighteen last April. The fourteenth."
"I'm on the second."
"This is getting very strange, don't you think? Me thinking I knew you.
You
thinking the same."
"It makes you uneasy."
"Am I that obvious?"
"Yes. I never saw...saw...I never saw a face so transparent. Makes me
want to kiss it."
In the rock, the spirits writhed. Every word of seduction they'd heard had
been a twisting of the blade. But they were powerless to prevent the
exchange. All they could do was sit in their children's heads and listen.
"Kiss me," she said.
They shuddered.
Howie put his hand on her face.
—They shuddered till the ground around them shook.— She took a half
step towards him and put her smiling lips on his.
—Till cracks opened up in the concrete that eighteen years before had
sealed them up.  Enough!  they screamed in their children's ears,
enough!
Enough!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

even if
she was a wife. His affair with Ellen had proved too perverse to last; he
would have to dismiss her from his  employ very soon. Meanwhile his
empty
bed made this new early morning regime a little easier. With nothing to
seduce him back to the mattress it wa sn't so difficult to put on his jog-
ging
gear and take the road down the Hill.
Buddy was fifty-four. Jogging made him  feel twice that But too many of
his
contemporaries had died on him of late, his sometime agent Stanley
Goldhammer being the most recent departure, and they'd all died of the
same excesses that he was still thoroughly addicted to. The cigars, the
booze, the dope. Of all his vices women were the healthiest, but even
they
were a pleasure to be taken in moderation these days. He couldn't
make
love through the night the way he'd been able to in his thirties. On a few
traumatic occasions recently he hadn't been able to perform at all. It had
been that failure which had sent him to his doctor, demanding a pana-
cea,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

man
in the world inside out.
"You're doing your body harm, Buddy , every damn day. And you say
you
don't want to die. You still want to be playing Vegas at a hundred."
"Right."
"On present progress, I give you another ten years. That's if you're
lucky.
You're overweight, you're overstressed. I've seen healthier corpses."
"I do the gags, Lou."
"Yeah, and I fill in the death certificates. So start taking care of yourself,
for Christ's sake, or you're going to go the way Stanley went."
"You think I don't think about that?"
"I know you do, Bud. I know."
Tharp stood up and walked round to  Buddy's side of the desk. On the
wall
were signed photographs of the st ars whom he'd advised and treated.
So
The girls went down to the water twice. The second time was the morn-
ing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm here aren't I? How much more fucking serious do I have to get?
You
know how I hate talking about this shit. I never did a death gag in my
life,
Lou. You know that? Not once. Anything else. Anything. But not that!"
"It's got to be faced sooner or later."
"I'll take later."
"OK, so I'll have a health plan drawn up for you. Diet; exercise; the
works.
But I'm telling you now, Buddy, it won't make pleasant reading!"
"I heard somewhere: laughter makes you live longer."
"Show me where it says comedians live forever, I'll show you a tomb
with
a quip on it."
"Yeah. So when do I begin?"
"Start today. Throw out the malts and the nose-candy, and try using that
pool of yours once in a while."
"It needs cleaning."
"So get it cleaned."
That was the easy part. Buddy had E llen call the Pool service as soon
as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

great chore. The sidewalks were empty, and often—as today—he'd
make
his way down the Hill and through the East Grove to the woods, where
the
ground didn't bruise the soles the same way the concrete did, and his
panting was set to birdsong. On su ch days the run was strictly a one-
way
journey; he'd have Jose Luis bring the limo down the Hill and meet him
when he emerged from the woods, the car stocked with towels and iced
tea. Then they'd head back up to Coney Eye, as he'd dubbed the estate,
the easy way: on wheels. Health was one thing; masochism, at least in
public, quite another.
The run had other benefits besides firming up his belly. He had an hour
or 
so alone to get to grips with anything that was troubling him. Today,
inevitably, his thoughts were of Ro chelle. The divorce settlement would
be 
finalized this week, and his sixth marriage would be history. It would be
the
second shortest of the six. His forty-two days with Shashi had been the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

which was, coincidentally, the first time  she heard his routine. But of all
his
wives, including Elizabeth, she wa s the most physically alluring. Stone-
faced
she'd been, but the sculptor had genius.
He was thinking of her face as he came off the sidewalk and hit the
woods. Maybe he should call her; as k her to come back to Coney for
one
final try. He'd done it before, with Diane, and they'd had the best two
months of their years together, before the old resentments had set in
afresh. But that had been Diane, this was Rochelle. It was useless
attempting to project behavior patterns from one woman to the next.
They
were all so gloriously different. Men were a dull bunch by comparison:
dowdy and mono-minded. Next time around he wanted to be born a
lesbian.
Off in the distance, he heard laughter; the unmistakable giggling of
young
girls. A strange sound to hear so early  in the morning, He stopped run-
ning
and listened for it again, but the air was suddenly empty of all other

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

brought movement to the leaves, it brightened the sunlight. More than
that:
it changed the very direction of the  sun. In the silence, the light had
been
pallid, its source still low in the east. On the cue of laughter it became
noon-day bright, pouring down on the upturned faces of the leaves.
Buddy neither believed nor disbelieved his eyes: he simply stood before
the experience as before feminine beauty, mesmerized. Only when the
third round of laughter began did he grasp its direction, and start off at a
run
towards it, the light still vacillating.
A few yards on he saw a movement ahead of him through the trees.
Bare
skin. A girl stripping off her underwear. Beyond her was another girl, this
one blonde, and strikingly attractive, beginning to do the same. He knew
instinctively they weren't quite real, but he still advanc ed cautiously, for
fear
of startling them. Could illusions be startled? He didn't want to risk it; not
with such pretty sights to see. The blonde girl was the last one un-
dressed.
There were three others, he counted, already wading out into a lake that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

air.
Ghosts, he half-thought; these are ghosts. I'm spying on the past, being
rerun in front of me. The thought propelled him from hiding. If his
assumption was correct then they might vanish at any moment and he
wanted to drink their glory down in gulps before they did.
There was no trace of the clothes they'd shed in the grass where he
stood, nor any sign—when one or the  other of them glanced back to-
wards
the shore—that they saw him there.
"Don't go too far," one of the quartet yelled to her companion. The ad-
vice
was ignored. The girl was moving further from the shore, her legs
spreading and closing, spreading and  closing as she swam. Not since
the
first wet dreams of his adolescence could he remember an experience
as 
erotic as this, watching these creatures suspended in the gleaming air,
their lower bodies subtly blurred by  the element that bore them up, but
not
so much he could not enjoy their every detail.
"Warm!" yelled the adventurer, who was treading water a good distance

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

spines?
The water made no sound as he stepped into the lake; nor did he feel
so 
much as a touch against his ankles and shins as he waded deeper. It
buoyed Arleen up well enough however. She was floating on the lake's
surface, her hair spread around her head, her gentle strokes taking her
further from him. He hurried in pursuit, the water no brake upon him,
halving the distance between himself and the girl in seconds. His arms
were extended, his eyes fixed upon t he pinkness of her labia as she
kicked
away from him.
The adventurer had begun to shout something, but he ignored her
agitation. To touch Arleen was all he could think about. To put his hand
upon her and she not protest, but go on swimming, while he had his
way. In
his haste his foot snagged on something. Arms still reaching for the girl
he 
fell, face down. The jolt brought him to his senses enough to interpret
the
shouts from the deeper water. They were no longer cries of pleasure,
but of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Revolted with himself, he wanted to retreat, but a perverse obligation to
this tragedy kept him watching.
All four of them were caught up in the same turmoil now, thrashing in
the
air, their faces darkening as they fought for breath. How was it possible?
They looked to be drowning in four or  five feet of water. Had some cur-
rent
taken hold of them? It seemed unlikely, in water so shallow and so
apparently placid.
"Help them..." he found himself saying. "Why doesn't somebody help
them?"
As though he might lend aid himself he started towards them. Arleen
was
closest to him. All the beauty had gone from her face. It was contorted
by 
desperation and terror. Suddenly her  wide eyes seemed to see some-
thing
in the water beneath her feet. Her struggling ceased, and a look of utter
surrender took its place. She was giving up life.
"Don't," Buddy murmured, reaching for her as if his arms might lift her
up

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes! Concrete! A hole in the ground had been plugged here, but the
seal
was fracturing in front of him, cracks widening in the concrete.
He looked back towards the edge of the lake, and solid ground, but a rift
had already opened between him and safety, a slab of concrete sliding
into
it a yard from his toes. Icy air rose from underground.
He looked back towards the swimmers, but the mirage was receding. As
it 
went he caught the same look on all the four faces, eyes rolled up so
they
showed solid white, mouths open to drink death down. They hadn't
perished in shallow water, he now understood. This had been a pit when
they'd come swimming here, and it had claimed them as it was now
claiming him: them with water, him with wraiths.
He started to howl for help, as the violence in the ground mounted, the
concrete grinding itself to dust between his feet. Perhaps some other
early-morning
jogger would hear him, and come to his aid. But quickly; it had to
be quickly.
Who was he kidding? And he, a kidder. Nobody was going to come. He

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of his target, and fell.
One moment the sun was still shining on the top of his head. The next,
darkness, icy darkness, and he was plummeting through it with cobs of
concrete hurtling past him on the same downward journey. He heard
them
crack against the face of the rock as  they went; then realized it was he
who
was making the noise. It was the breaking of his bones and back he
could
hear as he fell. And fell and fell..II
The day began earlier for Howie than he'd ordinarily have welcomed
after
sleeping so little, but once he was up and exercising he felt good about
being awake. It was a crime to lie in bed on a morning so fine. He
bought
himself a soda from the machine and sat at the window, gazing at the
sky
and musing on what the day might bring.
Liar; not of the day at all. Of Jo-B eth; only of Jo-Beth. Her eyes, her
smile,
her voice, her skin, her scent, her secrets. He watched the sky, and saw

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

moment not seeing her he was blind; every moment not touching her,
numb.
She'd told him, as they'd parted the previous night, that she worked at
Butrick's during the evening, and at a  book store during the day. Given
the
size of the Mall, it wouldn't be too difficult to locate her work place. He
picked up a bag of doughnuts to fill  the hole not eating the previous
night
had left. That other hole, the one he'd  come here to heal, was very far
from
his thoughts. He wandered along the rows of businesses, looking for her
store. He found it, between a dog-grooming service and a real estate of-
fice.
Like many of the stores, it was st ill closed, opening time, according to
the
sign on the door, still three quarters of an hour off. He sat down in the
steadily warming sun, and ate, and waited.
Her instinct, from the moment she'd opened her eyes, was to forget
about
work today, and go find Howie. The events of the previous night had run
and re-run in her dreams, changed each time in some subtle way, as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and Howie belonged together.
She knew very well that if any of her friends had confessed such
sentiments she'd have politely dismis sed them as ludicrous. That was
not
to say she'd not moped over a few faces, of course; turned up the radio
when a particular love song was played. But even as she'd listened
she'd
known it was all a distraction from an unmelodious reality. She saw a
perfect victim of that reality every day of her life. Her mother, living like a
prisoner—both of the house, and of the past— talking, on those days
when
she could muster the will to talk, of hopes she'd had, and the friends
she'd.shared them with. Until now that sad sight had kept Jo-Beth's roman-
tic 
ambitions, indeed any ambition, in check.
But what had happened between herself and the Chicago boy would not
end the way her mother's one great affair had ended, with her deserted,
and the man in question so despised she could not bring herself to
name
him. If all the Sunday teachings s he'd dutifully attended had instructed
her

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

coffee he was brewing. He looked like he'd slept in his clothes.
"Late night?" she said.
"For both of us."
"Not particularly," she said. "I was home before midnight."
"You didn't sleep though."
"On and off."
"You stayed awake. I heard you."
That was unlikely, she knew. Their bedrooms were at opposite ends of
the
house, and his route to the bathroom di dn't take him within earshot of
her.
"So?" he said.
"So what?"
"Talk to me."
"Tommy?" There was an agitation in his demeanor that unnerved her.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I heard you," he said again. "I kept hearing you, all through the night.
Something happened to you last night. Didn't it?"
He couldn't know about Howie. Only  Beverly had any clue as to what
had
gone on at the Steak House, and she wouldn't have had time to spread

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

change. But whatever we were waiti ng for...it didn't come to me. So it
must
have come to you, Jo-Beth. Whatever it is, it came to you."
"Want to pour me some of that coffee?"
"Answer me."
"What's to answer?"
"What happened?"."Nothing."
"You're lying," he remarked, with more bafflement than accusation.
"Why
are you lying to me?"
It was a reasonable question. She wa sn't ashamed of Howie, or what
she
felt for him. She'd shared every victory and defeat of her eighteen years
with Tommy-Ray. He wouldn't go blabbing this secret to Momma or
Pastor
John. But the looks he kept giving her were odd; she couldn't read them.
And there was that talk of hearing her through the night. Had he been
listening at her door?
"I have to get down to the store," she said. "Or I'll be real late."
"I'll come with you," he said.
"What for?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I know that."
"Because we're strong together, right?" He was staring through the
window, glassy-eyed. "And right now I need to feel strong."
"You need to get some sleep. Why don't you let me drive you back? It
doesn't matter if I'm late."
He shook his head. "Hate that house," he said.
"What a thing to say."
"It's true. We both hate it. It gives me bad dreams."
"It's not the house, Tommy."
"Yes, it is. The house, and Momma, and being in this fucking town! Look
at it!" Suddenly, out of nowhere, he wa s raging. "Look at this shit! Don't
you
want to tear the whole fucking place apart?" His volume was nerve-
shredding
in the confines of the car. "I know you do," he said, staring at her,
eyes now wild and wide. "Don't lie to me, little sister,"
"I'm not your little sister, Tommy," she said.
"I'm thirty-five seconds older," he said. This had always been a joke
between them. Suddenly it was power-play. "Thirty-five seconds more in
this shit-hole."
"Stop talking stupid," she said, bringing the car to a sudden halt. "I'm not

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was right. She found his rage igniting her in a way she'd never al-
lowed
it to before. Twins they were, and in so many ways similar, but he had
always been the more openly rebellious of the two. She had played the
quiescent daughter, concealing the contempt she'd felt for the Grove's
hypocrisies because Momma, so much its victim, still needed its ap-
proval.
But there were times when she'd envied Tommy-Ray's open contempt,
and
longed to spit in the eye of propriety the way he had, knowing he'd be
forgiven his trespasses upon payment of a smile. He'd had it easy, all
those
years. His tirade against the town was narcissism; he was in love with
himself as rebel. And it was spoiling a morning she'd wanted to luxuriate
in. 
"We'll talk tonight, Tommy," she said.
"Will we?"
"I just said we would."
"We have to help each other."
"I know."
"Especially now."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As she went to get out of the car he took hold of her arm, his fingers
gripping her so hard it hurt.
"Tommy— " she said.
"You really mean it?" he said. "There's nothing to be afraid of?"
"No," she said.
He leaned over to kiss her.
"I trust you," he said, his lips very close to hers. His face filled her sight;
his hand held her arm as though he possessed her.
"Enough, Tommy," she said, pulling her arm free. "Go home."
She got out, slamming rather than closing the car door, deliberately not
looking back at him.
"Jo-Beth."
Ahead of her, Howie. Her stomach f lipped at the sight of him. Behind
her,
she heard a car-horn blare, and glanced back to see that Tommy-Ray
had
not taken the wheel of the car, wh ich was blocking access for several
other
vehicles. He was staring at her; reaching for the handle of the door; get-
ting.out. The horns multiplied. Someb ody began to shout at him to get out
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was more than despair; it was fear.
"Howie—" she began.
"Christ, was I dumb," Tommy-Ray went on.
She tried a smile as she turned back to him. "Tommy," she said, "I want
you to meet Howie."
She'd never seen a look on Tommy-Ray's face like the look she was
witnessing now; hadn't known those idolized features capable of such
malice.
"Howie?" he said. "As in Howard?"
She nodded, glancing back at Howie. "I'd like you to meet my brother,"
she said. "My twin brother. Howie, this is Tommy-Ray."
Both men stepped forward to shake hands, bringing them into her vision
at 
the same time. The sun shone with equal strength on both, but it didn't
flatter Tommy-Ray, despite his tan. He looked sickly beneath the veneer
of 
health he wore; his eyes sunk without a gleam, his skin too tightly drawn
over his cheeks and temples. He looks dead, she found herself thinking.
Tommy-Ray looks dead.
Though Howie extended his hand to be shaken Tommy-Ray ignored it,
suddenly turning to his sister.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What was that about?" Howie said.
"I don't exactly know. He's been odd since—"
She was going to say since yesterday, but she'd seen a canker in his
beauty moments ago that must have  been there always, except that
she—
like the rest of the world—had been too dazzled to recognize it.
"Does he need help?" Howie asked.
"I think it's better we let him go."
"Jo-Beth!" somebody called. A middle-aged woman was striding to-
wards
them, both dress and features plain to the point of severity.
"Was that Tommy-Ray?" she said as she approached.."Yes it was."
"He never stops by any longer." She had come to a halt a yard from
Howie, staring at him with a look of mild puzzlement on her face. "Are
you
coming to the store, Jo-Beth?" she said, not looking away from Howie.
"We're already late opening."
"I'm coming."
"Is your friend coming too?" the woman asked pointedly.
"Oh yes...I'm sorry...Howie...this is Lois Knapp."
"Mrs., " the woman put in, as though her marital status were a talisman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"She's not as bad as she looks."
"That'd be difficult."
"I'd better go."
"Why?" Howie said. "It's a beautiful day. We could go someplace. Make
the most of the weather."
"It'll be a beautiful day tomorrow, an d the day after, and the day after
that.
This is California, Howie."
"Come with me anyway."
"Let me try to make my peace with Lois first. I don't want to be on
everyone's shit list. It'll upset Momma."
"So when?"
"When what?"
"When will you be free?"
"You don't give up, do you?"
"Nope."
"I'll tell Lois I'm going back home to look after Tommy-Ray this after-
noon.
Tell her he's sick. It's only half a lie. Then I'll come by the motel. How's
that?"
"Promise?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"See? It's real easy."
In the late morning, as she and Lois sat sipping ice water in the other-
wise
deserted store, the older woman said: "Howard Katz."
"What about him?" Jo-Beth said, preparing herself for a lecture on
behavior with the opposite sex.
"I couldn't think where I knew the name from."
"And now you remember?"
"A woman who lived in the Grove. 'Way back," she said, then turned her
attention to wiping a ring of water from the counter with her napkin. Her
silence, and the effort she gave to this minor mopping, suggested she
was
happy to let the subject drop if Jo-Beth chose not to pursue it. Yet she'd
felt
obliged to raise the issue. Why?
"Was she a friend of yours?" Jo-Beth asked.
"Not of mine."
"Of Momma's?"
"Yes," Lois said, still mopping, though the counter was dry.
"Yes. She was one of your momma's friends."
Suddenly, it came clear.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes. I guess I do remember. She had a boy."
"Howard."
Lois nodded.
"You're sure?" Jo-Beth said.
"Yes. I'm sure."
Now it was Jo-Beth who kept her silence, while in her head she'd tried
to 
re-evaluate the events of recent days in the light of this discovery. What
did
her dreams, and Howie's appearance, and Tommy-Ray's sickness have
to 
do with each other, and with the stor y she'd heard in ten different ver-
sions
of the bathing party that had ended in death, insanity and children?
Perhaps Momma knew..III
Buddy Vance's driver Jose Luis wa ited at their agreed rendezvous for
fifty
minutes before deciding that his boss must have made his way up the
Hill
under his own power. He called Coney on the car phone. Ellen was at
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

likeliest: that somewhere along the way he'd encountered female com-
pany.
After sixteen years in Mr. Vance's employ he knew his boss's skill with
the
ladies verged on the supernatural. He would come home when he'd
performed his magic.
For Buddy, there was no pain. He was  thankful for the fact, but not so
self-deceiving
as to ignore its significance. His body was surely so messed up
his brain had simply overloaded on agony, and pulled the plugs.
The darkness that enclosed him was without qualification; expert only in
blinding him. Or perhaps his eyes were out; dashed from his head on
the
way down. Whatever the reason, detached from sight and feeling, he
floated, and while he floated he calculated. First, the time it would take
for
Jose Luis to realize his boss wasn't coming home: two hours at the out-
side.
His route through the woods would not  be difficult to follow; and once
they
reached the fissure his peril would be self-evident. They'd be down after

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of 
time, and after sixty, know he'd lived an hour. But no sooner had he
started
counting than his head started a different calculation altogether…
How long have I lived, he thought. Not  breathed, not existed, but actu-
ally
lived? Fifty-four years si nce birth: how many weeks was that? How
many
hours? Better think of it year by year; it was easier. One year was three
hundred and sixty days, give or take a few. Say he slept a third of that.
One
hundred and twenty days in slumberland. Oh Lord, already the moments
dwindled. Half an hour a day on the John, or emptying his bladder. That
was another seven and a half days a  year, just doing the dirt. And
shaving
and showering, another ten days; and eat ing another thirty or forty; and
all 
of this multiplied by fifty-four years...
He began to sob. Get me out of  here, he murmured, please God get
me.out of here, and I'll live like I nev er lived, I'll make every hour, every
minute

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

honor of Mr. Vance's patronage (flatteringly, it was mostly meat), then at
the record store, where the boss would frequently purchase a thousand
dollars' worth of stock. While quizzing Ryder, who owned the place, a
customer came and announced to any who were interested that there
was
some serious shit going down in the East Grove, and did somebody get
shot?
The road down to the woods was closed by the time Jose Luis arrived, a
solitary cop directing traffic to turn around.
"No way through," he told Jose Luis. "The road's closed."
"What happened? Who got shot?"
"Nobody got shot. It's just a crack in the road."
Jose Luis was out of the car now, staring past the cop to the woods.
"My boss," he said, knowing he needn't name the owner of the limo, "he
was running down here this morning."
"So?"
"He hasn't come back yet."
"Oh shit. You'd better follow me."
They made their way through the trees in a silence broken only by
barely
coherent messages coming through on the cop's radio, all of which he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lay
ahead. The crack in the street and those he'd stepped over to reach this
place were the consequence of a larg er disturbance: a crevice fully ten
feet
across, opening into a devouring darkness.
"What's he want?" the Chief demanded, jabbing his finger in Jose Luis's
direction. "We're keeping this under wraps."
"Buddy Vance," the cop said.
"What about him?"
"He's missing," Jose Luis said.
"He went running—" the cop explained.
"Let him tell it," the Chief said.
"This is where he goes running ever y morning. Only today he hasn't
come.back."
"Buddy Vance?" the Chief said. "The comedian?"
"Yeah."
The Chief's gaze left Jose Luis and returned to the hole.
"Oh my Lord," he said.
"How deep is it?" Jose Luis asked.
"Huh?"
"The crack."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he'd not been then. And it was not s and that stung his eyes back into
sight,
nor wind that beat his ears into hear ing. It was another power entirely,
less
natural than a storm, and trapped as no storm had ever been here in a
chimney of stone. He saw the hole he'd fallen down for the first time,
stretching above him to a sunlit sky so far from him no hint of its
reassurance touched him. Whatever ghosts haunted this place, spinning
themselves into creation in front of him, they surely came from a time
before his species was a gleam in evolution's eye. Things awesomely
simple; powers of fire and ice.
He was not so wrong; and yet completely. The forms emerging from the
darkness a short distance from where he lay seemed in one moment to
resemble men like himself, and in the next unalloyed energies, wrapped
around each other like champions in a war of snakes, sent from their
tribes
to strangle the life from each other. The vision ignited his nerves as well
as 
his senses. The pain he'd been spared seeped into his consciousness,
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to put him out of this agony. Best death, he thought. A godless sonofa-
bitch
like him had no hope of redemption, unless the holy books were wrong
and
fornicators, drunkards and blasphemers were fit for paradise. Better
death,
and be done with it. The joke ended here.
I want to die, he thought.
As he formed the intention, one of the entities battling in front of him
turned his way. He saw a face in the storm. It was bearded, its flesh
so.swelled with emotion it seemed to  dwarf the body it was set upon, like
that
of a fetus: skull domed, eyes vast. The terror he felt when it laid its gaze
on 
him was nothing to that which he felt when its arms reached for him. He
wanted to crawl away into some niche and escape the touch of the
spirit's
fingers, but his body was beyond coaxing or bullying.
"I am the Jaff," he heard the bearded spirit say. "Give me your mind, I
want terata. "
As the fingertips grazed Buddy's face he felt a spurt of power, white like

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sential
self. And a drug too, making images of that invasion cavort in his mind's
eye. And jism? That as well, or  else why did a life he'd never had be-
fore, a
creature born in his pith from the Jaff's rape, leap out of him now?
He glimpsed it as it went. It was pale and primitive. No face, but legs by
the scrabbling dozen. No mind, either, except to do the Jaff's will. The
bearded face laughed to see it. Withdrawing his fingers from Buddy, the
spirit let his other arm drop from the neck of his enemy and, riding the
terata headed up the rock chimney towards the sun.
The remaining combatant fell back against the cavern wall. From where
he lay Buddy caught a glimpse of the man. He looked much less the
warrior than his opponent, and consequently more brutalized by their
exchange. His body was wasted, hi s expression one of weary distrac-
tion.
He stared up the rock chimney.
"Jaffe!" he called, his shout shaking dust from the shelves Buddy had
struck on his way down. There was no answer from the shaft. The man
looked down towards Buddy, narrowing his eyes.
"I'm Fletcher," he said, his voice mellifluous. He moved towards Buddy,
trailing a subtle light. "Forget your pain."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Against the Jaff.".Who are you?
"Men once. Spirits now. Enemies forever. You have to help me. I need
the
last squeezings of your mind, or I go to war with him naked."
Sorry, I already gave, Buddy though t. You saw him do the taking. And
by 
the way, what was that thing?
"The terata? Your primal fears made solid. He's riding to the world on it."
Fletcher looked up the chimney again.  "But he won't break surface yet.
The
day's too bright for him."
Is it still day?
"Yes."
How do you know?
"The process of the sun still moves me, even here. I wanted to be sky,
Vance. Instead, two decades I've lived in darkness, with the Jaff at my
throat. Now he's taking the war overground, and I need arms against
him,
plucked out of your head."
There's nothing left, Buddy said. I'm finished.
"Quiddity must be preserved," Fletcher said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are hundreds, and you'll know them all. So don't be afraid. Only
give
me a little of your mind, so that Quiddity may be preserved."
Who from?
"The Jaff, who else?"
Buddy had never been much of a dreamer. His sleep, when it wasn't
drugged or drunk, was that of a man who lived himself to exhaustion
daily.
After a gig, or a fuck, or both, he would give himself to sleep as to a
rehearsal for the final oblivion that ca lled him now. With the fear of nul-
lity a
rod to his broken back he scrabbled to make sense of Fletcher's words.
A 
sea; a shore; a place of stories, in which Heaven was just one of many
possibilities? How could he have lived his life and never known this
place?
"You've known it," Fletcher told hi m. "You've swum Quiddity twice in
your
life. The night you were born, and the night you first slept beside the one
you loved most in your life. W ho was that, Buddy? There've been so
many

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I don't.
"Imagine for me. Give me something more than regret to make an ally
of. 
Who are your heroes?"
Heroes?
"Picture them for me."
Comedians! All of them.
"An army of comedians? Why not?"
The thought of it made Buddy smile. Why not indeed? Hadn't there been
a 
time when he'd thought his art could cleanse the world of malice? Per-
haps
an army of holy fools could succeed with laughter where bombs had
failed.
A sweet, ridiculous vision. Comedians on the battlefields, baring their
asses
to the guns, and beating the generals over the head with rubber chick-
ens;
grinning cannon fodder, confounding the politicians with puns and sign-
ing
the peace treaties in polka-dotted ink.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

down
his face.
Sorry, he thought. Can't seem to hold on. Don't want to—
Laughter racked him.
—You shouldn't have asked to remember.
"A moment!" said Fletcher. "That's all I need."
Too late. The life went out of him, leaving Fletcher with vapors in his
hands too frail to be set against the Jaff.
"Damn you!" Fletcher said, yelling at the corpse as he'd once (so long
ago) stood and shouted at Jaffe as he lay on the floor of the Mision de
Santa Catrina. This time there was no life to be bullied from the corpse.
Buddy was gone. On his face sat an expression both tragic and comical,
which was only right. He'd lived his lif e that way. And in dying he'd as-
sured
Palomo Grove of a future burgeoning with such contradictions..IV
Time in the Grove would play countless tricks in the next few days, but
none surely as frustrating to its victim as the stretch between Howie's
parting from Jo-Beth and the time when he would see her again. The
minutes lengthened to the scale  of hours; the hours seemed long
enough to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

even
more strongly. This soaring, unreasoning belief that all was well with the
world, and could never be made unwell again. The fact of time unravel-
ling
the way it was could not best his opt imism; it was just a game reality
was
playing with him, to confirm the abso lute authority of what he was feel-
ing.
And to that trick was added another, more subtle still. When he came to
the house where his mother had lived it was almost supernaturally
unchanged, exactly as in the photog raphs he'd seen of the place. He
stood
in the middle of the street and stared at it. There was no traffic in either
direction; nor any pedestrians. This  corner of the Grove floated in mid-
morning
languor, and he felt almost as though his mother might appear at
the window, a child again, and gaze out at him. That notion would not
have
occurred to him but for the events of the previous night. The miraculous
recognition in that locking of ey es—the sense he'd had (still had) that
his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

supposition which led from love to physics to philosophy and back to
love
again in such a way that art and science could no longer be distin-
guished.
Nor indeed, could the sense of myst ery he felt, standing here in front of
his
mother's house, be separated from  the mystery of the girl. House,
mother,
and meeting were one whole extraordinary story. He, the common fac-
tor.
He decided against knocking on the door (after all, how much more
could
he learn from the place?) and was about to retrace his steps when some
instinct checked him and instead he continued up the gentle gradient of
the
street to its summit. There he was startled to find himself presented with
a 
panoramic view of the Grove, looking east over the Mall to where the far
fringes of the town gave way to solid foliage. Or nearly solid; here and
there

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

car
walking these streets and not registered the fact.
While he stood watching, he heard something whisper to him. He looked
around. The street behind him was  empty. There was no breeze, even
here
on the brow of his mother's hill, to carry the sound to him. Yet it came
again; a sound so close to his ear it  was almost inside his head. The
voice
was soft. It spoke two syllables only, joined into a necklace of sound.
—ardhowardhowardhow—
It didn't take a degree in logic to associate this mystery with whatever
was
going on in the woods below. He couldn't pretend to understand the
processes at work upon and around him. The Grove was clearly a law
unto
itself, and he'd profited by its enigmas too much to turn his back on fu-
ture
adventures. If pursuit of a steak could bring him the love of his life what
might following a whisper bring?
It wasn't difficult to find his way down to the trees. He had the oddest
sense, making the descent, that the whole town led that way; that the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Swallowed who?" Howie wanted to know. It wasn't the boy who replied
but the woman with him.
"Buddy Vance," she said. Howie was none the wiser, and his ignorance
must have registered, because the woman offered supplementary
information. "He used to be a TV st ar," she said. "Funny guy. My hus-
band
loves him."
"Have they brought him up?" he asked.
"Not yet."
"Doesn't matter," the boy chipped in. "He's dead anyhow."
"Is that right?" Howie said.
"Sure," came the woman's reply.
The scene suddenly took on a fresh perspective. This crowd wasn't here
to watch a man being snatched from death's door. They were here to
claim
a glimpse of the body as it was put in the back of an ambulance. All they
wanted was to say: I was there, when they brought him up. I saw him,
under a sheet. Their morbidity, especially on a day so full of possibilities,
revolted him. Whoever had called his name was calling it no longer; or if
he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grillo had just stepped  out of a shower, but t he very sound of Aber-
nethy's
voice and he was ready to scrub himself down again.
"What are you doing at home?"
"I'm working," Grillo lied. It had been a late night. "The pollution piece,
remember?"
"Forget it. Something's come up and I want you there. Buddy Vance—
the
comedian?—he turned up missing."
"When?"
"This morning."
"Where?"
"Palomo Grove. You know it?"
"It's a name on a freeway sign."
"They're trying to dig him out. It's noon now. How long before you can
get
there?"
"An hour. Maybe ninety minutes. What's the big interest?"
"You're too young to remember The Buddy Vance Show."
"I caught the reruns."
"Let me tell you something, Nathan my boy—" Of all Abernethy's modes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ture
the look of mock-sincerity on the man's face. "And our readers need to
know."
"They want the dirt, and so do you," Grillo said.
"So sue me," Abernethy said. "Just get your ass out there."
"So we don't even know where he is? Suppose he just took off
somewhere?"
"Oh they know where he is," Abernethy said. "They're trying to bring the
body up in the next few hours."
Only Abernethy ever called Grillo by his first name. To Saralyn, from the
day they'd met to the night they'd parted, he was always Grillo; to every
one
of his colleagues and friends, the same. To his enemies (and what
journalist, particularly a disgraced one, did not court enemies?) he was
sometimes That Fuckhead Grillo, or Grillo the Righteous, but always
Grillo.."Bring it up? You mean he drowned?"
"I mean he fell down a hole."
Comedians, Grillo thought. Anything for a laugh.
Except that it wasn't funny. When he'd first joined Abernethy's happy
band, after the debacle in Boston, it had been a vacation from the
heavy-duty

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They wanted tales of pain among the high rollers; the flipside of fame.
Abernethy knew his congregation well. He'd even brought his biography
into the act, making much in his editorials of his conversion from alco-
holic
to Fundamentalist. Dry and High on the Lord, was how he liked to de-
scribe
himself. This holy sanction allowed him to peddle the muck he edited
with a
beatific smile, and allowed his readers to wallow in it without guilt. They
were reading stories of the wages of sin. What could be more Christian?
For Grillo the joke had long since soured. If he'd thought of telling
Abernethy to fuck off once he'd thought of it a hundred times, but where
was he going to get a job, hotshot reporter turned dupe that he was, ex-
cept
with a small operation like the Reporter? He'd contemplated other
professions, but he had neither the  desire nor aptitude to pursue any
other.
He had wanted to report the world to itself for as long as he could
remember. There was something essential about that function. He could
imagine himself performing no other. The world knew itself indifferently

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

parties. He had apologized, grovelled and resigned. The matter had
been
forgotten quickly, as a fresh slew of headlines replaced those that he'd
created. Politicians, like scorpion s and cockroaches, would be there
when
the warheads had levelled civilization. But journalists were frail. One
miscalculation and their credibilit y was dust. He had fled West until he
met
the Pacific. He'd considered throwing himself in, but had instead chosen
to 
work for Abernethy. More and more that seemed like an error.
Look on the bright side, he told himself every day, there's no direction
from
here but up..The Grove surprised him. It had all the distinguishing marks
of a town
created on paper—the central Mall, the cardinal point villages, the sheer
order of the streets—but  there was a welcome diversity in the styles of
the
houses, and—perhaps because it was  in part built on a hill—a sense
that it
might have secret reaches.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

operation. Come back later, was the suggestion. It looked like good ad-
vice.
There was very little activity around the fissure. Despite there being
tackle
of various kinds on the ground nobody seemed to be putting it to use.
He
decided to risk leaving the scene to make a few calls. He found his way
to 
the Mall and to a public telephone. His first call was to Abernethy, to re-
port
that he'd arrived and to enquire whether a photographer had been sent
down. Abernethy was away from his desk. Grillo left a message. He had
more luck with his second call. The answering machine began playing
its 
familiar message—
"Hi. This is Tesla and Butch. If you want to speak to the dog, I'm out. If
it's
Butch you need—" only to be interrupted by Tesla.
"Hello?"
"It's Grillo."
"Grillo? Shut the fuck up, Butch! Sorry, Grillo, he's trying to—" the phone

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You said that."
"Out of my mind! I got good news,  Grillo. I got a development deal for
one
of the screenplays. That castaway picture I wrote last year? They want it
rewritten. In space."
"You're going to do it?"
"Why not? I need something produced. Nobody's going to do any of the
heavy-duty stuff till I have a hit. So fuck Art, I'm going to be so crass
they'll
be coming in their pants. And before you say it, don't give me any of that
artistic integrity shit. A girl's got to feed herself."
"I know, I know."
"So," she said, "what's new?"
There were a lot of answers to that: a litany. He could tell her about
how.his hairdresser, with a palmful of straw-blond clippings, had smilingly
informed Grillo that he had a bald patch at his crown. Or how this
morning,
meeting himself in the mirror, he'd decided his long, anemic features,
which
he'd always hoped would mature into an heroic melancholia, were sim-
ply

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What's his life-story?"
"This is for Abernethy, right?"
"Right."
"So it's just the dirt."
"Got it in one."
"Well, comedians aren't my strongest point. I majored in Sex God-
desses.
But I looked him up when I heard the news. Married six times; once to a
seventeen-year-old. That lasted forty-two days. His second wife died of
an 
overdose..."
As Grillo had hoped, Tesla had chapter and verse on the Life and Sor-
did
Times of Buddy Vance (né, of all things, Valentino). The addictions to
women, controlled substances and fa me; the TV series; the films; the
fall
from grace.
"You can write about that with feeling, Grillo."
"Thanks for nothing."
"I only love you because I hurt you. Or do I mean the other way
around?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So how come he was so successful with women?"
"The dirt?"
"Of course."
"The enormous appendage."
"Are you kidding me?"
"The biggest dick in television. I got that from an unimpeachable
source."
"Who was that?"
"Please, Grillo," Tesla said, aghast. "Do I sound like a girl who'd gos-
sip?".Grillo laughed. "Thanks for the information. I owe you dinner."
"Sold. Tonight."
"I'll still be here, looks like."
"So I'll come find you."
"Maybe tomorrow, if I'm still here. I'll call you."
"If you don't, you're dead."
"I said I'll call; I'll call. Go back to Castaways in Space."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And Grillo—"
"What?"
Before answering she put the phone down, winning for the third
consecutive time the game of who  hangs up first they'd been playing
since

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

like that?"
"I'm sorry, Momma."
"You know how I rely upon him. I've  got good reason, Jo-Beth. I know
you
don't think so, but I do."
"No. I believe you. I'll call him later. First...I have to speak to you."
"Shouldn't you be at the store?" Joyce said. "Did you come home sick? I
heard Tommy-Ray..."
"Momma, listen to me. I have to ask you something very important."
Joyce looked troubled already. "I can't talk now," she said. "I want the
Pastor."
"He'll come later. First: I have to know about a friend of yours."
Joyce said nothing, but her face was all frailty. Jo-Beth had seen her
turn
that expression on too often to be cowed by it.
"I met a man last night, Momma," she said, determined to be plain in her
telling. "His name is Howard Katz. His mother was Trudi Katz."
Joyce's face lost its mask of delicacy. Beneath, was a look eerily like
satisfaction. "Didn't I say?" she murmured to herself, turning her head
back
towards the window.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without replying Joyce stood up.
"Where is he?" she said, her voice suddenly loud. She started towards
the
door. "I have to see him."
"All right, Momma! All right! Calm down."
At the door, she turned back to Jo-Beth. Tears welled in her eyes.
"You mustn't go near Trudi's boy," she said. "You hear me? You mustn't
see him, speak to him, even think of him. Promise me."
"I can't promise that. It's stupid."
"You haven't done anything with him, have you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh my Lord, you have."."I've done nothing."
"Don't lie to me!" Momma demanded, her hands clutched into bony fists.
"You must pray, Jo-Beth!"
"I don't want to pray. I came wanti ng help from you, that's all. I don't
need
prayers."
"He's got into you already. You never spoke this way before."
"I never felt this way before!" she replied. Tears were perilously close;
anger and fear all muddled up. It was no use listening to Momma, she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What's wrong?" he said ushering her in.
She put her hands to her face and sobbed. He wrapped his arms
around
her. "It's OK," he said. "Nothing's that bad." The sobs diminished stead-
ily,
until she disengaged herself from him and stood forlornly in the middle
of 
the room, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What happened?"
"It's a long story. It goes way back. To your mother and mine."
"They knew each other?"
She nodded. "They were best friends."
"So this was in the stars," he said, smiling.
"I don't think that's the way Momma sees it."
"Why not? Son of her best friend—"
"Did your mother ever tell you why she left the Grove?"
"She was unmarried."
"So's Momma."
"Maybe she's tougher than my—"
"No, what I mean is: maybe that's more than a coincidence. All my life

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think."
Howie's smile had long since disappeared.
"Mother?" he said softly. "Why did she never say anything?"."Who's
going to tell their kid they were conceived that way?"
"Oh my God," Howie said. "Raped..."
"Maybe I'm wrong," Jo-Beth said, looking up at Howie. His face was
knotted up, as though he'd just been slapped.
"I've lived with these rumors all my life, Howie. I've seen Momma driven
half-mad by them. Talking about the Devil all the time. It used to scare
me
so much, when she started talking about Satan having his eye on me. I
used to pray to be invisible, so he couldn't see me."
Howie took his spectacles off and threw them on to the bed.
"I never really told you why I came here, did I?" he said. "I
think...think...think it's time I did.  I came because I don't have the first
clue
as to who or what I am. I wanted to find out about the Grove and why it
drove my mother out."
"Now you wish you'd never come."
"No. If I hadn't come I wouldn't have met you. Wouldn't have—
have...have...fallen in love—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I love you, Jo-Beth."
"You can't. You don't know me."
"I do! And I'm not going to give up on that because of gossip. We don't
even know if any of this is true."  In his vehemence, all trace of his
stammer
had disappeared. "This could be all lies, right?"
"It could," she conceded. "But why  would anybody invent a story like
that?
Why did neither your mother nor mine ever tell us who our fathers
were?"
"We'll find out."
"Who from?"
"Ask your momma."
"I already tried."
"And?"
"She told me not to go near you. Not to even think of you..."
Her tears had dried as she'd told the story. Now, thinking of Momma
again, they began to flow. "But I can't stop that, can I?" she said, ap-
pealing
for help from the very source she'd been forbidden.
Watching her, Howie longed to be the holy fool Lem had always called

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Say a few prayers and maybe I'll go away, you mean?"
"That's not fair."
"Stay awhile, please," he coaxed. "We don't have to talk. We don't have
to 
do anything. Just stay."
"I'm tired."
"So we'll sleep."
He reached and touched her face, very lightly.
"Neither of us got enough sleep last night," he said.
She sighed, and nodded.
"Maybe it'll all come clear if we just let it be."
"I hope."
He excused himself and went through to the bathroom to empty his
bladder. By the time he got back she had taken off her shoes and was
lying
on the bed.
"Room for two?" he said.
She murmured yes. He lay down beside her, trying not to think about
what
he'd hoped they'd be doing between these sheets.
Again, she sighed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

himself, and his function.
"Can't tell you much," the man replied, in answer to Grillo's questions.
"We've got four climbers going down  now, but God knows how long it'll
take
to raise the body. We haven't found it yet. And Hotchkiss tells us there's
all 
kinds of rivers under there. The corpse could be in the Pacific for all we
know."
"Will you work through the night?"
"Looks like we'll have to." He look ed at his watch. "We've got maybe
four
hours of daylight left. Then we'll be relying on the lamps."
"Has anybody investigated these caves before?" Grillo asked. "Are they
mapped?"
"Not that I know of. You'd better ask  Hotchkiss. He's the guy in black
over
there."
Again, Grillo made his introductions. Hotchkiss was a
tall, grim individual, with the baggy look of a man who'd lost substantial
amounts of weight.
"I understand you're the cave expert," Grillo said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You've made some kind of study of it?"
"In a strictly amateur capacity," Hotchkiss explained. "There's some
subjects just take hold of you. This did me."
"So have you been down there yourself?"
Hotchkiss broke his rule, holding his gaze on Grillo's face for a full two
seconds before saying: "Until this morning these caves were sealed, Mr.
Grillo. I had them sealed myself,  many years ago. They were—they
are—a
danger to innocents."
Innocents, Grillo noted. A strange word to use.
"The policeman I was talking to—"
"Spilmont."
"Right. He said there's rivers down there."."There's a whole world down
there, Mr. Grillo, about which we know next
to nothing. And it's changing all the time. Sure, there's rivers, but there's
a 
good deal else besides. Whole species that never see the sun."
"Doesn't sound like much fun."
"They accommodate," Hotchkiss said. "As we all do. They live with their
limitations. We're all of us living on  a fault line, after all, which could
open

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I discovered I was a sum of my ...accommodations," he replied. "When
the
town goes, so will I."
"When?"
"Palomo Grove is built on bad land.  The earth beneath our feet feels
solid
enough but it's on the move."
"So the whole town could go the wa y of Buddy Vance? Is that what
you're
saying?"
"You can quote me as long as you don't name me."
"That's fine by me."
"Got what you need?"
"More than enough."
"No such thing," Hotchkiss observed. "Not with bad news. Excuse me,
would you?"
There had been a sudden galvanizing of forces around the fissure.
Leaving Grillo with a punchline for his story any comedian would have
envied, Hotchkiss strode off to oversee the raising of Buddy Vance.
In his bedroom Tommy-Ray lay and sweated. He'd come out of the
sunlight and closed the windows, then drawn the curtains. Sealing the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

than
with himself?
He'd heard her come back to the house in the early afternoon, and ar-
gue
with Momma, but he didn't try to catch the words between them. If
her.pathetic romance was already falling apart—and why else would she
be 
sobbing on the stairs?— then t hat was her own damn fault. He had
more
important business.
Lying in the heat, the strangest pict ures came haunting his head. They
all 
rose from a darkness which his curtained room couldn't hope to match.
Was that, perhaps, why they were incomplete as yet? Fragments of a
scheme he wanted passionately to grasp but that kept slipping from him.
In 
them, there was blood; there was ro ck; there was a pale, flickering
creature
his gut turned at seeing. And there was a man he could not make out
but
who would, if he sweated enough, come clear in front of him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hold of the man from behind long enough for him to pull his fingers free
of 
the gloves. As both fell backwards on to the ground the shouts from be-
low
multiplied, supplemented by warnings from above.
"It's opening!" somebody yelled. "Jesus Christ, it's opening!"
Grillo was a physical coward until he sniffed news; then he was ready to
stand face to face with anything. He pushed past Hotchkiss and a cop to
get a better view of what was happening. Nobody stopped him; not with
their own safety to consider. Dust was rising from the widening fissure,
blinding the anchormen who were hol ding the ropes on which the re-
trieval
party's life depended. Even as he watched, one of the men was hauled
towards the crevice, from which shrieks that suggested massacre were
rising. He added his as the earth went to dust beneath his heels.
Somebody threw himself past Grillo in the confusion and attempted to
snatch at the man but too late. The rope tightened. He was pulled out of
sight, leaving his failed savior face down at the edge of the crack. Grillo
took three steps towards the survivor, barely able to see either the
ground

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grillo's proffered arm, as the ground around them both split open.
Side by side on the motel bed, neither Jo-Beth nor Howie woke, though
both gasped and shuddered like lovers saved from drowning. There
had.been dreams of water for them both. Of a dark sea which was carrying
them towards some wonderful place. But their journey had been
interrupted. Something below their  dreaming selves had snatched at
them,
dragging them out of that lulling tide and down into a shaft of rock and
pain.
Men were screaming all around them as they fell to their deaths, ropes
following like obedient snakes.
Somewhere in the confusion they heard each other, each sobbing the
other's name, but there wasn't time for reunion before their downward
motion was checked and an upward surge caught them. It was icy cold;
a 
torrent of water from a river that  had never seen the sun but mounted
the
chasm now, bearing dead men, dreamers and whatever else occupied
this
nightmare, before it. The walls became a blur as they rose to meet the
sky.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but
left on his inner eye another impression entirely, like the after-burn of
fireworks. He shook the image off and looked again. But whatever he'd
seen had gone.
"We got to get out!" he heard Hotchkiss yell. The ground was still
cracking.
They hauled themselves upright, their feet scrabbling in the mud for
purchase, and ran blindly through rain and dust, only knowing they'd
reached the perimeter when they tri pped over the rope. One of the re-
trieval
team, his hand half gone, lay where the first spurt had dropped him.
Beyond rope and body, in the cover of the trees, were Spilmont and a
number of cops. The rain came down lightly here, tapping on the canopy
like a midsummer shower, while behind the storm from the earth roared
itself out.
Soaking with his own sweat, Tommy-Ray stared at the ceiling and
laughed. He hadn't had a ride like that since the summer before last, out
at 
Topanga, when a freak tide had thrown up a magnificent swell. He,
Andy
and Scan had ridden it for hours, high on speed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

side
her on a warm sea, their hair inte rtwined the way she'd wanted their
bodies
to be) and what had that dream brought? Cataclysm! Blood, rock and a
terrible rain which had killed him in his sleep.
Dear God, forgive me—
He opened his eyes so suddenly her  prayer deserted her. In its place,
his
name.
"Howie? You're alive."
He unknotted himself, reaching out to claim his spectacles from beside
the bed. He put them on. Her shock came into focus.
"You dreamed it too," he said.
"It wasn't like a dream. It was real." She was shaking from head to foot.
"What have we done, Howie?"
"Nothing," he said, coughing the growl from his throat. "We've done
nothing."
"Momma was right. I shouldn't have—"
"Stop it," he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stand-
ing
up. "We've done nothing wrong."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes."
"See?" she said. "Whatever's between us...it's wrong. Maybe it's the
Devil's work."
"You don't believe that."
"I don't know what I believe," she said. He moved towards her, but she
kept him at bay with a gesture. "Don't, Howie. It's not right. We shouldn't
touch each other." She started towards the door. "I have to go."
"This is...is…is...absurd," he said, but no stumbling words of his were
going to stop her leaving. She was already fumbling with the security
bolt
he'd put on when she'd entered.
"I'll get it," he said, leaning past her to open the door. In lieu of any
comforting words he kept a silence which she only broke with:
"Goodbye."
"You're not giving us time to think this through."
"I'm afraid, Howie," she said. "You're right, I don't believe the Devil's
in.this. But if he isn't, who is? Have you got any answers for that?"
She was barely able to keep her emotions in check; she kept gulping air
as if trying to swallow, and failing.  The sight of her distress made him
long
to hug her, but what had been invited last night was now forbidden.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

closed the door..PART FOUR:
PRIMAL SCENES
I
"Start writing!" he said. "Take a room in town—charge
it to me—and start writing! I'll hol d the front page." If Abernethy sought
to 
excite Grillo with B-movie clichés 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, or-
dering

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

absence of any questions on the subject from Spilmont suggested no-
body
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 event s in the Grove. His relatives, if
they
had a taste for the limelight—and few didn't—could bide their time be-
fore
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..choosing between suitors for their
story. But now Vance's demise had been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

n'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,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 ri des: brilliantly colored advertise-
ments
for Tunnels of Love, Ghost Train Rides, Carousels, Freak Shows, Wres-
tling
Shows, Gal Shows, Waltzes, Dipper s, and Mystic Swings. The render-
ings
were for the most part crude, the wo rk of painters who  knew their craft
was
in the service of commerce, and ha d 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 st udied under the spotlight. Vance had
not
been blind to that fact. By hanging the items cheek by jowl on every wall
he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 t heir 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—"
"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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 Euro-
pean
education, perhaps? "I know nothi ng about his other wives so don't
bother
prying. Nor will I speculate on his addictions. Would you like some cof-
fee?"
"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quite
plain. The expression, crossing a face so devoid of sculptural error, car-
ried
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 fit-
ted
into the house were assembled here. A carved face, maybe twelve feet
high, the yawning, saw-toothed mout h of which had been the entrance
to a
ride. A placard advertising The Wall of Death, written out in lights. A full-
size,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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 no-
where.
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 subjec t she'd pronounced herself willing to
talk
about yet hadn't touched: his professional life. There were a few loop-
holes.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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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. Conspira-
tors
might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approxima-
tion
of same, would show itself sooner or  later, very often in the unlikeliest
form.
It was seldom hard facts that reve aled the life behind the life. It was ru-
mor,
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..II
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,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

brought it back up to her room, where now—sandwich consumed—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—cancelling
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, how-
ever.
He'd gone to comfort Angelie Datlow, whose husband Bruce had been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

backyard making blithe music, and trie d to make sense of the sense-
less.
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 w ho could. It gave her comfort to know
that.
Now she was not sure. If she told anyone from church— who made up
most of her circle—what had happened  at the motel (the dream of wa-
ter,
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?.distance, silencing
life—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—which took so
much away from the world and gave so little back—would never be the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dying
man's teeth? He threw off the covers. At some stage he'd stripped to his
underwear. The body he caught sigh t 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—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 un-
did
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 j ungle he went now, drawn by the Gei-
ger
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 bed-
room
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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— one she had promised Momma she'd not dwell
on—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. Unstea dy 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—"
"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, w ho 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 to-
gether,
"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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—"
"Not me," Tommy-Ray said, the smile unwavering. "Our father."."What?"
"Who art outside—"
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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
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!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 i t." 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 s ee one," Tommy-Ray spat back. "All
your

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

found
so fatherly had swelled; or something behind it had. His eyes and fore-
head
were enlarged; the bearded chin, and his mouth, which she'd thought so
fine, almost vestigial. Where her father had been was a monstrous in-
fant.
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 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—" she pointed the
knife
in the direction of the door, from the far side of which came the sound of
tapping "—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 besi de 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 Os-
car-winning
skill or else he'd been right. Either way, Jo-Beth was forfeit.
The Jaff was tapping on the door again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Let her answer ," the Jaff said..Jo-Beth had no hesitation in replying.
"Yes," she said. "Yes. She's got a
knife and—"
"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 t hat 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 chil-
dren
he'd made dolls for Jo-Beth by the dozen, makeshift toys that neverthe-
less
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—"
"The League of Virgins," Jo-Beth said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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.".III
"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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—as now— 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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mystery—the only mystery—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, some-
how."."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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 dis-
miss
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 w ould 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 curi-
osity

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ered
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 predictab ility of ritual. Sometimes the baby
would
turn over in her sleep and her long-lashed eyes would flicker open.
Seeing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then, one night, standing guard at Dawn's cot, he heard the mis-
siles
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, t hen returned to the Grove, the medi-
cal
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 st ore in the Mall, a job which had
made
mercifully few demands upon him. He was happy among the animals,
who

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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 night-
mare
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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, hang-
ing
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 in-
tend
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

given
the strength of feeling between them, didn't seem so difficult to
understand—had been rerouted by an inept telepathic switchboard to-
wards
a nightmare which they neither u nderstood nor deserved. It was an as-
tral
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—Mrs. Knapp— 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
Greatest Message of the Age. He thumbed through it. The slim vol-
ume—it
was scarcely more than a pamphlet—was published by the Church of
Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and presented in easily assimi-
lated
paragraphs and paintings the story of the Great White God of ancient
America. To judge by the pictures  whatever incarnation this Lord ap-
peared
in— Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Tonga-Loa god of the ocean sun in Polyne-
sia,
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—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 hav e the words of reclamation he was
going

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 ea rth, or on the significance of bap-
tism.
Among them, a picture book on the lif e of Joseph Smith, with photo-
graphs
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—
"I called Jo-Beth's hous e. There's no answer there. Something must
have

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for being unpunctual; there was nothing informal about her working
hours. But Mrs. Knapp, good Christ ian that she was, seemed deter-
mined 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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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 any-
thing
remotely so obscene) voiced in her shop.
"I don't remember," she replied, with a kind of defiance. "And even if I
could—" She stopped, took a breath, then started on a fresh tack. "Why

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he 
knew that the retrieval of the come dian's corpse he'd seen in progress
the
previous day had turned into a major tragedy. What he didn't under-
stand
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."
"On the Great White God of America?" he said. "What's his
name...Quetzalcoatl?" She looked co nfounded. "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 sh op 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 Ma ll, like himself. The girl of his
dreams
had spoken the truth after all..V
Grillo woke to the sound of the telephone, lashed out, knocked over a
half-filled
glass of champagne— his last drunken toast of the previous night: To
Buddy, gone but not forgotten—cursed,  claimed the receiver and put it
to 
his ear.
"Hello?" he growled.
"Did I wake you?"
"Tesla?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What time are you planning to be here?" he asked her.
"Oh I don't know. About—" 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—"
"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—he was sick with the flu,  she explained—each time she re-
turned.from tending to him and picked up her story afresh the facts re-
mained
consistent; or simply that the st ory 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—which wasn't long of course—we used to
find
ways to be together. Often. I think she knew all along. That's why she
got

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

feeling—in this instance, contempt— which the woman's passive de-
meanor
scarcely betrayed. "She judges ev eryone 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 y ou and betray you. Sex things.
Power
things."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"She has an expensive habit," Ellen re plied. Again, the contempt, min-
gled
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

few years. Everybody knew his fa ce, 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 conspicu-
ous
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 o ne 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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, how-
ever—
at least not until he'd generated twenty odd pages of cross-referenced

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ler 
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 presuma-
bly, 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
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—particularly
that
shared terror in the motel—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.."You're not to blame," the woman said,
the fierceness he'd been greeted

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"W…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 alread y planned, even before he turned from
the
step and started off down the street.
Somewhere in the woods, at the fa r 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

past;
from Momma's past. Whatever wa s 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 thres hold 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 adver-
sity.presented itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

turned
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 t he 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 t he 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 t oo-bright moon. He was not wel-
come

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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, stop-
ping
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 thr ee hallucinations synthesized, draw-
ing
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

trol.
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—his own hands—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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 —" He gestured wildly with his arms.  "Back and
forth!
All to watch an exhumation. Can you imagine? What a waste of a day."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 mesca-
line,
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

somewhat pathetic sight. There are better ways to meet your progenitor,
but I did my best to give you a tast e 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— 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 ro-
mance
in jeopardy."
"Fuck you!" said Howie, making a fist. "I can wake up Watch!"
Mustering all his strength he deliver ed 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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, how-
ever.
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—"
"I'm going to wake."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 connec-
tions
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 chil-
dren,
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—."His what?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 lo osen 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—vast, and growing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
—Between this world, called the Cosm—also called the Clay, also
called
the Helter Incendo—between this world and the Metacosm, also called
the.Alibi, also called the Exordium and the Lonely Place, is a sea called
Quiddity—
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.
—and on that sea, there's an island—

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 fath er's mind. Back came the nausea, and
then
the light, splashing through the foliage above his head.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 de sperate our situation is ," he said.  "Quid-
dity
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—" 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," Howi e 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 re-
sisted
the revelations which might have made him comprehend his father's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 be-
fore
dusk, when the day turned towards darkness, and the Jaff would have
an 
even greater advantage than he ha d 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, al-
ways
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 stra nge 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—two in Deerdell, one in
Windbluff—
that needed looking over, and prices  determined. His anxiety didn't di-
minish
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him considerable pleasure. The house on Wild Cherry Glade, just below
the Crescents, was large and desira ble. He was already creating the
Better
For William Witt, Palomo Grove's Bo swell, 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 look ed directly across at the supermar-
ket.
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. Wil-
liam
prided himself on the fact that he  could name fully ninety-eight percent
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

owned one hundred and eleven), they introduced him to visiting
friends..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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

drained after Mrs. Lloyd, who'd owned the property, had died. The water
was low, its surface encrusted wi th 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 breed-
ing in
the filth—fungus or fish—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—or at least tried to—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—Carolyn, Trudi,
Joyce and Arleen, lovely Arleen—as clearly as if it were just yesterday
he'd
spied on them. He watched them in his mind's eyes, stripping off their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

slip back home for a while, and watch a video from his collection.
The.notion, fuelled in part by the erot ic 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 in-
crease.
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 pur-
suit.
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 centi-
pede,
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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, an-
other
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—"
"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—" William began.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gering
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 pr ivate 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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 kiss-
ing
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,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Duffin," said William.
"Good! Good!" the Jaff said, jabbing a thick thumb in his direction. "Duf-
fin!
How easily we forget! Duffin!"
William knew Mildred. He'd seen her that very morning—minus the poo-
dle
pack—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,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 in-
deed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 ex-
change
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. Some-
where
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—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,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 va-
cate
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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 remember-
ing.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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You sure you're fit to drive? I could get somebody—"
"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..VIII
"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—which had never looked so
far
from him, or so small—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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't think she's got a phone," Grillo said. "I should find out what she
wants. She used to work for Vance."
Suddenly dog-tired, Grillo had taken to his bed around three-fifteen,
instructing the switchboard to hold all calls through to his suite until fur-
ther
notice. It was therefore a rapping on the door that woke him. He sat up,
his
head so light it almost floated off.."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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—"
"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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

before, of course, but she had a tw ist on the tale. Rather than telling it
as a
parable of evil she'd tell it of apat hy. People simply choosing not to be-
lieve
what they were told; just going about  their daily business with expres-
sions
of blithe indifference. And the heroine would try to galvanize these peo-
ple
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—as now—it was so ob-
vious
as to be unavoidable. Presumably her  gut told her that Palomo Grove
was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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..IX
"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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"Enough!" said Spilmont. "I've got too  many wackoes on the block with-
out
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 dog-
ged
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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 ev ery 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 vicin-
ity.
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He knew why. The human sphere, willfully insensitive as it was,
couldn't entirely block out the presen ce of supernatural forces in its
midst.
The inhabitants of the Grove, thoug h 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 tu rned 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..X
--------------i--------------
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—after a
pause for the unlocking of locks  and unbolting of bolts— be received
into

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nels
playing while he'd waited; hummed along to theme tunes, laughed with
pay-off lines. Unwitnessed, therefor e, he slipped to the side of the
house,
clambered over the gate, and star ted down the passage to the back-
yard.
As he did so the light in the ki tchen 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 t he 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—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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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, squeam-
ish
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 be-
hind 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 embarrass ment 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—when she was saying
there were terrible things in the Grove—she was right. One of them
came

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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 trut h about them—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 gent le 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 su pposed to hate each other, you
know?
That was their plan—Fletcher and  the Jaff—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—"
"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 wo man 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 abst ractions was one thing (it drew fe-
male
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—"
"Her father was a man, Mrs. McGuire."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—his hand damming a trickle of sweat—

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 sanc-
tified
by her cunt, perfumed by it, dampened by it, would keep him the way he
was—too hard for comfort—until the Crack of Doom.
And wouldn't she look sexy, with her s lit 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 plucke d his jeans and T-shirt up, and
began to put them on, watching

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 outsi de moved. He put the tumbler in
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I thought I saw somebody in your yard," he said. "But there's nothing—"
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 st ep 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 pres-
ence
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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—and
what
had broken it—as his trembling limbs could carry him. How was it possi-
ble
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 Wi dows in their affliction, the way
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 possi-
ble..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—
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 wa s 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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 accusa-
tion.
"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-so unds. He didn't give his imagi-
nation
room enough to put pictures to the text; he'd see the truth for himself all
too

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it 
was she damned to hell; and from t he mouth of her own minister, no
less.
Did that mean they were both taint ed 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 ri-
poste.
In lieu of wit he yelled:
"Fuck you," back through the door, and headed out in search of Jo-
Beth..--------------ii--------------
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 s ound of the dogs moved the trees.
Their
sibilance distracted Howie from the sound of the army until he was a lit-
tle 
way from the house. Then he heard  the chorus of mutterings and duck-
ings
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 occu-
pied.
Larger forms roamed there, shambling back and forth across the slates,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—scarcely louder than the wind in the trees— but every sylla-
ble
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 ex-
pected
a warlord. But there was nothing massively impressive about his father's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 a ll unnatural? You. Me. Them. I'd sup-
pose
we'd all of us have gone to the fl ames 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

contact.
As he did so the touches multiplied  'til there were too many to be fin-
gers; 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 it s 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 abdo-
men
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 expres-
sion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(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 ascendi ng 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 pos-
sessed.
The larger creatures were skipping do wn the roof to join the pursuit.
With
what little lead the Jaff had offered eroded with every second he de-
layed,
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 de-
feat
and failure.
He called to the boy:
Howardhowardhowardhow— the same call he'd put out after first rising
from the rock.
Howardhowardhowardhow—
He sent the message out rhythmica lly, 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
said of all art, to the condition of mu sic. 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 hun-
dred
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 t he rigors of self-denial would have
power

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 fr om insanity in the face of being
alive.
There, briefly, was pattern and purpose; there was a glimpse of continu-
ity;
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the last surviving member of the Shoal; an order of elevated human be-
ings
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 mem-
bers
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 How-
ard
were not the recipient of these ob servations 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 aw ay from their television screens
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.".XI
--------------i--------------
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 cliché 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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"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. Despit e 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—that effort alone enough to set his head
spinning—he caught sight of Tesl a rummaging in the glove compart-
ment.
"What've you lost?"
"When Yvonne was killed—" she said, grunting as she dug through the
detritus "—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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 wa s still clinging to the car door, his
teeth
chattering. No help to be had ther e, and the boy's situation seemed to
be 
worsening. With every twitch of  the parasite's limbs—there were so
many
limbs; and joints; and eyes—his face knotted up.
"...Get away..." he growled at her, "...please...in God's name...they're

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

tored
in the real—tried to reject the less on 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 t he car!" The pale army heard her, and
picked
up its speed. "The car, Grillo, get in  the fucking car!" She saw him fum-
ble
for the door, barely in control of hi s responses. Some of the smaller
beasts
at the head of the tide were alread y 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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—which hit one of the  larger beasts but didn't slow it
a 
beat—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 fa ther, whoever he was, had some
help

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ing—
after some effort—in getting the ca r 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 noth-
ing.
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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—"
"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—"
"I don't want anything from you."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Later," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to talk. On that island, the day
never ends.".--------------ii--------------
''Why don't they overtake us?" Tesla said to Howie.
Twice the pursuing forces had seem ed certain to overtake and over-
whelm
them, and twice their ranks had slow ed at the very moment they were
able
to realize their ambition. The susp icion was growing on her that the
chase
was being choreographed. If so, she  fretted, by whom? And what was
their
intention?
The boy—he'd muttered his name, Howie, several streets back—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?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 assault-
ing
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

them—whether touched by the Jaff  or not—were feeling oddly dislo-
cated.
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 st reet; others got as far as go-
ing to
the front door (husbands or wives calling them back, telling them there
was
no need to step outside; that there wa s nothing to see that couldn't be
seen
on the television). It only took one individual to venture out, however,
before others followed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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—"
"Let me see—"
"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?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of 
flesh to its maw. Howie's father th rew 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—" 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 gr eat deal to tell you. Howie resisted
my
telling him. You won't. I know you w on'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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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," Hotchkis s said, bitterly. "All those years
they
thought I was crazy, because I closed the caves. Because I talked about
Carolyn's death as murder—"
"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 t he stores, others simply standing
and
listening to the alarms as if to ce lestial 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 be-
yond
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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. "Whatev er 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 ear-
lier
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fletcher, now stepped out of the market, and walked past them all—
Tesla,
Grillo, Howie and Hotchkiss—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 gr ave. 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 murm ured.."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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 inst ead simply cast a glance down at
them,
as at two brawling dogs, then stepped past them to continue his ad-
vance
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 vulnerabil-
ity;
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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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, wh ere they'd touched Fletcher. It blew
them

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

like a pillar, was not  consuming him but tran sforming, the process
throwing
out flashes of bright matter.
The Jaff's response to these lights—which was to retreat like a rabid
dog
before thrown water—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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 we re next to be touched. Some, hav-
ing.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. Al-
ready
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 sunbea m.
An
old song for a new age.
The opening act of that age was already coming to a conclusion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 him-
self
beside her during Fletcher's dissol ution, 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, re-
union
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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any alcoholic would have recognized the behavior of the Grove the
following morning. It was that of a man who'd been on a bender the
night
before and had to get up early the day after and pretend that nothing
untoward had happened. He'd stand under a cold shower for a few min-
utes
to shock his system into wakefulness, breakfast on Alka-Seltzer and
black
coffee, then step out into the day with a gait more purposeful than usual,
and the permafrost smile of an actress who'd just lost an Oscar. There
were more hellos and how-are-yous? that morning, more neighbors
waving
cheerily to each other as they backed out their cars, more radios playing
weather reports (sun! sun! sun!) thr ough windows thrown wide to prove
that
there were no secrets in this house. To a stranger, coming to the Grove
that morning for the first time, it would have seemed as though the town
were auditioning for Perfectsville, USA. The general air of enforced
bonhomie would have curdled his stomach.
Down at the Mall, where the ev idence of a Dionysian night could
scarcely

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the glass had been entirely swept away, and boards nailed up
over the smashed panes. By noon, fresh windows had been ordered. By
two, they were in. Not since the days of the League of Virgins had the
Grove been so single-minded in its pursuit of equilibrium; nor so
hypocritical. For behind closed doors, in bathrooms and bedrooms and
dens, it was a different story entirely. Here the smiles dropped, and the
intent gait gave way to nervous pacing, and weeping, and the swallow-
ing of
pills searched for with the passion  of gold-diggers. Here people con-
fessed
to themselves—not even to their partners or their dogs—that something
was awry today and would never be qu ite right again. Here people tried
to 
remember tales they'd been told as children—the old, fanciful stories
adulthood had all but shamed from their memories—in the hope of
countering their present fears. Some  tried to drink away their anxiety.
Some
took to eating. Some contemplated the priesthood.
It was, all in all, a damn strange day.
Less strange, perhaps, for those who had hard facts to juggle, however

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cherry Glade. His subsequent conv ersation with Spilmont, dismissing
his
story as fabrication, had made hi m paranoid. Either there was a con-
spiracy
afoot to keep the Jaff's machinations secret, or else he, William Witt,
was
losing his mind. Nor were these me mories mutually exclusive, which
was
doubly chilling. In the face of such bitter blasts he'd kept himself locked
up 
at home, with the exception of his brief trip down to the Mall the previous
night. He'd been a late attender, and today he remembered very little of
it, 
but he did recall getting home and the  night of video Babylon that fol-
lowed.
Usually he was quite sparing with hi s porno sessions, preferring to se-
lect
one or two films to view rather than pig out on a dozen. But last night's
viewing had turned into a binge. When the Robinsons next door were
taking their kids off to the playground the following morning he was still

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cock sizes; their early histories; their specialities. He had the narratives,
crude as they were, by heart; his favorite scenes memorized down to
each
grunt and spurt
But today the parade did not arouse him.  He went from film to film like
an 
addict among pillaged peddlers, looking for a fix no one could supply,
until
the videos were piled high around his television. Two-ways, three-ways,
oral, anal, golden showers, bondage, discipline, lesbian scenes, dildo
scenes, rape and romance scenes—he went through them all but none
provided the release he needed. His search became a kind of pursuit of
himself. What will rouse me will be me, was his half-finished thought.
It was a desperate situation. This was the first time in his life—excluding
events with the League—that voyeurism had failed to excite. The first
time
he wanted the performers sharing his reality as he shared theirs. He'd
always been happy to turn them off when he'd shot his wad; even been
faintly contemptuous of their charms once their hold on him had been
mopped up. Now he mourned them, like lovers he'd lost without ever
knowing them properly, whose every orifice he'd sight of, but whose

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

through
The Last Lays of Pompeii and Bom to Be Made and Secrets of a
Women's
Prison; films he knew as well as his own history, but which, unlike his
history, might yet live in the present tense.
He was not the only Grover visited by such thoughts, though none were
as 
fixated on the erotic as William. The same idea—that some precious,
essential person, or persons, might  be called up from the mind and
made a
boon companion— occurred to every member of the crowd that had
gathered in the Mall the evening before. Soap-opera stars, game-show
hosts, dead or lost relations, divorced spouses, missing children, comic-
book
characters: there were as many names as there were minds to
summon them.
For some, like William Witt, the face of their desire gathered momentum
at 
such speed (fuelled in several cases by obsession, in others by longing
or

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
eaves but that Shuna knew the tune.
For Karen Conroy the three leads of  her favorite movie, Love Knows
Your
Name, a little-seen romance she'd wept through six days running during
a 
long-past trip to Paris, could be sensed as a delicate European perfume
in 
the lounge.
And so on, and so forth.
By noon that day there wasn't any one of the crowd who hadn't had an
intimation—many of which were di smissed or ignored of course—that
they
had unexpected visitors. The population of Palomo Grove, which had
swelled by a hundred horrors at the Jaff's summons, was about to swell
again.
In Ossie Larton's loft there were scratchings he knew with an inward
smile
were the birth pangs of the werewo lf he'd kept secret company with
since
he'd first known that such creatures were imaginable. His name was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We're not shouting."
"OK. We're not shouting. All I'm saying is, please consider the possibility
that this errand he's sending you on—"
"Errand?"
"Now you're shouting. I'm just saying, think a minute. This could be the
last trip you ever make."
"Possibility accepted."
"So let me come with you. You've never been south of Tijuana."
"Neither have you."
"It's rough—"
"Listen, I've pitched art movies to men perplexed by Dumbo. I know
rough.
If you want to do something really useful, stay here and get well."
"I'm well already. I never felt better."
"I need you here, Grillo. Watching. It's not over, by a long way."
"What am I supposed to be watching for?" Grillo asked, conceding the
argument by no longer pursuing it.
"You've always had an eye for the hidden agenda. When the Jaff makes
his move, however quietly, you'll know  it. By the way, did you see Ellen
last

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

at all, his presence would be an intrusion she had no right to risk, either
for
his good or for the good of the task ahead. It had been one of Fletcher's
last acts to choose her to go to  the Mission; he'd even indicated that it
had
somehow been preordained. Not so long ago she'd have dismissed
such
mysticism; but after last night she was obliged to be more open-minded.
The world of mysteries she'd made light of in her spook and spaceship
screenplays was not to be so easily mocked. It had come looking for
her,
found her, and pitched her—cynicism and all— among its heavens and
its 
hells. The latter in the shape of the Jaff's army, the former's presence in
Fletcher's transformation: flesh to light.
Charged with being the dead man's agent on earth she felt a curious
relaxation, despite the jeopardy that lay ahead. She no longer had to
keep.her cynicism polished; no longer had to divide her imaginings from
moment
to moment into the real (solid, sensible) and the fanciful (vaporous,
valueless). If (when) she got back to her typewriter she'd begin these

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mision de Santa Catrina, or—if Fletcher's hope was well founded—on
the
empty ground where it had stood, before dawn.
On his father's instructions Tommy-Ray had crept back to the Mall the
previous night, long after the crowd had dispersed. The police had ar-
rived
by that point but he had no difficulty in achieving his purpose, which was
the retrieval of the terata which he had attached with his own hands to
Katz's flesh. The Jaff had other reasons for wanting the creature back
than
keeping it from being found by the police. It was not dead, and once
returned to the hands of its creator  it regurgitated all it had seen and
heard,
the Jaff laying his hands on the beast like a faith-healer and drawing the
report from the terata's system.
When he'd heard what he needed to hear, he killed the messenger.
"Well now..." he said to Tommy-Ray, "...it seems you'll have the journey
I 
told you about sooner than I planned."
"What about Jo-Beth? That bastard Katz has got her."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

smile of yours can get you whatever you want. Well it won't get you her."
"You're wrong. And I'll prove it."
"Not now you won't. You've got some travelling to do."
"First, Jo-Beth," Tommy-Ray said, and made to move away from his
father. But the Jaff's hand was on his shoulder before he'd moved more
than a step. His touch made Tommy-Ray yelp.
"Shut the fuck up!"
"You're hurting me!"
"I meant to!"
"No...I mean really hurting. Stop it."
"You're the one death loves, right, son?".Tommy-Ray could feel his legs
start to give out beneath him. He began to
leak from dick, nose and eyes.
"I don't think you 're half the man you say you are ," the Jaff told him.
"Not
half."
"I'm sorry...don't hurt me any more, please..."
"I don't think men sniff after their sisters all the time. They find other
women. And they don't talk about death like it was easy stuff then snivel
if 
they start to hurt a little."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's a place I want you to go for me," the Jaff said. "It's called the
Mision de Santa Catrina...".II
Howie hadn't realized until Fletcher  had gone out of his life just how
many
questions he had left unanswered; problems only his father might have
helped him solve. They didn't vex him through the night. He slept too
soundly. It was only the next morning that he began to regret his refusal
to 
learn from Fletcher. The only soluti on available to Jo-Beth and himself
was
to try to piece the story in which they clearly played such a vital role
together from clues, and from the testimony of Jo-Beth's mother.
The previous night's invasion had brought about a change in Joyce
McGuire. After years of attempting to hold the evil that had entered her
house at bay, her failure, in the end, to do so had somehow freed her.
The
worst had happened: what more was there to fear? She had seen her
personal hell created in front of her, and survived. God's agency—in the
form of the Pastor—had been valueless. It had been Howie who had
gone
out in search of her daughter, and finally—both of them ragged, and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

came, one by one. Sometimes, especially when she talked about
Arleen,
Carolyn and Trudi, she cried as she talked, but as the events she was
describing became more tragic she told them more and more
dispassionately. On occasion she 'd go back to offer details she'd
missed, or
to praise somebody who'd helped her  through the difficult years, when
she
was bringing up Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray alone knowing she was talked
about as the hussy who'd survived.
"The number of times I thought about leaving the Grove," she said. "Like
Trudi."
"I don't think it saved her any pain," Howie said. "She was always
unhappy."
"I remember her a different way. Always in love with somebody or
other."
"Do you know...who she was in love with before she had me?"
"Are you asking me do I know who your father is?"
"Yes."
"I have a good idea. Your middle name was his first. Ralph Contreras.
He

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't hear it."
"I know, it's strange. It's gone. It's  almost like meeting Fletcher took it
out
of me. Tell me, does Ralph still live in the Grove?"
"No. He left before you were even born. He probably thought there'd be
a 
lynch-mob out after him. Your mother was a middle-class white girl, and
he..."
She stopped, seeing the look on Howie's face.
"He?" Howie said.
"—was Hispanic."
Howie nodded. "You learn something new every day, right?" he said,
playing lightly what clearly went deep.
"Anyway, that's why he left," Joyce went on. "If your mother had ever
named him I'm sure he'd have been accused of rape. Which it wasn't.
We
were driven, all of us, by whatever the Devil had put inside us."
"It wasn't the Devil, Momma," Jo-Beth said.
"So you say," she replied, with  a sigh. The energy suddenly seemed to
go

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Devil
to me."
"So what does that make Tommy-Ray and me, Momma?" Jo-Beth said.
"The Jaff made us."
"I've wondered about that often, " Joyce said. "When you were very
young
I used to watch you both all the time, waiting for the bad in you to show.
It 
has in Tommy-Ray. His maker's ta ken him. Maybe my prayers have
saved
you, Jo-Beth. You went  to church with me. You studied. You trusted in
the
Lord."
"So you think Tommy-Ray's lost?" Jo-Beth asked.
Momma didn't answer for a moment, though not, it was clear when the
answer came, because she felt ambiguous on the subject.
"Yes," she said finally. "He's gone."
"I don't believe that," Jo-Beth said.
"Even after what he was up to last night?" Howie put in.
"He doesn't know what lie's doing. The Jaff's controlling him, Howie. I
know him better than a brother—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Tommy-Ray can be saved?" Howie said.
"No. Maybe the Devil's in her too."
Howie found Jo-Beth in the yard, face up to the sky, eyes closed. She
glanced around at him.
"You think Momma's right," she said. "Tommy-Ray's beyond help."
"No, I don't. Not if you believe we can get to him. Bring him back."
"Don't just say that to please me, Howie. If you're not on my side in this I
want you to tell me."
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Listen," he said, "if I'd believed what
your mother said then I wouldn't have come back, would I? This is me
remember? Mister Persistence. If you think we can break the Jaff's hold
on 
Tommy-Ray then we'll damn well do it. Just don't ask me to like him."
She turned round fully, brushing her hair, which the breeze had caught,
from her face.
"I never thought I'd be standing in your momma's backyard with my
arms
around you," Howie said.
"Miracles happen."
"No they don't," he said. "They're m ade. You're one, and I'm one, and
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was useless to try to pretend nothing at all had happened in the Grove
the
night before. Reports of the vandalism—though not a major story—had
already been carried on all the local newscasts. Abernethy was on to it.
"Were you there, Grillo?"
"Afterwards. Only afterwards. I heard the alarms and—"
"And?"
"There's not much to report. There were some windows broken."
"Hell's Angels on the rampage."
"Is that what you heard?"
"Is that what I heard? You're supposed to be the fucking reporter, Grillo,
not me. What do you need? Drugs? Drink? A visit from the fucking
Mude?"
"That's Muse."
"Mude, Muse; who the fuck cares? Just get me a story the people want
to 
read. There must have been injuries—"
"I don't think so."
"Then invent some."
"I do have something..."
"What? What?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sometimes you sound like you saw too many movies, Abernethy."
"Meaning what?"
Grillo's first call, after Tesla's depart ure, was to Abernethy. Whether to
tell
or not to tell was only one of the dilemmas with which he was presented.
Now more than ever the real problem was how. He'd never had the
instincts of a novelist. In his writing he'd sought a style that set the facts
out
as plainly as possible. No fancy footwork; no flights of vocabulary. His
mentor in this was not a journalist at all but Jonathan Swift, author of
Gulliver s Travels, a man so concerned to communicate his satire with
clarity that he'd reputedly read his  works aloud to his servants to be
certain
his style did not confound his substance. Grillo kept that story as a
touchstone. All of which was fine when reporting on the homeless in Los
Angeles, or on the drug problem. The facts were plain enough.."Skip it."
The image lingered, long after Grillo had put down the phone, of
Abernethy sitting up nights rehearsing lines from newspaper epics, re-
fining
his performance as a hard-pressed, hard-bitten editor. He wasn't the
only

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

question: what was he? Cub reporter on a hit scoop? Man of integrity,
dogged by crimes against a corrupt system? Neither part suited him the
way they might have done when he'd fi rst arrived, hot foot from his
hovel, to
report the Buddy Vance story. Events had somehow marginalized him.
Others, Tesla in particular, had taken the starring roles.
As he checked his appearance in the mirror he mused on what it meant
to 
be a star without a firmament. Free  to take up another profession per-
haps?
Rocket scientist; juggler; lover. How about lover? How about the lover of
Ellen Nguyen? That had a nice ring.
She was a long time coming to the door, and when she arrived it
seemed
she took several seconds to even recognize Grillo. lust as he was about
to 
prompt her a smile surfaced, and she said:
"Please...come in. Are you recovered from the flu?"
"A little shaky."
"I think maybe I'm catching it too..." she said as she closed the door. "I
woke feeling...I don't know..."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

at 
the head of the passage that led to  his bedroom. His outing to the Mall
the
evening before had been premature. He still looked frail.
"Hi," Grillo said. "How you doin'?"
Surprisingly, the boy smiled; a lavish, open smile.
"Did you see?" he said.
"See what?"
"At the Mall," Philip went on. "You di d see. I know you did. The beauti-
ful.lights."
"Yes, I saw them."
"I told the Balloon Man all about it. That's how I know I wasn't dream-
ing."
He crossed to Grillo, still smiling.
"I got your drawing," Grillo said. "Thank you."
"Don't need them now," Philip said.
"Why's that?"
"Philip?" Ellen had returned with coffee. "Don't bother Mr. Grillo."
"It's no bother," Grillo said. He returned his gaze to Philip. "Maybe we
can
talk about Balloon Man later," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to 
Grillo she bent to her work. The plain kimono-style dressing gown she
wore
clung. Her buttocks were heavy for a woman of her height. When she
turned back the sash of the gown had loosened. The folds fell away at
her
breastbone. Her skin was dark, and  smooth. She caught his apprecia-
tion
as she handed him his coffee, but made no attempt to tie the gown
more
tightly. The gap tempted Grillo's eye every time she moved.
"I'm glad you came around," she said once they were seated. "I was
concerned when your friend—"
"Tesla."
"Tesla. When Tesla told me you were ill. I felt responsible." She took a
sip
of coffee. She made a sharp back ward motion when it touched her
tongue.
"Hot," she said.
"Philip was telling me you were down at the Mall last night."
"So were you," she replied. "Do you know if anybody was hurt? All that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes," she said, plainly puzzled. "He said the same to me. You know I
don't remember any of that. Is it important?"
"What's important is that you're bot h well," he said, using the platitude
to.cover his confusion.
"Oh we're fine," she said, looking directly at him, her face suddenly
cleansed of its bafflement. "I'm tired, but I'm fine."
She reached across to put the coffee cup down and this time the robe
fell
open enough for Grillo to catch sight of her breasts. He didn't have the
slightest doubt that she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Have you heard any more from the house?" he asked, taking undeni-
able
satisfaction from talking business while thinking sex.
"I'm supposed to go up there," Ellen said.
"When is the party?"
"Tomorrow. It's short notice, but I think a lot of Buddy's friends were
expecting some kind of farewell celebration."
"I'd like to get in on the party."
"You want to report?"
"Of course. It's going to be quite a gathering, right?"
"I think so."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

less resistant to changes in the status quo, had no such memory prob-
lems.
When Grillo turned the conversation back to the party her attention was
once more upon him.
"Do you think you could get me in?" he asked.
"You'll have to be careful. Rochelle knows what you look like."
"Can't you invite me officially? As press?"
She shook her head. "There won't be any press," she explained. "It's a
strictly private gathering. Not all of Buddy's associates are gluttons for
publicity. Some of them had too much  of it too soon. Some of them
would
prefer never to have it. He mixed with a lot of men...what did he call
them?...heavy-duty players. I think, Mafia probably."
"All the more reason I should be there," Grillo said.
"Well, I'll do what I can, especially after you getting sick on my account. I
guess if there's sufficient guests you could melt into the crowd..."
"I'd appreciate the help."
"More coffee?"
"No, thanks." He glanced at his watch, though didn't register the time.
"You're not going to go," she said. It was not a question, but a state-
ment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She got up and led the way through to  her bedroom. By contrast with
the
clutter outside, the room was spar tan. She crossed to the window and
half
closed the blinds, which lent the whole room a parchment tint, then sat
down on the bed and looked up at him. He leaned down and kissed her
face, slipping his hand inside her robe and lightly rubbing her breast.
She
pressed his hand to her, insisting on severer treatment. Then she pulled
him down on top of her. Their comparative heights meant his chin rested
on 
the top of her head, but  she turned this to erot ic advantage, pulling his
shirt
open and licking at his chest, her tongue leaving wet trails from nipple to
nipple. All the while her hold on his hand didn't relax for an instant. Her
nails dug into his skin with painful force. He fought her, dragging his
hand
away to reach for the sash of her robe but her hand was there before
him.
He rolled off her, and was about to sit up to undress, but she took hold
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her
body to him as a plate to be dined from. He put his hand on her stom-
ach,
running his palm down towards her cunt, pressing hard on skin that
looked
and felt almost burnished.
Without opening her eyes she murmured:
"Anything you want."
The invitation momentarily flummoxed him. He was used to this being a
contract between partners, but here was this woman waving such nice-
ties
away, offering him total command of her body. It made him uneasy. As
an 
adolescent her passivity would have seemed unbearably erotic. Now it
shocked his liberal sensibilities. He said her name, hoping for some sign
from her, but she ignored him. It wasn't until he once again sat up to pull
off 
his shirt that she opened her eyes and said:
"No. Like this, Grillo. Like this."
The expression both on her face and in her voice was like rage, and it
unearthed in him a hunger to respond in kind. He rolled on top of her,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gloomiest corner of the room and drifted rather than walked towards the
bedroom door. Its form, though rudim entary, was still too recognizable
to be
dismissed as mere shadow, yet there was too little of it to deserve the
name ghost. Whatever it had been, or  was to become, even in its pres-
ent
condition it had purpose. Drawn by the woman who was presently
dreaming it into being, it approached the bedroom. There—denied
access—it mourned against the door, awaiting instructions.
Philip emerged from his sanctum and wandered through to the kitchen
in 
search of food. He opened the cookie jar, dug for chocolate chip, and
headed back the way he'd come, a cookie in his left hand for himself,
and
three in his right for his companion whose first words had been:
"I'm hungry."
Grillo raised his head from Ellen's wet face. She opened her eyes.
"What is it?" she said.
"There's somebody outside the door."
She raised her head from the bed and bit on his chin. It hurt, and he
winced.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

going to break."
He shook her hold off.
"Do it," she said. "Please, do it."
"You want that?"
"How many times, Grillo? Yes. "
Her dislodged hand had gone to the back of his head. He let her draw
his
face back down to hers and began to nibble at her lips and then her
neck,
testing her resistance. There was  none. Instead, moans that became
louder
the harder he bit. Her response drowned all misgivings. He began to
work
down her neck to her breasts, her moans becoming steadily louder, his
name breathed between, urging him on. Her skin began to redden, not
just
with bite-marks, but with arousal. Sweat broke out on her suddenly. He
put
his hand down between her legs, his other hand holding her arms above
her head. Her cunt was wet, and took his fingers readily. He'd begun
to.pant with the exertion of holding her down, his shirt sticky on his back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her
breasts covered with the twin cres cents his teeth ha d left. Her nipples
stood
like arrow-heads. He sucked them in; chewed on them. Her moans be-
came
sobbing cries, her legs convulsing  beneath him, almost throwing them
both
off the bed. When he relaxed his hold for an instant her hand took his
and
drove his fingers still deeper into her.
"Don't stop," she said.
He took up the rhythm she'd set, and doubled it, which had her pushing
her hips against his hand to have his fingers inside her to the knuckles.
His
sweat dropped off his face on to hers as he watched her. Eyes clenched
closed she raised her head and licked his forehead and around his
mouth,
leaving him unkissed but gummy with her saliva.
At last, he felt her entire body stiffen, and she arrested the motion of his
hand, her breath coming short and shallow. Then her grip on him—
which

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

seconds or minutes. It was she who made the first move, sitting up and
pulling her robe around her. The movement made him open his eyes.
She was tying the sash, pulling the front of her robe together almost
primly. He watched her start towards the door.
"Wait," he said. This was unfinished business.
"Next time," she replied.
"What?"
"You heard," came the response. It had the tone of a command. "Next
time."
He got up from the bed, aware that his arousal probably seemed
ridiculous to her now, but infuriated by her lack of reciprocity. She
watched
his approach with a half-smile on her face.
"That's just the start," she said to him. She rubbed at the places on her
neck where he'd bitten her.
"And what am I supposed to do?" Grillo asked.
She opened the door. Cooler air brushed against his face.
"Lick your fingers," she said.
Only now did he remember the sound he'd heard, and half-expected
to.see Philip retreating from his spyhole.  But there was only the air, drying
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sex, to his nose and lips..IV
Jokemeister Lamar got out of the lim o at the front of Buddy Vance's
house
and tried to wipe the smile off his face. It was difficult for him at the best
of 
times, but now—at the worst, with his old partner dead and so many
harsh
words never healed between them—it was virtually impossible. For
every
action there was a reaction, and Lamar's reaction to death was a grin.
He'd read once about the origins of the smile. Some anthropologist had
theorized that it was a sophisticated form of the ape's response to those
unwanted in the tribe: the weak or unstable. In essence it said: You're a
liability. Get out of here! From t hat exiling leer had evolved laughter,
which
was the baring of teeth to a professional idiot. It too announced con-
tempt,
at root. It too proclaimed the object of  mirth a liability: one to be kept at
bay
with grimaces.
Lamar didn't know how the theory stood up to analysis, but he'd been in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That breach had meant Lamar had met the sumptuous Rochelle once
only, and that by accident, at a charity dinner in which he and his wife
Tammy had been seated at an adjacent  table to Buddy and his bride of
the
year. That description was one he'd used—to gales of laughter—on
several
talk shows. At the dinner he'd tak en the opportunity of putting one over
on 
Buddy by insinuating himself with  Rochelle while the groom was emp-
tying
his bladder of champagne. It had been a brief meeting—Lamar had
returned to his table as soon as he saw that Buddy had seen him—but
must have made some impression because Rochelle had called per-
sonally
to invite him up to Coney Eye for the party. He had persuaded Tammy
that
she'd be bored by the shindig and arrived a day early to have some time
with the widow.
"You look wonderful," he told her as he stepped over Buddy's threshold.
"It could be worse," she said, a reply which didn't mean that much until,
an

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I suppose that's the word. I don't  really know. I don't have any religion,
so 
I don't quite know how to explain it."
''You're wearing a crucifix," Lamar observed.
"It belonged to my mother. I never put it on before."
"Why now? Are you afraid of something?"
She sipped at the vodka she'd poured. It was early for cocktails, but she
needed its comfort.
"Maybe, a little," she said.
"Where's Buddy now?" Lamar asked, impressed by his ability to keep a
straight face. "I mean...is he in the house?"
"I don't know. He came to me in the middle of the night, said he wanted
this party throwing, then he left."
"As soon as the check arrived, right?"
"This isn't a joke."
"I'm sorry. You're right of course."
"He said he wanted everyone to come to the house and celebrate."
"I'll drink to that," Lamar said, raising his glass. "Wherever you are,
Buddy.
Skol. "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

long
and short of it. Preferably in Buddy's bed, with Buddy's towels to wipe
himself off afterwards.
Leaving his smirking reflection he stepped back on to the landing. Which
was Buddy's bedroom? he wondered. Did it have mirrors on the ceiling,
like
the whore-house in Tucson they'd patronized together once upon a
time,
and Buddy had said, as he put that damn snake of a dick of his away:
one
day, Jimmy, I want a bedroom like this?
Lamar opened half a dozen doors before he found the master bedroom.
It, 
like all the other rooms, was decorated with carnivalia. There was no
mirror
on the ceiling. But the bed was large. Big enough for three, which had
always been Buddy's favored number. As he was about to return
downstairs Lamar heard water running in the en suite bathroom.
"Rochelle, is that you?"
The light was not on inside, however. Obviously a tap had simply been
left

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No."
"Who are you?"
"What do you mean: who am I? It's Jimmy. Jimmy Lamar."
"Of course. Come in. We should have words."
"No...I'll stay out here."
"I can't hear you too well."
"Turn off the water."
"I need it to piss."
"You piss?"
"Only when I drink."
"You drink?"
"Do you blame me, with her down there and me unable to touch her?"
"Yeah. That's too bad."
"You'll have to do it for me, Jimmy."
"Do what?"
"Touch her. You're not gay are you?"
"You know better than that."
"Of course."
"The number of women we had together."
"We were friends."
"The best. And I must say you're real sweet, letting me have Rochelle."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you
and me. Close friends."
"Then we will be."
"For Buddy."
"For Buddy."
Upstairs, the Jaff turned this new and unexpected element in the game
over, and judged it good. He had intended to pass himself off as
Buddy—a.trick all too easy, given  that he'd drunk down the man's
thoughts—to
Rochelle only. In that form he'd  come visiting two nights before, and
found
her drunk in her bed. It had been easy to coax her into believing he was
her
husband's spirit; the only difficult part had been preventing himself from
claiming marital rights. Now, with  the partner under the same delusion,
he 
had two agents in the house to assist him when the guests arrived.
After the events of the previous night he was glad he'd had the foresight
to 
organize the party. Fletcher's machinations had caught him off-guard. In
that act of self-destruction his enemy had contrived to put a sliver of his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fletcher's last testament from interfering.
Soon, the journey that had begun the first time he'd heard of the Art—so
long ago he couldn't even remember from whom—would end with his
entering Quiddity. After so many years of preparation it would be like
coming home. He'd be a thief in Heaven, and therefore King of Heaven,
given that he'd be the only presence  there qualified to steal the throne.
He
would own the dreamlife of the world; be all things to all men, and never
be 
judged.
There were two days left, then. The first, the twenty-four hours it would
take him to realize that ambition.
The second, the day of the Art, when he would reach the place where
dawn and dusk, noon and night, occurred at the same perpetual mo-
ment.
Thereafter, there was only forever..V
Except that it would never be over; not now. That was one of the
consequences of seeing the world this way. For better or worse she
would
spend the rest of her life anticipating the next miracle; and while she
waited, inventing it in her fiction, so as to prick herself and her audience

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

acceptance speech, and they—with help from the map—proved good.
Never having travelled the peninsula before she was surprised to find it
so 
deserted. This was not an environment in which man and his works had
much hope of sustained existence, which led to the expectation that the
Mission ruins, when she reached them, would most likely have been
eroded, or swept away into the Pacific, whose murmur grew in volume
as 
her route took her closer to the coast.
She could not have been more wron g in that expectation. As she
rounded
the bend of the hill Fletcher had directed her to, it was immediately
apparent that the Mision de Santa Catrina was very much intact. The
sight
made her innards churn. A few minutes' drive, and she'd be standing
before the site at which an epic story—of which she knew only the tini-
est
part—had begun. For a Christian,  perhaps Bethlehem would have
aroused
the same excitement. Or Golgotha.
It was not a place of skulls, she found. Quite the reverse. Though the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

some dream-tutor had instructed her that all life was dreaming. There
would be no simple division from now on between sense and nonsense;
no 
arrogant assumption that this expe rience was real and this one not.
Maybe
she was living in a movie, she thought as she drove. Come to think of it
that
wasn't a bad idea for a screenplay:  the story of a woman who discov-
ered
that human history was just one vast  family saga, written by that under-
rated
team Gene and Chance, and watched by angels, aliens and folks in
Pittsburgh who had tuned in by accident and were hooked. Maybe she'd
write that story, once this adventur e was over..deserted, then turned to
an endeavor its architects would surely have
deemed heretical, was once again sanctified.
The closer she approached the jigsaw walls, the more evidence she
found
before her. First, the flowers, laid in rough bunches and wreaths among
the
scattered stones, their colors brilliant in the clear sea air.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this was a haunted place. She negotiated the rubble as quietly as she
could, for fear of disturbing its oc cupants, human or otherwise. If there
were
miraculous beings in Ventura County (walking the streets, no less,
unabashed) how much more likely that here, on this lonely headland,
there
should be wonder-workers?
Who they might be, and what shape (if any) they took, she didn't even
concern herself to try to guess. But if the number of gifts and supplica-
tions
laid underfoot testified to anything  it was that prayers were answered
here.
The bundles and the messages left outside the Mission were affecting
enough, but those inside were more moving still. She stepped through a
gap in one of the walls into a silent crowd of portraits: dozens of
photographs and sketches of men, women and children fixed to the
stone
along with a fragment of clothing, or a shoe; even spectacles. What
she'd
wandered through outside had been gifts. These, she guessed, were
items

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

were so smug in their certainty, the images so rhetorical. But this display
of 
simple faith touched a nerve she'd thought numbed by cant. She re-
called
the way she'd felt the first time she'd returned home for Christmas after
a 
self-imposed exile from the family bosom of five years. It had been as
claustrophobic as she'd anticipated, but at midnight on Christmas Eve,
walking on Fifth Avenue, a forgott en feeling had sucked all the breath
from
her, and brought her to tears in an instant: that once she had believed.
That
belief had come from inside, out. Not  taught, not bullied, just there. The
first
tears that had come were gratitude for the bliss of knowing belief again;
their sisters, sadness  that it passed as quickly as it had come, like a
spirit
moving through her and away.
This time, it didn't go. This time it deepened in her, as the sun deepened
in color, sinking towards the sea..The sound of somebody moving, deep
in the ruins, broke her reverie.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

no 
roof, and its eastern wall was grievously damaged, the place seemed
charged, as though forces had accrued in it over a period of years. Its
function, when Fletcher had occu pied the Mission, had evidently been
that
of laboratory. There were benches overturned on every side, the equip-
ment
that had toppled from them apparently left where it had fallen. Neither
offerings nor portraits had been allowed to disrupt this sense of a place
preserved. Though sand had gathered around the fallen furniture, and
seedlings sprouted here and there, the chamber was as it had been:
testament to a miracle; or to its passing.
The protector of the sanctum stood in the corner furthest from Tesla,
beyond the shafts from the window. She could make out little about him.
Only that he was either masked or  had features as broadly formed as
those
of a mask. Nothing she'd experienced here so far led her to fear for her
safety. Though she was alone, she felt no anxiety. This was a sanctuary
not a place of violence. Besides, she came on the business of the deity
that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The answer was another question delivered with a heavily Hispanic
accent: "Do I know you?"
"I told you," Tesla said. "He sent me here. I've come to do what he him-
self
asked me to do."
The man stepped away from the wall, far enough for his features to
touch
the beams.
"Could he not come himself?" he said.
It took Tesla a few moments to muster a reply. The sight of the man's
heavy brow and lumpen nose had thrown her thoughts into a spin. Quite
simply she'd never seen in the flesh a face so ugly.
"Fletcher isn't alive any more," she replied after a moment, her thoughts
half on repugnance, half on how instinctively she'd avoided using the
word.dead.
The wretched features in front of her became sorrowful, something in
their
plasticity almost making a caricature of that emotion.
"I was here when he left," the man said. "I've been waiting for him
to...come back."
She knew who he was as soon as he proffered this information. Fletcher

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

before been bloodied by a beast of nightmare design—but the confusion
of 
signals from this hybrid distressed her more than anything she'd set
eyes
on. It was so close to being human, yet her innards were not deceived.
The
response taught her something, t hough she wasn't quite certain what.
She
put the lesson aside for more urgent stuff.
"I've come to destroy whatever remains of the Nuncio," she said.
"Why?"
"Because Fletcher wants it that way. His enemies are still in the world,
even though he isn't. He fears for t he consequences if they come here
and
find the experiment."
"But I've waited..." Raul said.
"It's good that you did. It's good you guarded the place."
"I haven't moved. All t hese years. I've stayed where my father made
me."
"How have you survived?"
Raul looked away from Tesla, squinting into the sun, which was almost

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

passion with which they were felt.
"This is the story of that night," Raul said, "as they believe it happened."
There was no more light here than in  the room they'd exited, but the
murk
lent mystery to the images.
"Here's the Mission as it was," Raul  said, indicating an almost emblem-
atic
picture of the cliff upon which they  were standing. "And there's my fa-
ther."
Fletcher stood in front of the hill,  face white and wild against its dark-
ness,
his eyes twin moons. Strange forms sprang from his ears and mouth,
and.hung around his head like satellites.
"What are those?" Tesla enquired.
"His ideas," came Raul's reply. "I painted those."
"What kind of ideas look like that?"
"Things from the sea," came the reply. "Everything comes from the sea.
Fletcher told me that. At the beginning, the sea. At the end, the sea. And
between—"
"Quiddity," said Tesla.
"What?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was happier...being an ape. If I'd stayed an ape I'd be dead by now."
"Don't talk that way," Tesla said. "Fletcher wouldn't want to hear you full
of 
regrets."
"Fletcher left me," Raul reminded her. "He taught me enough to know
what I could never be, then he left me."
"He had his reasons. I've seen his enemy, the Jaff. The man has to be
stopped."
"There—" said Raul, pointing to a place further along the wall. "There's
Jaffe."
The portrait was able enough. Tesla recognized the devouring stare, the
swollen head. Had Raul actually se en Jaffe in his evolved condition or
was
this portrait of man as monstrous babe an instinctive response? She
had no
opportunity to enquire. Raul was coaxing her away again.
"I'm thirsty," he said. "We can look at the rest later."
"It'll be too dark."
"No. They'll come up and light c andles when the sungoes. Come and
talk
with me for a while. Tell me how my father died.".II

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

undreamed of in Palomo Grove. It was too tasty an offer to refuse. He
put
his money down, bought a beer, and was allowed entrance to a smoke-
filled
space which could only have been twice the size of his bedroom.
There was an audience of maybe ten men, sprawled on creaking chairs.
They were watching a woman having sex with a large black dog. He
found
nothing about the scene arousing. Ne ither, apparently, did the rest of
the
audience; at least not in the sexual sense. They leaned forward to watch
the display with an excitement he didn't understand until the beer began
to 
work on his wearied system, tunnelling his vision until the woman's face
mesmerized him. She might once have been pretty, but her face, like
her
body, was wasted now, her arms show ing plain proof of the addiction
that
had brought her so low. She teased the hound with the expertise of one
who'd done this countless times before, then went on all fours before it.
It

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the skin mags, but on celebrities tr apped by cameras. Sex-zombies,
star-zombies;
dead folks passing for living. When he plugged back into the
scene in front of him the dog had found its rhythm, and was making at
the
girl with doggy lust, foam dripping from its mouth on her back; and this
time—thinking of the girl as dead—it was sexy. The more excited the
animal became the more excited he became and the more dead the
woman looked to him, feeling the dog's dick in her and his eyes on her,
until
it became a race between him and the dog as to which was going to
finish
first.
The dog won, working itself up into a stabbing frenzy then stopping
suddenly. On cue one of the men sitting in the front row stepped up and
separated the pair, the animal instant ly uninterested. Her partner led
away,
the woman was left center stage to gather up a scattering of clothes
she'd
presumably shed before Tommy-Ray had entered. She then exited
through

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was only much later, when he was almost at the Mission, that he
realized his pockets had been picked. There was no time to go back, he
knew; nor indeed any purpose. The thief could have been any of the
men
who'd crowded his path as he'd left. Besides, it had been worth the lost
dollars. He had found a new definiti on of death. Not even new. Simply
his
first and only.
The sun had long set by the time he drove up the hill towards the Mis-
sion,
but as he began the ascent a distinct  sense of deja vu crept over him.
Was
he seeing the place with the Jaff's eyes? Whether or not, the recognition
proved useful. Knowing that Fletcher's agent had undoubtedly arrived
ahead of him he decided to leave the car a little way down the hill and
climb the rest of the way on foot so as not to alert her to his coming.
Dark
though it was, he didn't travel blind. His feet knew the way even though
his
memory didn't.
He'd come prepared for violence, should the occasion demand. The Jaff

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

his
face. Surely he'd be able to see the bones beneath the meat; the skull
gleaming the way his teeth gleamed w hen he smiled. After all, wasn't
that
what a smile said? Hello world, this is the way I'll look when the wet
parts
are rotted.
His head tender with such thoughts, he trod through the withering
blossoms to the Mission..III
Raul's hut was fifty yards beyond the main building, a primitive structure
in 
which two occupants were a crowd. He depended, he explained to
Tesla,
entirely on the generosity of the local people, who supplied him with
food
and clothing in return for his being caretaker of the Mission. Despite the
poverty of his means he had been at  pains to elevate the hut from a
hovel.
There were signs everywhere of a delicate sensibility at work. The squat
candles on the table were seated in a ring of stones chosen for their
smoothness; the blanket on the simple cot had been decorated with the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to toast my father."
He brought a hand-rolled cigarette from a small tin, along with matches.
She watched his face as he went about the business of lighting it up. All
that she'd found unnerving about him at first sight remained unnerving.
His
features were neither simian nor  human, but the unhappiest of mar-
riages
between the two. And yet in every other respect—his speech, his man-
ners,
the way he was even now holding the cigarette between his long, dark
fingers—he was so very civilized.  The kind of man, indeed, mother
might
have wished her to marry, had he not been an ape.
"Fletcher hasn't gone, you know," he said to her, handing the cigarette
across. She took it reluctantly, not particularly eager to put to her lips
what
had been between his. But he watched her, candle light flickering in his
eyes, until she obliged, smiling with pl easure at her sharing with him.
"He
became something else, I'm sure," he went on. "Something other."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They grow it themselves," Raul said in a matter-of-fact way.
"Good for them," she said, and claimed a third hit before handing it back
to 
him. It was indeed strong stuff. Her mouth was already half way through
a 
sentence her mind had no idea of how to finish before she knew she
was
even speaking.."...this is the night I  tell my kids about...except that I
won't have any
kids...well, my grandchildren then...I' ll tell them when I sat with a man
who
used to be a monkey...you don't mind  me telling you that do you? Only
it's
my first time...and we sat and we talked about his friend...and my
friend...who used to be a man..."
"And when you tell them," Raul said, "what will you say about yourself?"
"About myself?"
"Where will you fit into the pattern? What are you going to become?"
She mused on this. "Do I have to become anything?" she asked
eventually.
Raul passed the remnants of the cigarette back to her. "Everything is

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Anything in particular?"
She mused a little more, running through all the possible options, and
came up with one.
"Everything?" she said.
He laughed, and his laughter sounded like bells to her. Good trick, she
was about to tell him, until she realized that he was up and at the door.
"Somebody's at the Mission," she heard him say.
"...come to light the candles," she suggested, her head seeming to
precede her body in pursuit of him.
"No," he said to her as he stepped out into the darkness. "They don't
step
where the bells are..."
She had been staring into the candle flame as she'd mulled over Raul's
questions, and its image was imprinted on the darkness she now stum-
bled
through, a will o' the wisp that might have led her over the cliff-edge had
she not followed his voice. As they approached the walls he told her to
stay
where she was but she ignored him and followed anyway. The
candlelighters had indeed come visiting; their handiwork threw its glam-
our

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

as Fletcher had directed? Her irritation with herself made her bold. In
the
murk of the mural room she managed to overtake Raul and so step
through
into the candlelit laboratory fi rst..It was not candles that had been lit
here, nor was the visitor a supplicant.
In the middle of the chamber a small, smoky fire had been lit, and a
man—
with his back at present turned to her— was ferreting through the tangle
of 
equipment with his bare hands. She had not expected to recognize him
when he looked in her direction, which  was, on reflection, foolish. In the
last
few days she'd come to know most of the actors in this piece, if not by
name then at least by sight. This one she knew by both. Tommy-Ray
McGuire. He turned full face. In the perfect symmetry of his features a
little
ball of lunacy— the Jaff's inheritance—bounded back and forth, glitter-
ing.
"Hi!" he said; a bland, casual greeting. "I wondered where you were.
The

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes. I swear, yes. It's lethal."
She saw his eyes flit from her face to Raul, whose breath she heard
behind and a little to the side of her. Tommy-Ray looked in no way
concerned at being outnumbered.  Indeed she wondered if there was
any
threat to life or limb that would di slodge the smug satisfaction from his
face.
The Nuncio, perhaps? G od Almighty, what possibilities would it find
waiting
in his barbaric heart, to praise and magnify?
Again she said: "Destroy it, Tommy-Ray, before it destroys you."
"No way," he said. "The Jaff's got plans for it."
"And what about you, when you've finished working for him? He doesn't
care about you."
"He's my father and he loves me," Tommy-Ray replied, with a certainty
that would have been touching in a sane soul.
She began to move towards him, talking as she went. "Just listen to me
for a few moments, will you...?"
He pocketed the Nuncio, and reached into his other pocket as he did so.
He brought out a gun.
"What did you call the stuff?" he asked, pointing the weapon at her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't tell me what I like," he said. "I said I like lethal and I mean it."
She suddenly realized she'd entirely miscalculated this scene. If she'd
written it, he'd have held her at gunpoint till he made his escape. But he
had his own scenario.
"I'm the Death-Boy," he said, and pulled the trigger..VI
Unnerved by the episode at Ellen's house, Grillo had taken refuge in
writing, a discipline he felt more in need of the deeper this pool of
ambiguities became. At first it was easy. He struck out for the dry
ground of
fact, and stated it in prose Swift would have been proud of. Later he
could
extract from this account the sectio ns to be sent through to Abernethy.
For
now his duty was to set down as much as he could remember.
Mid-way through the process, he got a call from Hotchkiss, who sug-
gested
that they might have an hour drinki ng and talking together. The Grove
had
only two bars, he explained, Starky's, in Deerdell, being the less tame of
the two and consequently the preferable. An hour after the conversation,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

whisper
throughout the entire conversation.
"You don't know much about me," he said at the outset. "I realized that
last night. It's time you knew."
He didn't need any further encouragement to tell. His account was of-
fered
without emotion, as though the burd en of feeling were so heavy it had
long
ago squeezed the tears from him. Grillo was glad of the fact. If the teller
could be dispassionate then it freed him to be the same, probing be-
tween
the lines of Hotchkiss's account for details the man had passed over. He
spoke of Carolyn's part in the st ory first, of course, not praising or
damning
his daughter, merely describing her and the tragedy that had taken her
from
him. Then he threw the net of his story wider, and drew in others, first
giving a thumbnail portrait of Trudi Katz, Joyce McGuire and Arleen Far-
rell,
then relating how each of them had  fared. Grillo was busily filling in de-
tails

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"After last night at the Mall I just st ayed up, trying to work it all out. Try-
ing to
make sense of it all."
"And?"
"I've decided to go down into the caves."
"What the hell for?"."All those years, locked away, they must have been
doing something.
Maybe they left clues. Maybe we can find a way to destroy them down
there."
"Fletcher's already gone," Grillo reminded him.
"Has he?" Hotchkiss said. "I don't know any more. Things linger, Grillo.
They seem to disappear, but they linger, just out of sight. In the mind. In
the
ground. You climb down a little way and you're in the past. Every step
another thousand years."
"My memory doesn't go back that far," Grillo quipped.
"But it does," Hotchkiss said, in deadly earnest. "It goes back to being a
speck in the sea. That's what ha unts us." He raised his hand. "Looks
solid,
doesn't it?" he said. "But it's most ly water." He seemed to be struggling
for

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Do you still have those dreams?"
"Nope. I never dream now."
"Everybody dreams."
"Then I don't allow myself to remember them," Hotchkiss said. "So...are
you with me?"
"With you on what?"
"The descent."
"You really want to do it? I thought  it was virtually impossible to get
down
there."
"So, we die trying," Hotchkiss said.
"I've got a story to write."
"Let me tell you, my friend," Hotchk iss said. "That's where the story is.
The
only story. Right beneath our feet."
"I should warn you...I'm claustrophobic."
"We'll soon sweat that out of you," Hotchkiss replied, with a smile Grillo
thought might have been a jot more reassuring..II
Though Howie had valiantly fought off sleep through most of the
afternoon, by early evening he coul d barely keep his eyes open. When
he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was still badly bruised, and his back,  though the punctures- inflicted by
the
terata were not deep, still ached. None of which kept him from sleep for
more than a few moments.
Jo-Beth prepared food for Momma—salad for Momma, as ever—and
herself, going through the familiar do mestic processes as though noth-
ing in
the world had changed since a week ago, and for short spaces of time,
involved in her labors, forgetti ng the horrors. Then a look on her
mother's
face, or the sight of the shiny new lock on the back door, brought the
memories back. She could no longer  put them into any kind of order:
there
was just humiliation and pain upon further humiliation and further pain.
Leering through it all the Jaff; near to  her, too near to her, coming so
close
on occasion to persuading her to his vision the way he'd persuaded
Tommy-Ray. Of all her fears the one  that distressed her the most was
that
she might actually have been capable of joining the enemy. When he'd
explained to her how he wanted reasons rather than feelings, she'd

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You should put it out of your head."
"Maybe I'll drive over to see Lois; talk with her for a while? Would you
mind?"
"No. I'll be fine here. Howard's with me."
"Then I'll go."
Of all her friends in the Grove  none represented the normality from
which
her life had departed as perfectly as Lois. For all her moral strictures
she
had a strong and simple faith in what was good. In essence, she wanted
the world a peaceful place, where children raised in love could in their
turn
raise children. She knew evil too. It was any force mounted against that
vision. The terrorist, the anarchist,  the lunatic. Now Jo-Beth knew that
such.human forces had allies on a more rarefied plane of being. One of
those
was her father. It was never more im portant that she sought the com-
pany
of those whose definition of good was unshakable.
She heard noise and laughter from Lois's house as she got out of the
car;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

drapes were drawn aside and Lois's quizzical face appeared, mouthing
Jo-Beth's
name. The room behind her was full of people. She was at the door
ten seconds later, with an expression on her face so unusual Jo-Beth
almost failed to recognize her: a sm ile of welcome. Behind her every
light in
the house seemed to be burning; a dazzling wash of light that spilled on
to 
the step.
"Surprise," said Lois.
"Yes, I just thought I'd call round. But you've...got company."
"Sort of," Lois replied. "It's a little difficult just at the moment."
She cast a glance back into the house. It seemed to be a costume party
she was flinging. A man dressed in a full cowboy outfit sauntered up the
stairs, spurs glinting, past another in full military garb. Crossing the hall,
arm in arm with a woman in black, was a guest who'd come as a sur-
geon,
of all things, his face masked. That Lois should have planned such a
jamboree without mentioning it to Jo-Beth was odd enough; Lord knows
they had spare time enough at the  store to chat. But that she was
throwing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
the people come to see you?"
"People."
"The Visitors."
Jo-Beth merely nodded, which was sufficient to set Lois bubbling in a
new
direction. "Next door, the Kritzlers had Visitors from Masquerade—you
know, that series about the sisters?"
"The TV show?"
"Of course the TV show. And my Mel...well, you know how much he
loves
the old westerns ..None of this made much, if any, sense but Jo-Beth let
Lois race on, for
fear that asking a question out of turn might mark her as uninitiated, and
she'd be denied any further confessions.
"Me? I'm the luckiest one," Lois burbl ed. "So, so lucky. All the people
from
Day by Day came over. The whole family. Alan, Virginia, Benny, Jayne.
They even brought Morgan. Imagine."
"Where did they come from, Lois?"
"They just appeared in the kitchen," came the answer. "And of course

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They're every bit as sweet as I knew they'd be," she was saying,
"though
I didn't think they'd mix with the people from Masquerade. You know,
with
the Pattersons being so ordinary; that's what I love about them. They're
so..."
"Lois. Stop this."
"What's wrong?" she said.
"You tell me."
"Nothing's wrong. Everything's wonderful. The Visitors are here and I
couldn't be happier."
She smiled at a man in a pale blue jacket who waved a welcome.
"That's Todd, from The Last Laugh—" she said.
Late-night satire was no more to Jo-Beth's taste than Day by Day but
the
man did look vaguely familiar. As did the girl he'd been showing card-
tricks
to; and the man who was clearly competing with him for her affections,
who
might have passed—even at this range —for the host of Momma's fa-
vorite

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"About the Pattersons."
"No. Of course not."
"But they came, Jo-Beth," she said, now, suddenly, in deadly earnest. "I
suppose I'd always wanted to meet  them, and they came. " She took
hold
of Jo-Beth's hand, her smile igniti ng again. "You'll see," she said. "And
don't
worry, you'll have somebody come  to you if you want them badly
enough..It's happening all over town. Not  just TV people. People from bill-
boards and
magazines. Beautiful people; wonderful people. There's no need to be
frightened. They belong to us." She drew a little closer. "I never really
understood that, until last night. Only they need us just as much, don't
they? Maybe more. So they won't do us any harm..."
She pushed open the door from whic h much of the laughter was com-
ing.
Jo-Beth followed Lois in. The lights that had first dazzled her in the hall-
way
were brighter here, though there was no source apparent. It was as if
the
people in the room came already lit, their hair gleaming, their eyes and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

attendance. Alan Patterson was engaged in an animated discussion
with
Hester D'Arcy, much abused heroi ne of Masquerade. Her oversexed
sister,
who had poisoned half the family to gai n control of incalculable wealth,
was
in the corner making eyes at a man from an ad for briefs, who'd come
as he
was best known: almost naked.
"Everybody!" Lois said, raising her  voice above the hub-Dub. "Every-
body
please, I want you all to meet a friend of mine. One of my very best
friends—"
The familiar faces all turned to lo ok, like the covers of a dozen TV
Guides
all staring Jo-Beth's way. She wanted to get out of this insanity before it
touched her, but Lois had a firm grip of her hand. Besides, this was part
of 
the whole insanity. If she was to understand it she had to stay put.
"—this is Jo-Beth McGuire," Lois said.
Everybody smiled; even the cowboy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I've never seen her so happy," he said. "And that makes me happy."
"But do you know where all these people come from?" Jo-Beth said.
Mel shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Come through, will you?
I 
need a drink if you don't. Lois has always denied herself these little
pleasures. I always said: God isn't looking. And if He is, He doesn't
care.".They pressed their way through the guests to the hallway. Numbers
of 
people had gathered there to escape  the crush in the lounge, among
them
several church members: Maeline Mallett; Al Grigsby; Ruby Sheppherd.
They smiled at Jo-Beth, no sign on their faces that they found this
gathering untoward. Had they perhaps brought Visitors of their own?
"Did you go down to the Mall last night?" Jo-Beth asked Mel as she
watched him pour her orange juice.
"I did indeed," he said.
"And Maeline? And Lois? And the Kritzlers?"
"I think so. I forget who was there exactly, but yes, I'm sure most of
them...are you sure you wouldn't like something in the juice?"
"Maybe I will," she said vaguely, her mind putting the~ pieces of this
mystery together.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I think it is," came the reply. "What's more, I like it that way."
Howie woke at a little after ten,  not because he was sufficiently rested
but
because he'd rolled over in sleep and trapped his wounded hand under
his
body. Pain soon slapped him conscious. He sat up and studied his
throbbing knuckles in the moonlight. The cuts had opened again. He
dressed and went to the bathroom to wash them of blood, then went in
search of a bandage. Jo-Beth's mother provided one, along with the
expertise to bind his hand properly,  plus the information that Jo-Beth
had
gone to Lois Knapp's house.
"She's late now," Momma said.
"It's not ten-thirty yet."
"Even so."
"You want me to go look for her?"
"Would you? You can take Tommy-Ray's car."
"Is it far?"
"No."
"Then I think I'll walk."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and
Fletcher—beyond Quiddity and the struggle for its possession—lay an
even vaster plot? He'd always vexed himself with such imponderables;
like
trying to imagine infinity, or what it would feel like to touch the sun. The
pleasure lay not in a solution, but in the stretch it took to tackle the
question. The difference, in this case, lay with his place in the problem.
Suns and infinities vexed far greater minds than his. But what he felt for
Jo-Beth
vexed only him, and if—as some buried instinct in him (Fletcher's
echo, perhaps?) suggested—the fact of their meeting was a tiny but vital
part of some massive tale, then he could not leave the thinking to those
greater minds. The responsibility,  at least in part, devolved upon him;
upon
them both. How much he wished it didn't. How much he longed to have
time to court Jo-Beth like any small- town suitor. To lay plans for the fu-
ture
without the weight of an inexplicable past pressing upon them. But that
couldn't be, any more than a writt en thing could be unwritten, or a
wished-for
thing unwished.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What's going on here?"
"A party."
"Yeah, I can see that. But all these actors. Where'd they come from?
They
can't all live in the Grove."
"They're not actors," she said. "They're people from the TV. And a few
movies too. Not many, but—"
"Wait, wait."
He moved closer to her. "Are these Lois's friends?" he said.
"They sure are," she said.
"This town just keeps on going, do esn't it? Just w hen you think you've
got
it fixed in your head—"
"But they're not actors, Howie."
"You just said they were."
"No. I said they were people from TV. See the Patterson family, over
there? They even have that dog with them."
"Morgan," Howie said. "My mother used to watch that show.".The dog, a
lovable mongrel in a long tradition of lovable mongrels, heard
his name called and scooted over, fo llowed by Benny, the youngest of
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

doors. They were open. The night  beyond was, as Benny had said, far
from
dark. It was as if the odd radian ce that permeated the house, about
which
he'd had no time to speak with Jo-Beth, had seeped out into the yard.
"See?" Benny said.
"I see."
"So come on, huh?"
"In a minute."
"Promise?"
"I promise. By the way, what's your real name?"
The kid looked puzzled. "Benny," he said. "Always was." He and the
mutt
headed off for the bright night.
Before Howie could put the countless questions in his head into askable
order he felt a friendly pat on the back and a rotund voice enquired:
"Something to drink?"
Howie raised his bandaged hand in apology for the absence of a
handshake.
"Good to have you here anyhow. Jo-Beth was telling me about you. I'm
Mel, by the way. Lois's husband. You met Lois already, I gather."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you,
right? Can't be fucking bothered. Y ou want another vodka, Jo-Beth?
You're
going to have something, Howie?"
"Why not?"
"Funny, isn't it?" Mel said. "It's only when these damn dreams come in
you
realize who you are. Me...I'm a coward. And I don't love her." He turned
from them. "Never did love her," he said as he reeled away. "Bitch.
Fucking
bitch."
Howie watched him enveloped by the  crowd, then looked back at Jo-
Beth.
Very slowly he said:
"I don't have the slightest clue what's happening. Do you?"."Yes."
"Tell me. Words of one syllable."
"This is because of last night. What your father did."
"The fire?"
"Or what came from it. All these people..." She smiled, surveying them,
"...Lois, Mel, Ruby over there...all of them were at the Mall last night.
Whatever came from your father—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"How do you know that?"
"I've been here all evening. It's just like a normal party—"
"You're slurring your words."
"So why shouldn't I have a little fun once in a while?"
"I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying you're in no state to judge
whether they're dangerous or not."
"What are you trying to do, Howie?" she said. "Keep all these people to
yourself?"
"No. No, of course not."
"I don't want to be a part of the Jaff—"
"Jo-Beth."
"He may be my father. Doesn't mean I like it that way."
The room had fallen entirely silent at the mention of the Jaff. Now
everyone in the room—cowboys, soap -opera stars, sitcom folks, beau-
ties
and all—were looking their way.
"Oh shit," said Howie, softly. "You shouldn't have said that." He scanned
the faces surrounding them. "That wa s a mistake. She didn't mean it.
She's
not...she doesn't belong...what I mean is, we're together. She and me.
We're together, see? My father was Fletcher, and hers...hers wasn't." It

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

garnering since he'd entered. Thes e creatures—hallucigenia, Fletcher
had
called them—knew him; or at least thought they did. Now he'd identified
himself, and the need in their faces couldn't have been plainer.."Tell us
what to do," one of the women said.
"We're here for Fletcher," said another.
"Fletcher's gone," said Howie.
"Then for you. You're his son. What are we here to do?"
"Do you want the child of the Jaff  destroyed?" said the cowboy, turning
his
blue eyes on Jo-Beth.
"Jesus Christ, no!"
He reached out to take hold of Jo-Beth's arm but she'd already retreated
from him, slow steps towards the  door. "Come back," he said. "They're
not
going to hurt you."
From the look on her face his words were scant comfort in such com-
pany.
"Jo-Beth..." he said, "...I'm not going to let them hurt you."
He started towards her, but his father's creatures weren't about to let
their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
risen around him until his every syllable was drowned out. He started to
push harder through the crowd. Dream s they might be, but they were
solid
enough; and warm; and, it seemed, frightened. They needed a leader,
and
they'd elected him. It was not a role he was prepared to accept, espe-
cially
not if it separated him from Jo-Beth.
"Get the fuck out of my way!" he demanded, clawing his way through
the
back-lit, glossy faces. Their fervor didn't diminish, but grew in proportion
to 
his resistance. It was only by ducking down and tunnelling his way
through
his admirers that he got free of them. They followed him out into the
hallway. The front door stood open.  He sprinted for it like a star be-
sieged
by fans, and was out into the night  before they caught up with him.
Some

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raul
had told her would be gathering about this time. But she couldn't find the
will to be much interested in what was happening on earth. The ugly
spectacle above her claimed all her attention: a sick and brimming sky
about to drown her in tainted light.
Is this death? she wondered. If so, it was overrated. There was a story
to 
be had there, she began to think. About a woman who—
The thought went the way of consciousness: out. The second shot she'd
heard had been fired at Raul, who'd come at Tesla's assassin at speed,
leaping over the fire. The bullet missed him, but he threw himself aside
to 
avoid another, giving Tommy-Ray time  to dart out of the door he'd en-
tered
through, into a crowd of women which he parted with a third shot aimed
over their veiled heads. They put up a clamor and fled, hauling their
children after them. Nuncio in hand, he headed off down the hill to
where
he'd left the car. A backward glance confirmed that the woman's
companion—whose misbegotten features and weird turn of speed had
taken him aback—was not giving chase.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boy
and his prize.
Tommy-Ray was within sight of the car, or rather its ghost-form in the
moonlight, when his foot slid from beneath him. In his effort to keep hold
of 
gun and vial, both went from his hands. He fell heavily, face down in
sharp
dirt. Stones stabbed his cheek, chin, arms and hands. As he got to his
feet
blood began to run.
"My face!" he said, hoping to God he'd not damaged his looks.
There was more bad news to come. He could hear the sound of the
Ugly
Fuck following down the hill.
"Want to die, do you?" he grunted to his pursuer. "No problem. We can
supply. No problem."
He scrabbled for the gun but it had skidded some distance from him.
The
The bullet struck Tesla in the side, like a blow from a heavyweight
champ.
She was thrown backwards, the sight of Tommy-Ray's grinning face

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

glowing
between his fingers.
Many years had passed since the re st of the Nuncio had worked its
work
upon Fletcher and Jaffe. This, the remnants, had been buried, out of
sight,
amid stones too revered to be turned. It had grown cold; forgetful of its
message. But it remembered now. Tommy-Ray's enthusiasm woke old
ambition.
He saw it push against the walls of t he vial, bright as a knife, as a gun-
flash.
Then it broke its cage, and came at him, between his fingers—spread
now against its attack—up towards his already wounded face.
Its touch seemed light enough—a spatter of warmth, like a jism when he
jerked off, hitting his eye and the corner  of his mouth. But it flipped him
over
on to his back—the stones bringing blood to his elbows, ass and spine.
He
tried to yell but no sound came. He tried to open his eyes, so as to see
where he was lying, but he couldn't  do that either. Jesus! He couldn't
even

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Let go. This is what you want. To be the Death-Boy, you first have to
know Death. Feel it. Understand it. Suffer it."
In this, as in perhaps no other lesson in his short life, he was a good pu-
pil.
He stopped resisting the panic, and went with it, riding it like a wave at
Zuma, towards the darkness of some unmapped shore. The Nuncio
went
with him. He felt it make new stuff of him with every sweating second,
prancing on the points of his stiffened hair, beating a rhythm, death's
rhythm, between the throbs of his heart.
Suddenly, it was full of him; or he of it; or both. His hands came off his
face like suckers, and he breathed again.
After half a dozen gasps he sat up and looked down at his palms. They
were bloody, both from his cut face and from their own injuries, but the
stains faded before a more insistent  reality. Granted a grave-dweller's
sight,
he saw his own flesh corrupting before his eyes. The skin darkened and
swelled with gases, then broke open, the lesions spilling pus and water.
Seeing, he grinned, and felt the gr in spreading up from the corners of
his
mouth to his ears as his face split. It wasn't just the bone of his smile he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The vision didn't linger. Once given, it was gone, and he was left kneel-
ing
on the sharp stones, staring down at his bloody palms.
"I'm the Death-Boy," he said, and stood up, turning to face the lucky fuck
who'd be the first to see him transfigured.
The man had stopped in his tracks, a few yards off.
"Look at me," Tommy-Ray said. "I'm the Death-Boy."
The poor shit just stared, not understanding. Tommy-Ray laughed. All
desire to kill the man had gone out of him. He wanted this witness alive,
to 
testify in days to come. To say: I was there, and it was awesome, seeing
Tommy-Ray McGuire die and rise again.
He took a moment to look at the remains of the Nuncio-fragments of the
vial and a few spots of spilled fluid on the stones. There was not enough
to 
gather up and take back to the Jaff. But he was bringing something
better
now. Himself, changed; cleansed of fear, cleansed of flesh. Without
looking
back at the witness, he about-faced and left him to his confusion.
Though the glory of corruption had left him now, a subtle aftersight

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

at a speed that would have been suicidal on such bends and in such
darkness had suicide not been one of his many playthings now.
Raul put his fingers to one of the splashes of Nuncio. It rose in beads to
meet his hand, winding into the spir als of his fingerprints, then climbing
up 
through the marrow of hand, wrist and forearm, before petering out at
his
elbow. He felt, or imagined he felt, some subtle reconfiguration in his
muscle, as though his hand, which had never quite lost its simian
proportions, was being coaxed a little closer to the human. He let the
sensation delay him only a moment; Tesla's condition concerned him
more
than his own.
It was as he went to make his way back up the hill that it occurred to him
that the drops of Nuncio left in the ground might somehow help heal the
woman. If she didn't have comfort of some kind soon she'd surely die.
What
was there to lose in letting the Great  Work do what it could?.With that
thought in mind he started back towards the Mission, knowing
that were he to attempt to touch the broken vial it would be he who

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

half, a third held the bundled shirt, now thoroughly soaked, to the bullet
hole.
It was a slow process, stumbling in the darkness, but having been twice
touched by the Nuncio, Raul had no difficulty finding the spot again. Like
called to like. Warning the women to keep feet and fingers clear of the
spilled fluid he took Tesla's weight entirely into his own arms and laid
her
down, her head haloed by splashes of the Nuncio. The remains of the
vial
itself still contained the bulk of the  fluid; at most, a teaspoonful. With
great
gentleness, he turned her head towards the vial. At her proximity the
fluid
inside had begun a firefly dance—
—the poison brightness that had rained on Tesla as she fell before
Tommy-Ray's bullet had solidified in seconds: become a gray, feature-
less
place where she lay now without any  sense of how she'd come to be
there.
She couldn't remember the Mission, Raul, or Tommy-Ray. Even her
own

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quite
so forgetful, nor so indifferent to escape.. Her name came back to her
first,
heard in the hum from outside. Then  a memory of the pain the bullet
had
brought with it, and the grinning face of Tommy-Ray, and Raul, and the
Mission, and—
Nuncio.
That was the power she'd come looking for, and now in its turn it was
looking for her, eroding the walls of limbo. Her exchanges with Fletcher
about its transforming talents had been all too brief, but she understood
its 
basic function well enough. It ran with  whatever baton it was passed; a
race
against entropy towards some conclusion not even its client/victim could
guess, much less its subject. Was she ready for such a proving touch? It
had made a swollen evil of Jaffe, and a bewildered saint of Fletcher.
What
might it make of her?.At the last  possible moment Raul doubted the
wisdom of this medicine,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

messenger. Then, just as suddenly, every jitter in her joints and nerves
ceased.
Raul murmured:
"Don't die. Don't die."
He was about to put his mouth to her s in one last snatch at preserving
her
when he saw the motion behind her closed lids. Her eyes were roving
back
and forth wildly, scanning some sight only she could see.
"Alive..."he murmured.
Behind him, the women—who'd witnessed this entire scene without
comprehending any of it—began to pray and wail, either out of gratitude
or 
of fear of what they'd seen. He  didn't know. But he added his own mut-
tered
prayers, no more certain of his reasons than of theirs..II
The walls went suddenly. Like a dam first breached in a tiny place, then
broken from side to side by the flood behind it. She had expected the
world
she'd left to be waiting when the walls were rubble. She was wrong.
There

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

limbs
nor body. She was thought here; pure, in a pure place.
Then, ahead, a sight that gave the lie to that. There was sign of human
occupancy on the horizon; a town set in the middle of this nowhere. Her
speed didn't slow as she approached. This, apparently, was not her
destination, if indeed she had one. It occurred to her that perhaps she
could
simply travel and travel. That this  state of being was simply one of mo-
tion;
a journey without purpose or conclusion. She had time, as she passed
through the Main Street, to register that though the town was solidly
constructed stores and houses arrayed to either side—it was also
completely characterless. That is, unpeopled, and unparticularized.
There
were no signs on the stores or at the cross-streets; no mark of human
presence whatsoever. Even as she registered this weirdness she was at
the other side of the town, and once more speeding over sun-scorched
ground. The sight of the town, however brief, had given weight to her
suspicion that she was utterly alone here. Not only was her journey to
be 
endless, but unaccompanied too. This was Hell, she thought; or a good

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to 
turn and see it for herself.
There was something else to see, however, more curious than the town:
a 
single tower or pylon, built of steel, standing in the middle of the desert,
with wires tethering it as though it  might at any moment float away.
Again
she was at it and past in seconds.  Again, it gave her no comfort. But
once
beyond it a new sensation crept over  her: that she, and the clouds and
the
sand beneath her were all fleeing from something. Had some entity
been
lurking in that blank town, just out  of sight, and now, aroused by a hu-
man
presence here, was coming after her? She couldn't turn, she couldn't
hear,
she couldn't even feel it s footsteps in the earth as it approached. But
it.would come. If not now, then soon. It was relentless, inevitable. And the
first moment she saw it would be her last.
Then, refuge! A fair distance away yet, but growing in size as she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

inability to scan the scene prevented her catching more than a glimpse
of 
the figure. But it was human; female; clothed in rags: that much she did
grasp. Even if the hut turned out to be as empty as the town, she had
the
comfort—albeit slight—that some other soul wandered these wastes.
She
looked hard for the woman again, but  she'd come and gone. And there
was
more urgent business: the fact that the hut was almost upon her, or her
upon it, and her speed was still sufficient to demolish hovel and visitor
on 
impact. She readied herself, reflecting that a death by dashing would be
preferable to the unending journey she'd feared.
And then, she was at a dead stop; and at the door. From two hundred
miles an hour to zero in half a heartbeat.
The door was closed, but she sensed something over her shoulder
(bodiless though she was, it was impossible not to think of over and
behind) which reached into her field of vision. It was serpentine, the
thickness of her wrist, and so dark that even in bright sunlight she could

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only a small fire, burning in the middle of the floor, its smoke given an
escape route through a hole in t he middle of the roof but instead
choosing
to stay and dirty the air between her and the hut's sole occupant.
He looked as old as the stone of this hovel's walls, naked and grimy, his
paper skin stretched to splitting point over bird's bones. He'd singed off
his
beard patchily, leaving clumps of gray hairs in places. She wondered he
had the wit to do that. The expression on his face suggested a mind in
an 
advanced state of catatonia.
But no sooner had she entered than he looked up at her, seeing her
despite the fact that she had no substance. He cleared his throat, split-
ting
the phlegm into the fire.
"Close the door," he said.."You can see me?" she replied. "And hear
me?"
"Of course," he replied. "Now close the door."
"How do I do that?" she wanted to know. "I've got...no hands. Nothing."
"You can do it," he replied. "Just imagine yourself."
"Huh?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm dead, aren't I?" she said.
"Dead? No."
"No?"
"The Nuncio preserved you. You're  alive and kicking, but your body's
still
back at the Mission. I want it here. We've got business to do."
The good news, that sh e was still alive, albei t separated flesh from
spirit,
fuelled her. She thought hard of t he body she'd almost lost, the body
she'd
grown into over a period of thirty-two years. It was by no means perfect,
but
at least it was all hers. No silico ne; no nips and tuc ks. She liked her
hands
and her fine-boned wrists, her squinty breasts with the left nipple twice
the
size of the right, her cunt, her ass. Most of all she liked her face, with its
quirks and laugh-lines.
To imagine it was the trick. To picture its essentials, and so bring it into
this other place where her spirit had come. The old man was aiding her
in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was a moment of doubt, when she almost regretted losing the ease of
being thought, but then she remembered her face smiling back at her
when
she stepped from the shower in the morning. It was a fine feeling, ma-
turing
in that flesh, learning to enjoy it for its own sake. The simple pleasure of
a 
good belch, or better yet a solid fart: the kind that had Butch blaming
himself. Teaching her tongue to distinguish between vodkas; her eyes to
appreciate Matisse. There were more gains than losses in bringing her
body to her mind.
"Almost," she heard him say.
"I feel it."
"A little more. Conjure.".She looked down at the ground, aware that she
had the freedom to do so.
Her feet were there, standing on the threshold, naked. So, solidifying in
front of her eyes, was the rest of her body. She was stark naked.
"Now..." said the man at the fire. "Close the door."
She turned and did so, her nakedness embarrassing her not at all,
particularly after the effort she'd used bringing her body here. She
worked

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I can ask?"
"Ask. But first, sit."
She squatted down on the opposite side of the fire to him. The floor was
warm; the air too. Within thirty seconds her pores had begun to ooze. It
was
pleasant.
"First—" she said "—how did I get here? And where am I?"
"New Mexico is where you are," Ki ssoon replied. "And the how of it?
Well,
that's a more difficult question, but what it comes down to is this: I've
been
watching you—you and several others—waiting for a chance to bring
someone here. Your near-death, and the Nuncio, helped erode your
resistance to the journey. Indeed you had little choice."
"How much do you know about what's happening in the Grove?" she
asked him.
He made dry sounds with his mouth, as though trying to summon saliva.
When he finally replied it was with a weary tone.
"Oh God in Heaven, too much," he said, "I know too much."
"The Art, Quiddity...all that?"
"Yes," he said, with the same dispirited air. "All that. It was me began it,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it. 
He wasn't put off by the smoke  screens, and the shams, and all the
tricks
that throw most people off the scen t. He kept looking, until he found
me."
Kissoon regarded Tesla with eyes narrowed, as if he might sharpen his
sight that way, and get inside her skull.
"What to tell," he said. "Always the  same problem: what to tell."."You
sound like Grillo," she remarked. "Have you spied on him?"
"Once or twice, when he crossed the path," Kissoon said. "But he's not
important. You are. You're very important."
"How do you figure that?"
"You're here, for one. Nobody's been here since Randolph, and look
what
consequences that brought. This is  no normal place, Tesla. I'm sure
you've
already guessed that. This is a Loop—a time out of time—which I made
for
myself"
"Out of time?" she said. "I don't understand."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

heaven, Quiddity, and one purpose, to k eep both pure. This is its sign,"
he 
said, picking a small object up from the ground in front of him and toss-
ing it
across to her. At first glance she thought it was a crucifix. It was a cross,
and at its center was a man, sprea deagled. But a closer perusal gave
the
lie to that. On each of the four arms of the symbol other forms were
inscribed, which seemed to be corruptions of, or developments from, the
central figure.
"You believe me?" he said.
"I believe you."
She threw the symbol back over to his side of the fire.
"Quiddity must be preserved, at any cost. No doubt you understood this
from Fletcher?"
"He said that, yes. Was he one of the Shoal?"
Kissoon looked disdainful. "No,  he'd never have made the grade. He
was
just an employee. The Jaff hired him to provide a chemical ride: a short-
cut
to the Art, and Quiddity."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We didn't have much time. He explained bits and pieces. A lot of it was
vague."
"He was no genius. Finding the Nuncio was more luck than talent."
"You met him?"."I told you, nobody's been here since Jaffe. I'm alone."
"No you're not," Tesla said. "There was somebody outside—"
"The Lix, you mean? The serpent that opened the door? Just a little
creation of mine. A doodle. Though I have enjoyed breeding them..."
"No. Not that," she said. "There was a woman, in the desert. I saw her."
"Oh really?" Kissoon said, a subtle shadow seeming to cross his face.
"A 
woman?" He made a little smile. "Well, forgive me," he said. "I do dream
still, once in a while. And there was  a time when I could conjure what-
ever I
desired by dreaming it. She was naked?"
"I don't think so."
"Beautiful?"
"I didn't get that close."
"Oh. A pity. But best for you. You're vulnerable here and I wouldn't want
you hurt by a possessive mistress." His voice had lightened, become
almost artificially casual.
"If you see her again, keep your distance," he advised. "On no account

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ment.
All these years alone. I've lost my social graces."
"You could go back, surely," she said. "You brought me here. Isn't there
a 
two-way traffic?"
"Yes and no," he said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, I could, but I can't."
"Why?"
"I'm the last of the Shoal," he said. "The last living preserver of Quiddity.
The rest have been murdered, and all attempts to replace them brought
to 
nothing. Do you blame me for keeping out of sight? For watching from a
safe distance? If I die without somehow re-establishing the tradition of
the
Shoal, Quiddity will be left unguar ded, and I think you understand
enough
to know how cataclysmic that could be. The only possible way I can get
out
into the world and begin that vital work is in another shape.
Another...body."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You mean, can you research it?  No. But you can read between the
lines
of other histories, and you'll find the Shoal everywhere. It's the secret
behind all other secrets. Entire religions were seeded and nurtured to
distract attention from it, to direct spiritual seekers away from the Shoal,
the
Art and what the Art opened onto. It wasn't difficult. People are easily
thrown off track if the right scent is laid down. Promises of Revelation,
Resurrection of the Body, that sort of thing—"
"Are you saying—"
"Don't interrupt," Kissoon said. "P lease. I'm getting into my rhythm
here."
"I'm sorry," Tesla said.
It's almost like a pitch, she thought. Like he's trying to sell me this whole
extraordinary story.
"So. As I was saying...you can find  the Shoal everywhere, if you know
how
to look. And some people did. There were several men and women
down
the years, like Jaffe, who managed to look through the shams and the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

when
death depleted our numbers. Others we judged unfit."
"What did you do with them?"
"Used our skills to blank all memory of their discovery from their heads.
Which often proved fatal of course. You can't take a man's search for
meaning away one day and expect him  to survive it, especially if he's
come
close to finding an answer. It's my suspicion one of our rejects had
remembered himself, or herself—"
"And murdered the Shoal."
"It seems the likeliest theory. It has to be somebody who knows about
the
Shoal and its workings. Which brings me to Randolph Jaffe."
"It's hard for me to think of him as Randolph, " Tesla said. "Even as
human."
"Believe me, he is. He's also the greatest error of judgment I ever made.
I 
told him too much."
"More than you're telling me?"
"The situation's desperate now," Kissoon said. "If I don't tell you, and get
help from you, we're all lost. But with Jaffe...it was my stupidity. I wanted

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

spiritual refinement."
"He's got an army too."
"I know."
"Where do they come from?"
"The same place everything originates. The mind."
"Everything?"
"You're asking questions again."
"I can't help it."
"Yes, everything. The world and all  its works; its makings and unmak-
ings;
gods, lice and cuttlefish. All from the mind."
"I don't believe you."
"Why assume I care?"
"The mind can't create everything."
"I didn't say the human mind."
"Ah."
"If you listened more closely you wouldn't ask so many questions."
"But you want me to understand, or you wouldn't be spending all this
time."
"Time out of time. But yes...yes, I want you to understand. Given the
sacrifice you'll have to make it's important you know why."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Can't I simply act for you?" she said. "Be your agent? I'm good out
there."
"I'm sure you are."
"You brief me, I'll do what it takes."
Kissoon shook his head. "There's so much you don't know," he said. "So
vast a picture, I haven't even tried  to unveil. I doubt your imagination
could
cope with it."
"Try me," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."."Well, the issue here isn't simply the Jaff. He may taint Quid-
dity, but it'll
survive."
"So what's the big problem?" Tesla said. "You give me all this shit about
needing sacrifice. What for? If Quiddity can look after itself, what for?"
"Will you not simply trust me?"
She looked hard at him. The fire had sunk low but her eyes were by now
well used to the amber gloom. Part of her wanted very much to put her
trust
in someone. But she'd spent most of her adult life learning the danger of
that. Men, agents, studio executives, so many of-them had asked her for

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I want the truth. Or I don't give you anything."
"Are you so sure you can refuse?" Kissoon said.
She half turned her face from him, glancing back, tight-lipped, the way
her
favorite heroines did, with a look of accusation.
"That was a threat," she said.
"You could construe it that way," he observed.
"Well, fuck you—"
He shrugged. His passivity—the almost lazy way he regarded her—
inflamed her further.
"I don't have to sit and listen to this, you know!"
"No?"
"No! You're hiding something from me."
"Now you're being ridiculous."
"I don't think so."
She stood up. His eyes didn't follo w her face, but lingered at groin
height.
She was suddenly uncomfortable being naked in his presence. She
wanted
the clothes that were presumably  still back at the Mission, stale and
bloody

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

facilities of dialogue to hear the br istle beneath the purr. She turned
back.to hear more, no longer certain that  she could get the truth from this
man.
She only had to be threatened once to doubt.
"Go on," she said.
"You won't sit?"
"That's right," she said. She had to pretend she wasn't afraid, though
suddenly she was; had to think of her skin as fashion enough. Stand,
and
be defiantly naked. "I won't sit."
"Then I'll try to explain as quickly as I can," he said. He'd effectively
smoothed out every ambiguity in his manner. He was considerate; even
humble.
"Even I, you must understand, don't hav e all the facts at my disposal,"
he 
said. "But I have enough, I hope, to  convince you of the danger we're
in."
"Who's we?"
"The inhabitants of the Cosm."
"Again?"
"Fletcher didn't explain this to you?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Another reality."
"Yes. As vast and complex as our own. As full of energies and species
and appetites. But dominated, as the Cosm is, by one species in par-
ticular,
with strange appetites."
"I don't like the sound of this."
"You wanted the truth."
"I'm not saying I believe you."
"That other place is the Metacosm. That species is the Iad Uroboros.
They
exist."
"And the appetites?" she said, not certain she really wanted to know.
"For purity. For singularity. For madness. "
"Some hunger."
"You were right when you accused me  of not telling the truth. I told a
part
of it only. The Shoal did stand guard at the shores of Quiddity to prevent
the Art from being misused by human ambition; but it also stood to
watch
the sea..."
"For an invasion?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you
what only the strongest psyches can bear."
"Is there any good news?" Tesla said.
"Who ever promised that? Who ever said there'd be good news?"
"Jesus," she replied. "And Buddha. Mohammed."
"Fragments of stories, massaged into cults by the Shoal. Distractions."
"I can't believe that."
"Why not? Are you a Christian?"
"No."
"Buddhist? Muslim? Hindu?"
"No. No. No."
"But you insist on believing the good news anyway," Kissoon said.
"Convenient."
She felt she'd been struck, very hard , across the face, by a teacher
who'd
been three or four steps ahead of her throughout the entire argument,
leading her steadily and stealthily to  a place where she could not help
but
mouth absurdities. And absurd it  was, to cling to hopes for Heaven
when

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

told
her was true, and the world she liv ed in—the Cosm—was in jeopardy,
then
what right did she have to value her little life over his desperate need for
assistance? Even assuming she could  find her way out of this time out
of 
time she couldn't return to the world without wondering every moment if
in 
leaving him she'd lost the Cosm's  one chance for survival. She had to
stay;
had to give herself over to him,  not because she entirely believed him,
but
because she couldn't risk being wrong.
"Don't be afraid," she heard him say. "The situation's no worse than it
was
five minutes ago, when you were quite  the debater. You just know the
truth
now."
"Not much comfort," she said.
"No," he replied softly. "I do see that. And you must see that this burden

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

request.
"I need to occupy your body," he sa id. "Which means, I'm afraid, that
you
must vacate it."
The fire had dwindled to almost nothing, but its smoke was thickening. It
pressed the top of her skull, making  it impossible for her to raise her
head
and look at him even if she'd wanted to. She started to tremble. First her
knees, then her fingers. Kissoon continued to talk as he approached.
She
heard his soft shuffling.
"This won't hurt," he said. "If you just stand still, and keep your eyes on
the ground—"
A slow thought came: was he making the smoke heavy, by some
means,
in order to stop her looking at him?
"It'll be over quickly—"
He sounds like an anesthetist, she thought. The trembling intensified.
The
smoke pressed more heavily upon her the closer he came. She was
certain

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her
blood had gone to dishwater. The smoke was like a lead hat; its brim too
tight around her brow. The harder she pushed, the heavier it became.
He really doesn't want me to look, she thought, that thought feeding her
passion to do so. She braced herself against the wall. He was within two
yards of her now. She could smell him; his sweat was bitter and stale.
Push, she told herself, push! It's only smoke. He's making you think
you're
being crushed, but it's only smoke.
"Relax," he murmured; the anesthetist again.
Instead she put one last surge of effort into raising her head. The lead
hat
dug into her temples; her skull creaked beneath the weight of the crown.
But her head moved, trembling as she fought the weight. Once begun,
the
motion became easier. She lifted her chin an inch, then another two,
raising
her eyes at the same moment until she was looking straight at him.
Standing, he was crooked in every pl ace but one, each joint and junc-
ture

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

flesh responding to yours. Automatic.
Be flattered."
She might have laughed, in different circumstances. Had she been able
to 
open the door and walk away, for instance, instead of being lost out of
time, with a beast on the threshold and a desert beyond. Every time she
thought she had a grasp of what wa s going on here she lost it again.
The
man was one surprise after another, and none of them pleasant.
He reached towards her, his pupils vast, crowding out the whites. She
thought of Raul; of how there was be auty in his gaze, despite his hy-
brid's
face. There was no beauty here; nothing even vaguely readable. No
appetite; no anger. If there was feeling at all, it was eclipsed.
"I can't do this," she said.
"You must. Give up the body. I have  to have the body or the Iad wins.
You
want that?"
"No!"
"Then stop resisting. Your spirit'll be safe in Trinity."
"Where?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

them
all the fact that his hold on the situation slipped as she asked him about
Trinity. First she felt the smoke  dissolving above her, its weight no
longer
bearing her down. Taking her chance while it was still available she
reached for the handle of the door. Her eyes were still on him however,
and
in the same instant as her release she saw him transfigured. It was a
glimpse, no more, but so powerful  as to be unforgettable. He appeared
with
his upper body covered in blood, splashes of it reaching as far as his
face.
He knew she saw, because his hands went up to cover the stains, but
his
hands and arms were also running with blood. Was it his? Before she
could
look to find a wound he had control of the vision once again, but like a
juggler attempting to hold too many balls in the air catching one meant
losing another. The blood vanished, and he appeared before her un-
scathed
again, only to unleash some other secret his will had kept in check.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her—
bringing her here, and keeping her—finally and comprehensively
slipped.
She felt the reality she'd left catch hold of her spine, and pull. She didn't
even attempt to resist. It was as inevitable a claim as gravity.
The last glimpse she had of Kissoon he was once more bloodstained,
and
standing, his face still drained of expression in front of the door. Then it
threw itself open.
There was a moment when she wa s certain whatever had beaten
against
the door would be waiting on the st ep to devour her, and Kissoon too.
She
thought she even glimpsed its bright ness—so bright, so blindingly
bright—
flood Kis-soon's features. But his will go t the better of it at the last mo-
ment,
and its glare diminished at the very moment the world she'd left claimed
her
and hauled her through the door.
She was flung back the way she'd come, at ten times the speed of her

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

darker reality was vaguely visible. T here were points of light in it—can-
dle
flames perhaps—and faces.
"Tesla!"
"Almost there," she gasped. "Almost there. Almost there."
Now the desert was being subsum ed; the darkness  took precedence.
She
opened her eyes wide to see Raul more clearly. There was a wide smile
on 
his face as he went down on his haunches to greet her.
"You came back," he said.
The desert had gone. It was all night now. Stones beneath her, stars
above; and, as she guessed, candles,  being carried by a ring of aston-
ished
women.
Beneath her, between body and ground, were the clothes she'd slipped
from when she'd called her body to her, recreating it in Kissoon's Loop.
She
reached up to touch Raul's face, as much as to be certain she was in-
deed
back in the solid world as for the contact. His cheeks were wet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Nuncio," she said. "It healed me."
The fact was not lost on the women. Seeing the unmarked skin they
muttered prayers, and backed away.
"No..." she murmured, still looking down at her body. "It wasn't the Nun-
cio.
This is the body I imagined."
"Imagined?" said Raul.
"Conjured," she replied, scarcely  even aware of Raul's confusion be-
cause
she had a puzzle of her own. Her left nipple, twice the size of its neigh-
bor,
was now on the right. She kept star ing at them, shaking her head. It
wasn't
the kind of thing she'd make a mistake about. Somehow, on the journey
to 
the Loop, or back, she'd been flipped. She brought her legs up for study.
Several scratches—Dutch's work—that had adorned one shin now
marked
the other.
"I can't figure it," she said to Raul.
Not even understanding the question he was hard-pressed to reply, so

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So it's us against them."
Raul shook his head. "I can't be of use to you," he said.
"You can and you must," she said. "There's so many questions we have
to 
have answered. I can't do it on my own. You must come with me."
His reluctance was perfectly apparent without his voicing it.
"I know you're afraid. But please, Raul. You brought me back from the
dead—"
"Not me."
"You helped. You wouldn't want that wasted, would you?"
She could hear something of Kissoon's persuasions in her own, and
didn't
much like the sound. But then  she'd never experienced a steeper
learning
curve in her life than in the time  she'd spent with Kissoon. He'd made
his
mark without so much as laying a finger on her. But if she'd been asked
whether he was a liar or a prophet, a savior or a lunatic, she couldn't
have
said. Perhaps that ambiguity was the steepest part of the curve, though
what lesson she'd gained from it she couldn't say.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

acceptance.
"There'll be other memories. Better times to remember," she said.
"Now...if
you've got people to say goodbye to, say it, because we're rolling—"
He nodded, and began to address the women in Spanish. Tesla had a
smattering of the language; enough to confirm that he was indeed mak-
ing
his farewells. Leaving him to it, she headed up the hill towards the car.
As she walked the solution to the puzzle of the flipped body appeared in
her head, without the problem being consciously turned. In Kissoon's
hut
she'd imagined herself the way she most often saw herself: in a mirror.
How many times in her thirty odd years had she looked at her own
reflection, building up a portrait in which right was left, and vice versa?
She'd come back from the Loop a different woman, literally; a woman
who'd only ever existed as an image in glass. Now that image was flesh
and blood, and walking the world. Behind its face the mind remained the
same, she hoped, albeit touched by the Nuncio, and by knowing Kis-
soon.
Not, in sum, negligible influences.
What with one thing and another she was a whole new story. No better

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

few years ago he couldn't have esca ped from fast enough, his foot on
the
accelerator every mile of the way.  He wanted to walk the Grove again
with
the news his body carried, wanted to go back to his father, who'd taught
him so much. Until the Jaff the best life had offered was an off-shore
wind
and a west swell at Topanga; him on a crest knowing the girls were all
watching him from the beach. But he'd always known those high times
couldn't last forever. New heroes came along, summer after summer.
He'd
been one of them, supplanting surfers no more than a couple of years
older, who weren't quite as lithe. Boy-men like himself who'd been the
cream of the swell the season before, suddenly old news. He wasn't
stupid.
He knew it was only a matter of time before he joined their ranks.
But now, he had a purpose in his belly and brain he'd
never had before. He'd discovered ways to think and behave the air-
heads
at Topanga never even guessed exist ed. Much of that he had to thank
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gave him a boner remembering.
But the night's fun had only just  started. Less than a hundred miles
north
of the Mission his route took him through a small village on the fringes of
which lay a cemetery. The moon was still high. Its brightness gleamed
on 
the tombs, washing the color from t he flowers that were laid here and
there.
He stopped the car, to get a better look. After all, this was his territory
from
now on. It was home.
If he'd needed any further proof that what had happened at the Mission
was not the invention of a crazyman, he got it when he pushed open the
gate and wandered in. There was no wind to stir the grass, which grew
to 
knee height in several places, where tombs had been left untended. But
there was movement there nevert heless. He advanced a few more
paces,
and saw human figures rising into view from a dozen places. They were
dead. Had their appearance not testified to the fact the luminescence of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

badly built tombs had toppled, or a casket been pushed back up to the
surface by some motion in the earth. Their progress was, however,
slow.
He was in no hurry. He sat himself  down on the grave which contained,
the
stone recorded, seven children and their mother, and watched the
ghosts
come his way. The closer they came the more of their condition he saw.
It 
wasn't pretty. A wind blew out of t hem, twisting them out of true. Their
faces
were either too wide or too long, their eyes bulging, their mouths blown
open, cheeks flopping. Their ugliness  put Tommy-Ray in mind of a film
he'd
seen of pilots enduring G-force, the difference being that these were not
volunteers. They suffered against their will.
He was not disturbed in the least by their distortions; nor by the holes in
their wretched bodies, or their slashed and severed limbs. It was nothing
he 
hadn't seen in comic books by the age of  six; or on a ghost-train ride.
The

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

have
died young, and recently. He wore a  pair of jeans two sizes too big for
him,
and a muscle shirt adorned with a hand presenting the fuck sign to the
world. He also wore a hat, which he took off when he came within a few
yards of Tommy-Ray. The head beneath had been practically shaved,
exposing several long cuts to view. The fatal wounds, presumably.
There
was no blood out of them now; just  a whine of the wind that blew
through
the man's gut.
A little distance from Tommy-Ray he stopped.
"Do you speak?" the Death-Boy asked him.
The man opened his mouth, which was already wide, a little wider, and
proceeded to make a reply as best he could, by working it up from his
throat. Watching him, Tommy-Ray remembered a performer he'd seen
on a
late show, who'd swallowed and t hen regurgitated live goldfish. Though
it 
was several years ago the sight had struck a chord in Tommy-Ray's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dry
as his innards.."Yes," he said, "I speak."
"Do you know who I am?" Tommy-Ray asked.
The man made a moan.
"Yes or no?"
"No."
"I'm the Death-Boy, and you're t he Fuck-You-Man. How 'bout that?
Don't
we make a pair?"
"You're here for us," the dead man said.
"What do you mean?"
"We're not buried. Not blessed."
"Don't look at me for help," Tommy-Ray said. "I'm burying nobody. I
came
to look because this is my kind of place now. I'm going to be King of the
Dead."
"Yes?"
"Depend on it."
Another of the lost souls—a wide hipped woman—had approached, and
puked up some words of her own.
"You..." she said, "...are shining."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We'll follow you," the woman, said.
"Follow?" Tommy-Ray replied, a s hudder of excitement running down
his
spine at the idea of returning to t he Grove with such a congregation in
tow.
Maybe there were other places he c ould visit along the way, and swell
the
numbers as he went.
"I like the idea," he said. "But how?"
"You lead. We'll follow," came the response.
Tommy-Ray stood up. "Why not?" he said, and started back towards the
car. Even as he went he found himself thinking: this is going to be the
end
of me...
And thinking, didn't care.
Once at the wheel he looked back towards the cemetery. A wind had
blown up from somewhere, and in it he saw the company that he'd cho-
sen
to keep seem to dissolve, their bodies coming undone as though they
were
made of sand, and being blown apart. Specks of their dust blew in his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the pursuing dervishes.
He had been right about there bei ng more places along the route to
gather
ghosts. I'll always be right from  now on, he thought. Death's never
wrong;
never, ever wrong. He found another cemetery within an hour's drive of
the
first, with a dust dervish of half-dissolved souls running back and forth
along its front wall like a dog on a leas h, impatiently awaiting the arrival
of 
its master. Word of his coming had gone before him apparently. They
were
waiting, these souls, ready to join  the throng. He didn't even have to
slow
the car. At his approach the dust storm came to meet him,, momentarily
smothering the vehicle before risi ng to join the souls behind. Tommy-
Ray
just drove straight on.
Towards dawn his unhappy band found yet more adherents. There had
been a collision at a crossroads, earlier in the night. There was broken
glass scattered across the road; blood; and one of the two cars—now

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

threatened with every faltering step t hey took to throw them over on to
their
broken heads. But newly dead as they were, they sensed their Lord in
Tommy-Ray, and came obediently. He smiled to see them; their fresh
wounds (glass in their faces, in their eyes) excited him.
There was no exchange of words. As they drew closer they seemed to
take a signal from their comrades in death behind Tommy-Ray's car,
allowing their bodies to erode completely, and join the wind.
His legion swelled, Tommy-Ray drove on.
There were other such meetings along the way; they seemed to multiply
the further north he drove, as though word of his approach went through
the earth, from buried thing to buried thing, graveyard whispers, so that
there were dusty phantoms waiting all along the way. By no means all of
them had come to join the party. Some had apparently come simply to
stare at the passing parade. There was fear on their faces when they
looked at Tommy-Ray. He'd become t he Terror in the ghost-train now,
and
they were the chilled punters. Ther e were hierarchies even among the
dead
it seemed, and he was too elevated  a company for many of them to
keep;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sum
of it.
He had other business here than the collecting of lost souls—though he
didn't doubt for a moment that in such a wretched place life was quickly
and
violently over, and many bodies never laid to sanctified rest. No, his
business here was revenge upon the  pocket-picker. Or if not upon him,
at 
least upon the den where it had happ ened. He found the place easily.
The
front door wasn't locked, as he'd ex pected at such an early hour. Nor,
once
he stepped inside, did he find the bar empty. Last night's drinkers were
still
scattered around the place, in various stages of collapse. One lay face
down on the floor, vomit spattered around him. Another two were
sprawled
at tables. Behind the bar itself was a man Tommy-Ray vaguely
remembered as the doorman who'd taken his money for the backroom
show. A lump of a man, with a face that looked to have been bruised so
many times it'd never lose the stain.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tommy-Ray was a little taken aback by the man's blindness. Did he not
recognize the fact that he was speaking to a transformed creature? Had
his
perception been so dulled by y ears of drinking and dog-shows he
couldn't
see the Death-Boy when he came visiting? More fool him.
"Get out of my way," Tommy-Ray said.
Instead, the man took hold of the front of Tommy-Ray's shirt. "You been
here before," he said.
"Yeah."
"Left something behind, did you?"
He pulled Tommy-Ray closer, till they were practically nose to nose. He
had a sick man's breath.
"I'd let go if I were you," Tommy-Ray warned.
The man looked amused at this. "You're looking to get your fucking balls
ripped off," he said. "Or do you want  to join the show?" His eyes wid-
ened
at this notion. "Is that what you came looking for? An audition?"
"I told you..." Tommy-Ray began.."I don't give a fuck what you told me.
I'm doing the talking now. Hear me?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

skin.
The man grinned.
"Yeah?" he said.
He dropped his hand from Tommy-Ray's face. "You got something to
show?" he said again.
"Here..." Tommy-Ray murmured.
"What?"
"Come in...come in..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Not talking to you. Here. Come...in ...here. " His gaze went from the
man's
face to the door.
"Don't give me shit, kid," the man responded. "You're on your own."
"Come in!" Tommy-Ray yelled.
"Shut the fuck up!"
"Come in!"
His din maddened the man. He hit Tommy-Ray across the face, so hard
the blow knocked the boy out of his  grip to the floor. Tommy-Ray didn't
get
up. He simply stared at the door, and made his invitation one more time.
"Please come in," he said, more quietly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to come in. It pressed too rhythmically; it beat its fist too heavily. And its
howls, oh its howls were nothing like the howls of any storm he'd heard
before. He turned back to Tommy-Ray.
"What the fuck's out there?" he said.
Tommy-Ray just lay where he'd been thrown and smiled up at the man,
that legendary smile, that forgive-me-my-trespasses smile, that would
never be the same again now that he was the Death-Boy.
Die, that smile now said, die while I watch you. Die slowly. Die quickly. I
don't care. It's all the same to the Death-Boy.
As the smile spread the doors opened, shards of the lock, and splinters
of 
wood, thrown across the bar before the invading wind. Out, in the sun-
light.the spirits in this storm had not  been visible; but they made them-
selves so
now, congealing their dust in front of  the witnesses' eyes. One of the
men
slumped on the table roused himself in time to see three figures forming
from the head down in front of him, their torsos trailing like innards of
dust.
He backed off against the wall, where they threw themselves upon him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gled
in the storm, and each had become  a little like the other. Unparticular-
ized,
they were more terrible than they'd been at the cemetery wall. He
shuddered at the sight, the remnants of the man he'd been in fear of
them,
the Death-Boy in bliss. These were  soldiers in his army: eyes vast,
mouths
vaster, dust and want in one howling legion.
The bartender started to pray out loud, but he wasn't putting his faith in
prayer alone. He reached down to his side and picked Tommy-Ray up
one-handed,
hauling him close. Then, with his hostage taken, he opened the
door to the sex arena and backed through it. Tommy-Ray heard him
repeating something as they went, the hook of the prayer perhaps?
Santo
Dios! Santo Dios! But neither words nor hostage slowed the advance of
the
wind and its dusty freight. They came after him, throwing the door wide.
Tommy-Ray saw their mouths grow  huger still, and then the blur of
faces

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he opened his eyes he was red. Chest, arms, legs, hands: all red.
The bartender, the source of t he color, had been dragged on to the
stage
where the night before Tommy had seen the woman and the dog. His
head
was in one corner, upended; his arms, hands locked in supplication, in
another; the rest of him lay center stage, the neck still pumping.
Tommy-Ray tried not to be sickened  (he was the Death-Boy, after all)
but
this was too much. And yet, he told himself, what had he expected when
he'd invited them over the threshold? This was not a circus he had in
tow. It
was not sane; it was not civilized.
Shaking, sickened and chastened, he got to his feet and hauled himself
back out into the bar. His legion's labors here were as cataclysmic as
those
he'd turned his back upon. All three of the bar's occupants had been
brutally slaughtered. Giving the sc ene only the most casual perusal,
he.crossed through the destruction to the door.
Events inside the bar had inevitably attracted an audience outside, even

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

made Tommy-Ray take note of his gait. Instead of slouching he walked
more upright. When they remembered the Death-Boy, he thought, let
them
remember someone terrible.
As he drove he began to believe he'd left the legion behind; that they'd
found the game of murder more exciting than follow the leader and were
going on to slaughter the rest of the town. He didn't much mind the
desertion. Indeed he was in part thankful for it. The revelations that had
seemed so welcome the previous night had lost some of their glamour.
He was sticky and stinking with an other man's blood; he was bruised
from
the bartender's handling of him. Naively enough he'd believed that the
touch of the Nuncio had made him immortal. What was the use of being
the
Death-Boy, after all, if death could still master you? In learning the error
of 
his ways he'd come closer to losing his life than he cared to think too
hard
about. As to his saviors, his legion—he'd been equally naive in his belief
that he had control of them.
They were not the shambling, fawning refugees he'd taken them for the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mirror, and knew his relief at losing his legion had been premature.
Whatever slaughter had detained them  they'd done with it. He put his
foot
down, hoping against hope to lose them, but they had the scent of him,
and
followed like a pack of loyal but lethal dogs, closing on the car till they
were
once more swirling behind him.
Once over the border the cloud picked up its pace, so that instead of
following, it surrounded the car to left and right. There was more pur-
pose in
the maneuver than mere intimacy. Sp irits hauled the windows and rat-
tled at
the passenger door, finally pulling it open. Tommy-Ray reached to drag
it 
closed again. As he did so the bartender's head, much battered by be-
ing
carried by the storm, was pitched out  of the dust on to the seat beside
him..Then the door was slammed, and t he cloud once more took its dutiful
place
as his train.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

or 
you and I'll be brothers.
He took the silent message to heart. Though he was still ostensibly the
leader, the dynamic changed thereafter. Every few miles the cloud
would
once more pick up its pace and merge one way or another, pointing him
towards more of their number; many waiting in the unlikeliest of places:
squalid street corners and minor inte rsections (often at intersections);
once
in the lot of a motel; once outside  a boarded-up gas station, where a
man,
a woman and a child all waited, as though they'd known this transport
would be coming along.
As the numbers swelled, so did the scale of the storm that carried them,
until its passage was sufficient to cause minor damage along the high-
way,
driving cars off the road, and blowing down signs. It even made the
news
bulletin. Tommy-Ray heard the report as he drove. It was described as a
freak wind, which had blown up off the ocean and was proceeding north
towards Los Angeles County.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was hunger that drove William out  from his home on Saturday morn-
ing.
He went reluctantly, like a man at an orgy suddenly aware that his blad-
der
had to be emptied, and exiting with many a backward glance. But hun-
ger,
like the need to piss, couldn't be ignored forever, and William had
exhausted what few supplies his refrigerator had contained very quickly.
Working as he did at the Mall he'd nev er stocked up on food, but taken
a 
quarter of an hour every day to wander around the supermarket and
pick
up whatever got him salivating. But he'd not been shopping now for two
days, and if he wasn't to starve to death in the lap of the tasty but inedi-
ble
luxuries gathered behind the drawn blinds of his home he had to fetch
himself something to eat. This was easier said than done. His mind was
so 
wholly obsessed by the company he  was keeping that the simple prob-
lem

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

shade of the shirt; his kitchen could have been shot for an ad campaign,
its 
surfaces always pristine; the sink smelled of lemon; the washing ma-
chine
of his flower-scented fabric conditioner; his toilet bowl of pine.
But Babylon had taken control of his house. He'd last seen his best suit
being worn by the notorious bisexual Marcella St. John, while she strad-
dled
one of her girlfriends. His bow ties had been purloined for a competition
to 
see which of three erections could wear the most, a tournament won by
Moses "The Hose" Jasper, who'd ended up sporting seventeen.
Rather than try and tidy up, or clai m any of these belongings back, Wil-
liam
decided to let the celebrants have their way. He rummaged in his bot-
tom
drawer and found a sweatshirt and jeans he'd not worn for several
years,
put them on, and wandered down to the Mall.
At about the time he was doing so Jo-Beth was waking with the worst
hangover of her life. The worst, because the first.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you all right?" she asked.
"No," Jo-Beth freely admitted. "I feel terrible."
"You were drinking last night."."Yes," she said. There was no purpose in
denial.
"Where did you go?"
"To see Lois."
"There'd be no liquor in Lois's house," Momma said.
"There was last night. And a lot more besides."
"Don't lie to me, Jo-Beth."
"I'm not lying."
"Lois would never have that poison in the house."
"I think you should hear her tell it herself," Jo-Beth said, defying
Momma's
accusing looks. "I think we should both go down to the store and speak
to 
her."
"I'm not leaving the house," Momma told her flatly.
"You went out into the yard the ni ght before last. Today you can get in
the
car."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they argued? She thought so. They'd certainly parted on the street...but
why? It was another reason to speak to Lois.
"I mean what I say, Momma," she said. "We're both of us going to go
down to the Mall."
"No, I can't..." Momma said. "Really I can't. I feel so sick today."
"No you don't."
"Yes. My stomach..."
"No, Momma! Enough of that! You can't pretend to be sick for the rest of
your life, just because you're afraid. I'm afraid too, Momma."
"It's good you're afraid."
"No it's not. It's what the Jaff wants. What he feeds on. The fear inside. I
know that because I've seen it working and it's horrible."
"We can pray. Prayer—"
"—won't do us any good any longer. It didn't help the Pastor. It won't
help
us." She was raising her voice, which in turn made her head spin, but
she
knew this had to be said now before full sobriety returned, and with it,
fear
of offending.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

worse. To have things...dreams...just for a while...then have them taken
away before you can get a hold of  them properly."."You're not making
any sense, Jo-Beth," Momma said.
"Lois'll tell you," she replied. "I'm going to take you down to see Lois,
and
then you'll believe."
Howie sat at the window and let the sun dry the sweat on his skin. Its
smell was as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror, more familiar,
perhaps, because his face kept chan ging and the smell of sweat didn't.
He
needed the comfort of such familiarity now, with nothing certain in all the
world but that nothing was certain. He could find no way through the
tangle
of feelings in his gut. What had s eemed simple the day before, when
he'd
stood in the sun at the back of the house and kissed Jo-Beth, was no
longer simple. Fletcher might be dead but he'd left a legacy here in the
Grove, a legacy of dream-creatures which viewed him as some substi-
tute
for their lost creator. He couldn't  be that. Even if they didn't share
Fletcher's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

would have to elect a leader from its own ranks, or disperse.
He'd rehearsed these arguments so often now he almost believed them;
or rather, had almost convinced himself he wasn't a coward for wanting
to 
believe them. But the trick hadn't worked. He came back and back to
the
same stark fact: that once, in t he woods, Fletcher had warned him to
make
a choice between Jo-Beth and his destiny, and he'd flown in the face of
that
advice. The consequences of his dese rtion, whether direct or indirect
was
immaterial now, had been Fletcher's public death, a last, desperate at-
tempt
to seize some hope for the future. Now here was he, the unprodigal son,
willfully turning his back on the product of that sacrifice.
And yet; and yet; always, and yet. If he sided with Fletcher's army then
he 
became part of the war he and Jo-B eth had studiously attempted to re-
main
untouched by. She would become one of the enemy, simply by birth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

be told which way was the right way, which act was the right act, and
have
the comfort that even if it turned out  not to be the way or the act it was
not
his responsibility. But there was nobody to tell him. He had to think this
out
for himself. Sit in the sun and let the sweat dry on his skin, and work it
out
for himself..The Mall was not as busy  as it usually was on a Saturday
morning, but
William nevertheless met half a dozen people he knew on his way to the
supermarket. One was his assistant Valerie.
"Are you all right?" she wanted to  know. "I've been calling your house.
You
never answer."
"I've been ill," he said.
"I didn't bother to open the office yesterday. What with all the trouble the
night before. It was a real mess. Roger went down, you know, when the
alarms started?"
"Roger?"
She stared at him. "Yes, Roger."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

rest,
and parted from her.
The muzak in the market reminded him of what he'd left at home: it
sounded so much like the soundtracks of some of his early movies, a
wash
of nondescript melodies bearing no relation to the scenes they
accompanied. The memory hurried him up and down the long aisles,
filling
his basket more by instinct than pl anning. He didn't bother to cater for
his
guests. They only fed on each other.
He wasn't the only shopper in the store ignoring practical purchases
(household cleaners, detergents and the  like) in favor of quick-fix items
and
junk foods. Distracted as he was he noticed others doing just as he was
doing, indiscriminately filling up their carts and baskets with trash, as
though new reassurances had supplant ed the rituals of cooking and
eating.
He saw on the purchasers' faces (faces he'd known by name once, but
could only half remember now) the same secretive look he'd known had
been on his own face all his life. They were going about their shopping

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joyce McGuire. She came in with her daughter, Jo-Beth, arm-in-arm. If
he 
had ever seen them together it must  have been before Jo-Beth grew to
be 
a woman. Now, side by side, the si milarities in their faces was enough
to.take his breath away. He stared, unable to prevent himself from
remembering the day at the lake and the way Joyce had looked as
she'd
stripped down. Did the daughter look that way now, beneath her loose
clothes, he wondered; small dark nipples, long, tanned thighs?
He realized suddenly that he was not the only customer looking towards
the McGuire women; practically everyone was doing the same. Nor
could
he doubt that similar thoughts were in every head: that here, in the flesh,
was one of the first clues to the apo calypse that was stealing up over
the
Grove. Eighteen years ago Joyce McGuire had given birth in
circumstances that had then seemed merely scandalous. Now she
stepped
back into the public eye at the very time the most ludicrous rumors

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He looked back at Joyce, and understood something about himself he'd
never grasped before: that he and  the woman (beholder and beheld)
were
forever and intimately associated. The realization lasted a moment only:
it 
was too difficult to grasp for any longer. But it made him put down his
basket and press his way past the  line waiting at the checkout, then
walk
straight towards Joyce McGuire. She saw him coming, and a look of
fear
crossed her face. He smiled at her. She tried to back away but her
daughter had hold of her hand.
"It's all right, Momma," he heard her say.
"Yes—" he said, extending his own hand to Joyce. "Yes, it is. Really it
is. 
I'm...so pleased to see you."
The sincere emotion, simply stated, seemed to mellow her anxiety; the
frown softened. She even began to smile.
"William Witt," he said, putting his hand in hers. "You probably don't
remember me, but..."
"I remember you," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As he spoke the sound of sobbing came to them from one of the aisles.
Jo-Beth noticed it more than any of  the other customers: a strange ten-
sion.between her mother and Mr. Witt (whom she'd seen most every
morning of
her working life, but never dress ed in so disheveled a fashion) had
claimed
their attention utterly, and everyone  else in the line seemed to be mak-
ing a
studied attempt not to notice. She let go of Momma's arm and went to
investigate, tracing the sound of the weeping from aisle to aisle until she
found its source. Ruth Gilford, who was the receptionist at the offices of
Momma's doctor, and was familiar to Jo-Beth, was standing in front of a
selection of cereals, a box of  one brand in her left hand and of another
in 
her right, tears pouring down her cheeks. The cart at her side was
heaped
high with more boxes of cereal, as though she'd simply taken one of
each
as she'd wheeled her way along the ai sle. "Mrs. Gilford?" Jo-Beth ven-
tured.
The woman didn't stop sobbing, but tried to speak through her tears,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"...I don't know what he wants..." she said again.
"Who?" Jo-Beth said.
"...all these years...and he's got something hiding from me..."
"Your husband?"
"...I said nothing, hut I knew...I always knew...he loved somebody
else...and now he's got her in the house..."
The tears redoubled. Jo-Beth went to her, and very gently claimed the
packets of cereal from her hands,  putting them back on the shelves.
With
her talismans gone, Ruth Gil-ford took fierce hold of Jo-Beth.
"...help me..." she said.
"Of course."
"I don't want to go home. He's got somebody there."
"All right. Not if you don't want to."
She started to coax the woman away from the cereal display. Once out
of 
their influence, her anguish diminished somewhat.
"You're Jo-Beth, aren't you?" she managed.
"That's right."
"Will you take me to my car...I don't think I can get there on my own."
"We're going, you'll be fine," Jo-Beth reassured her, moving to Ruth's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sake.introductions, which Ruth was in no state to respond to anyway, and
just
tell Momma she'd meet her at the bookstore, which had still been closed
when they'd arrived. For the first ti me in her life, Lois was late opening
up.
But it was Momma who took the initiative.
"Mr. Witt will bring me home, Jo-Beth," she said. "Don't worry about
me."
Jo-Beth glanced at Witt, who had the look of a man almost mesmerized.
"Are you sure?" she said. It had never occurred to her before but per-
haps
the ever unctuous Mr. Witt was the type Momma had been warning her
about all these years. The deep, silent type whose secrets were always
the
most depraved. But Momma was insistent; almost casual in the way she
waved Jo-Beth off.
Crazy, Jo-Beth thought as she esco rted Ruth to the car, the whole
world's
gone crazy. People changing at a moment's notice, as though the way
they'd been all these years was just a pretense: Momma sick, Mr. Witt
neat,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

suaded
her otherwise, and volunteered to  drive home with her, an invitation
which
was gratefully accepted.
Jo-Beth's thoughts returned to Momma as she drove Ruth home, but
they
were literally overtaken, as a convoy  of four black stretch limos purred
past
and turned up the Hill, their presence  so utterly alien they might just
have
driven in from another dimension.
Visitors, she thought. As if there weren't enough..III
"So it begins," said the Jaff.
He was standing at the highest window of Coney Eye, looking down
upon
the driveway. It was a little before noon, and the limos gliding up the
driveway announced the first of the party guests. He would have liked to
have Tommy-Ray at his side at this juncture, but the boy had not yet
returned from his trip to the Mission. No matter. Lamar had proved a
more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
guests who would soon be gathering in Buddy Vance's memory; a more
thorough knowledge, indeed, than the widow Rochelle. She had sunk
deeper and deeper into a drug-induced stupor since the previous even-
ing;
a condition which Lamar had taken sexual advantage of, much to the
Jaff's
amusement. Once upon a time (so long ago) he might have done the
same, of course. No, not might, would. Rochelle Vance was undoubt-
edly
beautiful, and her addiction, informed as it was by a constant undercur-
rent
of rage, made her even more attractive. But these were affairs of the
flesh,
and for another life. There were more urgent pursuits: namely, the
power to
be garnered from the guests who  were even now gathering below.
Lamar
had run down the list with him, offering some savage observation or
other
on practically every one. Corrupt lawyers, addicted actors, reformed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

find fears in these addicted, bewilder ed, inflated souls of a kind he'd
never
have found in the mere bourgeois. From  them he'd raise terata the like
of 
which the world had never seen. Then he'd be ready. Fletcher was
dead,
and his army, if it had indeed manifest ed itself, was keeping its head
low.
There was nothing left between the Jaff and Quiddity.
As he stood at the window and watched the victims disembark, greeting
one another with rhinestone smiles and pinched kisses, his thoughts
went—of all places—to that dead-l etter room in Omaha, Nebraska,
where,
so many lives ago, he'd first had a hint of America's secret self. He
remembered Homer, who'd opened the door to that treasure house, and
later died against it, his life stabbed out by the blunt-bladed knife the Jaff
still carried in his jacket pocket. Death had meant something then. Been
an 
experience to go in dread of. It wasn't until he'd stepped into the Loop
that.he'd realized how irrelevant such fears were, when time could be
suspended, even by a minor charlatan like Kissoon. Presumably the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

at. Kissoon had been holding the moment because if he once let it slip
he'd
unleash his own death...
"Well..." he murmured.
Lamar was behind him. "Well, what?"
"Just musing," the Jaff said. He turned from the window. "Is the widow
already downstairs?"
"I'm trying to rouse her."
"Who's greeting the guests?"
"Nobody."
"Go to it."
"I thought you wanted me here."
"Later. Once they've all arrived you can bring them up one by one."
"As you wish."
"One question."
"Only one?"
"Why aren't you afraid of me?"
Lamar narrowed his already narrow eyes. Then said:
"I've still got my sense of the ridiculous."
Without waiting for any riposte from the Jaff he opened the door and
headed about his duties as host. The Jaff turned back to the window.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that
there was no time:
"I'm needed up at the house," she said. "Rochelle seems to be com-
pletely
out of it. I don't think you need give a second thought to being recog-
nized.
But you will need the invitation. Fill in whatever name you want to in-
vent.
There'll be a lot of security so don't lose it. This is one party you won't
be 
able to talk your way into."
"Where will you be?"."I don't even think I'll be there."
"I thought you said you were going up there now."
"Just for the preparations. As soon as the party starts, I'm out. I don't
want
to mix with those people. Parasites,  all of them. None of them really
loved
Buddy. It's just a show."
"Well I'll tell it like I see it."
"Do that," she said, turning to go.
"Could we just talk a moment?" Grillo said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh no," she replied, eager to correct any error he was about to make.
"You were fine...but things have changed."
"Since yesterday?"
"Yes," she said. "I can't quite tell you how..." She let the sentence hang,
then took another thought up. "We're both adults. We know how these
things work."
He was about to say that no, he didn't know how this or any other thing
worked any longer, but that after this conversation his self-esteem was
enfeebled enough without beating it to  its knees with further confes-
sions.
"Be careful at the party," she said as she once more turned to go.
He couldn't keep himself from saying, "Thanks for that at least."
She returned him a small, enigmatic smile, and left..IV
The trip back to the Grove had been lengthy for Tommy-Ray, but it was
lengthier still for Tesla and Raul, though for less metaphysical reasons.
For
one, Tesla's car was not so hot, and it had taken quite a beating on the
way
down; it was now much the worse for wear. For another, though she had
been raised from near death by the touch of the Nuncio, it had left her
with

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ride
altogether, as though her brain had summoned up from memory frag-
ments
of every trip she'd ever taken, every hallucinogen, every tranquilizer,
and
was running her through the lot, giving her mind a shot of each. One
moment she knew she was whooping like a wild thing (she could hear
herself, like another voice), the next she was floating in ether with the
highway dissolving in front of her,  the next her thoughts were filthier
than
the New York subway, and it was all she could do to stop herself putting
an 
end to the whole damn farce of living with one turn of the wheel.
Through it
all, two facts. One, that of Raul  sitting beside her, gripping the dash-
board
with white-knuckled hands, his fear  pungent. The other, the place that
she'd
visited in her Nunciate dream, Kissoon's Loop. Though it was not as real
as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and
heard in her time in Trinity made her curious to return; even anxious.
The
more she resisted the more exhaus ted she became, until by the time
they
reached the outskirts of L.A. she  was like someone deprived of sleep:
with
waking dreams threatening to erupt at any moment into the texture of
reality.
"We're going to have to stop for a while," she told Raul, aware that she
was slurring as she spoke. "Or I'm going to end up killing us both."
"You want to sleep?"
"I don't know," she said, afraid that to sleep would invite as many
problems as it would solve. "At least rest. Get some coffee inside me,
and
put my mind in order."
"Here?" said Raul.
"Here what?"
"We stop here?"."No," she said. "We'll go back to my apartment. It's half
an hour from here.
That's if we fly—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monica on to North Huntley Drive,  where she'd lived for the five years
she'd
been in L.A. It was almost noon now, and the smog was burning off the
city.
She parked the car in the garage bel ow the building, and took Raul up
to 
Apartment V. The windows of her downstairs neighbor, a sour, re-
pressed
little man with whom she'd exchanged no more than three sentences in
half
a decade, and two of those invective, were open, and he doubtless saw
her
passing. She estimated it would take him twenty minutes at the most to
inform the block that Miss Lonelyhearts, as she'd heard he called her,
was
back in town—looking like shit, and accompanied by Quasimodo. So be
it. 
She had other things to worry about, like how to align her key with the
lock,
a trick which repeatedly defeated her confounded senses. Raul came to
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if 
she knew where Grillo was. Following Saralyn, Tesla's mother: her
contribution more a litany of sins than a message—crimes committed by
the world in general, and her father in particular. Finally there was a
message from Mickey de Falco, w ho made spare bucks providing or-
gasmic
grunts for fuck films, and needed a partner for a gig. In the background,
a 
barking dog. "And as soon as you're back," he said in signing off, "come
and get this fucking dog before it eats me outta house and home." She
caught Raul watching her as she listened to the calls, his bemusement
unconcealed.
"My peer group," she said when Mickey had said his farewells. "Aren't
they a gas? Look, I'm going to have a little nap. It's obvious where
everything is, right? Refrigerator; TV; toilet. Wake me in an hour, yeah?"
"An hour."
"I'd like tea, but we don't have the ti me." She stared at him, staring at
her.
"Am I making any sense?"
"Yes..." he replied doubtfully.
"Slurring my words?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the bedroom. The room was hot, but she knew better than to open the
window. When her immediate neighbor Ron woke, which was around
now,
he would start to play opera. It was eit her the heat of the room or Lucia
di 
Lammermoor. She chose to sweat.
Left to his own devices Raul found a selection of edibles in the
refrigerator, took them to the open window, sat down, and shook. He
could
not remember being so afraid, back since the day Fletcher's madness
had
begun. Now, as then, the rules of the world had suddenly changed with-
out
warning, and he no longer knew what his purpose was to be. In his
heart of
hearts he'd given up hoping to see Fletcher again. The shrine he'd kept
at 
the Mission, which had been a beacon at the start, had become a
memorial. He'd expected to die there,  alone, humored to the last as a
half-wit,
which in many ways he was. He could scarcely write, except to scrawl

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

round
of cries reached him. He pushed the door open.
He'd never in his life seen a woman so exposed. The sight of Tesla
sprawled on the bed transfixed him. He r arms were at her sides, grip-
ping
the sheet, her head rolled from side to side. But there was a fogginess
about her body that reminded him  of what had happened on the road
below
the Mission. She was moving away from him again. Back towards the
Loop.
Her shouts had become moans now. They were not of pleasure. She
was
going unwillingly.
He called her name again, very loudly. She suddenly sat bolt upright,
eyes
wide and staring at him.
"Jesus!" she said. She was panting, as though she'd just run a race.
"Jesus. Jesus. Jesus."
"You were shouting..." he said, trying to begin to explain his presence in
the room.
Only now did she seem to realize their situation: her nakedness, his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to fix its details in her head and to  keep a recurrence at bay by coaxing
the
memories out of the sealed cell of her inner life and into shared experi-
ence.
She painted a repulsive picture of Kissoon.
"You saw him?" Raul said.
"I didn't get to the hut," she replied.  "But he wants me there. I can feel
him
pulling. " She put her hand on her stomach. "I can feel him now, Raul."
"I'm here," he said. "I won't let you go."
"I know, and I'm glad."
She reached out. "Take hold of my  hand, huh?" He tentatively ap-
proached
the bed. "Please," she said. He did so. "I saw that town again," she went
on. "It seems so real, except there's nobody there, nobody at all. It's...it's
like a stage...like something's going to be performed there."
"Performed."
"This is making no sense, I know, but I'm just telling you what I feel.
Something terrible's going to happen there, Raul. The worst thing
imaginable."
"You don't know what?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

White
Hats and the Black Hats shot it  out? Possibly. Or a town vacated as
some
stomping behemoth appeared on the horizon? The classic fifties mon-
ster
scenario: a creature woken by nuclear tests—
"That's closer," she said.
"What is?"
"Maybe it's a dinosaur movie. Or a giant tarantula. I don't know. That's
definitely closer. Christ, this is frustrating! I know something about this
place, Raul, and I can't quite get hold of it."
From next door, the strains of Donize tti's masterpiece. She knew it so
well
now she could have sung along with it had she had the voice.
"I'm going to make some coffee," s he said. "Wake myself up. Will you
go 
and ask Ron for some milk?"
"Yes. Of course."."Just tell him you're a friend of mine."
Raul got up off the bed, detaching his hand from hers.
"Ron's apartment's number four," she called after him, then went
through

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is it impossible to have a private life around here?" she said.
"You shouldn't have paraded him, girl," Ron replied. "What is he, a truck
driver? Marines? He's so broad."
"That he is."
"If he gets bored just send him back over."
"He'll be flattered," Tesla said, and put the phone down. "You've got
yourself an admirer," she told Raul. "Ron thinks you're very sexy."
Raul's look was less perplexed than she'd anticipated. It made her ask:
"Are there gay apes, do you suppose?"
"Gay?"
"Homosexual. Men who like other men in bed."
"Is Ron?"
"Is Ron?" she laughed. "Yes, Ron is. It's that kind of neighborhood.
That's
why I like it."
She started to measure out the coffee into the cups. As she heard the
granules slide from the spoon she felt the vision beginning in on her
again.
She dropped the spoon. Turned to Raul. He was a long way from her,
across a room that seemed to be filling with dust.
"Raul?" she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the storm and instead of falling into his solid embrace she was pitched
back
into the desert, moving at speed across by now familiar terrain. The
same
baked earth she'd travelled twice before.
Her apartment had disappeared completely. She was back in the Loop,
heading through the town. Above her, the sky was delicately tinted, as it
had been the first time she'd travelled here. The sun was still close to
the
horizon. She could see it clearly, unlik e that first time. More than see,
stare
at, without having to look away. She could even make out details. Solar
flares leaping from its rim like arms of fire. A cluster of sun-spots mark-
ing.its burning face. When she looked  back to earth she was approaching
the
town.
With the first flush of panic over she began to take control of her
circumstances, reminding herself s harply that this was the third time
she'd
been here, and she should be able to grasp the trick of it by now. She

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

doors. And beyond those doors and  windows? She told her floating
system
to veer towards one of the houses, and peered through the window. The
roof of the house had been improperly finished; sunlight darted between
the
cracks and illuminated the interior. It was empty. There was no furniture,
nor any other sign of human habitation. There was not even any division
of 
the interior into rooms. The building was a complete sham. And if this
one,
then the next too presumably. She moved along the row to confirm the
suspicion. It was also completely deserted.
As she drew away from the second window she felt the pull she'd
experienced back in the other world: Kissoon was trying to bring her to
him.
She hoped now that Raul made no attempt to wake her, if indeed her
body
was still present in the world she'd  left. Though she had a fear of this
place,
and a profound suspicion of the man who'd called her here, her curiosity
laid stronger claim upon her. The mysteries of Palomo Grove had been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this condition she felt easier at the thought of returning to the hut. If he
threatened her, or got a hard-on, she'd simply leave. It was within her
power. Anything was within her power, if she wanted it badly enough. If
she
could look at the sun and not be blinded, she could certainly deal with
Kissoon's fumbling claims on her body.
She started on through the town, awar e that she was now walking, or
had
at least decided to present herself with that illusion. Once she'd imag-
ined
herself here, as she'd done the first time, the process of bringing her
flesh
with her was automatic. She couldn 't feel the ground beneath her feet,
nor
did the act of walking take the least effort, but she had carried with her
from
the other world that idea of how  to advance, and was using it here
whether
it was necessary or not. Probably not. Probably a thought was all that
was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

beneath her; she began to feel the ground hot beneath her feet.
Reassuring as it was to have natural senses here, Kissoon clearly did
not
approve. She felt his pull on her st rengthen, like he'd put his hand into
her
stomach and was tugging.
"All right..." she murmured "...I'm coming. But in my time, not in yours."
There was more than weight and shadow in the condition she was
learning; there was smell and sound.  Both of these brought surprises;
both
unwelcome. To her nostrils a sick ening smell, one she knew without
doubt
to be that of putrefying meat. Wa s there a dead animal somewhere on
the
street? She could see nothing. But sound gave her a second clue. Her
ears, sharper than they'd ever been,  caught the seething of insect life.
She
listened closely to discover its dire ction, and guessing it, crossed the
street
to another of the houses. It was as featureless as those whose windows
she'd peered through, but this one was not empty. The strengthening

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

street
against her will. One moment she was approaching the House of the
Stench, the next she was twenty yards from where she'd been.
"I want to see," she said through gritted teeth, hoping that Kissoon could
hear her.
Even if he couldn't he pulled again. This time she was ready for the tug
and actively fought against it, demanding that her body move back to-
wards
the House.
"You're not going to stop me," she said.
In reply, he pulled once more, and despite her best efforts hauled her
even further from her target.
"Fuck you!" she yelled out loud, furious at his intervention.
He used her anger against her. As she burned energy in her outburst he
pulled yet again, and this time succeeded in moving her almost all the
way
down the street to the other end of  the town. There was nothing she
could
do to resist him. He was quite simply stronger than her, and the more
furious she became the more his grip strengthened, until she was mov-
ing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her advice to herself worked. She felt self-determination beginning to
swell in her again. She didn't allow herself the luxury of satisfaction. She
simply exercised the po wer she'd claimed back to show herself once
more.
Kissoon didn't relinquish his claim, of course; she felt his fist in her gut
pulling as hard as ever. It hurt. But she resisted, and went on resisting,
until
she had almost come to a dead stop.
He'd succeeded in one of his ambitions at least, however. The town was
a 
speck on the horizon behind her. The  trek back to it was presently be-
yond
her. She was not certain, even if she began it, that she could resist his
tugging for such a distance.
Again, she offered herself some silent advice: this time to stand still for a
few moments and take stock of her situation. She'd lost the fight in the
town, there was no two ways about that. But she'd gained a few sticky
questions to ask Kissoon when she was finally face to face with him.
One,
what the source of the stench act ually was, and two, why he was so
afraid

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

whatever he'd told her about being a prisoner here himself he knew
more
about its rules than she did. She wa s prey every moment to his power,
the
limits of which she could only guess. She had to proceed with greater
caution, or risk losing what little authority she had over her condition.
Turning her back on the town she began to move in the direction of the
hut. The solidity she'd earned in the town had not been taken from her,
but
when she moved it was with a lightness of step utterly unlike anything
she'd
experienced hitherto. A moonwalk of  a type: her strides long and easy,
her
speed impossible even for the fast est of sprinters. Sensing her ap-
proach
Kissoon no longer hauled on her gut, though he maintained a presence
there, as if to remind her of the strength he could use should he turn his
will
to it.
Ahead now she saw the second of the landmarks here: the tower. The
wind whined in its tethering wires. Again she slowed her pace, so as to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hanging between—there was no sign of aerials or monitoring apparatus.
She thought of Bunuel, of all people,  and of her favorite of his films,
Simon
del Desierto, a satiric vision of St. Simon tempted by the Devil as he sat
in 
penitence on the top of a pillar in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the
tower
had been built for a similarly masochist saint. If so, he'd gone to dust, or
Godhood.
There was nothing more to be seen here, she decided, and moved on
past the tower, leaving it to its whining, enigmatic life. She could not yet
see
Kissoon's hut, but she knew it couldn't  be far. There was no dust storm
on 
the horizon to keep it from sight;  the scene before her—the desert floor
and
the sky above—was exactly as she remembered it from her last trip
here.
The fact momentarily struck her as strange: that nothing whatsoever
seemed to have changed. Maybe  nothing ever changed here, she
thought.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

projection of his erotic musings, and to be avoided. But now, with the
woman close enough to call to, Tesla thought the explanation a likelier
fantasy than the woman. However perverse Kissoon was, and she didn't
doubt he'd had his moments, the figure before her was no masturbatory
aid. True, she was close to nak ed, the shreds of clothing wrapped
around
her body pitifully inadequate. True, she had a face luminous with
intelligence. But her long hair looked to have been torn out in several
places, the blood dried to a dirty brown on her brow and cheeks. Her
body
was thin, and badly bruised, scratches on her thighs and arms only par-
tially
healed. There was a more profound wound, Tesla suspected, beneath
the
scraps of what might have once been a white dress. It was glued to the
middle of her body, and she hugged herself there, almost bent double
with
pain. She was no pin-up; nor a mirage. She existed in the same plane of
being as Tesla, and suffered here.
As she'd suspected Kissoon was aware that his warning had been
ignored, and had begun to tug on Tesla once more. This time she was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hands
hang by her sides. Very slowly, Tesla began to walk towards her,
preserving as best she could the calm that was denying Kissoon his
hold.
The woman made no move either to advance or retreat. With every step
Tesla took she got a better impression of her. She was fifty, maybe, her
eyes, though sunk in their sockets, the liveliest part of her; the rest was
fatigue. Around her neck she wore a chain on which hung a simple
cross. It
was all that remained of the life she might once have had before she'd
become lost in this wilderness.
Suddenly, she opened her mouth, a look of anguish crossing her face.
She started to speak, but either her vocal cords weren't strong enough
or 
her lungs large enough for the words to cover the space between them.
"Wait," Tesla told her, concerned the woman not exhaust what little
energy she had. "Let me get closer."
If she understood, the woman ignor ed the instruction, and began to
speak
again, repeating something over and over.
"I can't hear you," Tesla shouted back, aware that her distress at the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

dozen on first glance, twice that on second. They were all exactly the
same,
like snakes from which every distinguishing mark had been struck, re-
ducing
them to ten-foot lengths of writhing muscle, coming at her at full speed.
She
had thought the one she'd glimpsed previously, pulling open the door,
mouthless. She'd been wrong. They had mouths, all right; black holes
lined
with black teeth, opened wide. She was readying herself for their attack
when she realized (too late) they'd been summoned as a distraction.
Kissoon clutched her gut and pulled. Th e desert slid away beneath her,
the
Lix dividing as she was hauled through their throng.
Ahead, the hut. She was at its thre shold in seconds, the door opening
on 
cue.
"Come on in," Kissoon said. "It's been too long."
Left behind in Tesla's apartment, Raul could only wait. He had no doubt
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was
not equal to the task, however. It still wasn't. But the feelings had borne
strongly upon the way he now sensed Tesla.
She was in a different place, but  place was just another kind of being,
and
all states could, if the means were  found, speak with every other state.
Ape
with man, man with moon. It was nothing to do with technologies. It was
about the indi--isibility of the world. Just as Fletcher had made the Nun-
cio
from a soup of disciplines, not ca ring where science became magic, or
logic
nonsense; just as Tesla moved between realities like a dreaming fog, in
defiance of established law; just as he had moved from the apparently
simian to the apparently human, and never known where one became
the
other, or if it ever did, so he  knew he might reach now, if only he had,
the
wit or the words, which he didn't, through to the place where Tesla was.
It 
was very close, as were all spaces at all times; parts of the same

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was excitement in them.
"You wanted to come back," he said to her. "Don't deny it. I felt it in you.
You could have resisted while you were out there in the Cosm but you
really didn't want to. Tell me I'm a liar about that. I dare you."
"No," she said. "I admit it. I'm curious."
"Good."
"But that doesn't give you the right to just drag me here."
"How else was I to show you the way?" he asked her lightly.
"Show me the way?" she said, knowing he was infuriating her deliber-
ately
but unable to get the sensation of helplessness out of her head. She
hated
nothing more vehemently than to be out of control, and his hold of her
made her mad as hell.
"I'm not stupid," she said. "And I'm not a toy you can just pull on when it
suits you."
"I don't mean to treat you as either ," Kissoon said. "Please, can't we
make
peace? We're on the same side after all?"
"Are we?"
"You can't doubt that."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kissoon sighed. "I don't deny it," he said. "If I hadn't, you wouldn't be
here."
"I don't follow."
"Don't you sense the atmosphere there? I can't believe you don't. The
sheer dread."
Now it was she who expelled breath, softly, between her teeth.
"Yes," she said. "I felt something."
"The Iad Uroboros has its agents everywhere," Kissoon said. "I believe
one of them is in hiding in that town. I don't know what form it takes, and
I 
don't want to know. But it would be fa tal to look, I suspect. Anyway, I'm
not
about to risk it, and you shouldn't either, however curious you are."
It was difficult to argue with this point of view when it so closely
approximated her own feelings. Only minutes ago, back in her apart-
ment,
she'd told Raul she sensed something about to happen in that empty
Main
Street. Now Kissoon was confirming her suspicion.
"I suppose I have to thank you then," she said reluctantly.
"Don't bother," Kissoon replied. "I didn't save you for your sake, I saved

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But coming from a man she suspected had a major ego, it was doubly
welcome. "I was...moved, shall we say...by your physical presence in a
way
I hadn't quite taken account of, and you were right to be suspicious of
my
motives." He put one hand between his legs and took his penis between
forefinger and thumb. "I'm chastened now," he said. "As you can see."
She looked. He was quite limp.
"Apology accepted," she said.
"So now, we can get back to business I hope."
"I'm not going to give my body to you, Kissoon," she said flatly. "If that's
what you mean by business, no deal."
Kissoon nodded. "I can't say I blame you. Apologies sometimes aren't
enough. But you must understand the gravity of this. Even now, up in
Palomo Grove, the Jaff is preparing to  use the Art. I can stop him. But
not
from here."."Teach me then."
"There isn't time."
"I'm a quick learner."
Kissoon looked up at her, his face sharp.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"All right, so I get feisty once in a while. Shoot me for it. I've told you I'll
help but I won't do any of this body-swapping shit."
"Maybe, then..."
"What?"
"...you can find someone who is willing to give themselves over to me."
"That's a tough call. What am I supposed to tell them?"
"You're persuasive," he said.
She thought back to the world she'd stepped out of. The apartment
building had twenty-one occupants. Could she persuade Ron, or Edgar,
or 
one of her friends, Mickey de Falco perhaps, to step back into the Loop
with her? She doubted it. It was  only when her seeking centered on
Raul
that she glimpsed a little hope. Might he dare what she wouldn't?
"Maybe I can help," she said.
"Quickly?"
"Yes. Quickly. If you can get me back to my apartment."
"Easily done."
"I'm not promising anything, mind you."
"I understand."
"And I want something from you in return."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pretends she's hurt, sometimes she's all purrs, like a sex-kitten, Rubs
herself against the door." He shuddered. "I hear her, rubbing herself,
begging me to let her in. It's just another trick."
As with almost every statement Kissoon made Tesla found herself not
knowing whether to believe or disbelieve. On her last visit he'd told her
he 
thought the woman was most likely a dream-mistress. Now he was
saying.she was an Iad agent. One but not both.
"I want to speak to her myself," she said. "Make up my own mind. She
doesn't look that dangerous."
"You don't know," Kissoon warned. "Appearances lie. I keep her at bay
with the Lix out of fear of what she might do."
She contemplated asking what he could possibly fear about a woman so
clearly in pain, then decided it was a question for a less desperate hour.
"I'll go back then," she said.
"You understand the urgency."
"You don't have to keep telling me," Tesla said. "Yes, I understand. But
like I said you're asking a lot. People get attached to their bodies. Joke."
"If all goes well, and I can stop the Art being used, then the supplier gets
his flesh back intact. If I fail it's the end of the world anyway, so what will
it

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Off to the left of the hut a cloud-shadow seemed to be moving over the
desert floor. She studied it a mo ment, and saw that the sun-beaten
ground
was covered with Lix, a small sea of them. Sensing her gaze they
stopped
moving, and raised their heads toward s her. Hadn't Kissoon said that
he'd
made these creatures?
"Go, will you?" she heard him say. "There isn't much time."
Had she acted upon his instructions immediately she'd have missed the
sight of the woman appearing beyond t he Lix. She didn't, so she didn't.
And
the sight of her, despite the warn ings Kissoon had issued, held her on
the
step. If this was indeed one of the Iad Uroboros' agents, as Kissoon had
claimed, it was a brilliant conceit to present herself in such a vulnerable
guise. Try as she might she couldn't quite believe a villainy as vast or
indeed as ambitious as the Iad would present itself in so wretched a
manner. Wasn't evil too full of itsel f, even in its machinations, to come
so

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

step towards the woman. The Lix were alive to her approach. They be-
gan
to seethe as she stepped towards them, raising their heads like co-
bras..The sight quickened her approach rather than slowing it. If this was
Kissoon's instruction, and it surely was, then their keeping her from the
woman only further reinforced her suspicion that she was being misled.
He
was trying to keep them apart; why? Because this wretched, anguished
woman was dangerous? No! Every fiber of Tesla's being refused that
interpretation. He wanted to keep them apart because of something that
might pass between them; something that might be said or done that
would
throw him into doubt.
The Lix had new instructions it s eemed. To harm Tesla would be to
keep
the messenger from her purpose; so they instead turned their heads
towards the woman. She saw their  intention, and fear came over her
face.
It occurred to Tesla that she was familiar with their malice; that maybe
she'd dared them before in an attempt to get to Kissoon, or one of his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

long
as Kissoon was so desperate to be out of his prison, and she his only
hope.
"Get away from her!" she yelled at them. "Leave her alone, fuckheads!"
But they had their target fixed, and weren't about to be deflected from it
by 
shouts. As Tesla came within a few yards of them they started after their
quarry.
"Run!" Tesla yelled.
The woman heeded the advice, but too late. The speediest from the
nest
was at her heels; then climbing her body to wind itself around her. There
was a vile elegance to its motion, whipping around the woman's torso
and
pulling her to the ground. The Lix that followed were quickly upon her.
By
the time Tesla got within a few yards of the woman she was all but
indistinguishable from her attackers. They'd virtually mummified her. Still
she fought them, tearing at their  bodies as they closed ranks around
her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

spraying up in her face. She let disgust fuel her, fighting their every
twisting
trick, pulling and pulling at them unt il she was sticky with fluids. The
woman
they'd come so close to killing had taken fire from her rescuer, and was
struggling free of her assassins' grip.
Sensing that victory was available,  albeit snatched, Tesla readied her-
self
for escape. She could not go alone, she knew. The woman had to
come.with her, back to the apartment  in North Huntley Drive, or she'd be
prey to
further attacks, and after such an assault she'd have little power to resist
them. Kissoon had taught her to imagine her way into the Loop. Could
she
now do the same in the opposite direction, not only for herself but on the
woman's behalf? If not they'd both fall to the Lix, who seemed to be
appearing from all sides now, as though an alarm call had been sent out
from their maker. Putting their appro ach out of her mind as best she
could,
Tesla pictured herself and the woman in front of her out of this place
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

massing around them in greater and yet greater numbers.
"Again," Tesla told herself. "Do it again."
She focused on the woman in front  of her, who was still tearing pieces
of 
the Lix from around her body, and pulling them from her hair. It was this
mirage she had to focus on. The other passenger, herself, was easily
imagined.
"Go!" she said. "Please God, go!"
This time the images in her head jelled; she not only saw herself and the
woman clearly, she saw them in flight, the world around them dissolving
and reconfiguring like a jigsaw blown to pieces and remade as another
puzzle.
She knew the scene. It was the very spot she'd left from. The coffee
was
still spilled across the floor; the sun was pouring in through the window;
Raul was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for her return. She
knew by the look on his face t hat she'd succeeded in bringing the
woman
through with her. What she hadn't  realized until she looked was that
she'd
brought the whole image, including the Lix that had been battening upon

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And already the violence of their motion was slowing. Rather than waste
time stomping them out Tesla called Raul to her, and together they car-
ried
the woman through to the bedroom and laid her down.
She'd fought hard, and was the worst for it. The wounds on her body
had
reopened. But she seemed not so much in pain as simply exhausted.
"Watch over her," Tesla told Raul, "I'm going to get some water to clean
her up."
"What happened?" he wanted to know.."I almost sold your soul to a
fuckhead and a liar," Tesla said. "But don't
worry. I just bought it back.".V
A week previous, the arrival in Palomo  Grove of so many of the bright-
est
stars in Hollywood's firmament w ould have brought the inhabitants of
the
town out on to the streets in significant numbers, but today there was
barely
a witness on the sidewalks to watch them appear. The limos eased their
way up the Hill unnoticed, their passengers either getting high or fixing
their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

envied him; some had lusted after him; nearly all had taken some
pleasure
in his fall from grace. But love ca me infrequently in company such as
this. It
was a flaw in armor they could ill afford to shed.
The passengers in the limos were aware of the absence of admirers.
Even
though many of them had no desire to be recognized it offended their
tender egos being greeted with such indifference. They quickly turned
the
insult to good purpose. In car after car the same subject arose: why the
dead man had chosen to hide himself away in a God-forsaken shit-hole
like
Palomo Grove. He'd had secrets; that was why. But what? His drink
problem? Everybody knew about that. Drugs? Who cared? Women?
He'd
been the first to boast about his dick and its doings. No, there must have
been some other dirt that drove him to this hell-hole. Theories flowed
like
vitriol as the mourners turned over  the possibilities, breaking off from
their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the dead man: vulgar, opportunist and now, out of its context, useless.
Others declared it a revelation,  a side of the deceased they'd never
known
existed. One or two approached Roc helle to see if any of the pieces
were
available for sale. She told them that nobody yet knew to whom the Will
would ascribe them, but that if they came to her she'd happily give them
away.
Jokemeister Lamar went among the  celebrants with a smile plastered
from
ear to ear. In all the years since his parting from Buddy he'd never dared
believe he'd be where he now was, lo rding himself over Buddy's court.
He
made no attempt to disguise his pleasure. What was the use? Life was
too
short. Better take pleasure where there was pleasure to be taken, be-
fore it
was snatched away. The thought of the Jaff only two floors above added
an.extra glitter to his smile. He didn't  know what the man's full intentions
were,
but it was entertaining to think of these people as fodder. He held all of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

never let
that contempt show, however. He had to work among them. It was bet-
ter to
conceal his feelings. Buddy (poor Buddy) had never been able to
achieve
such detachment. With a little too much drink in his system he'd railed
loud
and long against fools he refused to suffer. It was this indiscretion,
above
all others, that had been his downfall. In a town where words were
cheap,
talk could be expensive. They'd forgive embezzlement, addiction,
molestation of minors, rape and ev en, on occasion, murder. But Buddy
had
called them fools. They'd never forgiven him that.
Lamar worked the room, kissing the beauties, acknowledging the studs,
shaking the hands of the hirers and firers of both. He imagined Buddy's
revulsion at this ritual. Time and time again during their years-together
he'd
had to coax Buddy out of a party ju st like this one because he couldn't
keep

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What does it feel like?" Sagansky  wanted to know, "being at his fu-
neral?"
"It's not exactly that, Sam."
"Still, he's dead, and you're not. Don't tell me it doesn't make you feel
good."
"I guess so."
"We're survivors, Lam. We've got a right to scratch our balls and laugh.
Life's good."
"Yeah," Lamar said, "I suppose it is."
"We're all winners here, eh, honey?" He turned to his wife, who dis-
played
her dental work. "Don't know any better feeling than that."
"I'll catch you later, Sam."
"Are there going to be fireworks?" the waif wondered.
Lamar thought of the Jaff, waiting upstairs, and smiled.
Once round the room, then he headed up to see his master.
"Quite a crowd," the Jaff said.."You approve?"
"Wholly."
"I wanted a word before things got too...busy."
"About what?"
"Rochelle."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I just want to be certain Rochelle can be kept out of it."
"I won't lay a finger on her," the Jaff replied. "There? Does that satisfy
you?"
"It does, yes. Thanks."
"So. Shall we begin?"
"What are you planning?"
"I just want you to bring the gues ts up to see me, one by one. Let them
get
a little liquor in their systems first, then...show them the house."
"Men or women?"
"Bring the men first," the Jaff said, wandering back over to the window.
"They're more pliable. Is it my imagination or is it getting dark?"
"Just clouding over."
"Rain?"
"I doubt it."
"Pity. Ah, more guests at the gate. You'd better go down and welcome
them in.".VI
It was an empty gesture, Howie knew, to go back to the woods on the
edge of Deerdell. There could be no repetition of the meeting he'd had
there. Fletcher had gone, and with hi m, so much clarification. But he
went

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
place where he'd met Fletcher his route became as wandering as his
thoughts. He didn't try to correct it. He'd made his gesture of respect,
coming here; figuratively tipped his hat to his mother's memory, and to
the
man who'd reluctantly fathered him.
But chance, or some sense he was not even aware of, brought him back
on to his intended course, and without even realizing it at first he
stepped
from the trees into the circle of  clear ground where, eighteen years be-
fore,
his life had been conjured. That was the right word. Not conceived;
conjured. Fletcher had been a magici an, of a kind. That was the only
word
Howie had been able to find to describe him. And he, Howie, had been
a 
trick. Except that instead of ap plause and bouquets all they'd got—
Howie,
his mother and the magician—was misery and pain. He'd wasted valu-
able

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

down there in the dark his father  had waited and waited, holding on to
his
enemy like death itself. Now there was only the comedian down there,
and
from what he'd gathered the corpse would never be recovered.
He looked up, and his whole system somersaulted. He wasn't alone. On
the far side of the grave stood Jo-Beth.
He stared, convinced that she was going to disappear. She couldn't be
here; not after last night. But his eyes kept seeing her.
They were too far apart for him to ask what she was doing here without
raising his voice, which he didn't want to do. He wanted to hold the
spell.
And besides, did he really need an answer? She was here because he
was
here because she was here; and so on.
It was she who moved first, her hand going up to the button of the dark
dress she wore, and undoing it. The expression on her face didn't seem
to.change, but he couldn't be certai n he wasn't missing nuances. He'd
taken
off his spectacles when he'd stepped among the trees, and short of dig-
ging

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

head. He didn't dare breathe, for fear  he miss an instant of this ritual.
She
was wearing white underwear, but  her breasts, when they came into
view,
were bare.
She had made him hard. He moved a little to adjust his position, which
motion she took as her cue, dropping the dress to the ground and mov-
ing
towards him. One step was enough. He started to walk towards her in
his
turn, each keeping close to their barricade. He shrugged off his jacket
as he
walked, and dropped it behind him.
As they came within a few feet of each other she said:
"I knew you'd be here. I don't know how. I was driving up from the Mall
with Ruth—"
"Who?"
"That doesn't matter now. I just wanted to say I'm sorry."
"About what?"
"Last night. I didn't trust you and I should have."
She put her hand to his face.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Didn't want to.
She started to pull his shirt from his trousers. He helped her, hauling it
over his head. There were two seconds of darkness while it covered his
face, in which her image, face, breasts and underwear, was as sharp in
his
head as a scene lit by lightning. T hen she was there again, unbuckling
his
belt. He heeled off his shoes, then performed a monopodal dance to pull
his socks off: Finally, he let his trousers drop and stepped out of them.
"I was afraid," she said.
"Not now. You're not afraid now."
"No."
"I'm not the Devil. I'm not Fletcher's. I'm yours."."I love you."
She put her palms on his chest, and ran them outwards, as if smoothing
pillows. He put his arms around her and pulled her towards him.
His dick was doing push-ups in his shorts. He placated it by kissing her,
moving his hands down her back to the band of her panties, then sliding
beneath. Her kisses were moving from his nose to chin, he licking at her
lips when her mouth crossed his. She pressed her body against him.
"Here," she said softly.
"Yes?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her
hold, but rubbed him until he put his hand over hers and coaxed her fin-
gers
away.
"Not good?" she said.
"Too good," he breathed. "I don't want to shoot."
"Shoot?"
"Come. Spurt. Lose it."
"I want you to lose it," she said, lying down in front of him. His dick was
now solid against his belly. "I want you to lose it in me."
He leaned over and put his hands on her hips, then began to pull her
panties down. The hair around her slit was a darker blonde than her
hair,
but not much. He put his face to  her, and licked between the lips. Her
body
tensed beneath him, then relaxed.
He ran his tongue up from her cunt to her navel, from her navel to her
breasts, from her breasts to her face, until he was lying on top of her.
"I love you," he said, and entered her..VII
It was only as she was washing the bloodstains from the woman's neck
that Tesla came to look more closely at the cross around her neck. She

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where am I?" she said.
"My name's Tesla. You're in my apartment."
"In the Cosm?" the woman said. Her voice was frail; eroded by heat,
wind
and fatigue.
"Yes," Tesla said. "We're out of the Loop. Kissoon can't get us here."
This she knew was not altogether true. The shaman had twice reached
Tesla in this very apartment. Once in her sleep; once while coffee-
making.
There was nothing, presumably, to stop him doing the same again. But
she'd felt no touch from him, nothi ng at all. Perhaps he was too con-
cerned
that she get about her labors on his behalf to interfere. Perhaps he had
other plans. Who knew?
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Mary Muralles," she said.
"You're one of the Shoal," Tesla said.
Mary's eyes flickered towards Raul, who was at the door.
"Don't worry," Tesla said. "If you c an trust me you can certainly trust
him.
If you won't trust either of us then we're all lost. So tell me..."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Iad?"
"Ape," she said. She turned to Raul. "Don't mind me telling her do you?"
Raul said and did nothing by way of response.
"How?" Mary wanted to know.
"It's quite a story. I thought maybe you'd know more about it than me.
Fletcher? A guy called Jaffe; or the Jaff? No?"."No."
"So...we've both got things to learn."
Back in the wastes of the Loop, Kissoon sat in his hut and called for
help.
The Muralles woman had escaped. Her wounds were surely profound,
but
she'd survived worse. He had to reach her, which meant stretching his
influence into real time. He'd done it before of course. He'd brought
Tesla
to him that way. Before her, there'd been a few others who'd strayed
along
the fornada del muerto. Randolph Jaffe had been one such wanderer,
whom he'd been able to guide into the Loop. It wasn't so difficult. But the
influence he wished to exercise now was not upon a human mind, it was
upon creatures who had no mind, nor in any legitimate sense were even
alive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and
drew his feet up to his body, to give them free access to his genitals.
Years
ago he'd been able to achieve erection and ejaculation by will alone, but
age, and the Loop, had taken its toll. He needed help now, and given
that
the laws of this suit explicitly forbade the conjuror to touch himself a little
artificial aid was required. They  knew their business, crawling up over
him,
the motion of their limbs, and their bi tes and stings, arousing him. This
was
the way he'd made the Lix, ejaculating on to his own excrement. Semi-
nal
suits had always been his favorite kind.
Now, as they worked on him, he let his thoughts return to the Lix on the
tiles, allowing the rolls of sensation climbing his thronged perineum and
balls to push his intention out towards the place where they lay.
A little life was all they needed, to bring a little death...
Mary Muralles had asked to be told Tesla's story before she told her
own,
and for all her quiet voice she spoke like a woman whose requests were

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

much
longer but that she'd had practice in the craft of concision preparing plot
summaries for studios. She'd practiced with Shakespeare (the tragedies
were easy, the comedies a bitch) until she'd had the trick of it down pat.
But.this story was not so easily pigeo nholed. When she started to tell the
tale it
spilled out in all directions. It was a love story and an origin of species. It
was about insanity, apathy and a lost ape. When it was tragic, as in
Vance's death, it was also farcic al. When its settings were most mun-
dane,
as at the Mall, its substance was o ften visionary. She could find no way
to 
tell all this neatly. It refused. Every time she thought she had a clear line
to 
a point something would intersect.
If she said, "It's all connected..." once in her telling she said it a dozen
times, though she didn't always know (in fact seldom) how or why.
Perhaps Mary could furnish the connections.
"I'm about done," Tesla said. "It's your turn."
The other woman took a moment to gather her strength. Then she said:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

rest
of the Shoal."
"Kissoon? Are you kidding me?"
"I was one of them, remember?" Mary said. "He'd been conspiring
against
us for years."
"Conspiring with whom?"
"At a guess? The Iad Uroboros. Or t heir representatives in the Cosm.
With
the Shoal dead, he might have intended to use the Art, and let the Iad
through."
"Shit! So what he told me about the Iad, and Quiddity...all of that's true?"
"Oh yes. He only tells lies when he needs to. He told you the truth.
That's
part of his brilliance—"
"I don't see what's so brilliant about hiding in a hut—" Tesla said, then:
"Wait a minute. This doesn't figure. If he's responsible for the deaths of
the
Shoal, what's he got to fear? Why's he hiding at all?"
"He isn't hiding. He's trapped there. Trinity's his prison. The only way he
can get out—"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

body.like the Jaff—driven half insane—gets to the point where Kissoon can
take
control, and guide him in. Or you, with the Nuncio in your system. But
otherwise, he's alone."
"Why's he trapped?"
"I trapped him. He thought I was dead. Had my body brought into the
Loop with the others. But I rose. C onfronted him. Angered him to the
point
where he attacked me, putting my blood on his hands."
"And chest," Tesla said, remembering the glimpse she'd had of Kis-
soon's
blood-spattered body, when she'd first escaped him.
"The conditions of the looping suit are explicit. Blood may not be spilled
inside the Loop, or the conjuror becomes its prisoner."
"What do you mean by suit?"
"Petition. Maneuver. Trick."
"Trick? You call making a loop in time a trick?"
"It's an ancient suit," Mary said. "A time out of time.
You'll find accounts of it everywhere. But there are laws pertaining to all
conditions of matter, and I made him break one. He became his own
victim."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

great
men and women. Pure, good souls.  Just had them slaughtered. Tor-
tured
some of them, for the pleasure of it. Not personally of course. He'd had
agents. But he'd masterminded the whole thing. Arranged that we be
separated from each other, so that he could dispatch us one by one.
Then
had our bodies taken back in time to Trinity, where he knew no trace
would
remain."
"Where are they?"
"In the town. What's left of them."
"My God," Tesla remembered the House of the Stench, and shuddered,
"I 
almost got to see them for myself."
"Kissoon prevented you of course."
"Not forcibly. It was more a matter of persuasion. He's very convincing."
"Certainly. He had us all fooled for years. The Shoal is—I mean was—
the
most difficult society to join in the world. There are means, incredibly

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

few words. They are many; their definition of life is not that of you
humans—indeed may be its antithesis; and they want the Cosm."
"What do you mean, you humans?" Tesla said. "You're as human as I
am."
"Yes and no," Mary replied. "I certainly was once as you are. But the
processes of purification change your nature. If I'd been human I could-
n't 
have survived in Trinity for twenty  odd years, with scorpions to eat and
mud
to drink. I'd be dead, the way Kissoon intended."
"How come you survived the murder attempt and the others didn't?"
"Luck. Instinct. Sheer refusal to let that bastard win. It isn't just Quiddity
that's at stake, though that's valuable enough. It's the Cosm. If the Iad
break through nothing on this plane of being will survive intact. I be-
lieve—"
She stopped talking suddenly, and sat up in bed.
"What is it?" Tesla said.
"I heard something. Next door."
"Grand opera," Tesla said. Lucia di Lammermoor still trailed through.
"No," Mary said. "Something else."
Raul was already off in search of the sound's source before Tesla asked

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bodies
I came to my senses."
"So what happened to his assassins?"
"Knowing Kissoon he probably let them die in the Loop, trying to find
their
way out. That sort of thing would amuse him."
"So for twenty odd years the only human beings in the Loop—or near
human—were you and Kissoon."
"Me half mad. And him all the way."
"And those fucking Lix, whatever they are."
"His shit and semen is what they are," Mary said. "His turds, got fat and
frisky."
"Jesus."
"They're trapped there the way he is," Mary said, with some satisfaction.
"At Zero, if Zero can be—"
Raul's yell from the next room stopped her in mid-thought. Tesla was
up.and through into the kitchen in seconds, to find him wrestling with one of
Kissoon's shit-creatures. Her assump tion, that they'd been dying when
they
were brought through from the Loop, could not have been farther off the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him and took hold of it with both hands, more disgusted by its feel and
smell than ever now she knew its orig ins. Even with four hands to keep
it 
from doing further damage it was not about to be subdued. It had the
strength of three of its earlier incarnations. She knew it was only a mat-
ter of
time before it wore them both down, and got to Raul's face again. This
time
it wouldn't be just his frown it bit off.
"I'm going to let go," Tesla said, "and get a knife. OK?"
"Be quick about it."
"You betcha. On a count of three, right? Get ready to take the whole
thing."
"I'm ready."
"One...two...three!"
She let go on three, and ran through to the sink. There were piles of
unwashed dishes beside it. She rummaged amongst the chaos looking
for
a suitable weapon, the dishes sliding in every direction, several of them
smashing as they fell to the fl oor. But the avalanche uncovered steel;
one

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gone
from the floor. She had not time to concern herself any further. Raul
cried
out. She rushed to his aid, stabbing at the body of the Lix with the knife.
The beast responded instantly to the attack, snapping its head around,
black needle-teeth bared. She aim ed a stab at its face, opening a
wound in
its jaw, from which the dirty yellow muck that she'd taken for blood 'til
minutes ago spat in fat spurts. Its gyrations became a frenzy, which
Raul
was only barely able to control.
"Count of three—" she said to him.
"What this time?"
"Throw it!"
"It can move quickly."
"I'll stop it," she said. "Just do as I say! On three! One...two...three!"
He did as instructed. The Lix flew across the room and hit the floor. As
it.struggled to get itself ready to attack again Tesla raised the knife and
brought it down in one two-handed  stab that transfixed the creature.
Mother
had good taste in knives. The blade sliced into the creature and buried

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He nodded, and headed through to the bathroom, while she returned
her
gaze to the death-throes of the Lix. Just as she recaptured the thought
she'd had as she'd emerged with t he knife (where were the rest of
them?)
she heard Raul say:
"...Tesla."
and she knew where they'd gone.
He was standing at the door of her bedroom. It was clear from the
expression of horror on his face what he was looking at. But it still
brought
a sob of revulsion from her to see what Kissoon's beasts had done to
the
woman she'd left lying on her bed. They were still busy with their mur-
der.
Six of them in all, like the one t hat had attacked Raul, stronger than
those
they'd encountered in the Loop. Mary 's resistance had profited her not
at 
all. While Tesla had been busy digging for a blade to protect Raul—an
attack mounted as a distraction— they'd crawled on her and wound

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

grimly,
and left her side. The Lix were running down, their motions becoming
sluggish. Presumably Kis-soon had better things to do with his energies
than waste them pressing his agents to further mischief. She closed the
door on the sight, sickened to her stomach, and went back through to
check under the furniture that there were no others lurking around. The
creature she'd nailed to the floor was now completely dead; or at least
inert.
She stepped past it and went to  find another weapon before checking
the
rest of the apartment.
In the bathroom Raul let the bloodied water run from the sink, and
peered
at the hurt the Lix had done him. It was  superficial. But some of its poi-
son
had got into his system, as Tesla  had warned. His whole body seemed
to 
be shaking from the inside out, and the arm that had been touched by
the.Nuncio was throbbing as though he' d just plunged it into boiling water.
He

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

his
image disappeared from the mirror entirely; and so—a moment of utter
dislocation later—did the mirror itself. The glare grew blinding around
him,
and something took hold of his Nunciate arm. He remembered Tesla
describing Kissoon's grip on her gut. Now that same mind took his hand,
and pulled.
As the last trace of Tesla's apartment gave way to an endless, burning
horizon, he threw his untainted arm out to where the sink had been. He
seemed to connect with something in the world he'd left, but he couldn't
be 
sure.
Then all hope was gone, and he was in Kissoon's Loop.
Tesla heard something drop in the bathroom.
"Raul?" she said.
There was no answer.
"Raul? Are you all right?"
Fearing the worst she went quickly, knife in hand. The door was closed
but not locked.
"Are you there?" she said. When she received no reply a third time she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

his name again, then going through the apartment, dreading with every
turn
she was going to find him prey to  the same horror that had claimed
Mary.
But there was no sign of him; nor of any further Lix. Finally, steeling her-
self
for the sight on the sheets, she opened her bedroom door. He was not
there either.
Standing at the door brought back to Tesla the look of horror on his face
when he'd seen Mary's corpse. Had that simply been too much for him?
She shut off the sight of the body on the bed and went to the front door.
It 
was ajar, the way she'd left it when they'd first come in. Leaving it that
way
she started down the st airs and along the side  of the building, calling
after
him as she went, the certainty grow ing in her that he'd simply decided
he 
could stand no more of this madness and had taken to the streets of
West

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just now. Ran out of the building opposite?"
"We just came out here," said the other. "Sorry."
"What'd he do?" the first said, looking at the knife in Tesla's hand. "Too
much or not enough?"
"Not enough," Tesla said.
"Fuck him," came the reply. "There's plenty more."
"Not like him," she replied. "Trust me. Not like him. Thanks anyhow."
"What did he look like?" came the question as she re-crossed the street.
A little vengeful part of Tesla, one she wasn't much proud of but which
always came to the fore when someone did the dirty on her like this,
replied: "Like a fucking monkey," in a voice that must have been heard
halfway down Santa Monica and Melrose. "He looked like a fucking
monkey."
So, Tesla babe, what now?
She poured herself a Tequila, sat herself down, and reviewed the over-
all 
picture. Raul gone; Kissoon in leag ue with the Iad; Mary Muralles dead
in 
the bedroom. Not a lot to take comfort from. She poured herself a sec-
ond

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hotel operator to put her through to the front desk and enquired there if
anyone knew where he was. Nobody did. He'd gone out in the middle of
the
afternoon she was told. It was now four-twenty-five. They estimated he'd
been gone an hour at least. To the party on the Hill she guessed.
With nothing to detain her at North Huntley Drive but mourning her sud-
den
loss of allies, her best move now, she decided, was to go find Grillo,
before
circumstance took him from her too..VIII
Grillo hadn't come to the Grove with garb appropriate for the gathering
up 
at Coney Eye, but this being California, where sneakers and jeans were
formal dress, he thought he wouldn't be conspicuous in his casual gear.
That was the first of the afternoon's many errors. Even the guards at the
front gate were wearing tuxedos and black ties. But he had the invita-
tion,
on which he'd inscribed a false name (Jon Swift), and it was not
questioned.
This was not the first time he'd slipped into a gathering under an as-
sumed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ing of
sado-masochists, his account of  which had been smothered by the
senator
he'd seen chained up eating dog food. In those various companies he'd
felt
like a just man in dangerous company, going in search of truth: Philip
Marlowe with a pen. Here he simply felt nauseous. A beggar sickened at
the feast. From Ellen's account of the party he'd expected to see famous
faces; what he hadn't anticipated  was the strange authority they'd had
over
him, quite out of proportion to their skills. Gathered under Buddy
Vance's
roof were dozens of the most well -known faces in the world; legends,
idols,
style-makers. Around them, faces he couldn't have put names to but he
recognized from copies of Vari ety and Hollywood Reporter. The poten-
tates
of the industry—agents, lawyers and studio executives. Tesla, in her
frequent railings against the New Hollywood, saved the sourest venom
for
these, the business-school types who'd superseded the old-style studio

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rank outsider would be drawn into the pantheon-at startling speed,
and
everyone would claim how they'd known all along the man was a star.
There were several such stars among this gathering, young actors who
could not have known Buddy Vance personally but were presumably
here
because this was the Party of the Week; the place to be seen, and the
company to be seen in.
He caught sight of Rochelle across the room, but she was engaged in
being flattered—a whole gamut of  admirers gathered around her, feed-
ing.on her beauty. She didn't look Grillo's way. Even if she had he doubted
she
would have recognized him. She had  the distracted, dreamy air of one
high
on something other than admiration. Besides which, experience had
taught
him that his face was interchangeable with many others. There was a
blandness about him which he'd put down to being so much a mongrel.
Swedish, Russian, Lithuanian, Jewish and English trails could be found
in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accepting a glass of champagne fr om one of the waiters he mingled
with
the crowd, mentally noting the names of faces he recognized; and the
names of the company they kept.  Though nobody in the room, other
than
Rochelle, had the slightest idea who he was he garnered nods from al-
most
everyone whose eyes he met, and even a wave or two from individuals
who
were presumably scoring points among their circle as to how many of
this
dazzling congregation they were acquainted with. He fuelled the fiction,
nodding when he was nodded at, waving when he was waved at, so that
by 
the time he'd crossed the room his cr edentials were firmly established:
he 
was one of the boys. This in turn led to an approach by a woman in her
late
fifties, who buttonholed him with a glance and a sharp:
"So who are you?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Swift," he said.
"Fine," she said. "Would you catch that waiter and get me a fresh glass
of 
champagne? They move so damn fast."
It was not the last she drank. She knew a great deal about the company
they were keeping, which she furnished in greater detail the more
glasses
of champagne and compliments Grillo provided, one of the latter quite
genuine. He'd guessed Eve to be in her mid-fifties. In fact she admitted
to 
seventy-one.
"You don't look anything like that."
"Control, my dear," she said. "I have every vice, but none to excess.
Would you reach for another of those glasses before they slip by?"
She was the perfect gossip: beneficent in her bitchery. There was
scarcely.a man or woman in the room  she couldn't supply some dirt about.
The
anorexic in scarlet, for instance, was the twin sister of Annie Kristol, dar-
ling
of the celebrity game shows. She was wasting away at a rate that would

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nature the mother always ate the  placenta. She'd eaten her own and
been
so traumatized she'd almost orphaned her child before it had seen its
mother's face.
"Madness," she said, smiling from ear to ear, "isn't it?"
Grillo had to agree.
"A wonderful madness," she went on. "I've been part of it all my life and
it's as wild now as it ever was. I'm getting rather warm; shall we step
outside for a while?"
"Sure."
She took Grillo's arm. "You listen  well," she said as they stepped out
into
the garden. "Which is unusual in this kind of company."
"Really?" said Grillo.
"What are you: a writer?"
"Yes," he said, relieved not to have to lie to the woman. He liked her.
"It's
not much of a trade."
"None of us have much of a trade," she said. "Let's be honest. We're not
finding a cure for cancer. We're indulging, sweetheart. Just indulging."
She drew Grillo across to the locomotive facade which stood out in the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

your
possessions. They go or I go. He chose the stuff that didn't talk back at
him. He was that kind of man. Cultured, but stupid."
Grillo smiled.
"You're laughing at me," she chided.
"Absolutely not. I'm enchanted."
She sparkled at the compliment. "You don't know anybody here, do
you?"
she remarked suddenly.
The observation left him flummoxed.
"You're a gatecrasher. I watched you when you first came in, eyeing
the.hostess in case she set eyes on you. I thought—at last!—someone who
knows nobody and wants to, and me who knows everybody and wishes
she didn't. A marriage made in heaven. What's your real name?"
"I told you—"
"Don't insult me," she said.
"My name's Grillo."
"Grillo."
"Nathan Grillo. But please...just Grillo. I'm a journalist."
"Oh how boring. I thought you were maybe an angel, come down to
judge

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Paul Lamar. He was Buddy's partner."
"Comedian?"
"So his agent'd claim. Have you seen any of his films?"
"No."
"There's more laughs in Mein Kampf."
Grillo was still attempting to suppress his guffaws when Lamar pre-
sented
himself to Eve.
"You look wonderful," he said. "As ever." He turned to Grillo. "And who's
your friend?" he asked.
Eve glanced at Grillo with a tiny smile on her face. "My guilty secret,"
she
said.
Lamar turned his spotlight smile on Grillo. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your
name."
"Secrets shouldn't have names," Eve said. "It spoils their charm."
"I'm suitably slapped down," Lamar said. "Allow me to correct the error
and give you a tour of the house."
"I don't think I can manage the stairs, sweetheart," Eve said.
"But this was Buddy's palace. He was very proud of it."
"Never proud enough to invite me," she returned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

band.offering languid versions of the standards. A few people were danc-
ing.
Conversation was no longer raucous, but subdued. Deals were being
done;
plots being laid.
Grillo found the atmosphere unnerving, and so, clearly, did Evelyn. She
took his arm as they ran the gauntlet of whispers and followed Lamar
out
the other side to the stairs. The  front door was closed. Two of the
guards
from the gate stood with their backs to it, hands fisted in front of their
crotches. Despite the drifting melody of show-tunes all celebration had
gone out of the place. What remained was paranoia.
Lamar was already a dozen steps up the flight.
"Come along, Evelyn..." he said, beckoning to her. "It's not steep."
"It is at my age."
"You don't look a day over—"
"Don't sweet-talk me," she said. "I'll come in my own good time."
With Grillo at her side she started to climb the stairs, her age evidencing
itself for the first time. There were a  few guests at the top of the flight,
Grillo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

glanced back down to the hallway she'd gone.
"There's something wrong here," he murmured in Eve's ear. "I don't
think
we should do this."
"Darling, I'm halfway up," she replied loudly, and tugged on his arm.
"Don't
desert me now."
Grillo glanced up at Lamar, to find the comedian's eyes were on him just
as Rochelle's had been. They know, he thought. They know and they're
saying nothing.
Again he tried to dissuade Eve. "Can't we go later?" he said.
She was not about to be turned. "I'm going with or without you," she
said,
and carried on climbing.
"This is the first landing," Lamar  announced when they got there. Be-
sides
the curious, silent guests there was not much to see, given that Eve had
already stated her aversion to Vance's  art collection. She knew several
of 
the loiterers by name, and said hello. They acknowledged her, but only
distractedly. There was something about their languor that put Grillo in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Happens to us all," was Eve's unsentimental response. "You too. See if
it 
doesn't. Have you had the grand tour of the house?"
Sagansky nodded. "Lamar..." he said, his eyes swivelling in the
comedian's direction and overshooting their target, then coming back to
settle on him, "Lamar showed us around."
"It better be worth it," Eve said.
"It is," was Sagansky's response. "Really...it is. Especially the upper
rooms."
"Ah yes," Lamar said. "Why don't we just go straight up there?"
Grillo's paranoia hadn't been mellowed an iota by encountering Sagan-
sky
and wife. Something deeply weird was going on here.
"I think we've seen enough," Grillo said to Lamar.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the comedian replied. "I was forgetting about Eve. Poor
Eve. It must be all too much for you."
His condescension, beautifully pitched, created precisely the effect he
intended.
"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted.  "I may be getting on, but I'm not se-
nile.
Take us up!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

floating around in the back of his head.
"...it is...really, it is...especially the upper rooms..."
Eve was already a little way up the flight, determined she could match
Lamar step for step.
Grillo called after her, "Eve. Don't go any further."
She ignored him.
"Eve?" he said again.
This time she glanced round.
"Are you coming, Grillo?" she said.
If Lamar realized that she'd let slip the name of her secret he didn't
register anything. He simply led her to the top of the stairs and round a
corner, out of sight.
More than once in his career Grillo had avoided a beating up by taking
notice of the very danger signals  he'd been getting since they'd started
the
climb. But he wasn't about to see  Eve's ego undo her. In the space of
an.hour he'd become fond of the lady. Cursing himself and her in equal
measure, he followed where she and her seducer had gone.
Outside, a minor fracas was occurring at the gate. It had begun with a
wind that had blown up out of nowh ere, running up through the trees
that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

glimpse of the high life.
"No invitation, son," one of them told the boy.
The gatecrasher got out of his car. There was blood on him; not his
own.
And in his eyes a rabid look that had the guards' hands moving towards
the
weapons beneath their jackets.
"I have to see my father," the boy said.
"Is he a guest?" the guard wanted to  know. It was not impossible this
was
some rich kid from Bel-Air, head fucked with drugs, come looking for
Papa.
"Yeah, he's a guest," said Tommy-Ray.
"What's his name?" the guard asked. "Give me the list, Clark."
"He's not on any of your lists," Tommy-Ray said. "He lives here."
"You've got the wrong house, son," Clark told him, having to raise his
voice over the roar of wind in the trees, which continued unabated. "This
is 
Buddy Vance's house. Unless you're one of his bastards!" He grinned at
a 
third man, who didn't return the smile. His gaze was on the trees

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

headed
down the Hill. By some unnerving  coincidence, the wind seemed to go
with
him, back down into Palomo Grove.
"Fucking strange," the sky-watcher said, as the last of the motion in the
trees died away.
"Go up to the house," the first guard told Clark. "Just check everything's
OK up there..."
"Why shouldn't it be?"
"Just fucking do it, will you?" the man replied, still staring down the Hill
after the boy and the wind.
"Keep your tits on," Clark replied, and did as ordered..With the wind
gone, the two remaining guards were aware of just how
quiet it was. No sound from the town below.
No sound from the house above. And them in a silent alleyway of trees.
"Ever been under fire, Rab?" the sky-watcher asked.
"Nope. Have you?"
"Sure," came the reply. He snorted dust into the handkerchief his wife
Marci had pressed for the top pocket  of his tux. Then, sniffing, he sur-
veyed
the sky.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

send a
call out to the youth, but the mess age was not received. The thoughts
the
Jaff had found it easy to manipulate on previous occasions were not so
simple any longer. Something had changed; something of great
significance which the Jaff couldn't interpret. The boy's mind was no
longer
an open book. What signals he did receive were confounding. There
was a
fear in the boy he'd never felt before; and a chill, a profound chill.
It was no use trying to make sense of the signals; not with so much else
to 
occupy him. The boy would come back. In fact that was the only clear
message he was receiving: that Tommy-Ray intended to return.
Meanwhile there were more urgent demands upon the Jaff's time. The
afternoon had proved profitable. In a matter of two hours his ambition for
this gathering had been realized. It had produced allies possessed of a
profound purity undreamed of among the Gravers' terata. The egos that
had yielded them had resisted his persuasions at first. That was to be
expected. Several of them, thinking  they were about to be murdered,
had

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and passive.
The assembly that now lined the walls was purer for its fresh recruits, a
message of entropy passing from one terata to another, their multiplicity
devolving in the shadows to something more ancient; darker, simpler.
They'd become un-particularized. He could no longer ascribe to any of
them the names of their creators.  Gunther Rothbery, Christine Sea-
pard,.Laurie Doyle, Martine Nesbi tt: where were they now? Become a
common
clay.
He had as large a legion as he could hold sway over; many more and
his
army would become unruly. Indeed perhaps it had already become so.
Yet
he continued to put off the moment when he finally let his hands do what
they had been created, and re-created, to do: use the Art. It was twenty
years since that life-shattering day when he'd found the symbol of the
Shoal, lost in transit in the wilds of Nebraska. He'd never returned. Even
during his war with Fletcher the trail of battle had never led him back to
Omaha. He doubted there'd be anybody left he knew. Disease and de-
spair

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

back.
But today, as the parade of famous faces had appeared before him in
the
upper room, and wept and shuddered and bared their breasts then their
souls for him, he couldn't help but glance back to the man he'd been,
who
would never have dared hope to keep such celebrated company. When
he 
did, he found something in himself he'd hidden, almost successfully, all
these years. The very thing he was sweating from his victims: fear..I
Though he'd changed out of all recognition a little part of him was still
and
would always be Randolph Jaffe, and that part whispered in his ear, and
said: this is dangerous. You don't know what you 're taking on. This
could
kill you.
After so many years it came as a  shock to hear the old voice in his
head,
but it was also strangely reassuring. Nor could he entirely ignore it,
because what it warned was true:  he didn't know what lay beyond the
using

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

almost complete ignorance of its true nature.
It might lead to lunacy, hell and death as easily as to heaven and life
everlasting. He had no way of knowing, but to use the Art.
Why use it at all? the man he'd b een thirty years before whispered in
him.
Why not just enjoy the power y ou've got? It's more than you ever
dreamed
of, isn't it? Women coming in here offering their bodies to you. Men fal-
ling
down on their knees with snot running from their noses begging for
mercy.
What more do you want? What more could anybody want?
Reasons, was the answer. Some meaning behind the tits and the tears;
some glimpse of a larger picture.
You've got all there is, the old voice said. This is as good as it gets.
There
is no more.
There was a light tapping on the door: Lamar's code.
"Wait," he murmured, trying to hold on to the argument he'd been run-
ning
in his head.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So why bother meeting him?" Grillo said. He took hold of Eve's arm.
Suspicion had given way to certainty now. There was a rank smell up
here,
and the sound of more than one presence on the other side of the door.
The invitation to enter came. Lamar turned the doorhandle, and opened
up.."Come along, Eve," he said.
She pulled her arm from Grillo's grip and allowed Lamar to escort her up
a 
step into the room.
"It's dark," Grillo heard her say.
"Eve," he said, pushing past Lamar and reaching through the door after
her. As she'd said, it was indeed dark. Evening had come over the Hill,
and
what little light fell through the far wi ndow scarcely etched the interior.
But
Eve's figure was visible in front of him. Again, he took hold of her arm.
"Enough," he said, and started to turn towards the door. As he did so
Lamar's fist met the middle of his face, a solid, unexpected blow. His
hand
slipped from Eve's arm; he fell to his knees, smelling his own blood in
his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lam..." Eve said again, all bravado gone from her voice now.
"Lamar...who's up here?"
"Jaffe..." a soft voice said. "Randolph Jaffe."
"Shall I put on the light?" Lamar said.
"No," came the answer from the shadows. "No, don't. Not yet."
Despite his buzzing head Grillo recognized the voice and the name.
Randolph Jaffe: the Jaff. Which fact  gave him the identity of the forms
that
lurked in the darkest corners of his huge room. It was lavish with the
beasts
he'd made.
Eve had seen them too.
"My God..." she murmured. "My God, my God, what's going on?"
"Friends of friends," Lamar said.
"Don't hurt her," Grillo demanded.
"I'm not a murderer," the voice of Randolph Jaffe said. "Everyone who
came in here has walked out alive. I just want a little part of you..."
His voice didn't carry the same we ight of confidence it had when Grillo
had
heard him at the Mall. He'd spent mu ch of his professional life listening
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

text. Make him tell his doubts. "I saw you catch fire."."No..." said the
voice in the darkness, "...that wasn't me..."
"My mistake. Then who...may I ask...?"
"No you may not," Lamar said behind him. "Which of them do you want
first?" he asked the Jaff.
The inquiry was ignored. Instead the man said: "Who am I? Strange you
should ask." His tone was almost dreamy.
"Please," Eve murmured. "I can't breathe up here."
"Hush," Lamar said. He had moved to take hold of her. In the shadows,
the Jaff shifted in his seat like a man who couldn't find a comfortable
way to
be.
"Nobody knows..." he began, "...just how terrible it is."
"What is?" Grillo said.
"I have the Art," the Jaff replied. "I  have the Art. So I have to use it. It'd
be 
a waste not to, after all this waiting, all this change."
He's shitting himself, Grillo thought. He's close to the edge and he's
terrified of slipping over. Into what, he didn't know, but it was surely an
exploitable condition. He decided to  stay on the floor, where he offered
no

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That's good."
"Is it?" he said. "I don't know what it's going to do—"
So that's it, Grillo thought. He's got his prize and now he's afraid of
unwrapping it.
"It could destroy us all."
"That's not what you said," Lamar muttered. "You said we'd have
dreams.
All the dreams America ever dreamt; that the world ever dreamt."
"Maybe," said the Jaff.
Lamar let go of Eve and took a step towards his master.
"But now you're saying we could die?"  he said. "I don't want to die. I
want
Rochelle. I want the house. I've got a future. I'm not giving that up."
"Don't try and slip the leash," the Jaff said. For the first time since these
exchanges had begun Grillo heard an echo of the man he'd seen at the
Mall. Lamar's resistance was winni ng the old spirit back. Grillo cursed
him
for his rebellion. It bore one useful fruit only: it allowed Eve to step back
towards the door. Grillo kept his place on the ground. Any attempt to join
her would only draw attention to  them both, and prevent any chance
of.escape for either. If she could get out she could raise the alarm.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

been able to see when he first came in, but he saw the figure stand. The
motion caused consternation in the shadows, as the beasts hidden
there
responded to their creator's discomfiture.
"How dare you?" the Jaff said.
"You told me we were safe," Lamar said.
Grillo heard the door creak behind him. Though he wanted to turn he
resisted the temptation.
"Safe, you said!"
"It's not that simple!" the Jaff said.
"I'm out of here!" Lamar replied, and turned to the door. It was too dark
for
Grillo to see the expression on his  face, but a spill of light from behind
him,
and the sound of Eve's footsteps as she fled the room, was evidence
enough. Grillo stood up as Lamar, cursing, crossed to the door. He was
woozy from the blow, and reeled as he stood, but got to the door a pace
before Lamar. They collided, their joint weights toppling against the door
and slamming it again. There was a mo ment of confusion, almost farci-
cal,
in which they each fought for the handle of the door. Then something

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

out how the terata was battening upon Lamar, and he was glad of the
fact.
The man's flailing limbs and guttural sounds were enough. He saw the
comedian's bulk slump against the door, then slide down it, his body
increasingly eclipsed by the terata. Then both were still.
"Dead?" Grillo breathed.
"Yes," said the Jaff. "He called me a liar."
"I'll remember that."
"You should."
The Jaff made a motion in the darkness, which Grillo failed to make
sense
of. But it had consequences that made a great deal plain. Beads of light
broke from the man's fingers, illumi nating his face, which was wasted,
his
body, which was clothed as it had been at the Mall, but seemed to spill
darkness, and the room itself, with terata, no longer the complex beasts
they'd been but barbed shadows, lining every wall.
"Well, Grillo...," the Jaff said, "...it seems I must do it.".IX
After love, sleep. They hadn't planned  it that way, but neither Jo-Beth
nor
Howie had slept more than a handful of uninterrupted hours since they'd

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She rocked Howie out of sleep as g ently as possible. He opened his
eyes
reluctantly, until they focused on his waker's face.
"Hi," he said. Then: "We overslept, huh? What time is—"
"There's somebody here, Howie," she whispered.
"Where?"
"I just see lights. They're all around us. Look!"
"My glasses," he whispered. "They're in my shirt."
"I'll get them."
She moved away from him in search of the clothes he'd dropped. He
squinted at the scene. The police barricades, and the cave beyond: the
abyss where Buddy Vance was still lying. It had seemed so natural to
make
love here in the full light of day.  Now it seemed perverse. There was a
dead
man lying down there somewhere, in the same darkness where their
fathers had waited all those years.
"Here," she said.
Her voice startled him. "It's OK,"  she murmured. He dug his glasses
from
the pocket of his shirt and hooked them on. There were indeed lights in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ghosts," he said, then regretted inviting the thought into his head. He
began to pull on his shorts. As he did he caught a movement between
the
trees. "Oh shit," he murmured.
"I see," she said. He looked towards her. She was looking in the oppo-
site
direction. Following her gaze he saw motion there too, in the shadows of
the canopy. And another movement. And another.
"They're on all sides," he said, pulling on his shirt and reaching for his
jeans. "Whatever they are they've got us surrounded.".He stood up, pins
and needles in his legs, his thoughts turning
desperately to how he might arm himself. Could he trash one of the
barricades perhaps, and find a weapon in the wreckage? He glanced at
Jo-Beth,
who'd almost finished dressing, then back at the trees.
From beneath the canopy a diminutiv e figure emerged, trailing a phan-
tom
light. Suddenly it all came clear. The figure was that of Benny Patterson,
whom Howie had last seen in the  street outside Lois Knapp's house,
calling

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

being Benny, but only just.
"What do you want?" Howie asked.
"We've been looking for you."
"Don't go near him," Jo-Beth said. "It's one of the dreams."
"I know," Howie said. "They don't mean us any harm. Do you, Benny?"
"Of course not."
"So show yourselves," Howie said, addressing the whole ring of trees. "I
want to see you."
They did as they were instructed,  stepping from the corner of the trees
on 
every side. All of them, like Benny, had undergone a change since he'd
seen them at the Knapp house, their honed and polished personalities
smudged, their dazzling smiles dimmed. They looked more like each
other
than not, smeared forms of light who held on to the remains of identities
only tenuously. The imaginations of  the Grovers had conceived them,
and
shaped them, but once gone from thei r creator's company they slid to-
wards
a plainer condition: that of the li ght that had emanated from Fletcher's
body

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He surveyed the assembly as he sp oke, distinguishing faces he'd seen
at 
the Knapp house, despite their decay into light. Cowboys, surgeons,
soap-opera
queens and game-show hosts. Besides these there were many he
hadn't seen at Lois's party. One form of light that had been a werewolf;
several that might have been comic-book heroes; several more, four in
fact,
who had been incarnations of Jesu s, two bleeding light from brow,
side,.hands and feet; another dozen who looked as though they'd stepped
from
an X-rated movie, their bodies wet with come and sweat. There was a
balloon man, colored scarlet; and Tarzan; and Krazy Kat. And mingled
with
these identifiable deities, others who'd been private imaginings, called,
he 
guessed, from the wish-list of those Fletcher's light had touched. Lost
spouses, whose passing no other lover could replace; a face seen on a
street whom their dreamers had never had the nerve to approach. All of
them, real or unreal, bland or Technicolored, touchstones. The true stuff
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Your father's spirit's in all of us," she said. "If you turn your back on us,
you turn your back on him."
"It's not as simple as that," he told her. "I've got other people to con-
sider."
He extended his hand to Jo-Beth, who rose to stand beside him. "You
know who this is. Jo-Beth McGuire.  Daughter of the Jaff. Fletcher's en-
emy,
and therefore, if I understand you right, your enemy. But let me tell
you...she's the first person I ever met in my life...I can really say I love. I
put
her before everything. You. Fletcher. This damn war."
Now a third voice rose from the ranks.
"It was my error—"
Howie looked round to see the blue-eyed cowboy, Mel Knapp's creation,
moving forward. "My error thinking y ou wanted her killed. I regret it. If
you
don't wish harm done to her—"
"Don't wish harm? My God, she's worth ten of Fletcher! Value her as I
value her or you can all go to Hell."
There was a resounding silence.
"Nobody's arguing," Benny said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

preserved."
"And you think I can help? I'm no tactician."
"We're decaying," Benny said. Even in the brief time since he'd ap-
peared.his facial features had become  more smudged. "Getting...dreamy.
We need
someone to keep us to our purpose."
"He's right," said the woman. "We're not here long. Many of us won't
make
it through to morning. We have to do what we can. Quickly."
Howie sighed. He'd let Jo-Beth's hand slip from his when she'd stood
up.
He took it again.
"What do I do?" he asked her. "Help me."
"You do what feels right."
"What feels right..."
"You said to me once, you wished you'd known Fletcher better.
Maybe—"
"What? Say it."
"I don't like the idea of us going up  against the Jaff with these...dreams
as

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had to be made first. She'd paid: losing her family for him. It was his turn
now.
"All right," he said to the assembly. "We'll go up the Hill."
Jo-Beth squeezed his hand.
"Good," she said.
"You want to come?"
"I have to."
"I wanted so much for us to be out of this."
"We will be," she said. "And if we don't escape it...if something happens
to 
one or both of us...we've had our time."
"Don't say that."
"It's more than your momma had, or mine," she reminded him. "More
than
most people here. Howie, I love you."
He put his arms around her, and hugged her to him, glad that Fletcher's
Spirit, albeit in a hundred different shapes, was there to see.
I suppose I'm ready to die, he thought. Or as ready as I'll ever be..X
Eve had left the room at the top of the stairs breathless and terrified.
She'd glimpsed Grillo getting up and crossing to the door and Lamar

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gled
colors, scarlet, green, yellow, blue and violet, lit her way to the landing
where she and Lamar had encountered Sam Sagansky. He was still
there,
with his wife. They seemed not to have moved at all, except to cast their
eyes towards the ceiling.
"Sam!" Eve said, hurrying to him. "Sam!" Panic, and the speed of her
descent, had made her breathless. Her description of the horrors she'd
seen in the room above came in a series of gasps and non sequiturs.
"...You have to stop him...you never saw anything...terrible things...Sam,
look at me...Sam, look!..."
Sam didn't oblige. His whole posture was one of complete passivity.
"For Christ's sake, Sam, what are you on?"
Giving up on him she turned and sought help elsewhere among the
loiterers. There were perhaps twenty guests gathered around. None of
them had moved since she'd appeared, either to help or hinder her.
None,
now she looked at them, was even lo oking in her direction. Like Sagan-
sky
and his wife they all had their eyes tu rned ceilingward, as if in expecta-
tion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

slowing as breathlessness and stiff joints took their toll. The band had
finished playing but somebody was  still at the piano, which comforted
her.
Rather than waste energy shouting fr om the stairs she waited until she
was
at the bottom to buttonhole somebody. The front door was open.
Rochelle
was standing on the step. A party of half a dozen, Merv Turner and his
wife, Gilbert Kind and his girlfriend of the moment, plus two women she
didn't recognize, were making their farewells. Turner saw her coming,
and
a look of distaste came over his fat face. He returned his gaze to
Rochelle,
speeding up his departure speech.
"...so sad," Eve caught him saying.  "But very moving. Thank you so
much
for sharing this with us."."Yes—" his wife began, but was cut off before
she could offer platitudes of
her own by Turner, who, glancing ba ck at Eve, hurried away into the
open
air.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

face when he turned back to her he'd  have preferred it that way. He put
a 
less than radiant smile over his feelings and opened his arms, not in
welcome but in a shrug.
"Isn't it always the way?" he called to her. "We didn't get to talk, Eve. So
sorry. So sorry. Next time." He t ook hold of the girlfriend's arm. "We'll
call
you," he said. "Won't we, hon?" He blew her a kiss. "You look wonder-
ful!"
he said, and hurried after Turner.
The two women followed, not even concerning themselves to make their
goodbyes to Rochelle. She didn't seem to care. If common sense hadn't
already told Eve that Rochelle was in league with the monster on the
upper
floor, she saw evidence of it now. As soon as the guests had gone from
the
door she rolled her eyes up in an all too recognizable fashion, her mus-
cles
relaxing so that she lay against the door jamb as though barely able to
stand upright. No help to be had there, Eve thought, and headed
through to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

change
that had come over the gathering as more and more people had been
touched by the evil on the upper floor. Another group was in the act of
departing as she got to the door, bustle and loud talk covering their
anxiety.
She knew none of them, but wasn't  about to let that stop her. She took
hold
of a young man's arm.
"You've got to help me," she said.
She knew the face from the billb oards on Sunset. The boy was Rick
Lobo.
His prettiness had made him a sudden star, though his love scenes
looked
like lesbianism.
"What's wrong?" he said.
"There's something upstairs," she said. "It's got a friend of mine—"
The face was only capable of a smile and a sultry pout; with those
responses inappropriate, all it  could do was look blankly back at
her.."Please come," she said.
"She's drunk," somebody in Lobo's party said, not caring to conceal the
accusation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The girl laughed. "Bet you do," she said. "Come on, Rickv."
"I have to go. Sorry," Lobo said. "You should go too. This party's a
bummer."
The boy's incomprehension was solid as a brick wall, but Eve wasn't
about to let go.
"Trust me," she said. "I'm not drunk. There's something horrible hap-
pening
here." She threw a glance towards the rest of them. "You all feel it," she
said, feeling like a cut-rate Cassandra but knowing no other way to put
it. 
"There's something going on here—"
"Yeah," said the girl. "There is. We're leaving."
Her words had touched a nerve in Lobo, however.
"You should come with us," he said, "it's getting weird in here."
"She doesn't want to go," said a voice on the stairs. Sam Sagansky
made
the descent. "I'll look after her, Ricky, don't you worry."
Lobo was clearly happy to be relieved of the responsibility. He let Eve's
arm go.
"Mr. Sagansky'll look after you," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pickings looked slim. Of the remaining thirty or so guests most
seemed beyond helping themselves, never mind her. The pianist was
providing a soporific medley of songs for dancing in the dark, and four
couples were doing just that, draped about each other as they shuffled
around on the same spot. The rest  of the room's occupants seemed to
be 
drugged or drunk or touched with the Jaff's torpor, some sitting, many
lying
on the furniture, barely aware of  their surroundings. The anorexic Be-
linda
Kristol was among them, her wasted frame no possible use in this jeop-
ardy.
On the sofa beside her, his head in  her lap, was the son of Buddy's
agent,.equally wasted.
Eve glanced back towards the door. Sagansky was following her. She
scanned the room in desperation,  looking for the best hope of a bad
hand
and decided upon the pianist. She wove between the dancers, her panic
getting the better of her again.
"Stop playing," she said when she reached him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"OK, Doug. You keep playing..." S he looked back towards Sagansky,
who
was standing beyond the dancers, watching her. "...I need your help,
Doug."
"And I need a drink," he slurred. "Any chance of getting one for me?"
"In a moment. First, you see that man on the other side of the room?"
"Yeah, I know him. Everyone knows him. He's a fuck-head."
"He just tried to assault me."
"He did?" Doug said, frowning up at Eve. "That's disgusting."
"And my partner...Mr. Grillo...is at the top of the house..."
"That's really disgusting," Doug said again. "You're old enough to be his
mother."
"Thanks, Doug."
"That's really disgusting."
Eve leaned in towards her unlikely knight. "I need your help, " she
whispered. "And I need it now. "
"Got to keep playing," Doug said.
"You can come back and play when we've got a drink for you and Mr.
Grillo for me."
"I really need a drink."
"You do. I can see that. And you deserve one. Playing like this. You

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thought. His playing must have been on remote control because he
could.barely take a step ahead of him. But he was company at least. She
took his
arm, hoping Sagansky would interpret Doug as the supporting strength
rather than the other way about. "This way," she murmured to him, and
led
them both around the perimeter of the dance floor towards the door.
From
the corner of her eye she saw Sagansky moving in their direction, and
attempted to pick up their pace, but he came between them and the
door.
"No more music, Doug?" he said.
The pianist tried hard to focus on Sagansky's face.
"Who the fuck are you?" he said.
"It's Sam," Eve told him.
"Get the music going, Doug. I want to dance with Eve."
Sagansky reached to claim Eve, but Frankl had ideas of his own.
"I know what you think," he said to  Sagansky. "I heard the things you
say
and you know what? I don't give a fuck. If I want to suck cock, I'll fucking
suck cock and if you won't employ me Fox will! So fuck you!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ond
time, was slapped away, and instead put his hands on Doug, dragging
the
man from Eve's grip.
Eve took her chance while it was offered, slipping away towards the
door.
Behind her she heard both men's vo ices raised in rage, and glanced
back
to see that they were scattering the dancers as they staggered around
each other, fists flailing. Sagansky landed the first blow, sending Frankl
reeling back against the piano. The glasses he'd lined up there went
west,
smashing noisily. He came after Eve with a lunge.
"You're wanted," he said, snatching her. She stepped back to avoid him,
her legs giving out as she did so. Before she hit the floor two arms were
there to catch her, and she heard Lobo say: "You should come with us."
She tried to protest, but her mouth wouldn't make the words between
gasps. She was half-carried to the door, trying to explain that she could-
n't 
go, couldn't leave Grillo, but unable to make her point clear. She saw

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was
at the step, but the limo was al ready moving off, down towards the
gate.."Weirdest fucking party I ever went  to," Lobo said. "Let's get the fuck
out
of here."
Sorry, Grillo, she thought as she passed out. Be well.
At the gate Clark waved Lobo's limo off, and turned to look back at the
house.
"How many more to go?" he asked Rab.
"Another forty maybe," Rab replied, scanning the list. "We won't be here
all night."
The cars that were waiting for the remaining guests had no room to park
on the Hill, so were in the Grove below, circling, awaiting radio orders to
come back up and collect their pass engers. It was a routine they were
well
used to, its boredom usually broken by a stream of banter between cars.
But tonight there was no gossip about  the sex-lives of the passengers,
or 
horny talk about what the drivers were going to do when the job was
finished. Most of the time the airwaves were silent, as if the drivers did-
n't

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You there, Clark?"
"Yeah. Who is this?"
"Are you there?"
Contact was bad, and worsening, t he voice from the car breaking up
into
static.
"There's a fucking dust storm blowing up down here—" the driver was
saying. "I don't know if you can hear  me, but it's just come out of no-
where."
"Tell him to get out of there," Rab said. "Clark! Tell him!"
"I hear you! Driver? Back off! Back off!"
"Can anybody hear me?" the man yelled, the message almost drowned
out by a spiralling howl of wind.
"Driver! Get the fuck out of there!"
"Can anybody—"
In place of the question the sound of the car coming to grief, the driver's
voice cut off in the din of wreckage.
"Shit!" Clark said. "Any of you out  there know who that was? Or where
he 
was?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

out."
"We're on duty."
"I just came off!" Rab said. "I ain't being paid enough to take this shit!
Catch!" He tossed his radio to Clark. It spat white noise. "Hear that?" he
said. "Chaos. That's what's coming."
In the town below Tommy-Ray slowed his car to get a look at the
wrecked
limo. The ghosts had simply picked it  up, and thrown it over. Now they
were
dragging the driver from his seat.  If he wasn't already primed to be one
of 
their number they were quick to put that right, their violence reducing his
uniform to tatters and the body beneath it the same.
He'd led the ghost-train away from the Hill to give himself space to plot
his
way into the house. He didn't want a repeat of the humiliation at the bar,
with the guards bruising him then a ll hell breaking loose. When his fa-
ther
saw him in his new incarnation as the Death-Boy, he wanted to be in
control. But that hope was fading fast. The longer he delayed his return
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But if he gave in to that urge he knew he'd lose power over them
completely. Besides, somewhere in the Grove was the one human be-
ing he
wanted to preserve from harm: Jo-Beth. Once loosed the storm would
make no distinctions. Her life would be forfeit, along with every other.
Knowing he had only a short time left before their impatience got the
better of them, and they destroyed the Grove anyway, he drove to his
mother's house. If Jo-Beth was in town, she'd be here; and if worst
came to
worst he'd snatch her, and take her back up to the Jaff, who would know
how best to subdue the storm.
Momma's house, like most of the houses in the street, indeed in the
Grove, was in darkness. He parked  and got out of the car. The storm,
no 
longer content to tag along behind, came to meet him, buffeting him.
"Back off," he told the gaping faces that flew in front of him. "You'll get
what you want. Everything you want. But you leave this house, and
everyone in it, alone. Understand me?"
They sensed the force of his feelings. He heard their laughter, mocking
such pitiful sensibilities. But he was still the Death-Boy. They owed him
a.dwindling devotion. The storm receded down the street a little way, and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

afraid of. I'm not going to hurt you." He heard a sound on the other side
of 
the door. "Is that you, Momma? Please answer me."
"What do you want?"
"Just let me see you, please. Let me see you."
The door was unbolted, and opened. Momma Was dressed in black, her
hair unbraided. "I was praying," she said.
"For me?" said Tommy-Ray.
Momma didn't answer.
"You weren't, were you?" he said.
"You shouldn't have come back, Tommy-Ray."
"This is home," he said. The sight of her hurt him more than he'd
thought
possible. After the revelations of the trip to the Mission (the dog and the
woman), then events at the Mission a nd the horrors of his return trip,
he'd
thought himself beyond what he was feeling now: a choking sorrow.
"I want to come in," he said, knowing even as he said it that there was
no 
way back. The family bosom had never been a place he'd much wanted
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't tell me lies. Jo-Beth!" he started yelling. "Jo-Beth!"
"Even if she were—"
Tommy-Ray didn't let her finish. He pushed past her and stepped over
the
threshold. "Jo-Beth! It's Tommy-Ray! I need you, Jo-Beth! I need you,
baby!"
It didn't matter any longer if he called her baby, told her he wanted to
kiss
her and lick her cunt: that was OK. It was love, and love was the only
defense he had, or anyone had, agai nst the dust and the wind and all
that
howled in it: he needed her more than ever. Ignoring Momma's shouts
he 
started through the house from room to room in search of her. Each had
a 
scent of its own, and with the  scent a sum of memories—things he'd
said,
done or felt in this place or that—which flooded over him as he stood in
the.doorways.
Jo-Beth wasn't downstairs, so he headed up, throwing each door open

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gone
forever. The grime on the towel and the hairs on the pillow were the last
of 
him. He wouldn't be remembered well.
Tears started to run down his cheeks. How had it happened that half a
week ago he'd been alive and going about his business and now be so
changed he did not belong here, nor could ever belong here again?
What
had he wanted so badly it had taken him from himself? Nothing that he'd
got. It was useless being the Death-Boy: only fear and shining bones.
And
knowing his father: what use was that? The Jaff had treated him well at
the
beginning, but it had been a trick to make a slave of him. Only Jo-Beth
loved him. Jo-Beth had come after him, tried to heal him, tried to tell him
what he hadn't wanted to hear. Only she could make things good again.
Make sense of him. Save him.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
Momma was at the bottom of the stairs. Her hands were clasped in front
of her as she looked up at him. More prayers. Always prayers.
"Where is she, Momma? I have to see her. "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She'd left the front door open, and dust had begun to blow over the
threshold, insignificant amounts at first, but growing. He knew what it
signalled. The ghost-train was getting up steam. Momma looked to-
wards
the door, and the gusty darkness bey ond. She seemed to grasp that
fatal
business was at hand. Her eyes, when they settled on her son again,
were
filling up with tears.
"Why did it have to be this way?" she said softly.
"I didn't mean it to be."
"You were so beautiful, son. I thought sometimes that'd save you."
"I'm still beautiful," he said.
She shook her head. The tears, dislodged from the rims of her eyes, ran
down her cheeks. He looked back towards the door, which the wind
had.begun to throw back and forth.
"Stay out," he told it.
"What's out there?" Momma said. "Is it your father?"
"You don't want to know," he told her.
He hurried down the stairs to try to close the door, but the wind was
gathering strength, gusting into the house. The lamps started to swing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gaping sockets, gaping maws. Hearing the Christian woman scream,
they
turned their venom in her direction. Tommy-Ray yelled a warning to her
but
dusty fingers tore the words to nonsense, then flew past him to
Momma's
throat. He reached back towards her but the storm had hold of him, and
threw him round towards the door.  The ghosts were still flying in. He
was
pitched through their speeding faces, against the tide, and across the
threshold. Behind him he heard Momma let out another shriek, as with
one
shattering every window left unbroken in the house burst outwards.
Glass
showered around him. He fled the rain, but didn't escape unscathed.
It was little harm, however, compared with the damage the house and
its 
occupant were sustaining. When he  stumbled to the safety of the side-
walk
and looked back he saw the storm weav ing in and out of every window
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

growl, its roof thrown up in surrender, its walls bowing out. Even if
Momma
had been alive to call after him, she could not have been heard over the
din, nor seen in the confusion.
He got into the car, sobbing. There were words on his lips he didn't even
realize he was saying until he began to drive:
"...I am the resurrection and the life..."
In the rear-view mirror he saw the hou se give up entirely, as the vortex
in 
its guts threw it outwards. Bricks, slate, beams and dirt burst in all
directions.
"...he that believeth in me...my God, Momma, Momma...he that be-
lieveth
in me..."
Brick shards flew against the back window, shattering it, and fell on
the.roof in rattling percussion. He pu t his foot down and drove, half blind
with
tears of sorrow and terror.
He'd tried to outrun them once, and failed. Still he hoped he might
succeed a second time, racing through the town by the most circuitous

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it 
was William Witt. He slowed.
"Witt?"
William took a little time to recognize him. When he did Tommy-Ray
expected him to retreat. Their last meeting, up at the house on Wild
Cherry
Glade, had ended with Tommy-Ray in the pool, wrestling Martine Nes-
bitt's
terata, and Witt running for his sanity. But the intervening period had
taken
as much toll on William as it had on Tommy-Ray. He looked like a hobo,
unshaven, clothes stained and in disarr ay, a stare of complete despair
on 
his face.
"Where are they?" was his first question.
"Who?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know.
William reached through the window and stroked Tommy-Ray's face.
His
palm was clammy. His breath smelt of bourbon.
"Have you got them?" he asked.
"Who?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What isn't?" Witt asked, his eyes barely focusing on Tommy-Ray.
"They're going to come after me wherever I go. There's no stopping
them.
They'll come and come."
William glanced over his shoulder at  the wall of dust advancing down
the
street towards the car.
"Is that your father?" he said. "Is he in there somewhere?"
"No."
"What is, then?"
"Something worse."
"Your momma—" Witt said "—I talked with her. She said he was
the.Devil."
"I wish it were the Devil," Tommy-Ray said. "You can cheat the Devil."
The storm was gaining on the car.
"I have to go back up the Hill," Tommy-Ray said, as much to himself as
Witt.
He swung the wheel round and started in the direction of Windbluff.
"Is that where the dreams are?" Witt said.
"That's where everything is," Tommy-Ray replied, unaware of how much
truth he spoke..XI

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

attempted to move it the terata, indistinct as they now were, would
surely
have claimed him. For another, and more significantly, he'd come by
chance into the company of the first cause, the entity responsible for the
mysteries he'd been encountering in Palomo Grove since he'd arrived.
Here, slumped before him, was the man who'd shaped the horrors, and
by 
extension therefore comprehended the  visions that were loose in the
town.
To attempt to leave would be a dereliction of duty. Diverting as his short
run
as Ellen Nguyen's lover had been, he had only one role to play in all of
this.
He was a reporter; a conduit between the known world and the un-
known. If
he turned his back on the Jaff he committed a crime worse than any he
knew: he failed to be a witness.
Whatever else the man was (insane; lethal; monstrous) he was not what
so many of the people Grillo intervie wed or investigated in his profes-
sional
life had proved: a fake. Grillo had only to look around the room at the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I won't," Grillo told him. "But let me come with you."
The Jaff looked at him for the first time since Eve's escape. It was too
dark
for Grillo to see the eyes turned upon him, but he felt them, sharp as
needles, probing him.
"Move the body," the Jaff instructed.
Grillo said: "Sure," and moved to the door. He'd needed no further
reminder of the Jaff's strength, but picking up Lamar's corpse offered it
to 
him anyhow. The body was wet and hot. His hands, when he dumped it
down again, were sticky with the comedian's blood. The feel and smell
made Grillo nauseous.
"Just remember..." the Jaff said.
"I know," Grillo replied. "Don't intervene."
"So. Open the door.".Grillo did so. He hadn't been aware of how fetid
the room had become
until a wave of cool, clean air swept in and over his face.
"Lead on," the Jaff said.
Grillo stepped out on to the landing.  The house was completely silent,
but
it was not empty. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs he saw a small

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sent him down to be torn apart by these worshippers. But he moved
through their eye line, and out, without  their gazes following him. It was
the
organ-grinder they were here to see, not the monkey.
From the room above emerged the sound of mass movement: the terata
were coming. Reaching the bottom of the flight Grillo turned and looked
back the way he'd come. The first  of the creatures was emerging
through
the doorway. He'd seen that they were changed, but he'd not been
prepared for the degree of change.  Their busy foulness had been
purged.
They'd become plainer, most of t heir features veiled by the darkness
they
emitted.
Following the first few came the Jaff. Events since the final confrontation
with Fletcher had taken their toll on him. He looked used up, almost
skeletal. He started his descent, passing through pools of color from the
lights outside the house, their vividne ss flooding his pallid features. To-
night
the movie was The Masque of the Red Death, Grillo thought; and The
Jaff

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

counter
with her, descending the stairs just  as the Jaff was now doing. Seeing
her
had been a revelation. She had seemed inviolate in that beauty. He'd
learned differently. First from Ellen, with her account of Rochelle's past
profession and present addiction, and now with the evidence of his own
eyes, seeing the woman as lost to the depravities of the Jaff as any of
his
victims. Beauty was no defense. Most likely there was no defense. He
reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for the Jaff to finish his
descent, his legions trailing after. In the short time since his appearance
at 
the top of the flight a change had come  over him, subtle but unnerving.
His
face, which had betrayed tremors of apprehension, was now as blank
as.that of his congregation, his muscles so completely drained of tone his
descent was a barely controlled walking  fall. All the forces of his power
had
gone to his left hand, the hand which—back at the Mall—had bled the
motes of power which had almost destroyed Fletcher. It was doing the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

strength
in preparation for the labors ahead. Grillo tried to study the Jaff's face
for
some sign of what he was feeling,  but his eyes kept being drawn back
and
back to the hand, as though all lines of  force led to it, all the other ele-
ments
in the scene rendered irrelevant.
The Jaff moved through into the lounge. Grillo followed. The shadow
legion remained on the stairs.
The lounge was still occupied, mostly by recumbent guests. Some were
like disciples, their eyes fixed on  the Jaff. Some were simply uncon-
scious,
sprawled on the furniture, undone by excess. On the floor lay Sam
Sagansky, his shirt and face bloody. A little way from him, his hand still
grasping Sagansky's jacket, lay another man. Grillo had no idea what
had
started the fracas between them but it had ended in a knockout.
"Turn on the lights," the Jaff told Grillo. His voice was as expressionless
as his face had become. "Turn them full on. No mystery now. I want to
see

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

moaned, but didn't move, sensing his jeopardy. Grillo's gaze went back
to 
the Jaff's hand. The beads of power  had stopped dropping from it now.
It 
had ripened. It was ready.
"No use delaying..." he heard the Jaff say, and saw him raise his left
arm
to eye level, his hand open. Then he walked to the far wall and laid his
palm upon it.
Then, hand still pressed against solid reality, he began to make a fist.
Down at the gates Clark saw the lights go on in the house, and breathed
a 
sigh of relief. That could only signal an end to the party. He put a gen-
eral
call out to the circling drivers (those that had not taken fright, and gone)
instructing them to make their way back up the Hill. Their passengers
would be emerging soon..Coming off the freeway at the Palomo Grove
exit, with four miles to cover
to the outskirts of the town, a shudder ran through Tesla. The kind her
mother had said meant someone was walking over your grave. Tonight,
she knew better. The news was worse than that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

feeling,
but she didn't doubt that across the country at this moment, most likely
across the world, people were waking in a cold sweat, or thinking of
their
loved ones and fearing for them. Children crying without quite knowing
why.
Old people believing their last moment was upon them.
She heard the din of a collision on t he freeway she'd just left, followed
by 
another and another, as cars—their drivers distracted by a moment of
terror—piled up. Horns began to blare in the night.
The world's round, she told herself, like the wheel I'm Holding. I can't fall
off. I can't fall off. Gripping that thought and the wheel with equal
desperation, she drove on towards the town.
Watching for the returning cars,  Clark saw lights coming up the Hill.
Their
advance was too slow to be headlamps, however. Curious, he left his
post
and started down the incline a little way. He got maybe twenty yards
before

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they had in tow he doubted that. The boy looked up the Hill towards him.
Clark backed away, turning around to put some distance between him
and
the mob.
Rab had been right. He should have gone a lot earlier, and left this
damn
town to its own devices. He'd been hired to keep gatecrashers out of the
party, not to stop whirlwinds and walking torches. Enough was enough.
He threw his radio down, and clambered over the fence opposite the
house. On the other side the shrubbery was thick, and the ground fell off
steeply, but he slid away through t he darkness not caring if he reached
the
other side of the Hill in tatters, simp ly wanting to be as far from the
house
when the mob reached the gate as he could get.
Grillo had seen sights in the last  few days that had slapped the breath
out
of him, but he'd found a way to slot them into his world-view. But in front
of.him now was a sight so utterly beyond his comprehension all he could do
was say no to it.
Not once, a dozen times.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hanging on the wall began to twist out of true; the intersection of wall
and
ceiling and wall and floor eased in towards the Artist's fist, losing their
rigor.
It was as if the whole room were projected on a cinema screen and the
Jaff had simply snatched hold of the fabric, dragging it towards him. The
projected image, which moments before had seemed so life-like, was
revealed for the sham it was.
It's a movie, Grillo thought. The whole fucking world's a movie.
And the Art was the calling  of that bluff. A snatching away of the sheet,
the
shroud, the screen.
He wasn't the only one reeling before this revelation. Several of Buddy
Vance's mourners, shaken from their stupor, had opened their eyes to
see
a sight their worst bad trips had never proffered.
Even the Jaff seemed to be shocked by the ease of the task. A tremor
was running through his body, which had never looked so frail, so
vulnerable, so human, as now. Whatever trials he'd undergone to an-
neal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

through the door to lend their maker aid in whatever was imminent.
They
were uninterested in Grillo; he knew he could leave at any moment and
not
be challenged. But he could not turn his back on this, however it
wrenched
his gut. Whatever played behind the screen of the world was about to be
seen, and his eyes wouldn't be coaxed from the sight. If he fled now,
what
would he do? Run to the gate and watch from a safe distance? There
was
no safe distance, knowing what he now knew. He'd spend the rest of his
life
touching the solid world and knowing that had he the Art at his finger-
tips, it
would melt.
Not everyone was so fatalistic. Many of those conscious enough were
attempting to make for the door. But the disease of malleability that had
infected the walls had spread across half the floor. It became glutinous
beneath the escapees, pitching as  the Jaff pulled, two-handed now, at
the.matter of the room.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the yard outside were dimmed, had gone, smeared into a featureless
sweep so taut it could not be long be fore it broke. The sound from the
other
side had not grown any louder, but be came, in a matter of seconds, al-
most
inevitable, as though it had always been there, just out of hearing range.
The Jaff pulled another handful of the room's stuff into his grasp, and in
doing so pressed the screen beyond en durance. It didn't tear in one
place
but in several. The room tipped again. Grillo clung to the heaving floor
as 
bodies rolled past him. In the chaos he glimpsed the Jaff, who seemed
at 
this last moment to be regretting all he'd done, struggling with the raw
substance of reality he'd gathered up as if attempting to throw it away.
Either his fists wouldn't obey him and release it or else it had its own
momentum now and was opening itself  without his aid, because a look
of 
wild terror crossed his face, and he screamed a summons to his legions.
They started towards him, their anatomies finding some purchase in this
shifting chaos. Grillo was pressed to the ground as they clambered over

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

architecture gave any clue to what was happening behind him. He could
see through into the hall, and beyond to the front door. It was open. In it
stood Fletcher's son.
There were calls greater than that of makers and masters, Howie
understood. There was the call of a thing to its opposite, to its natural
enemy. That was what fuelled the tera ta now, as they turned back to-
wards
the door, leaving whatever chaos was unleashed inside the house to the
Jaff's control.
"They're coming!" he yelled to Fletcher's army, backing off as the tide of
terata approached the door. Jo-Beth, who'd stepped inside with him,
lingered on the threshold. He took hold of her arm and pulled her away.
"It's too late," she said. "You see what he's doing? My God! You see?"
Lost cause or not, the dream-creatures were ready to face the terata,
pouncing as soon as the flood emerged from the house. Climbing the
Hill.Howie had expected the fight ahead to be somehow refined; a battle of
wills or wits. But the violence t hat erupted all around him now was
purely
physical. All they had was their bodies  to pitch into the battle, and they
put
themselves to the task with a ferocity he'd not have guessed the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

essential stuff now. Fletcher's love of light against the Jaff's passion for
the
dark. Beneath both was a single intention, which unified them. The
destruction of the other.
He'd done as they requested, he thought; he'd led them up the Hill,
calling
the stragglers when they forgot themselves, and began to dissolve. With
several, those less coherently conj ured in the first place, perhaps, he'd
lost.
Their bodies had dispersed before he could get them within scenting
distance of their enemy. For the rest, the sight of the terata was stimulus
enough. They'd fight until torn apart.
Grievous damage was already being done on both sides. Fragments of
sleek darkness torn from the bodies  of the terata; washes of light
breaking
from the dream-army when they were opened up. There was no sign of
pain among the warriors. No blood fr om the wounds. They endured as-
sault
after assault, fighting on having sustained damage that would have
incapacitated anything remotely alive. Only when more than half their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

model. Equally matched, they were simply eradicating each other,
countering harm with harm, their numbers dwindling.
The battle had spread down to the gate by the time Tesla reached the
top
of the Hill, and was spilling out on to  the road. Forms that might once
have
been recognizable but were now abstractions, smears of darkness,
smears
of light, tearing at each other. S he stopped the car, and started up to-
wards
the house. Two combatants emerged from the trees that lined the
driveway, and fell to the ground a few yards ahead, their limbs locked
around—and it seemed through—each other. She looked on, appalled.
Was this what the Art had released? How they escaped from Quiddity?
"Tesla!"
She looked up. Howie was in  sight. His explanation was quick
and.breathless.
"It's started," he said. "The Jaff's using the Art."
"Where?"
"In the house."
"And these?" she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hadn't expected architecture as wild as this. The angles all subtly off, no
upright that wasn't askew by a fe w degrees. Then she understood. It
wasn't
some postmodernist joke. It was so mething inside the house, pulling it
out
of shape.
"My God," she said. "Grillo's still in there."
Even as she spoke the facade bent a little more. In the face of such
strangeness the remnants of the battle all around her were of little
consequence. Just two tribes tear ing at each other like rabid dogs.
Men's
stuff. She skirted it, ignored.
"Where are you going?" Howie said.
"Inside."
"It's mayhem."
"And it isn't out here? I've got a friend in there."
"I'll come with you," he said.
"Is Jo-Beth here?"
"She was."
"Find her. I'll find Grillo and we'll both get the fuck out of here."
Without waiting for a reply she headed on towards the door.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

moronic. Spittle ran from his lower lip, his face was glossy with sweat.
But
he managed a name as he drove. "Jo-Beth," he said.
She didn't hear that call, but she  heard another. From inside the house
a 
cry, put out mind to mind, from the man who'd made her. It was not di-
rected.at her, she guessed. He didn't  know she was even near. But she
caught it:
an expression of terror which she c ouldn't ignore. She crossed through
the
matter-thickened air to the front door, the uprights of which were blowing
in. 
The scene was worse inside. The whole interior had lost its solidity, and
was being drawn inexorably to some central point. It wasn't difficult to
find
that point. The whole softening world was moving in its direction.
The Jaff was there of course, at the core. In front of him a hole in the
very
substance of reality, which was ex ercising this claim on living and non-
living
alike. What was on the other side of the hole she couldn't see, but

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

them
let go the matter his fingers had penetrated?
All her reason said: go back. Go back while you can. The pull of what-
ever
lay beyond the hole already had a hold of  her. She could resist it for a
short
time, but that window was getting smaller. What she couldn't resist,
however, was the hunger that brought  her into the house in the first
place.
She wanted to see her father's pain. Not a sweet, daughterly desire, but
he 
was not the sweetest of  fathers. He'd caused her pain, and Howie too.
He'd
corrupted Tommy-Ray out of a ll recognition. He'd broken Momma's
heart
and life. Now she wanted to see him  suffer, and she couldn't take her
eyes
off the sight. His self-mutilation was increasingly manic. He spat out
pieces
of his fingers, shaking his head back and forth in an attempt to deny
whatever he saw beyond the hole the Art had made.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

she
hated him. How much cleaner she'd feel when he was gone out of the
world.
Tesla's voice had found other ears besides Jo-Beth's. Clinging to the
ground a couple of yards behind the Jaff, on the eroding island of solid-
ity 
around the Artist, Grillo heard Tesla call, and turned—against the call of
Quiddity—to look her way. His face felt fat with blood, as the hole pulled
his
fluids up through his body. His head pounded as if ready to burst. The
tears were being sucked from his eyes, his eyelashes plucked out. His
nose poured two bloody streams, whic h ran straight from his face to-
wards
the hole..He'd already seen most of the room snatched away into Quid-
dity.
Rochelle had been one of the first to go, relinquishing what little hold her
addicted body had on the solid world. Sagansky and his punched-out
opponent had gone. The party-goers h ad followed, despite their at-
tempts
to get to the door. The pictures had been stripped from the walls, then
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quiddity was the essential sea; t he first, the fathomless. He'd given up
all 
hope of escaping its summons. He'd come too close to its shore to turn
away. Its undertow had already hauled most of the room away. It would
soon take him.
But seeing Tesla he suddenly dared hope he might survive to tell the
tale.
If he was to have the least chance he'd have to be quick. What little
cover
the Jaff afforded was being eroded by the moment. Seeing Tesla reach
for
him, he reached back in her direction. The distance was too great. She
couldn't stretch any further into the room without losing her hold on the
relative solidity beyond the door.
She gave up the attempt, and stepped away from the opening.
Don't desert me now, he thought. Don't give me hope and then desert
me.
He should have known better. She'd si mply withdrawn in order to pull
her
belt from the loops of her trousers,  then she was back at the door, let-
ting

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he 
too was transitory, and no more certain of his purpose than this dream,
Benny Patterson, had been.
He put his hand to the boy's face,  but it was already dissolving, and
blew
away like bright pollen beneath his fingers. Distressed, he looked up to
see
Tommy-Ray at the gate of Coney,  starting up towards the house. Be-
hind
him, lingering at the gate, was a  man Howie didn't know. And behind
them
both, a wall of moaning dust that followed Tommy-Ray in a swirling
cloud.
His thoughts went from Benny Patterson to Jo-Beth. Where was she? In
the confusion of the last few mi nutes he'd neglected her. He didn't
doubt.she was Tommy-Ray's target.
He stood up, and moved to intercept his enemy, who was as changed
from the tanned, gleaming hero he'd first met in the Mall as it was pos-
sible
to get. Blood-spattered now, eyes su nk in their sockets, he threw back
his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

passed
over him. When they had, he got to his feet. Tommy-Ray, and the cloud
that had followed him, had disappeared inside.
He heard Tommy-Ray's voice raised above the din of the Art.
"Jo-Beth!" he bellowed.
She was inside the house, he realized. Why she'd gone there was be-
yond
him, but he had to get to her before Tommy-Ray, or the bastard would
take
her.
As he raced to the front door, he saw the last of the dust storm snatched
by a force inside, and dragged out of sight.
The power that had taken it was visible the moment he stepped over the
threshold; he saw the last, chaotic trails of the cloud being pulled into a
maelstrom which was claiming the entire house. In front of it, his hands
barely recognizable, stood the Jaff.  Howie got only a glimpse of the
scene
before Tesla yelled for his attention.
"Help me! Howie? Howie? For Christ's sake help me!"
She was clinging to the inner door, its geometry gone to hell, her other
hand holding on to somebody who was about to be claimed by the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the assault of debris. As their eyes met he saw Tommy-Ray move to-
wards
her. The machine had taken a beating of late but it still had power. He
pulled on Tesla, dragging her and the man she'd been struggling to
save
out of the most chaotic zone into  the hall. It was the moment Tommy-
Ray
needed to reach Jo-Beth, flinging himself at her with sufficient force to
throw her off her feet.
He saw the terror in her eyes as she lost her balance. Saw Tommy-
Ray's
arms close around her, in the tightest of em-braces. Then the Quiddity
claimed them both, sweeping them  across the room past their father,
and
away, into the mystery..Howie let out a howl.
Behind him Tesla was yelling his name. He ignored the call. His eyes on
the place where Jo-Beth had gone he took a step towards the door. The
power egged him on. He took anothe r step, vaguely aware that Tesla
was
yelling for him to stop, to turn back before it was too late.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Grillo?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you stand up?" "I think so."
He'd tried twice, and failed, and Tesla had no strength left to pick him up
and carry him down to the gate.
"Give me a moment," he said. Not for  the first time his eyes went back
to 
the house they'd barely escaped from.
"There's nothing to see, Grillo," she said.
That wasn't true, by any means. The facade was like something from
Caligari, the door sucked in, the windows going the same way. And in-
side,
who knew?
As they stumbled down to the car a figure emerged from the chaos and
stumbled out into the moonlight. It was the Jaff. The fact that he'd stood
on 
Quiddity's shore and resisted its waves was testament to his power, but
that resistance had taken its toll.  His hands were reduced to gnawed
flesh,
the remains of the left hanging from the bones of his wrist in strips. His
face

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ended with each exhalation and began again with every snatched
breath.
In the trough between, there was such jeopardy. And now, as never
before. She didn't doubt that the worst had come to pass, and that
somewhere on Quiddity's furthest s hore the Iad Uroboros were sharp-
ening
their envy and starting across the dream-sea..PART SEVEN
SOULS AT ZERO
I
Presidents, messiahs, shamans, popes, saints and lunatics had
attempted—over the passage of a millennium—to buy, murder, drug
and
flagellate themselves into Quiddity. Almost to a one, they'd failed. The
dream-sea had been more or less preserved, its existence an exquisite
rumor, never proved, and all the more potent for that. The dominant
species of the Cosm had kept what  little sanity it possessed by visiting
the
sea in sleep, three times in a life span, and leaving it, always wanting
more.
That hunger had fuelled it. Made it ache; made it rage. Made it do good
in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

now had not been accidental travellers. They'd been chosen, for Quid-
dity's
purposes, and gone (for the most pa rt) prepared. Howie, on the other
hand,
was no more prepared for this than any stick of furniture hauled into the
throat of the schism. He was pitc hed first through loops of energy and
then
into what appeared to be the middle of a thunderhead, lightning setting
brief, bright fires all around him. Any trace of sound from the house had
disappeared the moment he'd entered the throat. So had the pieces of
trash that had flown in along with him. Helpless to steer or orient him-
self, all
he could do was tumble through the cloud, the lightning becoming less
frequent and more brilliant, the passages of darkness between steadily
more profound, until he wondered if perhaps his eyes were closing, and
the
darkness—along with the falling sensation that accompanied it—was in
his
head. If so, he was happy with its embrace, his thoughts now also in
free-fall,
fixing momentarily on images which appeared out of the darkness,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

n't 
surprised. Tommy-Ray was dissolv ed in the same thought-shot cloud
that
he and Jo-Beth were falling through, and twin brothers had claims on
their
sisters that went back to the womb . They'd floated together in that first
sea,
after all, their minds and cords intertwining. Howie envied Tommy-Ray
nothing in all the world—not his beauty, his smile, nothing—except that
time of intimacy he'd shared with  Jo-Beth, before sex, before hun-
ger,.before breath even. He could onl y hope that he'd be with her at the
end of
her life the way Tommy-Ray had been at the beginning, when age took
sex,
appetite and, finally, breath away.
Then her face, and the envy, were gone, and new thoughts came to fill
his
head, or snapshots of same. No people now, only places, appearing
and
vanishing again as though his mind was sifting through them looking for
one in particular. It found what it was searching for. A blurred blue night,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

its lights brilliant against the night, which meant that the wind on his face
was coming off Lake Michigan. He was running along a pier, though he
didn't know which, with the Lake slopping around its struts. It was the
only
body of water he'd ever been familiar with. It influenced the city's
weather,
and its humidity; it made the air sm ell a different way in Chicago than
any
other place; it bred thunderstorms and threw them against the shore.
Indeed the Lake was so constant, so inevitable, that he seldom thought
about it. When he did it was as a place where people who had money
took
their boats, and those who'd lost it drowned themselves.
Now, however, as he ran on down the length of the pier, Lem's calls
fading behind him, the thought of the Lake waiting at the end moved him
as 
never before. He was small; it was vast. He was full of contradictions; it
simply embraced everything, making  no judgments on sailors or sui-
cides.
He picked up his pace, barely feeling the pressure of his soles on the
boards, the sense growing in him that however real this scene felt it was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lighter still, his strides longer and  longer. Time softened, and extended.
He
had a chance to wonder if the dream- sea truly existed, at least in the
way
that Palomo Grove existed, or whet her the pier he'd created jutted into
pure
thought.
If so, there were many minds meeting there; tens of thousands of lights
moving in the waters ahead, some br eaking surface like fireworks, oth-
ers
diving deep. Howie had found some incandescence of his own, he real-
ized.
Nothing to boast about, but there was a distinct glow in his skin, like a
faint
echo of an echo of Fletcher's light.
The barrier at the end of the pier wa s a few feet from him. Beyond it,
the.waters of what he'd now ceased to think of as the Lake. This was Quid-
dity,
and in moments it would be closing ov er his head. He wasn't afraid.
Quite

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nor
chilled him. But he floated in it nevertheless, his body rising through bril-
liant
bubbles to the surface without any effort on his part. He had no fear of
drowning. Only the profoundest sens e of gratitude that he was here,
where
he belonged.
He looked back over his shoulder (so many backward glances) at the
pier.
It had served its purpose, making a game of what might have been a
terror.
Now it was flying into pieces, like the barrier.
He watched it go, happily. He was free of the Cosm, and floating in
Quiddity.
Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray had gone into the schism together, but their
minds had found different ways to picture the journey and the plunge.
The horror Jo-Beth had felt as she'd been snatched had been wiped
from
her head in the thunder cloud. She  forgot the chaos, and felt calm. It
was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jo-Beth would say something she'd learned at school, so Momma would
know what a good student she was. All the lessons were about water.
About there being tides everywhere,  even in tears, about how the sea
was
where life had begun, and how bodies were made more of water than
any
other element. The counterpoint of fact and song went on a long, easy
while, but she sensed subtle changes in the air. The wind became
gustier,
and she smelled the sea. She put her face up to it, forgetting her les-
sons.
Momma's hymn had grown softer. If  they were still holding hands, Jo-
Beth
couldn't feel it. She kept walking, not looking back. The ground wasn't
grassy any longer, but bare, and somewhere up ahead it fell away into
the
sea, where there seemed to be countless boats bobbing, with candles lit
on 
their prows and masts.
The ground went suddenly. There was no fear, even as she fell. Only
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

with suntan oil. He couldn't see the surf, but he knew which way to run.
He
started in the direction of the water, knowing that the girls were watching
him. They always did. He didn't acknowledge their stares. When he was
out
there on the crests, really moving, he'd maybe flash them a smile. Then
on 
the way back up the beach he'd let one of them get lucky.
Now, as the waves came in sight ahead of him, he realized that things
weren't right here. Not only was t he beach gloomy, and the sea dark,
but
there seemed to be bodies lolling in the surf, and, worse still,
phosphorescence in their flesh. He slowed his pace, but knew he could-
n't 
stop and turn around. He didn't wa nt anyone on the beach, particularly
the
girls, to think he was afraid. He was, however; horribly. Some radioac-
tive
shit was in the sea. The surfers  had fallen from their boards, poisoned,
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

legends after this. Him, and the dead riders, carried off by the same tide.
Steeling himself, he stepped into the sea, which instantly became deep,
as 
though the beach had simply fallen away under his feet. The poison was
already burning up his system; he coul d see his body getting brighter.
He
stared to hyperventilate, each breath more painful than the one before.
Something brushed his side. He turned, thinking it would be another
dead
surfer, but it was Jo-Beth. She  said his name. He couldn't find any
words to
answer with. As much as he wanted not to show his fear he couldn't
help it.
He was pissing now in the sea; his teeth were chattering.
"Help me," he said. "Jo-Beth. You're the only one who can help me. I'm
dying."
She looked at his chattering face.
"If you're dying, we both are," she said.
"How did I get here? And why are you here? You don't like the beach."
"This isn't the beach," she said. She took hold of his arms, their motion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was
little purpose in being vengeful, when they were both in such jeopardy.
"Hush," she said, letting him bury his hot, stricken face against her
shoulder. "Hush. There's nothing we can do."
* * *
Nothing needed to be done. Quiddity had him, and he would float, and
float, and perhaps—eventually—catch up with Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray.
Meanwhile, he liked being lost in this immensity. It made his fears—his
whole life, in fact—seem inconsequential. He lay on his back and looked
up 
at the sky. It was not, as he'd first thought, a night sky. There were no
stars,
either fixed or falling. No clouds, hiding a moon. In fact it seemed
completely featureless at first, but as the seconds passed—or minutes;
or 
hours; he neither knew nor much cared—he realized the subtlest waves
of 
color were hundreds of miles across, moving over it. The Aurora Bore-
alis
seemed small stuff beside this show,  in which, at intervals, he thought
he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

above his head, or the forms that made play there. Seeing them was as
much a matter of feeling as of retina. The sixth sense was sympathy.
Content with his lot, he gently flipped himself over in the ether and
experimented with swimming in it. The basic strokes worked well
enough,
though it was difficult to be certain he was making much progress with
nothing to relate his motion to. The lights in the sea all around him—fel-
low
passengers like himself, he supposed, though they seemed not to have
form as he did—were too indistinct to be used as markers. Were they
dreaming souls, perhaps? Infants, lovers and the dying, all travelling in
Quiddity's waters as they slept, to be soothed and rocked, touched by a
calm that would carry them, as the tide carried them, through the tem-
pest
they'd wake to? A life to be lived, or lost; love they'd go in fear of staling
or 
disappearing after this epiphany. He put his face beneath the surface.
Many of the light-forms were far below him, some so deep they were no
larger than stars. Not all of them we re moving in the same direction as
he.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

her present whereabouts. He had to  be careful the calm didn't stupefy
him;.make him forgetful of her. He raised his face from the sea.
In doing so he avoided, by moments, a collision. Yards from him, its
appearance shocking in the middle of such tranquility, was a fragment of
garishly colored wreckage from the Vance house. And a few yards be-
yond
that, more distressing still, a piece of flotsam far too ugly to belong here,
yet not recognizably of the Cosm. It stood four or more feet above the
water-line, and hung as far or further below; a gnarled, waxy island
floating
like pale dung in this pure sea. He reached out and took hold of the
wreckage ahead of him, throwing himself on to it and kicking. His action
carried him closer to the enigma.
It was alive. Not simply occupied by something living, but entirely made
of 
living matter. He heard the thump of two heartbeats from it. Its surface
had
the unmistakable sheen of skin, or some derivative of same. But what it
actually was didn't become appare nt until he was almost brushing
against

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

flesh.
The structure was still sprouting further nodules, the beginning of new
growth, bursting along the limbs, each variation referring not to the root
form—an arm, a spine—but to its immediate predecessor, so that each
successive variation became less human, and less fleshy. The image
was
more fascinating than distressing,  the focus of the combatants upon
each
other suggesting they felt no pain at this process. Watching the structure
grow and spread Howie vaguely comprehended that this was the birth of
solid ground. Perhaps the fighters  would die and decay eventually, but
the
structure itself was not so corruptib le. Already the perimeters of the is-
land,
and its heights, resembled coral rather than flesh, tough and encrusted.
When the fighters died they'd become fossils buried in the heart of an
island they themselves had created. The island itself would float on.
He let go of the raft of wreckage and kicked on, past the island. Flotsam
and jetsam littered the surface of t he sea now: furniture, clumps of
plaster,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

these
artifacts. Could Quiddity grow from the head of a wooden horse some
island named for the horse's maker? Anything was possible..Never a
truer word said or thought.
Anything was possible.
They weren't alone here, Jo-Beth knew. It was not much comfort, but it
was some. Every now and then she'd hear somebody calling out, their
voices distressed on occasion, but just as often ecstatic, like a
congregation half in terror, half in awe, spread across the surface of
Quiddity. She didn't answer any of the calls. For one thing, she'd seen
forms floating past, always at some distance, that suggested people
didn't
stay human here. They grew freakish. She had enough problems deal-
ing
with Tommy-Ray (who was the second reason she didn't reply to the
calls)
without inviting more bad news. He demanded her constant attention;
speaking to her as they floated, his voice drained of all emotion. He had
a 
good deal to say, between the apologies and the sobs. Some of it she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the visions of his own decay—but for his lucidity. She'd never in her life
heard him so articulate as when he told her how it felt to be the Death-
Boy.
"Remember Andy?" he said at one point. "He had a tattoo...it was a
skull...on his chest, above his heart?"
"I remember," she said.
"He used to say one day he'd go out on the crests at Topanga—one last
ride—and never come back. Used to say he loved Death. But he didn't
Jo-Beth..."
"No."
"He was a coward. He made a lot of noise but he was a coward. I'm not,
am I? I'm no momma's boy..."
He started to sob again, more violently than ever. She tried to hush him
but this time none of her soothing worked.
"Momma..." she heard him saying, "Momma..."
"What about Momma?" she said.
"It wasn't my fault."
"What wasn't?"
"I only went looking for you. It wasn't my fault."
"I said what wasn't?" Jo-Beth de manded, pushing him off her a little
way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Kill?" she said.
He looked straight at her, as though his direct look might convince her of
his innocence. "It wasn't me. It was the dead people. I went looking for
you,
and they followed me. I couldn't shake them off. I tried, Jo-Beth, I really
tried."
"My God!" she said, thrusting him out of her arms.
Her action wasn't that violent, but it churned Quiddity's element out of all
proportion to the size of her motion. She was vaguely aware that her
repugnance was the cause of this;  that Quiddity was matching her
mental
agitation with its own.
"It wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed with me," he protested. "You
should have stayed, Jo-Beth."
She kicked away from him, her feelings making Quiddity boil.
"Bastard!" she yelled at him. "You killed her! You killed her!"
"You're my sister," he said. "You're the only one who can save me!"
He reached for her, his face a mess of sorrow, but all she could see in
his
features was Momma's murderer. He could protest his innocence to the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

forgiving hand? She'd even coaxed Howie into putting his disgust at
Tommy-Ray aside, for her sake. Enough was enough. This man might
be 
her brother, her twin, but he was guilty of matricide. Momma had sur-
vived
the Jaff, Pastor John and Palomo Grove, only to be killed in her own
house, by her own son. His crime was beyond forgiveness.
He reached for her again, but this time she was ready. She hit him
across
the face, once, then once again, as hard as she could muster. Shock at
the
blows made him give up his hold on her for a moment and she started
away from him, kicking the churning sea up in his face. He threw his
arms
in front of him to shield himself and she was gone out of his reach,
vaguely
aware that her body was not so sleek as it had been, but not taking time
to 
discover why. All that was important  now was to be as far from him as
she
could be; to keep him from touching her ever again; ever. She struck out

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

she saw that her fingers were encrusted, as though she'd dipped her
hands
in oil and oatmeal; her arms were misshapen with some similar filth.
She started to sob, knowing all too clearly what this horror signified.
Quiddity was at work on her. Somehow it was making her fury solid. The
sea had made her flesh a fertile mud. Forms were springing from it as
ugly
as the rage which inspired them.
Her sobs became a yell. She'd almost  forgotten what it was like to un-
leash
a shout like this, tamed as she'd been by so many years being
Momma's
domesticated daughter, smiling for the Grove on Monday mornings.
Now
Momma was dead, and the Grove was probably in ruins. And Monday?
What was Monday? Just a name arbi trarily attached to a day and a
night in
the long history of days and nights which were the life of the world. They
meant nothing now: days, nights, nam es, towns or dead mothers. All
that
made sense to her was Howie. He was all she had left.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

often. His blood and love, in one hot thought.
"Save me," she sobbed, hoping against hope that Quiddity's strange
waters carried her despair to him. "Save me, or it's over.".II
"Abernethy?"
It was an hour before dawn in Palomo Grove, and Grillo had quite a re-
port
to file.
"I'm surprised you're still in the land of the living," Abernethy growled.
"Disappointed?"
"You're an asshole, Grillo. I don't hear from you for days then you call
up 
at six o'clock in the fucking morning."
"I've got a story, Abernethy."
"I'm listening."
"I'm going to tell it the way it happened. But I don't think you're going to
print it."
"Let me be the judge of that. Spit it out."
"Piece begins. Last night in the quiet residential town of Palomo Grove,
Ventura County, a community set in t he secure hills of the Simi Valley,
our
reality, known to those who juggle such concepts as the Cosm, was torn

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quiddity—"
"Is this a resignation letter, Grillo?"
"You wanted the story nobody else would dare print, right?" Grillo said.
"The real dirt. This is it. This is the great revelation."
"It's ridiculous."
"Maybe that's the way all earth-shattering news sounds. Have you
thought
of that? What would you have done if I'd tried to file a report on the
Resurrection? Crucified man rolls  away the stone. Would you have
printed
that?"
"That's different," Abernethy said. "That happened."
"So did this. I swear to God. And if you want proof, you're going to get it
real soon."
"Proof? From where?"
"Just listen," Grillo said, and picked up his report again. "This revelation
about the fragile state of our being took place in the midst of one of the
most glamorous gatherings in recent movie and TV history, when about
two
hundred guests—Hollywood's movers and shakers—assembled at the
hill-top

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

their
fate. They may be dead. They may simply exist in another state of being
which only the most foolhardy of adventurers would dare enter. To all
intents and purposes they  have simply vanished off the face of the
earth."
He expected Abernethy to interrupt at this juncture, but here was silence
from the other end of the line. So profound a silence, indeed, that Grillo
said:
"Are you still there, Abernethy?"
"You're nuts, Grillo."
"So put the phone down on me. Can't do it, can you? See, there's a real
paradox here. I hate your fucking guts but I think you're just about the
only
man with the balls to print this. And the world's got to know."
"You are nuts."
"You watch the news thr ough the day. You'll see...there's a lot of fa-
mous
people missing this morning. Studio executives, movie stars, agents—"
"Where are you?"
"Why?"
"Let me make some calls, then get back to you."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grillo looked across at Tesla.
"I did it," he said.
"I still don't think it's wise, telling people."
"Don't start again," Grillo said. "This is the story I was born to tell,
Tesla."
"It's been a secret for so long."
"Yeah, for people like your friend Kissoon."
"He's not my friend."
"Isn't he?"
"For Christ's sake, Grillo, you heard what he did."
"So why do you talk about him with this sneaking envy in your voice,
huh?"
She looked at him like he'd just slapped her.
"Call me a liar?" he said.
She shook her head.."What's the appeal?"
"I don't know. You're the one who just kept watching the Jaff do his stuff.
No attempt to stop him. What was the appeal of that?"
"I wouldn't have had a chance against him, you know that."
"You didn't try."
"Don't change the subject. I'm right, aren't I?"
Tesla had crossed to the window. Coney Eye was screened by trees.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cloud. There was no sign of Quiddity itself."
"And no Iad."
"No Iad. Maybe they don't exist."
"You wish."
"You're sure of your sources?"
"Couldn't be more sure."
"I love it," Grillo remarked somewhat bitterly. "I dig around for days and
all 
I get is a fucking peek. But you—you plug straight in."
"Is this what this is about?" Tesla said. "You getting a story?"
"Yeah. Maybe it is. And telling it.  Making people understand what's go-
ing
on in Happy Valley. But seems to me  you don't really want that. You'd
be 
happier if we kept this among the chosen few. You, Kissoon, the fucking
Jaff—"
"OK, you want to report the end of  the world? You do it, Orson. Listen-
ers
across America are just waiting to panic. Meanwhile, I've got prob-
lems—"
"You smug bitch."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The telephone silenced her in mid-accusation. Grillo picked it up.
"Nathan?"
"Abernethy."
Grillo looked across at Tesla, who was standing with her back to the
window glaring at him.."I'm going to need a lot more than two para-
graphs."
"What convinced you?"
"You were right. A lot of people didn't come home from the party."
"Has it made the news this morning?"
"Nope. So you've got an edge. Of course your explanation about where
they've gone's crap. Biggest fiction I  ever heard. But it's a great front
page."
"I'll get back to you with the rest."
"An hour."
"An hour."
He put the phone down.
"All right," he said, looking at Tesla. "So suppose I hold off giving him
the
full story till noon? What can we do in that time?"
"I don't know," Tesla admitted. "Maybe find the Jaff."
"And what the hell can he do?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They're probably dead already," she sighed. "We can't help them."
"Easily said."
"Well you seemed ready enough to fling yourself in a few hours ago, so
maybe you should go in after them. I' ll get you a piece of string, to hold
on 
to."
"All right," Grillo said, "I haven't forgotten you saved my life, and I'm
grateful."
"Jeez, I've made some errors in my time..."
"Look, I'm sorry. I'm coming at this all wrong. I know I am. I should be
planning some plan. Being a hero. But see...I'm not. The only response
I've
got to all this is the same old Grillo. I can't change. I see something, I
want
the world to know."
"It will," Tesla said quickly. "It will."
"But you...you've changed."
She nodded. "You got that right," s he said. "I was thinking, when you
were
telling Abernethy he wouldn't have printed the Resurrection story: that's
me. I'm resurrected. And you know what freaks me? I'm not freaked. I'm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

psyche and explains it. Stirs it around. I think all the major performers in
this—Kissoon, the Jaff, Fletcher—they're shamans. And Quiddity...is
America's dream-space. The world's maybe. I've seen these men fuck-
ing it
up, Grillo: All on their own trips. Even Fletcher couldn't get his shit
together."
"So maybe what's needed is a change of shaman," Grillo said.
"Yeah. Why not?" Tesla replied. "I can't do any worse than they have."
"That's why you want to keep it to yourself."
"That's one of the reasons, sure. I can do this, Grillo. I'm weird enough,
and most of these shamans, you know, were a little off in some way.
Cross-dressers;
gender-fuckers. All things to all men. Animal, vegetable and
mineral. I want to be that. I've always wanted...," she trailed off. "...you
know what I've always wanted."
"Not till now."
"Well now you do."
"You don't look very happy about it."
"I've done the resurrection scene. That's one of those scenes shamans
have to do. Die and rise again. But I keep, thinking...it's not finished. I've
got more to prove."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"About six."
"The sun'll be up soon. I'm thinking I should go out to look for the Jaff,
before the light drives him into hiding."
"That's if he's not left the Grove."
"I don't think he's capable," she said. "The circle's closing. Getting
tighter
and tighter. Coney Eye's suddenly the center of the known universe."
"And the unknown."
"I don't know whether it is so unknown," Tesla said. "I think Quiddity's
maybe more like home than we think."
The day was on its way by the time  they stepped out of the hotel,
the.darkness giving way to an uneasy no-man's land between moonset and
sunrise. As they cros sed the hotel lot a wretched, grimy individual
stepped
out of the murk, his face ashen.
"I have to speak with you," he said. "You're Grillo, right?"
"Yeah. And you?"
"My name's Witt. I used to have offices in the Mall. And friends here at
the
hotel. They told me about you."
"What do you want?" Tesla said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's worse on the way."
"There's no Grove to leave," Witt replied. "The Grove's gone. Finished.
People have left on vacations and I don't think they're going to come
back.
But I'm not leaving. I've got nowhere to go. Besides—" he looked close
to 
tears as he spoke "—this is my town. If it's going to get swallowed up
somehow, then I want to be here when it goes. Even if the Jaff—"
"Wait!" said Tesla. "What do you know about the Jaff?"
"I...met him. Tommy-Ray McGuire's his son, you know that?" Tesla
nodded. "Well, McGuire introduced me to the Jaff."
"Here in the Grove?"
"Sure."
"Where?"
"In Cherry Tree Glade."
"Then that's where we start," said Tesla. "Can you take us there?"
"Of course."
"You think he'll have just gone back there?" Grillo said.
"You saw his condition," Tesla replied. "I think he'll go looking for
someplace familiar, where he feels reasonably safe."
"Makes sense," said Grillo.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mrs. Duffin's poodles were in the pack; so were two dachshunds be-
longing
to Blaze Hebbard, the pups of the pups of the pups of dogs owned by a
Grover who'd died when Witt was  a boy, one Edgar Lott. Died and left
his.money to be used to put up a memorial to the League of Virgins.
Besides the dogs there were other, perhaps more distressing signs of
hurried exits. Garage doors left open; toys dropped on the front path or
in 
the driveway as sleepy children were put into cars in the middle of the
night.
"Everybody knew," Witt said as they drove. "They knew all along but
nobody said anything. That's why most of them just slipped away in the
middle of the night. They thought  they were the only ones who were
losing
their minds. They all thought they were the only ones."
"You worked here, you said."
"Yeah," Witt told Grillo, "real estate."
"Looks like business may be booming tomorrow. Plenty of properties for
sale."
"And who's going to buy?" Witt said. "This is going to be cursed ground."
"It's not the Grove's fault that all this happened," Tesla put in. "It's an

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the outside at least it looked unoccupied. When they broke in, that
was confirmed. The Jaff hadn't been in the house since he'd taunted
Witt in
the upper room.
"It was worth a try," Tesla said. "I  guess we just have to keep looking.
The
town's not that big. We just go from  street to street till we get a sniff of
him.
Anybody got any better ideas?" She looked at Grillo, whose gaze and
concentration were elsewhere. "What is it?" she said.
"Huh?"
"Somebody left water running," Witt said, following the direction of
Grillo's
gaze.
Water was indeed running out from under the front door of a house
opposite the Lloyd house, a steady  stream which made its way down
the
incline of the driveway, across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
"What's so interesting?" Tesla said.
"I just realized..." Grillo said.
"What?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

route, drove back through the town —in defiance of red lights and one-
way
streets—towards Deerdell.
"It's not going to be long before the police start to arrive," Grillo re-
marked.
"Looking for lost movie stars."
"I should go up to the house and warn them away," Tesla said.
"You can't be in two places at one time," Grillo said. "Unless that's an-
other
talent I don't know about."
"Ha fucking ha."
"They'll have to find out the hard way.  We've got more urgent stuff to
do."
"True," Tesla conceded.
"If the Jaff is in the caves," Witt said, "how do we get down to him? I
don't
think he's just going to appear if we holler."
"You know a man called Hotchkiss?" Grillo said.
"Of course. Carolyn's father?"
"Yeah."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't follow."
"I'm not sure I do. Let him explain it."
They'd reached the woods. There was no sound of a dawn chorus,
however ragged. They stepped in amo ng the trees, the silence oppres-
sive.
"He's been here," Tesla said.
Nobody needed to ask how she kn ew. Even without the benefit of
senses
sharpened by the Nuncio it was clear the atmosphere in the woods was
charged with anticipation. The birds hadn't left, they were just scared to
sing.
It was Witt who led the way through to  the clearing, his sense of direc-
tion
that of a man who knew exactly where he was headed.
"You come here often?" Grillo said, half joking.
"Almost never," Witt replied.
"Stop," Tesla suddenly whispered.
The clearing was just ahead, visible through the trees. She nodded
towards it.
"Look there," she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tesla took hold of his arm. "It can maybe alert the Jaff," she said. "We
don't know what kind of contact he has with those things. We don't need
to 
go any further. We know he's there."
"True."
"Let's go find Hotchkiss."
They began to retrace their steps.
"Do you know where he lives?" Grillo asked Witt, once they were a good
distance from the clearing.
"I know where everybody lives," Witt said. "Or lived."
The sight of the caves seemed to have shaken him, fuelling Grillo's
suspicion that despite the claim t hat he seldom ventured there it was
some
kind of place of pilgrimage.
"Take Tesla to Hotchkiss," Grillo said. "I'll meet you both there."
"Where are you going?" Tesla wanted to know.
"I want to be sure Ellen left the Grove."
"She's a sensible lady," came the reply, "I'm sure she has."
"I'm going to check anyhow," Grillo said, not about to be dissuaded.
He left them at the car, and started off in the direction of the Nguyen
house, leaving Tesla to summon Witt from staring at the woods. When

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they were open, blurred with tear s)—towards the place she'd glimpsed
all 
too briefly when she and Howie had swum in Quiddity together: the
Ephemeris. There was the beginnings of a disturbance in the element
that
bore her up, but she was as ignorant of that as she was of the proximity
of 
the island. Others were not. Had she been more aware of her sur-
roundings
she'd have seen a subtle but undeniable agitation pass among the souls
swimming in Quiddity's ether. Their motion was no longer so steady.
Some—perhaps those more sensitive to the rumor the ether was carry-
ing—
stopped advancing and hung in the darkness like drowned stars. Others
took themselves deeper, hoping to avoid the cataclysm that was being
whispered. Still others, these very few as yet, went out altogether, wak-
ing
in heir beds in the Cosm grateful to be out of danger. For most, how-
ever,
the message was too hushed to be heard; or if it was heard the pleasure
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fletcher.
What's on Ephemeris? he'd asked, imagining some paradise island. His
father's reply hadn't been particularly illuminating. The Great and Secret
Show, he'd said, an answer which begged a dozen more questions.
Now,
as the island came into view ahead of him, he wished he'd pursued his
questions with more persistence. Even from a distance it was quite clear
his picturing of the place had been spectacularly short of the mark. Just
as 
Quiddity wasn't in any conventio nal sense a sea, so Ephemeris de-
manded
a redefinition of the word island. Fo r one, it was not a single land-mass
But
many, perhaps hundreds, joined by ar ches of rock, the whole archipel-
ago
resembling a vast, floating cathedral, the bridges like buttresses, the
islands towers which mounted in scale as they approached the central
island, from which solid pillars of smoke rose to meet the sky. The simi-
larity
was too strong to be coincidence.  This image was surely the subcon-
scious

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pire.to a work so massive. The Ephemeris was many miles across, Howie
guessed, and there was no portion of it that had not been touched by
genius. If it was a natural phenom enon (and who knew what natural
was, in
a place of mind?) then it was nature  in a frenzy of invention. It made
solid
matter play games only cloud or light would be capable of in the world
he'd
left behind. Made towers as fine as reeds on which globes the size of
houses balanced; made sheer cliff fa ces fluted like shells and canyon
walls
that seemed to billow like curtains at a window; made spiral hills; made
boulders like breasts, and dogs, and the sweepings from some vast ta-
ble.
So many likenesses, but none he could be certain were intended. A
fragment in which he'd seen a face was part of another likeness the
glance
after, each interpretation subject to change at a moment's notice. Per-
haps
they were all true, all intended. Perhaps none were, and this game of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was nectar to the spirit-lights, wh o rose to it unburdened by flesh and
blood,
not entering the smoke but grazing it s blossom. He wondered if it was
fear
that kept them from moving into the smoke, or if it was a more solid bar-
rier
than it seemed. Perhaps when he got closer, he'd discover the answer.
Eager to be there as quickly as possible, he aided the tide with strokes
of 
his own, so that within ten or fi fteen minutes of first seeing the Ephem-
eris
he was hauling himself up on to its beach. It was dark, though not as
dark
as Quiddity, and harsh beneath his  palms, not sand but encrustations,
like
coral. Was it possible, he suddenly wondered, that the archipelago had
been created the way the island he'd seen floating among the flotsam
from
the Vance house had been created, formed around the presence of hu-
man
beings in Quiddity? If so, how long ago must they have come into the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
caught him. Once out of the soothi ng waters, his body no longer borne
up 
and caressed, anxieties the sea had lulled from him took hold. The first,
that he might search the archipel ago for days, weeks even, and never
find
Jo-Beth. Second, that even if he did, there was still Tommy-Ray to con-
tend
with. Nor was Tommy-Ray alone; he'd come to the Vance house with
phantoms. Three—and this was the least of his worries, in a sense, but
it.became steadily more important— that something was changing in
Quiddity. He no longer cared what words were most appropriate for this
reality: whether it was another dimension or a state of mind was not
relevant. They were probably one and the same anyhow. What did
matter
was the holiness of this place. He didn't doubt for a moment that all that
he'd gleaned about Quiddity and the Ephemeris was true. This was the
place in which all his species that knew of glory got their glimpses. A
constant place; a place of comfor t, where the body was forgotten (ex-
cept
for trespassers like himself) and the dreaming soul knew flight, and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the system that was distressing it.  He doubted that the simple intrusion
of 
flesh and blood from the Cosm was responsible. Quiddity was vast, and
had ways of dealing with those who resisted the calm of its waters: he'd
seen that process at work. No, whatever was souring the tranquillity had
to 
be more significant than the presence of himself, or any of the invaders
from the other side.
He began to come across evidence of that trespass, washed up on the
shore. A door frame, pieces of smashed furniture, cushions, and,
inevitably, fragments of Vance's collection. A short distance beyond this
pitiful litter, around a bend in the beach, he found hope that the tide had
brought Jo-Beth here: another surv ivor. She was standing at the very
edge
of Quiddity, gazing out over the sea. If she heard him approaching she
didn't look his way. Her posture (hands limp at her sides, shoulders
slumped) and the steadiness of her stare suggested someone
mesmerized. Loath as he was to break her trance, if that was how she'd
chosen to deal with the shock of dislocation, he had no choice:
"Excuse me," he said, knowing his politeness was pathetic in such
circumstances, "are you the only one here?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes," she said.
"Where are they?"
"Just keep on walking."
"Thank you."."This isn't happening, is it?" she said.
"I'm afraid it is," he said.
"What happened to the world? Did they drop the bomb?"
"No."
"What then?"
"It's back there somewhere," he said . "Back over Quiddity. Over the
sea."
"Oh," she said, though it was clear she hadn't quite grasped this
information. "Do you have any coke?" she said. "Or pills? Anything?"
"Sorry."
She returned her gaze to Quiddity, leaving him to follow her instructions
and make his way along the beach. The agitation in the waves was
increasing with every step he took. Either that or he was simply becom-
ing
more sensitive to it. Perhaps the latter, because he was noticing other
signs besides that of the wave-rhythm. In the air around his head a
restlessness, as though conversations between invisibles were being
conducted just out of hearing range. In the sky, the waves of color were

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yond
the boulders, around another sweep in the beach, he found several
more
survivors, both men and women. None seemed to have been able to
climb
more than a few yards from the sea. One of them was still lying with his
feet
in the waves, his body sprawled as  though dead. Nobody went to help
him.
The same languor that kept t he Silksheen Woman staring out over
Quiddity
had affected many of them, but several were inert for a different reason.
They'd hauled themselves from Quiddi ty changed by floating in its wa-
ters.
Their bodies were encrusted and misshapen, as though the same proc-
ess
that had turned the warring guests into an island was underway in them
too. He could only guess what qualit y, or its absence, marked these
people
out from the rest. Why had he, and perhaps half the dozen here,
crossed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lulled
from him his desire to find Jo-Beth, but not for long. That was his only
thought now. He went among the survivors looking for her, but he was
disappointed. She wasn't among this number, nor was Tommy-
Ray.."Are there any others?" he asked  a heavily set man slumped by the
shore.
"Others?"
"You know...like us."
There was the same puzzled and distracted air about this man as
there'd
been about the Silksheen Woman. He seemed to be laboring to put the
words he'd heard together.
"Us," Howie said. "From the house."
There was no answer forthcoming. T he man just kept on staring, his
gaze
glassy. Howie gave up and searched for a more useful source of
information, electing the one ma n among the survivors who wasn't
looking
out over Quiddity. Instead he was st anding high up on the beach, star-
ing up

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What's up there?" the man replied. "I want to go. I want to see."
Howie tried again. "I'm looking—"
"I heard you."
"Have you seen her?"
"No."
"Do you know if there are any more survivors?"
The reply was the same deadpan syllable. It got Howie raging.
"What the fuck's wrong with everybody?" he said.
The man looked at him. His face was pock-marked and far from
handsome, but he had a lop-sided smile that Quiddity's handiwork
couldn't
spoil.
"Don't get mad," he said. "It's not worth it."
"She's worth it."
"Why? We're all dead anyhow."
"Not necessarily. We got in, we can get out."
"What, you mean swim? Fuck that, man. I'm not going back in that
fucking
soup. I'd prefer to die. Somewhere up there."
He looked back towards the mountain. "There's something up there.
Something wonderful. I know it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

there. Maybe spot your lady-friend."
That was no bad idea, especially w hen they had so little time. The un-
rest
in the air was more palpable with every minute that passed.
"Why not?" Howie said.
"I've been looking for the easiest route. Seems to me we're best going
back along the beach aways. By t he way, who are you? I'm Garrett
Byrne.
Two R's. No u. Just in case you get to write the obit. You are?"
"Howie Katz."
"I'd shake your hand only mine isn't fi t for shaking." He raised the shirt-
swathed
limb. "I don't know what happened out there but I'll never draft
another contract. Maybe I'm glad, you know? It was a fucking dumb
business anyhow."
"What was?"
"Entertainment lawyer. You know the joke? What have you got if you've
got three entertainment lawyers up to their necks in shit?"
"What?"
"Not enough shit."
Byrne laughed out loud at this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

didn't waste effort looking to see what changes it was making. He just
let 
the fury that was fuelling those changes come.
Perhaps it was that—the anger and  the snot—that brought the phan-
toms
back. He became aware of them as  a memory first, his mind picturing
their
pursuit of him down the empty highways of the Baja, their cloud like tin
cans tied to a dog's tail. No sooner thought than felt. A cold wind blew
on 
his face, which was the only part of  him showing out of the sea. He
knew
what was coming. Smelled the tombs, and the dust in the tombs. It was-
n't 
until the sea around him started to ch urn, however, that he opened his
eyes
and saw the cloud circling above him.  It was not the great storm it had
been
in the Grove; the destroyer of  churches and mommas. It was a mad
runty

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

here.
No pretenses. He watched as the spirits descended towards the surface
of 
the sea, their circle centering on him. The fury in Quiddity's ether
intensified. He was spun like a top, his motion screwing him down. He
tried
to throw his arms up over his head, but they were leaden, and the sea
simply closed over his head. His mouth was open. Quiddity flooded his
throat; his system. In the confusion one simple knowledge—carried by
Quiddity, now swallowed in its bitte r whole—touched him. That there
was
an evil coming he had never known the likes of; that no one had ever
known the likes of. He felt it in his chest first, then in his stomach and
bowels. Finally, in his head, like a blossoming night. It was called Iad,
this
night, and the chill it brought had no equal on any planet in the system;
even those so far from the sun they could bear no life. None owned a
darkness this deep, this murderous.
He rose to the surface again.  The phantoms had gone, not away, but
into

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

heavy as they were, up to his face. It had finally taken on the shape of
his
soul.
Howie and Byrne climbed for several minutes, but however high they
got
the best view was always above them: the spectacle of the smoke
tower.
The closer they got the more Byrne's obsession with the sight touched
Howie. He began wondering, as he had when the tide had first brought
him
within sighting distance of the  Ephemeris, what great unknown was
hiding
up there, so powerful it drew the sleepers of the world to its threshold.
Byrne was by no means agile, given that he had only one hand avail-
able.
He repeatedly slipped. But there was no murmur of complaint from him,
though with every fall the number of cuts and scrapes on his bare body
multiplied. Eyes fixed on the highest reaches of the mountain he pushed
on, not seeming to give a damn what damage he did himself as long as
he 
closed the gap between himself and the mystery. Howie found it easy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they.crossed narrower. Beneath the bridges it was a straight fall, usually on
to 
rock. Sometimes, however, there was a glint of Quiddity at the bottom of
these chasms, its waters as frenzied as they were beyond the shore.
There were fewer and fewer spirits in the air, but as they crossed an
arch
no broader than a plank a flight of them passed directly overhead and
Howie saw that within each of the lights was a single sinuous line, like a
bright snake. Genesis couldn't hav e been more misguided, or misguid-
ing,
he thought, to picture the serpent crushed beneath a human heel. The
soul
was that serpent, and it could fly.
The sight brought him to a halt, and a decision.
"I'm not going any further," he said.
Byrne looked back at him. "Why not?"
"I've got as good a view of the shore-line as I'm going to get."
The view was by no means comprehensive, but climbing higher wasn't
going to improve it significantly. Besides, the figures on the beach below
were now so small they were barely recognizable. Another few minutes'
ascent and he'd not know Jo-Beth from any other survivor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

every second step he took, but Howie knew it was a vain course trying
to 
call him back. Vain, and presumptuo us. Whatever kind of life he'd
lived—
and it sounded to have been lacking charity— Byrne was seizing his last
chance to be touched by the holy. Maybe death was the inevitable
consequence of such pursuit.
Howie returned his gaze to the scene below. He followed the line of the
beach, looking for the least sign of movement. To his left lay the stretch
of 
shore they'd climbed from. He could  still see the party  of survivors, at
the
margin of the sea, as mesmerized  as ever. To their right, the solitary
figure
of the Silksheen Woman, the waves that broke against the shore—their
boom carried to his ears—large enough to threaten her with acquisition.
Beyond her again, the beach upon which he'd first found himself.
It wasn't empty. His heart did doubl e time. There was somebody stum-
bling
along the shore, keeping well away from the encroaching sea. Her hair

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ing
souls had gone from the smoke tower; and with them much of the light.
There was no sign of Byrne.
When he turned back, there was. The man was standing two or three
yards lower down the slope. The multitude of wounds he'd collected on
his
way up were nothing beside his newest. It ran from the side of his head
to 
his hip, and had opened him up to his innards.
"I fell," he said simply.
"All the way down here?" Howie said, marvelling at the fact that the man
was even standing.
"No. I came down of my own accord."
"How?"
"It was easy," Byrne replied. "I'm larvae now."
"What?"
"Ghost. Spirit. I thought maybe you'd seen me fall."
"No."
"It was a long drop, but it ended well. I don't think anybody ever died on
the Ephemeris before. That makes me one of one. I can make my own

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What are Iad?" Howie asked.
"Evil beyond words," Byrne said, "so I won't even try."
"Going to the Cosm?"
"Yes. Maybe you can get there ahead of them."
"How?"
"Trust to the sea. It wants what you want."
"Which is?"
"You, out, " Byrne said. "So go. And quickly."
"I hear."
Byrne stood aside to let Howie pass. As he did so he took hold of
Howie's
arm with his good hand.
"You should know—" he said.
"What?"
"What's on the mountain. It's wonderful."
"Worth dying for?"
"A hundred times."
He let go of Howie.."I'm glad."
"If Quiddity survives," Byrne said. "If you survive this, look for me. I'm
going to be wanting words with you."
"I will," Howie replied, and began down the slope as fast as he was able,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jo-Beth! It's me! Jo-Beth!"
This time she did hear, and she looked up. Even with several yards
between them he could see clearly the reason for her stumbling. Horri-
fied,
he slowed his pace, barely aware he was doing so. Quiddity had been
at 
work on her. The face he'd fallen in love with at Butrick's Steak House,
the
face from the sight of which he dated his life, was a mass of spiky
growths
that spread down her neck and disfigured her arms. There was a mo-
ment,
one he'd never quite forgive himself for, in which he wished she wouldn't
know him, and he'd be able to walk on past her. But she did; and the
voice
that came from behind the mask wa s the same that had told him she
loved
him.
Now it said: "Howie...help me..."
He opened his arms and let her come into them. Her body was feverish,
racked with shudders.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

been, staring out at him like the gleam of treasure in muck. The sight
made
him hold her tighter, as if to prove to her (and to himself) that he'd mas-
tered
the horror. He hadn't. It was her beauty that had first taken his breath
away.
Now that was gone. He had to look  beyond its absence to the Jo-Beth
he'd
later come to love. That was going to be hard.
He looked away from her, towards the sea. The waves were thunder-
ous.
"We have to go back into Quiddity," he said.
"We can't!" she said. "I can't!"
"We've got no choice. It's the only way back."
"It did this to me," she said. "It changed me!"."If we don't go now," Howie
said, "we never go. It's as simple as that. We
stay here and we die here."
"Maybe that's for the best," she said.
"How can that be?" Howie said. "How's dying for the best?"
"The sea'll kill us anyway. It'll twist us up."
"Not if we trust it. Give ourselves over to it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

live
like this."
"Stop crying," he told her. "And stop talking about dying. We're going to
get back to the Grove. Both of us. If not for our sakes, then to warn peo-
ple."
"About what?"
"There's something coming across Quiddity. An invasion. Heading
home.
That's why the sea's going wild."
The commotion in the sky above them  was every bit as violent. There
was
no sign, either in sea or sky, of the spirit-lights. However precious these
moments on the Ephemeris were, every last dreamer had forsaken the
journey, and woken. He envied them  the ease of that passage. Just to
be 
able to snap out of this honor and find yourself back in your own bed.
Sweaty, maybe; scared, certainly.  But home. Sweet and easy. Not so
for
the trespassers like themselves, flesh and blood in a place of spirit. Nor,
now he thought of it, for the others here. He owed them a warning,
though

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gone to his aid. They were standing or sitting as before, their lazy gazes
still on Quiddity. Howie went to t he nearest of them, a man not much
older
than himself, with a face born for its present vacuity.
"You have to get out of here," he said. "We all have to."
The urgency in his voice did something to rouse the man from his tor-
por,
but not much. He managed a wary "Yeah?" but did nothing.
"You'll die if you stay," Howie told him, then raised his voice above the
waves to address them all. "You'll die!" he said. "You have to go into
Quiddity, and let it take you back."
"Where?" said the young man.."What do you mean, where?"
"Back where?"
"To the Grove. The place you came from. Don't you remember?"
There was no answer forthcoming fr om any of them. Maybe the only
way
to get an exodus going was to start it, Howie reasoned.
"It's now or never," he said to Jo-Beth.
There was still resistance, both in  her expression and in her body. He
had
to take firm hold of her hand and lead her down towards the waves.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

want
to make play with. Fear for their lives ranked highest, of course. Close
after, the confusion of repugnance at Jo-Beth's condition and his guilt at
that repugnance. But the message in the air was urgent enough to keep
him moving down the beach in spite of such anxieties. It was almost a
physical sensation now, which reminded him of some other time in his
life,
and of course of some other place; a memory he couldn't quite grasp. It
didn't matter. The message was unambiguous. Whatever the Iad were,
they brought pain: relentless, unendurable. A holocaust in which every
property of death would be explored and celebrated but the virtue of
cessation, which would be postpon ed until the Cosm was a single hu-
man
sob for release. Somewhere he'd known a hint of this before, in a little
corner of Chicago. Perhaps his mind was doing him service, refusing to
remember where.
The waves were a yard ahead, rising in slow arcs and booming as they
broke.
"This is it," he said to Jo-Beth.
Her only response—one he was mightily grateful for— was to tighten
her

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why?"
"Everybody else has."
"That's right."
"You want to come in?"
"I'd like to see your mom."
"She's busy," Philip said, but opened the door anyway. The house was
even more of a shambles than it  had been before, the remains of sev-
eral
ad hoc meals spread around. The creations of a child gourmet, Grillo
guessed: hot dogs and ice cream.
"Where is your mom?" Grillo asked Philip.
He pointed in the direction of t he bedroom, picked up - plate of half-
devoured
food, and wandered away.
"Wait," Grillo said. "Is she ill?"
"Nope," said the boy. He looked as though he hadn't slept a full eight
hours in weeks, Grillo thought. "She  doesn't come out any more," he
went
on. "Except at night."
He waited for Grillo to answer with a nod, then headed to his room,
having

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and the desperation of circumstances in the Grove, a part of him wanted
to 
conclude the business left unfinished last time: to make proper love to
Ellen
just once before he took the trip underground.
He crossed to Ellen's door, and knocked on it. The only sound from in-
side
was a moan.
"It's me," he said. "Grillo. Can I come in?"
Without waiting for a reply he turned the handle. The door was not
locked—it opened half an inch—but something prevented it from open-
ing
further. He pushed a little harder, and harder still. A chair, wedged under
the handle on the far side, slid noisily to the floor. Grillo opened the
door.
At first he thought she was alone in  the room. Sick, and alone. She lay
on 
an unmade bed in her dressing gown, which was untied, and spread
open.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

deed
he doubted she had been out of the room very much. It smelled of
prolonged occupation.
"You shouldn't...see, " she said.
"I've seen you naked before," he murmured. "I wanted to see again."
"I don't mean me," she replied.
He didn't understand her remark until her eyes fell away from him and
went to the furthest corner of the room. His gaze went with hers. At their
destination, deep in the shadows, wa s a chair. In the chair was what
he'd
taken, on entering the room, to be a heap of clothes. It was not. The
paleness wasn't linen but bare skin,  the folds those of a man sitting na-
ked
in the chair, his body bent almost double, so that his forehead rested on
his
clasped hands. They were tied together at the wrists. The cord that
bound
them went on down to his ankles, which it also bound together.
"This," Ellen said softly, "is Buddy."
At the sound of his name the man raised his head. Grillo hadn't seen
more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sion
than the rest of his anatomy. It was deeply lined—almost plowed—but
undeniably charismatic. When he sat completely upright the second
most
detailed part of him came into view. Tesla's gossip had, as ever, been
reliable. The hallucigenia was hung like a donkey. Grillo stared, only to
be 
shaken from his envy when the man spoke.
"Who are you to come in here?" he said.
The fact that this artifact had sufficient self-will to speak shocked him.
"Hush," Ellen told him.
The man looked across at her, struggling against his bonds.
"He wanted to leave last night," she told Grillo. "I don't know why."
Grillo did, but said nothing.
"I wouldn't let him, of course. He likes to be kept this way. We used to
play
this game a lot."
"Who is this?" Vance said.
"Grillo," Ellen replied. "I told y ou about Grillo." She pulled herself up on
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes," Vance said, his tone suddenly tentative. "Tell me. Please tell me."
Grillo didn't know whet her to throw up or laug h. He thought the last
scene
he'd played out in this room had been perverse enough, but this was
something else again. A dream of a dead man in bondage, begging to
be 
castigated with a report of sex with his mistress.
"Tell him," Ellen said again.
The strange undertow in her demand gave Grillo voice.
"This isn't the real Vance," he said,  taking pleasure in the idea of strip-
ping
her of this dream. But she was there ahead of him.
"I know that," she said, letting her head loll as she regarded her pris-
oner.
"He's out of my mind." She kept staring at him. "And so am I."
"No," Grillo said.
"He's dead," she replied softly. "He's dead but he's still here. I know he
isn't real but he's here. So I must be mad."
"No, Ellen...this is just because of what happened at the Mall. You
remember? The burning man? You're not the only one."
She nodded, her eyes half closing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sentiment that struck a chord, Grillo thought. "When he appeared I knew
he 
wasn't here the way he used to be here. But maybe that doesn't matter."
Grillo listened, not wanting to break  Ellen's train of thought. He'd seen
so 
much that confounded him of late— miracles and mysteries—and in his
ambition to be a witness to these sights he'd held himself at a distance.
Paradoxically, that made the telling of  the story a problem. And it was
his
problem too. He was eternally the obs erver, keeping feelings at bay for
fear
they touched him too deeply and so drowned out his hard-earned
disinterestedness. Was that why  what had happened on this bed held
such
sway over his imagination? To be disconnected from the essential act;
become a function of somebody els e's desire, somebody else's heat
and
intention? Did he envy that more than Buddy Vance's twelve
inches?."He was a great lover, Grillo,"  Ellen was saying. "Especially when
he's
burning up, because somebody else is where he wants to be. Rochelle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I didn't know at the time," Ellen said softly. "It wasn't planned that way."
"Christ!" Grillo said. "It was all a performance for him. You set me up.
You
set me up to get your fantasy heated up."
"Maybe...I had a suspicion," she conceded. "Why are you so angry?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"No, it isn't," she said, her tone all reason. "You don't love me. You don't
even know me, or you wouldn't be so  shocked. You just wanted some-
thing
from me, and you got it."
Her account was accurate; and hurt. It made Grillo mean.
"You know this thing's not here forever," he said, jabbing his thumb at
Ellen's prisoner; or more correctly, at the truncheon.
"I know," she said, her tone betraying some little sadness at this fact.
"But
none of us are, right? Even you."
Grillo stared at her, willing her to lo ok around at him; see his pain. But
she
only had eyes for the fabrication. He gave up on the possibility, and
delivered the message he'd come here with.
"I advise you to leave the Grove," he said. "Take Philip and leave."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

occasional drunkard; who wasn't? But he wasn't prepared for the level
of 
the man's obsession.
At the back of the house was a room given over entirely to the subject of
the Grove and the ground it was built on. Geological maps covered the
walls, along with photographs, taken over a period of years, and neatly
dated, of cracks in the streets and sidewalks. Tacked up alongside were
newspaper cuttings. Their single subject: earthquakes.
The obsessive himself sat unshaven in the midst of this information with
a.cup of coffee in his hand and a look of weary satisfaction on his face.
"Didn't I say?" were his first words to Grillo. "Didn't I tell you? The real
story's beneath our feet. Always was."
"You want to do it?" Grillo asked him. -
"What? The climb? Sure." He shrug ged. "What the fuck? It'll kill us all,
but
what the fuck? The question is: do you want to do it?"
"Not much," Grillo said. "But I've got a vested interest. I want the whole
story."
"Hotchkiss has got an extra angle you don't know about," Tesla said.
"What's that?"
"Any more coffee?" Hotchkiss asked Witt. "I need to sober up."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't you, William?"
"Know what?" Witt said.
"What a shithead you were."
Witt took the insult without a flicker.
"Never much liked me, right?"
"Right."
"And I never much liked you," Witt replied. "For what it's worth."
Hotchkiss smiled. "Glad we got that sorted out," he said.
"I want to know about this angle," Grillo said.
"Simple really," Hotchkiss said. "I  got a call in the middle of the night,
from
New York. A guy I hired when my wife left, to find her. Or try at least. His
name's D'Amour. He specializes—I guess—in supernatural stuff."
"Why'd you hire him?"
"My wife got involved with some very peculiar people after our daugh-
ter's
death. She never really accepted t hat Carolyn was gone from us. She
tried
contacting her through spiritualists . Eventually joined a spiritualist
church.
Then she ran off."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

are, but the call was a warning."
"About what?"
"About what's happening here in the Grove."
"He knew?"
"Oh he knew all right."
"I think that maybe I should talk to  him," Tesla said. What time's it in
New
York?"
"Just after noon," said Witt.
"You two make whatever arrangements you need to make about the
climb," she said. "Where's D'Amour's number?"
"Here," Hotchkiss said, passing a pad  over to Tesla. She pulled off the
top
sheet, with the digits and the name (Harry M. D'Amour, Hotchkiss had
written) scrawled on it, and left the men to their deliberations. There was
a 
phone in the kitchen. She sat down, and dialled the eleven numbers. It
rang
at the other end. An answering machine picked up.
"There's nobody here to take your call at the moment. Please leave a
message after the beep. "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Every day you learn something. What can I do for you?"
"I'm calling from Palomo Grove. Hotchkiss says you know what's going
on 
here."
"I've got some idea, yeah."
"How?"
"I've got friends," D'Amour said. "People plugged in. They've been say-
ing
for months something was going to break out on the West Coast, so
nobody's that surprised. Saying a lot of prayers, but not surprised. What
about you? Are you one of the few?"
"You mean psychic? No."
"So what have you got to do with all this?"
"It's a long story."
"So cut to the chase," said D'Amour. "That's a movie expression."
"I know," Tesla said. "I work in movies."
"Oh yeah. What as?"
"I write them."
"You written anything I'd know? I see a lot of movies. Keeps my mind off
my work."."Maybe we'll meet sometime," Tesla said. "Talk about mov-
ies. Meanwhile,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Who from?"
"Does it matter?"
"As it happens, yes," Tesla returned. "There's sources and sources. You
know that. People you trust and those you don't."
"I work with a woman called Norma Paine," D'Amour said. "She's one of
the people I was talking about before. She's plugged in."
"What does she know about the Iad?"
"First," D'Amour said. "Around dawn something happened on the East
Coast, in dreamland. Do you know why?"
"I've got a good idea."
"Norma keeps talking about a place called Oddity."
"Quiddity," Tesla corrected him.
"So you do know."
"No need for the trick questions. Yes, I know. And I need to hear what
she
has to say about the Iad."
"That they're the things about to break out. She's not sure where. She
gets mixed messages."
"Do they have any weaknesses?" Tesla said.
"Not from what I hear."
"Just how much do you know about them? I mean, what will an Iad

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

emy. "
"You mean like the Devil? Is that what's coming through? Satan?"
"I doubt it. I think we Christians have always been a little naive,"
D'Amour
said. "I've met demons, and they never  look the way you think they're
going
to look."
"Are you kidding me? Demons? In the flesh? In New York?"
"Listen, it doesn't sound any more  sane to me than it does to you,
lady—"."My name's Tesla."
"Every time I finish one of these damn investigations I end up thinking:
maybe that didn't happen. Till the  next time. Then it's the same damn-
fool
process. You deny the possibility till it tries to bite off your face."
Tesla thought of the sights she'd seen in the last few days: the terata,
Fletcher's death, the Loop, and Kiss oon in the Loop; the Lix, seething
on 
her own bed; finally, the Vance house, and the schism it contained. She
couldn't deny any of that. She'd seen those sights, in hard focus. Almost
been killed by them. D'Amour's talk of demons came as a shock only

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hearts? She'd believe in them then, wouldn't she?
"So," she said. "If you know, and the Pentagon knows, why's there no-
body
here in the Grove now, to stop the Iad appearing? We're holding the fort
with four guns, D'Amour—"
"Nobody knew where the breakout would happen. I'm sure there's a file
on 
the Grove somewhere, as a place where things weren't quite natural.
But
that's a long, long list."
"So we can expect help soon?"
"I'd guess so. But in my experience it usually comes too late."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Any chance of help?"
"I've got problems here," D'Amour said. "There's all hell breaking loose.
There've been a hundred and fifty cases  of double suicides in Manhat-
tan
alone in the last eight hours."
"Lovers?"
"Lovers. Sleeping together for the first time. Dreaming of the Ephemeris,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

freeway the night before. The world tipping towards a maw.
"Yeah," she said. "We guess it."
"We're going to see a lot of folks responding to that in the next few days.
Our minds are very finely balanced. Doesn't take much to push them
over
the edge. I'm in a city full of people ready to fall. I have to be here."
"And if the cavalry doesn't turn up?" Tesla said.."Then somebody giving
the orders in the Pentagon is a disbeliever—and
there's plenty of those—or he's working for the Iad."
"They've got agents?"
"Oh yes. Not many, but enough. People have been worshipping the Iad,
by other names. For them this is the Second Coming."
"There was a first?"
"That's another story, but yes, apparently there was."
"When?"
"There's no reliable accounts, if  that's what you're asking. Nobody
knows
what the Iad look like. I think we  should just pray t hey're the size of
mice."
"I don't pray," Tesla replied.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tesla kept her laughter to herself.
"I don't see any savior," she replied. "What should I be looking for?"
"She's not sure. Sometimes she says it's a man, sometimes a woman.
Sometimes not even human."
"Well that makes for easy identification."
"Whoever it is, he, she or it may just swing the balance."
"And if they don't?"
"Move out of California. Quick."
Now she did laugh, out loud. "Thanks a bunch," she said.
"Stay happy," D'Amour replied. "As my father used to say, you shouldn't
have joined if you couldn't take a joke."
"Joined what?"
"The race," D'Amour said, and put down the phone. The line buzzed.
She
listened to the noise, and distant conversations laced through it. Grillo
appeared at the door.
"This is looking more and more like a suicide trip," he announced. "We
don't have the proper equipment, and we don't have any map of the
system
we're going into."
"Why not?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't see him as much of a savior," Grillo said.
"Then we'll have to persuade him," came the answer. "If it crucifies
him.".V
The police had arrived in the Grove by the time Tesla, Witt, Hotchkiss,
and Grillo left the house to start the descent. Lights were flashing at the
top
of the Hill; and ambulance sirens wailing. Despite all this din and activity
there was no sign of any of t he town's occupants, though presumably
some
of them were still in residence. They were either holed up with their
deteriorating dreams, as Ellen Nguyen had been, or locked away,
mourning their passing. The Grove  was effectively a ghost-town. When
the
siren wails wound down there was a hush through the four villages more
profound than any midnight. The sun beat down on empty sidewalks,
empty yards, empty driveways. There were no children playing on the
swings; no sound of televisions, radios, lawn-mowers, food-mixers, air
conditioners. The lights still flipped colors at the intersections, but—
excepting patrol-cars and ambulances, whose drivers ignored them
anyway—nobody was on the roads. Even the packs of dogs they'd seen
in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

articles of clothing. So the Mall wa s first stop on the journey. Of the
quartet
it was William who was most dist ressed by the place when they got
there.
Every day of his working life he'd se en the Mall bustling, from early
morning
to early evening. Now there was nobo dy. The new glass in the store-
fronts
that had been damaged by Fletcher  gleamed, the products stacked in
the
windows beckoned, but there were neither buyers nor sellers. The doors
were all locked; the stores silent.
There was one exception:  the pet store. Unlike every other business in
the
Mall it was open for business as usual , its door wide, its products yap-
ping,
squawking and making a general hullabaloo. While Hotchkiss and Grillo
went to pillage their way through the shopping list, Witt took Tesla into
the
pet store. Ted Elizando was at work refilling the drip-feed water bottles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Of course."
"They'd die if I didn't look after them ," Ted went on, with the slow, stud-
ied
speech of one who was trying hard to keep his thoughts coherent. As
he.spoke he opened up the cage beside him and brought one of the kittens
out from a nest of newspaper strips. It lay along his arm, head in the
crook.
He stroked it. The animal enjoyed the attention, arching its back to meet
each slow motion of his hand.
"I don't think there's anybody left in town to buy them," William said.
Ted stared at the kitten.
"What am I going to do?" he asked softly. "I can't feed them forever, can
I?" His voice dropped in volume with every word, until he was barely
whispering. "What's happened to everyone?" he said. "Where did they
go?
Where did everyone go?"
"Away, Ted," William said. "Out of town. And I don't think they're going
to 
be coming back."
"You think I should go too?" Ted said.
"I think maybe you should," William replied.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

of 
the mark. The explosion had been slow and subtle rather than quick and
hard, but it had come nevertheless.  It had cleared the streets, leaving
only
a few—like Ted—to wander in the ruins, picking up whatever shreds of
furry life remained. Her scenario had been a sort of imagined revenge
upon
the cozy, smug existence of the town. But in retrospect she'd been as
smug
as the Grove, as certain of her moral superiority as it had been of its
invulnerability. There was real pain here. Real loss. The people who'd
lived
in the Grove, and fled it, had not b een cardboard cut-outs. They'd had
lives
and loves, families, pets; they'd made their homes here thinking they'd
found a place in the sun where they'd be safe. She had no right to judge
them.
She couldn't bear to go on looking at  Ted, who stroked the kitten with
such
tenderness, as though it was all he had of sanity. She left Witt to talk
with

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the fabric of the building was still standing. She'd feared the hole inside
would simply keep getting bigger, unknitting reality until it consumed the
house. She dared not hope it had simply closed up—her gut knew that
not.to be the case. But as long as it  had stabilized that was something. If
they
could move quickly, and locate the Jaff, perhaps some way of undoing
the
damage he'd done could be found.
"See anything?" Grillo asked her. He was coming around the corner with
Hotchkiss, both weighed down with bo oty: loops of rope, torches, bat-
teries,
a selection of sweaters.
"It'll be cold down there," Hotchkiss explained when she queried them.
"Damn cold. And probably wet."
"We get a choice," Grillo said with forced good humor. "Drown, freeze or
fall."
"I like options," she said, wondering if dying a second time would be as
distasteful as the first. Don't even think about it, she told herself. There's
no 
second resurrection for you.
"We're ready," Hotchkiss said. "Or as ready as we'll ever be. Where's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dead plant," she observed.
"It's all dead," Witt said, with a kind of vehemence.
"Don't be so defeatist," she told him, and hurried him back to the car,
which Hotchkiss and Grillo had already finished loading up with equip-
ment.
As they drove Hotchkiss laid his concerns out, plain and simple:
"I already told Grillo," he said, "that this is a completely suicidal thing for
us all to be doing. Especially you," he said, catching Tesla's eye in the
mirror. He didn't expand on that observation, but passed straight on to
practicalities. "We haven't got any of the necessary equipment. The stuff
we found in the stores is for domesti c use; it won't save our lives in a
crisis.
And we're untrained. All of us. I've made a few climbs myself, but a long
time ago. I'm really just a theore tician. And this is no easy system.
There's
good reason why Vance's corpse wasn't brought up. Men died down
there—"
"That wasn't because of the caves," Tesla said. "It was the Jaff."
"But they didn't go back in," Hotchkiss pointed out. "God knows, nobody
wanted to leave a man down there  without a decent burial, but enough
was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

caving in isn't my idea of fun, but  I'm as good as any man at anything
that
doesn't need a dick. I'm no more of a liability than Grillo. Sorry, Grillo,
but
it's true. We'll get down there, safely. The problem isn't the caves, it's
what's hiding in them. And I've got a better chance with the Jaff than any
of 
you. I've met Kissoon; I've heard the same lies the Jaff was told. I've got
half a clue as to why he became what he became. If we're to have any
chance of persuading him to help us, I've got to do the persuading."
There was no response from Hotchkiss. He kept his silence, at least un-
til 
they'd parked the car and were unlo ading the gear. Only then did he
take
up his instructions again. This time  there were no overt references to
Tesla.
"I propose to take the lead," he said. "With Witt following. You next, Miss
Bombeck. Grillo can bring up the rear."
String o'pearls, Tesla thought, and me in the middle, presumably be-
cause
Hotchkiss lacked faith in her muscle power. She didn't argue. He was

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

got
gloves, some boots, two sweaters and two pairs of socks for everyone.
Let's get to it."
They carried the gear through the trees to the clearing, and there kitted
up. The woods were as silent now as they'd been in the early morning.
The
sun that beat so strongly on their backs, bringing them out into sweat as
soon as they put on the extra layers  of clothing, could not coax a single
bird
to song. Once dressed, they roped themselves together, about ten feet
apart. Hotchkiss the theoretician knew his knots, and made play with the
fact, tying them, particularly Tesla's, with a theatrical casualness. Grillo
was
the last to be added to the chain. He was sweating more heavily than
anyone else, and the veins at his temples were almost as fat as the rope
round his waist.
"Are you OK?" Tesla asked him as Hotchkiss sat on the edge of the
fissure and swung his feet into the hole.
"I'm fine," Grillo replied.
"Never a great liar," she replied.
Hotchkiss had one last instruction.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

only just allowed access, the sunlight disappeared so suddenly and so
totally it was as if it had never existed. Their torches were feeble
substitutes.
"We'll wait here a moment," Hotchkiss called back up. "Let's get our
eyes
accustomed to the dark."
Tesla could hear Grillo breathing hard behind her; almost panting.
"Grillo," she murmured.
"I'm OK. I'm OK."
It was easily said, but it was very far from the way he felt. The symp-
toms
were familiar from previous attacks: in elevators stuck between floors, or
a 
crowded subway. His heart was work ing up a sweat in his chest, and it
felt
like a wire was tightening around his throat. But these were just
externalizations. The real fear was of a panic that would rise to such an
unbearable pitch that his sanity would simply switch off like a lamp, and
darkness become a continuum, outside and in. He had a regime of
remedies—pills, deep breathing; in extremis, prayer—none of which
were

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from
Hotchkiss warning that progress ahead was going to get steeper. What
had
been a zig-zag descent, squeezing between rocks thrown up by the
rush of
water when the Nunciates had escaped, now became a straight climb
down
a shaft whose bottom was untouched by their torch-beams. It was
deadly
cold, and they were glad of the la yers of clothing Hotchkiss had de-
manded
they wear, though their bulk impeded easy movement. The rock be-
neath
their gloves was wet in places, and twice sprays of water, hitting a shelf
on 
the opposite side of the shaft, caught them.
The sum of discomforts left Tesla wondering what bizarre imperative
drove men (surely they were all m en: women wouldn't be so perverse)
to 
pursue this as recreation. Was it, as Hotchkiss had said when she and
Witt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

died.because of events here. And Witt, who'd known the Grove to its length
and
breadth, but never to its depth, and  was getting here a fundamental vi-
sion
of the town he'd loved like a wife. There was another call from Hotch-
kiss,
this one more welcome.
"There's a ledge down here," he said. "We can rest up a while." One by
one they climbed down to join him. The ledge was wet, and narrow, only
just affording space to accommodate them all. They perched there in
silence. Grillo pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, and lit
up.
"Thought you'd given up," Tesla remarked.
"So did I," he said. He passed the cigarette over to her. She took a
lungful, savoring it, then passed it back to Grillo.
"Do we have any idea of how far down we have to go?" Witt asked.
Hotchkiss shook his head.
"But there is a bottom down there somewhere."
"Can't even say that."
Witt went down on his haunches and scrabbled around on the ledge.
"What are you looking for?" Tesla said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

them.
"Good try," Grillo said. "It works in the movies."
"Wait up," Tesla said, "I hear water."
In the silence that followed her claim was verified. Water was running
close by.
"Is that below us, or behind one of those walls?" Witt said. "I can't make
it 
out."
"Could be both," Hotchkiss said. "There's two things that can stop us
getting all the way down. A simple blockage, and water. If the system
becomes flooded there's no way we can go on."
"Let's not get pessimistic," Tesla said. "Let's just go on."
"We already seem to have been here hours," Witt remarked.
"Time's different down here," Hotchkiss said. "We don't have the usual
signals. Sun passing overhead."
"I don't tell the time by the sun."
"Your body does."
Grillo started to light up his second cigarette, but Hotchkiss said: "No
time," and started to ease himself over the lip of the shelf. The drop was
by 
no means straight down. Had it been, their lack of experience and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lay,
Witt passing the message on to Tesla, and so on to Grillo. They kept
such
comments terse: breath and concentration were now at a premium.
They were just reaching the end of one such stretch when Hotchkiss
called a halt.
"What is it?" Tesla said, looking down at him. The answer was one grim
word.
"Vance," he said.
She heard Witt say oh Jesus in the darkness.
"We're at the bottom then," Grillo said.
"No," came the reply, "just another ledge."
"Shit."
"Is there a way around it?" Tesla called.
"Give me time," Hotchkiss snapped back, his voice betraying the shock
he 
felt.
There was what seemed to be several minutes (but was probably less
than one) during which they clung to whatever handhold they had while
Hotchkiss surveyed the routes available to them. With one selected, he
called them to begin the descent afresh.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

surely
broken from joint to joint. One hand was laid on the nape of his neck,
palm
up. The other was just in front of  his face, its fingers a little open, as
though
he was playing hide and seek.
The sight was a reminder, if one were needed, of what a single slip on
the
descent might result in. They proc eeded even more cautiously thereaf-
ter.
The sound of rushing water had diminished for a while but now it began
afresh. This time it wasn't muted by the rock wall. It was clearly below
them. They continued down towards i t, taking time every ten feet or so
for
Hotchkiss to survey the darkness below them. He had nothing to report
until the fourth such halt, when he called back over the din of water that
there was good news and bad. Th e good, that the shaft ended here.
The
bad, that it was flooded.
"Is there no solid ground down there?" Tesla wanted to know.
"Not much," Hotchkiss replied. "And none of it looks reliable."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

water
became so loud any further conversation was out of the question, until
they
were finally gathered at the bottom, and could stand close to each other.
Hotchkiss had reported right. The small platform at the bottom of the
shaft
was no more than a collection of detritus, which the torrent was rapidly
carrying away.
"This is recent," Hotchkiss said. As if to lend force to the observation the
wall through which the flood broke crumbled a little more as he spoke,
the
force of water bearing a sizeable portion of it off into the roaring dark-
ness.
The water beat itself against the bank upon which they were standing
with
renewed gusto.
"If we're not out of here quick," ye lled Witt over the din of the flood,
"we're
going to get washed away."
"I think we should begin back up," Hotchkiss agreed. "We've got a long
climb ahead of us. We're all cold and tired."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wait.
And even if it stops—"
"Yes?"
"Even if it stops we haven't got any clue which direction the Jaff went."
Hotchkiss played his torch-beam  around the shaft. It was only just
strong
enough to strike the four walls, but  it was clear there were several tun-
nels
leading off from this spot. "Want to make a guess?" Hotchkiss hollered.
The prospect of failure rose up and took a good long look at Tesla. She
ignored it as best she could, but it was tough. She'd been too hopeful,
thinking the Jaff would be simply sitting—like a frog in a well—waiting
for
them. He could have taken any one  of the tunnels on the other side of
the
torrent. Some were probably cul-de-sacs; others led off to dry caverns.
But
even if they could walk on water  (and she was out of practice) which
would
they choose? She put on her torch in  order to scan the tunnels herself,
but

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

upright. The torch went into the water. She watched it go, then turned to
thank him, but the look of alarm on his face diverted her eyes to the
ground
beneath her and her thanks to a shou t of alarm. Even that never came,
as 
the flood had its way with their little  beach of rocks, finding a keystone
that,
once washed away, brought the capitulation of the rest.
She saw Hotchkiss fling himself at  the shaft wall to find a purchase be-
fore
the water took them. But he wasn't quick enough. The ground went from
under him, under them all, and they were pitched into the brutally cold
water. It was as violent as it was cold, seizing them in an instant and
carrying them away, throwing them back and forth in a dark blur of hard
water and harder rock.
Tesla managed to grab hold of som ebody's arm in the torrent, Grillo's
she
thought. She managed to hold on for fully two seconds—no mean
achievement—then a curve in the passage threw the torrent into fresh
fits,
and they were pulled apart. There was a passage of total confusion, the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Still alive?" she said.
"Just."
"Witt? Hotchkiss? You there?"
There was a moan from Witt, and from Hotchkiss an answering holler.
"I dreamed this..." she heard Witt say. "I dreamed I swam."
She didn't want to think about what it might mean for them all if Witt had
dreamed of swimming—of Quiddity—but the thought was there anyhow.
Three times to the dream-sea: at birth, in love, and on death's door.
"I dreamed this..." he said again, more softly now.
Before she could hush his prophecies she realized the speed of the
water
had picked up again, and there was a growing roar from the darkness
ahead.
"Oh shit," she said.
"What?" Grillo yelled.
The water was really moving now, the din louder and louder.
"Waterfall," she said.
There was a tug on the rope, and a ye ll from Hotchkiss, not of warning
but
of horror. She had time to think pretend it's Disneyland then the tug

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where's Witt?" Hotchkiss gasped. "Where's Witt?"
They scanned the surface of the pool they'd been delivered into. There
was no sign of him. There was, however, solid ground. They swam for it
as 
best they could; ragged, desperate  strokes which brought them to dry
rock.
Hotchkiss was first out, and dragged her out after him. The rope be-
tween
them had snapped somewhere on the ride. Her body was a numb,
shuddering weight, and she could barely move it.
"Anything broken?" Hotchkiss said.
"I don't know," she said.
"We're done for now," Gr illo murmured. "Jesus, we're in the bowels of
the
fucking earth."
"There's light coming from somewhere," Tesla gasped. She mustered
what scraps of muscle-power she had to raise her head from the rock
and
look for the source of the light. The motion told her things weren't well
with

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grillo was simply staring at the water that had claimed Witt, his teeth
chattering.
"It's behind us," Hotchkiss said.
"What is?"
"The light. It's coming from behind us."
She turned, the aches in her side becoming short stabbing pains. She
tried to keep her complaints to herself, but Hotchkiss caught her intake
of 
breath.
"Can you walk?" he said.
"Can you?" she returned.
"Competition?" he said.
"Yeah."
She made a small sideways glance at him. There was blood coming
from
the region of his right ear, and he was nursing his left arm with his right.
"You look like shit," she said.
"So do you."."Grillo? Are you coming?"
There was no reply; only chattering teeth.
"Grillo?" she said.
He had turned his eyes from the water and was looking up at the roof of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

stop the panic running its course. She  let him sob, and started towards
the
crack in the wall through which the light was coming.
It's the Jaff, she thought as she wen t. It can't be daylight, so it must be
the
Jaff. She'd planned what she was going  to say to him, but the persua-
sions
had been sluiced out of her head. All she could do was wing it. Confront
the
man and hope her tongue would do the rest.
Behind her, she heard Grillo's sobs stop, and Hotchkiss say:
"That's Witt."
She looked around. Witt's body had come to the surface of the pool, and
was lying face down in the water, some way from the shore. She didn't
stare, but turned back towards the crack and headed on, her pace
painfully
slow. She had a distinct sense of being drawn to the light, that sense
stronger the closer she got, as though her cells, touched by the Nuncio,
sensed the proximity of someone si milarly touched. It gave her weary
body
the necessary momentum to cross to the crack. She leaned against the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She chose to call him by that name in the hope of appealing to the man
he'd been rather than the Artist he'd aspired to being. It worked. From a
fissure in the furthest corner of  the chamber a voice as fatigued as her
own
emerged.
"Who are you?"
"Tesla Bombeck."
She started towards the fire, using it as an excuse to enter. "Don't mind
do 
you?" she said, stripping off her sodden gloves and extending her palms
to 
the joyless flames.."There's no heat," Jaffe said. "It's not a real fire."
"So I see," she said. The fuel looked to be rotted matter of some kind.
Terata. The smoky glow which she'd taken for flame was the last ves-
tiges
of their decay.
"Looks like we're on our own," she said.
"No," he said. "I'm on my own. You've brought people."
"Yes. I have. You know one of them. Nathan Grillo?"
The name brought Jaffe out of hiding.
Twice she'd seen insanity in his eyes. Once at the Mall, pointed out by

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why are you here?"
"To find you," she explained. "We need...we need your help."
The lunatic eyes swivelled in Tesla's direction. There was, she thought,
some vague other form hovering around him, like a shadow thrown
through
smoke. A head swollen to grotesque pr oportions. She tried not to think
too
hard about what it was, or what its appearance signified. There was only
one issue here: getting this madman to unburden himself of his secrets.
Best perhaps that she volunteered one of her own first.
"We've got something in common," she said. "Quite a few things in fact,
but one in particular."
"The Nuncio," he said. "Fletcher sent  you for it, and you couldn't resist
it." 
"That's true," she said, preferring to agree with him rather than argue
and
lose his attention. "But that's not the important thing."
"What is?"
"Kissoon," she said.
His eyes flickered.
"He sent you," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No. He needed a body. "."Oh yes. He wanted that too."
"He's a prisoner there, Jaffe. The only way he could ever get out was by
stealing a body."
"Why are you telling me this?" he said. "Haven't we got better things to
do,
before the end?"
"The end?"
"Of the world," he said. He put his back against the wall and allowed
gravity to take him down on to his haunches. "That's what's going to
happen, isn't it?"
"What makes you think that?"
Jaffe raised his hands in front of his face. They hadn't healed at all. The
flesh had been bitten off down to the bone in several places. Two fin-
gers
and the thumb of his right hand had gone entirely.
"I get glimpses," he said, "of things Tommy-Ray is seeing. There's
something coming..."
"Can you see what?" she asked him, eager for any clue, however small,
as to the Iad's nature. Did they come bearing baubles or bombs?
"No. Just a terrible night. An everlasting night. I don't want to see it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

could
ever do."
"Kissoon planned it all this way," Jaffe said. "I see that now. He made
me
his acolyte even though I didn't know it. He used me."
"I don't think so," Tesla said. "I don't think even he could have plotted
something so byzantine. How could he know you and Fletcher would
discover the Nuncio? No. What hap pened to you was n't planned...you
were
your own agent in this, not Kissoon's. The power's yours. And so's the
responsibility."
She let her argument rest there for a little while, as much because she
was exhausted as for any other reason.  Jaffe didn't follow through. He
just
stared at the pseudofire, which would soon be guttering out, and then at
his
hands. It was only after a minute of this that he said:
"You came down here to tell me that?"
"Yes. Don't tell me I came on a fool's errand."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Help us."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Try me."
He looked back towards the fire. "That was the last of them," he said.
"When the light goes, we're all in the dark."
"There must be other ways out of here."
"There are."
"Then we'll take one of them. But first...first...tell me why you changed
your mind."
He took a lazy moment to contemplate his answer, or whether he was
going to give it at all.
Then he said:
"When I first began looking for the Art, all the clues were about
crossroads. Not all. But many. Ye s, many. The ones that made any
sense
to me. And so I kept looking for a  crossroads. I thought that was where
I'd 
find the answer. Then Kissoon drew me into his Loop, and I thought,
here
he is, the last of the Shoal, in a hut in the middle of nowhere. No
crossroads. I must have been wrong.  And all that's happened since: at
the
Mission, in the Grove...none of it happened at a crossroads. I was being

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Art, and realized what the crossroads were—"
"What?"
He put the less injured of his hands to his shirt, fumbling inside it. There
was a medallion around his neck, on a fine chain. He pulled, hard. The
chain broke, and he tossed the symbol over to Tesla. She knew before
she
caught it what it was going to be.  She'd played this scene once before,
with
Kissoon. But that time she'd not been ready to understand what she
understood now, holding the Shoal's sign in her hand.
"The crossroads," she said. "This is its symbol."
"I don't know what symbols are any longer," he replied. "It's all one."
"But this stands for something," she said, looking again at the forms
inscribed on the arm of the cross.
"To understand it is to have it," Jaffe said. "At the moment
of.comprehension it's no longer a symbol."
"Then...make me understand," Tesla said . "Because I look at this and
it's
still just a cross. I mean, it's beautiful an' all, but it doesn't mean a whole
lot.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you stop whatever's coming through Quiddity—but you haven't got any
grasp of what's going on. If you did have, you'd understand what you've
got
in your hand."
She realized what he was proposing before he said it.
"So if I can work it out, you'll come?"
"Yeah. Maybe."
"Give me a few minutes," she said, looking down at the Shoal symbol
with
fresh eyes.
"A few?" he said. "What's a few? Five maybe. Let's say five. My offer's
good for five minutes."
She turned the medallion over in her hand, suddenly self-conscious.
"Don't stare at me," she said.
"I like to stare."
"You're distracting me."
"You don't have to stay," he replied.
She took him at his word, and got up, her legs unsteady, returning to the
crack she'd entered through.
"Don't lose it," he said, his tone almost satiric. "It's the only one I've got."
Hotchkiss was a yard beyond the entrance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

hadn't moved.
"He's fallen apart," Hotchkiss said. "Claustrophobia."
She went to him anyway. He wasn't staring at the ceiling any longer, nor
at the body in the water. His eyes  were closed. His teeth were chatter-
ing.
"Grillo."
He chattered on.
"Grillo. It's Tesla. I need your help.".He shook his head; a small, violent
motion.
"I have to know what this means."
He didn't even open his eyes to find out what she was talking about.
"Thanks a bunch, Grillo," she said.
On your own, babe. No help to be had. Hotchkiss doesn't get it, Grillo
won't; and Witt's dead in the water. Her eyes went to the body,
momentarily. Face down, arms spread. Poor bastard. She'd not known
him
at all, but he'd seemed decent enough.
She turned away, opened her palm, and looked at the medallion again,
her concentration completely fucked by the fact that the seconds were
ticking by.
What did it mean?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

below that. The past is below us, Hotchkiss had said once. Maybe he'd
been right.
Assuming that to be the correct solution, what did it imply about the
designs on the other three arms? Above the figure's head something
seemed to be dancing, its head huge. Above that the same form, only
simplified; and again above that, a simplification, which reached its
conclusion as another eye (or single cell) which echoed the shape be-
low.
In the light of the first interpretation this wasn't so difficult to understand.
Below were images of life leading up to man; above, surely, beyond
man,
the species elevated to a perfect spiritual state.
Two out of four.
How long did she have?
Don't think about the time, she told herself, just solve the problem.
Reading from right to left across the medallion, the sequence was by no
means as easy as south to north. At the extreme left was another circle,
with something like a cloud in it. Beside it, closer to the figure's
outstretched arm, a square, divided into four; closer still what looked to
be

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

was a hole, bored in t he medallion. From solid to insolid..From a circle
with a cloud to an empty space. What the hell did it mean?
Was it day and night? No. Known  and unknown, maybe? That made
better
sense. Hurry, Tesla, hurry. So what was round, and cloudy, and known?
Round, and cloudy. The world. And known. Yes. The world; the Cosm!
which implied that the empty spac e on the other arm, the un-known,
was
the Metacosm! Which left the figure in the middle: the crux of the whole
design.
She started back towards the cave, where Jaffe was waiting for her,
knowing there could only be seconds left.
"I've got it!" she shouted through to him, "I've got it!" It wasn't quite true,
but the rest would have to be instinct.
The fire inside the cave was very lo w, but there was a horrible bright-
ness
in Jaffe's eyes.
"I know what it is," she said.
"You do?"
"It's evolution on one axis, from a single cell to God-hood."
She knew by the look on his face that she'd got that part right at least.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"But it's a human being, right there!" she said.
"You still see the symbol."
"Shit. I hate this! You're so damn smug. Help me!"
"Time's up!"
"I'm close! I'm really close, aren't I?"
"You see how it is? You can't work it out. Even with a little help from
your
friends."
"I didn't get any help. Hotchkiss can't do it. Grillo's lost his mind. And
Witt's—"
Witt's lying in the water, she thought. But didn't say that, because the
image had suddenly struck her with  revelatory force. He was lying
sprawled
in the water with his arms spread out and his hands open.
"My God," she said. "It's Quiddity. It's our dreams. It's not flesh and
blood
at the crossroads, it's the mind."
Jaffe's smile disappeared, and the light in his eyes got brighter; a
paradoxical brightness that didn't illuminate but  took light from the rest
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ing
was the place where everything originated: the first cause.
"No wonder," she said.
He spoke now as if from the grave.
"No wonder what?"
"No wonder you couldn't do it," s he replied. "When you realized what
you
faced in Quiddity. No wonder."
"You may regret this knowledge," he said.
"I never regretted knowing anything in my life."
"You'll change your mind," he said. "I guarantee it."
She allowed him his sour grapes. But a deal was a deal, and she was
ready to insist upon it.
"You said you'd come with us."
"I know I did."
"You will, won't you?"
"It's useless," he said.
"Don't try and get out of it. I know w hat's at stake here just as much as
you
do."
"And what do you propose we do about it?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

whether to acquiesce or not.
"If you don't do this," she said, "you'll end up here in the dark where you
spent how long...twenty years? The Iad will break through and you'll be
here, underground, knowing the pl anet's been taken. Maybe they'll
never
find you. You don't eat, do you? You're beyond eating. You can survive,
perhaps a hundred years, a thousa nd years. But you'll be alone. Just
you
and the dark and certain knowledge of  what you did. Does that sound
tasty
enough for you? Personally, I'd prefer to die trying to stop them getting
through—"
"You're not very persuasive," he said . "I can see right through you.
You're
a talkative bitch, but the world's fu ll of them. Think you're clever. You're
not.
You don't know the first thing about what's coming. But me? I can see,
I've.got that fucking son of mine's  eyes. He's moving towards the Meta-
cosm,
and I can feel what's up ahead. Can't s ee it. Don't want to. But I feel it.
And

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes?"
He extended his less broken hand.
"My medallion."
Before they could begin the climb she had to coax Grillo from his
catatonia. He was still sitting besi de the water when she emerged from
her
conversation with Jaffe, his eyes closed tight.
"We're getting out of here ," she said to him softly. "Grillo, do you hear
me?
We're getting out of here."
"Dead," he said.
"No," she told him. "We're going to be all right." She put her arm through
his, the pains in her side stabbing her with every movement she made.
"Get
up, Grillo. I'm cold and it's going to get  dark soon." Pitch black, in fact;
the
luminescence from the decaying terata was dimming fast. "There's sun
up 
there, Grillo. It's warm. It's light."
Her words made him open his eyes.
"Witt's dead," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in the walls, looking, she presumed,  for the best exit. He was in no bet-
ter
shape than the rest of them, and a strenuous climb was going to be out
of 
the question. She saw him call Hotchkiss over, and put him to work dig-
ging
out rubble. He then moved on to survey other holes. It crossed Tesla's
mind that the man didn't have any more clue how to get out of here than
they did, but she distracted herself from that anxiety by returning to the
business of getting Grillo to his feet. It took some more coaxing, but she
succeeded. He stood up, his legs almost buckling beneath him until he
rubbed some life back into them.
"Good," she said. "Good. Now let's go.".She allowed herself one last
glance at Witt's body, hoping that wherever
he was, it was a good place. If ev erybody got their own Heaven she
knew
where Witt would be now. In a celestial Palomo Grove: a small, safe
town
in a small, safe valley, where the sun always shone and the realty busi-
ness
was good. She silently wished him well, and turned her back on his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jaffe
didn't know his way out of here. She  went to Hotchkiss's aid, bullying
Grillo
out of his lethargy to do the same. The air from the hole smelled stale.
There was no breath of anything fr esh from above. But then perhaps
they
were too deep for that.
The work was hard, and harder still in the gathering darkness. Never in
her life had she felt so close to complete collapse. There was no sensa-
tion
in her hands whatsoever: her face was numb; her body sluggish. She
was
sure most corpses were warmer. But an age ago, somewhere in the
sun,
she'd told Hotchkiss she was as able as any man, and she was deter-
mined
to make that claim good. She drove herself hard, pulling at the rocks
with
the same gusto as he did. But it was Grillo who did the bulk of the work,
his
eagerness undoubtedly fuelled by desperation. He cleared the largest of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

followed after Jaffe, carried. It was pitifully inadequate, its light more like
a 
beam for Tesla and Grillo to follow than a means to illuminate the path.
They stumbled, and fell, and stumbled again, the numbness welcome in
a 
way, postponing as it did any knowledge of what harm they were doing
themselves.
The first part of the route didn't even take them up, it merely wound
through several small compartments, the sound of water roaring in the
rock
around them. They passed along one tunnel that had clearly been a re-
cent
water-course. The mud was thigh-deep; and dripped from the ceiling on
to 
their heads, for which, a little while on, they were duly grateful, when the
passage narrowed to the point where  had they not been slick with the
stuff
they'd have been hard pressed to squeeze through. Beyond this point
they

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ness.
It was Hotchkiss who felt the breeze first.
"Fresh air," he said.
"Of course," said Jaffe.
Tesla looked back towards Grillo. Her senses were so whacked out she
wasn't sure of them any longer.
"You feel it?" she said to him.
"I think so," he said, his voice barely audible.
The promise speeded their advance, though it was tougher going all the
time, the tunnels actually shaking at  several points, such was the vio-
lence
of the motion in the ground around them. But there was more than a hint
of 
clean air to coax them on now; there was the faintest suspicion of light
somewhere above them, which became  more of a certainty by and by,
until
they could actually see the rock they were climbing up, Jaffe hauling
himself one-handed, with a strange, almost floating ease, as though his
body weighed next to nothing. The others scrambled after, barely able
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tesla's thoughts were a ragged bundle of non sequiturs, more like
daydreams than conscious thought. Her mind was too exhausted to
organize itself. But time and again it visited the five minutes she'd had to
solve the problem of the medallion.  Quite why she only grasped as the
sky
finally came in sight: that this ascent from the darkness was like a climb
out
of the past; out of death, too. From the coldblooded thing to the
warmblooded. From the blind and immediate to the far-sighted. Vaguely
she thought: this is why men go underground. To remember why they
live
in the sun.
At the very last, with the bright ness from above overwhelming, Jaffe
stood
back and let Hotchkiss overtake him.
"Changing your mind?" Tesla said.
There was more than doubt on his face, however.
"What's to be afraid of?" she asked him.
"The sun," he said.
"Are you two moving?" Grillo said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why?"
"It hates me."
"You mean it hurts? Are you some kind of vampire?"
Jaffe squinted up at the light.
"It was Fletcher who loved the sky."
"Well maybe you should learn something from him."
"It's too late."
"No it isn't. You've done some shit stuff in your time, but you've got a
chance to make good. There's worse coming than you. Think about
that."
He didn't respond.
"Look," she went on, "the sun doesn't care what you did. It shines on
everyone, good and bad. I wish it didn't but it does."
He nodded.
"Did I ever tell you..." he said, "...about Omaha?"
"Don't try and put it off, Jaffe. We're going up."
"I'll die," he said.
"Then all your troubles will be over, won't they?" she said. "Come an!"
He stared hard at her, the gleam  she'd seen in his eyes when they'd
been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
earth. He didn't look like much of a reward for that. Head bowed against
the
glare, he climbed on up the last few feet and into the sun. She followed,
the
brightness becoming dizzying, almost nauseating. She closed her eyes
against it, until the sound of laughter made her open them.
It was more than relief that had Hotchkiss and Grillo chuckling to
themselves. The route home had brought them out in the middle of the
parking lot of the Terrace Motel.
"Welcome to Palomo Grove," the sign read. "The Prosperous Ha-
ven.".VI
As Carolyn Hotchkiss had liked to remind her three best friends all those
years ago, the earth's crust wa s thin, and the Grove had been built
along a
flaw in that crust, which would one day crack and drop the town into an
abyss. In the two decades since she'd silenced her own prophecies with
pills, the technology for predicting that moment had advanced by leaps
and
bounds. Hairline cracks could be mapped, their activity closely moni-
tored.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

interior of the Vance house had se nt a subtle but persuasive message
into
the Hill, and out through the caves and tunnels below the town, urging a
system that had been murmuring for years to roll over and shout.
Though
the most spectacular consequences  of that mutiny occurred on the
lower
reaches of the Hill, where the gr ound opened up as though the big one
was
indeed underway, tipping one of the  Crescents into a fissure two hun-
dred
yards long and twenty wide, every village sustained damage. The
destruction didn't die down after the first shock-wave, as might have
been
expected with a conventional quake. It escalated, the message of anar-
chy
spreading, minor subsidence becoming significant enough to devour
houses, garages, sidewalks and stores.  In Deerdell, the streets closest
to 
the woods were the first to suffer damage, the few residents remaining

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

damage, but without due warning or any discernible pattern. Crevasses
opened suddenly in the middle of streets and back yards. Pools drained
of 
water in a matter of seconds; driveways turned into models of the Grand
Canyon. But whether arbitrary or systematic, sudden or signalled, in the
end it came down to the same thing from village to village. The Grove
was
being swallowed up by the ground it had been built upon.
There were deaths, of course; many. But for the most part they went
unnoticed, being those of people who'd stayed locked up alone in their
houses for several days, nursing suspicions about the world they dared
not
take out into the light. Nobody missed them because nobody knew
who'd
left town and who'd stayed. The Gravers'  show of solidarity, after that
first
night at the Mall, had been strictly  cosmetic. There'd been no emer-
gency
community meetings called; no sharing of mutually held fears. As things
got.steadily worse families had simply  sloped away, often by night, still
more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

urgent issue of what had happened (and was still happening) in the
Buddy
Vance residence was not so pressing.
It had been apparent to the first investigators—seasoned patrolmen
who'd
thought they'd seen everything—that some power had been released in
Coney Eye that wasn't going to be ea sily defined. An hour and a half
after
the first car reached Coney Eye, and the patrolman reported to his
superiors the condition of the house, several FBI men were on the
scene,
and two professors—a physicist  and a geologist—were on their way
from
L.A. The house was entered, and the phenomenon in its interior, which
defied all easy explanation, judged to be potentially lethal. What was
perfectly clear, among countless uncertainties, was the fact that the
Grovers had somehow been aware of some fundamental disruption
occurring (or about to occur) in their midst. They'd started to desert their
town hours or perhaps days before. Why none of them had chosen to
alert
anyone beyond the perimeters of the Grove to the danger there was just

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that Grillo not tell his story—would  have told it freely now, had she had
the
strength. The warmth of the sun, indeed the sight of it, had revived her
somewhat, but it had also dried the mud and blood on her face and
body,
and sealed in the deep chill in her marrow. Jaffe had been the first to
seek
the shadows of the motel. After only a few minutes, she followed. The
motel had been deserted by guests and staff alike, and with good rea-
son.
The fissure in the lot was one of  many, the largest of which spread
through
the front door of the building, its  cracks climbing its facade like earth-
born
lightning. Inside there were ample si gns of how hurried a departure the
last
occupants had made, luggage and personal items scattered up and
down
the stairs, the doors that hadn't be en unseated by the tremors thrown
wide.
She wandered along the row of rooms till she found some abandoned

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pleased her—Hobo had always been her preferred aesthetic. While
dressing she availed herself of cold coffee, left in the room. It was three-
twenty
when she emerged: almost seven hours since the four of them had
driven to Deerdell to make the descent.
Grillo and Hotchkiss were in the office. They'd brewed hot coffee. They'd
also washed, though not as thoroughly as she, instead scrubbing masks
of 
clean skin out of the surrounding muck. They'd also stripped off their
sodden sweaters and found jackets to wear. Both were smoking.
"We got it all," Grillo said, his manner that of a man profoundly
embarrassed, and determined to brave it out. "Coffee. Cigarettes. Stale
doughnuts. All we're missing's serious drugs."
"Where's Jaffe?" Tesla wanted to know.
"Don't know," Grillo said.
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Tesla said. "For Christ's sake,
Grillo, we shouldn't let him out of our sight."
"He came this far, didn't he?" Grillo replied. "He's not going to walk away
now."
"Maybe," Tesla conceded. She poured herself coffee. "Is there any
sugar?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him."
"Well, you've got reason," Grillo said.
"Damn right," said Hotchkiss. He gave Tesla a sideways glance. "When
this is done with," he said, "I want him to myself. OK? We've got scores
to 
settle."
He didn't wait for a reply. Taking his coffee he headed back out into the
sun.
"What was that about?" Tesla said.
"Carolyn," Grillo said.
"Of course."
"He blames Jaffe for what happened to her. And he's right."
"He must be going through hell."
"I don't think the trip's anything new to him," Grillo said.
"I suppose not." She emptied her mug of coffee. "That's wired me for a
while," she said. "I'm going to find Jaffe."."Before you do—"
"Yeah?"
"I just want to say...what happened to me down there...I'm sorry I wasn't
more use. I've always had this thing about being buried alive."
"Sounds reasonable to me," Tesla said.
"I want to make it up to you. Want to help any way I can. Just say the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They're simple too," she said. "There's a hole, and something coming
through it from the other side which people like you and me don't even
have the capacity to imagine. If we don't close the hole, we're fucked."
"And the Jaff knows how?"
"How what?"
"To close the hole."
Tesla stared at him.
"At a guess?" she said. "No."
She found him, of all places, on the  roof, which was literally the last
place
in the motel she'd chosen to look. Surprisingly, he was engaged in the
last
activity she'd have expected from him. He was staring at the sun.
"I thought maybe you'd left us to our own devices," she said.,
"You were right," he replied, not looking at her. "It shines on everyone,
good and bad. But it doesn't make me warm. I've forgotten what it was
like
to feel warm or cold. Or hungry. Or full. I miss that so much."
The sour self-confidence he'd evi denced in the caves had entirely
drained
from him. He was almost cowed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'd like to hear. But first—"
"I know. I know. The house. The schism."
Now he did look at her; or rather, beyond her, at the Hill.."We have to go
up there sooner or later," she reminded him. "I'd prefer we
do it now, while it's light, and I've got some energy left."
"And when we get there?"
"We hope for inspiration."
"That has to come from somewhere," he said. "And we've neither of us
got
gods, have we? That's what I've traded on all these years, people being
godless. That's us now."
She remembered what D'Amour had said when she'd told him she didn't
pray. Something about praying making sense once you knew how much
there was out there.
"I'm coming round to being a believer," she said. "Slowly."
"A believer in what?"
"In higher forces," she said, with  a faintly embarrassed shrug. "The
Shoal
had their aspirations, why shouldn't I?"
"Did they?" he said. "Were they  guarding the Art because Quiddity had
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

masks for the Shoal; ways to keep the  hoi-polloi distracted from the se-
cret
of secrets.
"I keep getting glimpses," Jaffe said, "of where Tommy-Ray is."
"What's it like?"
"Darker and darker," Jaffe replied. "He was moving for a long while, but
now he's stopped. Maybe the tide's changed. There's something com-
ing, I
think, out of the darkness. Or maybe it is the darkness, I don't know. But
it's
getting closer."
"The moment he sees anything," Tesla said, "let me know. I want de-
tails."
"I don't want to look, with his eyes or mine."
"You may not have any choice. He's your son."
"He's failed me over and over. I don't owe him anything. He's got his
phantoms."
"Perfect family unit," Tesla said. "Father, Son and—"
"—Holy Ghost," Jaffe said.
"That's right," she replied, another  echo coming back to her from the
past.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I never took Kissoon for a Christian," Jaffe remarked.
"Me neither. Maybe he meant some other god. Or gods. Some force the
Shoal could invoke. Where's the medallion?"
"In my pocket. You'll have to get it  for yourself. My hands are very
weak."
He took them from his pockets. In the guttering light of the cave their
mutilation had been sickening, but here  in bright sunlight they were
more
disgusting still, the flesh black ened and dewy, the bone beneath crum-
bling.
"I'm coming apart," he said. "Fletcher used fire. I used my teeth. Both of
us suicides. It's just that his was faster."
She reached into his pocket and took the medallion out.
"You don't seem to mind," she said.
"What about?"
"Falling apart."
"No, I don't," he admitted. "I'd like to die, the way I would have done if I'd
stayed in Omaha and just got old. I don't want to live forever. What's the
use of going on and on if you can't make sense of anything?"
The rush of pleasure she'd experienced solving the medallion's enigmas
came back to her as she studied it. But there was nothing in the design,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just a little hope I had."
"How many Trinities can there be?" he said. "It shouldn't be that hard to
find out."
"Where from? Abernethy?"
"I could start with him," Grillo said.  "He's a Godfearing man. Or at least
he 
claims to be. Is it that important?"
"At this stage everything's important," she said.
"I'll get on to it," he replied, "if the phone lines are still working. You just
want to know—"
"Anything about the Trinity. Anything. "
"Hard facts, that's what I like," he said. "Hard facts."
He headed off down the stairs. As he did so Tesla heard Jaffe mutter:
"Look away, Tommy. Just look away —".He'd closed his eyes. Now he
began to shake.
"Can you see them?" she said to him.
"It's so dark."
"Can you see them?"
"I can see something moving. Something huge. So huge. Why don't you
move, boy? Get away before they see you. Move!"
His eyes suddenly sprang open.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are behind him. I was right, the tide has changed. They're coming."
"Describe what you saw," she said.
"I told you. They're vast."
"That's all?"
"Like mountains, moving. Mountains covered in locusts, or fleas. Big
and
small. I don't know. None of it makes much sense."
"Well we just have to close the schism as quickly as we can. Mountains
I 
can take. But let's keep the fleas out, huh?"
Hotchkiss was at the front door when they got down there. Grillo had
already spoken to him about the Trinity, and he had a better idea than
asking Abernethy.
"There's a book store in the Mall," he said. "Do you want me to go look
up 
Trinities there?"
"It can't hurt," Tesla said. "If the Trinity scared Kissoon, maybe it'll scare
his paymasters. Where's Grillo?"
"Out looking for a car. He'll take  you up the Hill. That's where you're
both
going?" He glanced in Jaffe's direction, repugnance on his face.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"On car thieves?"."That's right. I picked up a few tricks of the trade, and
I've never forgotten
them. I'm a mine of useless information. Always something new out of
Grillo."
"But nothing about Trinity?"
"You keep coming back to that."
"Desperation," she said. "We haven't got much else to hold on to."
"Maybe it's something to do with what D'Amour said, about the Savior."
"A last-minute intervention from on high?" Tesla said. "I'm not going to
hold my breath waiting."
"Shit."
"Problem?"
"Up ahead."
A crevasse had opened up at the intersection they were approaching. It
was across both street and sidewalk.  There was no way past it up the
Hill.
"We'll have to try another way," Grillo said. He put the car into reverse,
backed up, and took a cross-street for three blocks. There was evidence
of 
the Grove's growing in stability on every side. Lampposts and trees
felled,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

local cops had taken up driving Volkswagens and painting them fluores-
cent
yellow.
"Foolhardy," she said.
"What is?"
"Somebody coming back into town."
"Probably a salvage operation," Grillo  said. "People taking what they
can,
while they can."
"Yep."
The color of the car, so garishly inappropriate, lingered with her for a lit-
tle 
while. She wasn't sure why; perhaps because it was so very West
Hollywood, and she doubted she'd ever  see her apartment in North
Huntley
Drive again.
"Looks like we've got a welcome committee," Grillo said.
"Perfect movie moment," Tesla said. "Step on it, driver."
"Lousy dialogue."
"Just drive."
Grillo swerved to avoid collision with the patrol car, put his foot on the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The house is going to be crawling with cops," he warned.
"I doubt it," she said. "I think they'll be keeping their distance."
She was right. As they came in sight of Coney Eye it was apparent that
the patrolmen had decided this whole mess was beyond them. The cars
were parked well down from the gat e, the men themselves standing a
good
way behind their vehicles. Most were  just staring up at the house, but
there
was a contingent of four officers waiting at a barricade that had been set
up, blocking the Hill.
"You want me to drive straight through?" Grillo said.
"Damn right!"
He put his foot down. Two of the quartet ahead went for their guns; the
other two threw themselves asid e. Grillo rammed the barricade at
speed.
The wood splintered and broke, a piece shattering the windshield. He
thought he heard a shot in the confusion but as he was still driving,
assumed it hadn't killed him. The car struck one of the patrol vehicles a
glancing blow, its back end slewing around and striking another, before
Grillo regained control and headed it for the open gates of Buddy
Vance's

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

night
in a heavy rain, the whole thing softened and thrown out of whack.
There
were no straight lines in the door frames, no right angles in the win-
dows—
even those at the very top of the house. The power Jaffe had unleashed
here had sucked everything towards it s maw, distorting the bricks, the
tiles,
the panes of glass; the whole house tending towards the schism. When
Tesla and Grillo had staggered out through the doorway the place had
been a maelstrom, but the hole, once opened, seemed to be pacified.
There was no sign of further viol ence. There was no doubting the
proximity
of the schism, however. When they stepped from the car they felt its
energies in the air. It made the hair on the back of their necks stand up
straight, and their guts shudder. It was as quiet as the eye of a hurri-
cane. A.tremulous calm just begging to be broken.
Tesla glanced through the car window at their passenger. Jaffe, sensing
her scrutiny, opened his eyes. The fear in him was perfectly plain. How-
ever
much skill he'd had at concealing his feelings in the past—and she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

further. It occurred to her that it wasn't simply fear that kept them from
following, but orders from their superiors. She didn't dare hope the cav-
alry
would be rolling up the Hill in the  next few minutes, but perhaps they
were
mustering, and these footsoldiers had been instructed to keep their
distance until the full force arrived. They were certainly nervous. She
emerged with her hands up, to face a row of levelled muzzles.
"This property's off-limits," somebody shouted from below. "Come back
down with your hands in the air. All of you."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Tesla replied. "Just keep it off-limits, will you?
We've got business here. Who's in  charge?" she asked, feeling like a
visitor
from space, asking to be taken to their leader.
A man in a well-cut suit stepped into view from behind one of the vehi-
cles.
He was not, she guessed, a policeman. More likely FBI.
"I'm in charge," he said.
"Are you getting back-up?" she asked.
"Who are you?" he demanded to know.
"Are you getting back-up?" she said again. "You're going to need more

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

off short, slipping out of sight before he could finish his demands.
"You're good at that," Grillo said.
"You know what practice makes," she said.
"They could have shot you," Grillo observed.
"But they didn't," she said, returning to the car and opening the door.
"Shall we?" she said to Jaffe. He ignored her invitation at first. "The
sooner
we start the sooner we finish," she said. Sighing, he got out. "I want you
to 
stay here," she told Grillo. "If any  of them make a move, holler."."You
just don't want me inside," he said.
"That too."
"Do you have any clue what you're going to do in there?"
"We're going to make like a couple of critics," Tesla said. "We're going
to 
fuck the Art."
Hotchkiss had been an avid reader in his younger days, but Carolyn's
death had killed his taste for fiction.  Why bother to read thrillers written
by 
men who'd never heard gunfire? They were all lies. Not just the novels.
These books, too, he thought, as he dug through the shelves in the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
time he might have set a match to the lot.
As he moved deeper into the shop he saw a bright yellow Volkswagen
turn into the lot. Two men stepped out. They couldn't have looked more
unalike. One was dressed in a dusty ragbag of ill-fitting garments, and
had—even from a distance—a face ugly enough to make a mother
weep.
His companion was a tanned Adonis by  comparison, dressed in pea-
cock
casuals. Neither, Hotchkiss judged, knew where they were, nor the dan-
ger
they were in being here. They looked around at the empty lot in
bewilderment. Hotchkiss went to the door.
"You guys should get out of here," he called across to them.
The peacock looked in his direction.
"This is Palomo Grove?"
"Yeah."
"What happened? Was there a 'quake?"
"It's coming," Hotchkiss said. "Listen, just do yourselves a favor. Get the
fuck out of here."
The ugly one spoke now, his face looking more misshapen the closer he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ron," came the reply. "I'm just the chauffeur," he shrugged. "Hey, if you
want me out of here I'm happy to  go."."It's up to you," Hotchkiss said,
returning into the store. "It's not safe here.
That's all I'm saying."
"I hear you," Ron said.
Raul had lost interest in the conversation, and was scanning the stores.
He seemed to be sniffing as he did so.
"What do you want me to do?" Ron called over to him.
The man looked back at his friend.
"Go home," he said.
"You don't want me to take you up to find Tesla?" Ron replied.
"I'll find her myself."
"It's a long walk, man."
Raul cast a glance in Hotchkiss's direction. "We'll work something out,"
he 
said.
Hotchkiss didn't volunteer for duty, but went back to his search, paying
only half an ear's attention to the conversation that continued in the lot.
"Are you sure you don't want us to go find Tesla? I thought this was
urgent?"
"It was. It is. I just...need to spend a little time here first."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I get it. This is thanks but no thanks, right?"
"If you say so."
"You're fucking weird, man. First you come on to me. Now you don't
want
to know. Well, fuck you. I can get my dick sucked plenty of places."
Hotchkiss glanced round to see the Adonis stalking back to his car. The
other man was already out of sight. Pleased to have the distraction over
with he went back to searching the shelves. The section of books on
Motherhood didn't look too promising, but he began to make his way
through it anyhow. It was, as he'd  anticipated, all pap and platitudes.
There
was nothing in the pages that made reference, even obliquely, to any
Trinity. Only talk of motherhood as a divine calling, woman in partner-
ship
with God, bringing new life into the world, her greatest and most noble
task.
And for the offspring, trite advice. "C hildren, obey your parents in the
Lord:
for this is right."
He dutifully went through every title, throwing the volumes aside when

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

making its way out of the Grove towards the freeway. He didn't envy the
Adonis his liberty. He had no wish to get in a car and drive. As places to
die went, the Grove was as good as any: comfortable, familiar, empty. If
he 
died screaming, nobody would hear his cowardice. If he died silently,
nobody would mourn him. Let the Adonis go. He presumably had his life
to 
live, somewhere. And it would be br ief. If they failed in their endeavors
here
in the Grove— and the night beyond this world broke through—it would
be 
very brief. If they succeeded (small hope) it would still be brief.
And always better in the ending than the beginning, the interval between
being what it was.
If the exterior of Coney Eye had been the eye of a hurricane, the interior
was a glint in that eye. A sharpe r stillness, which made Tesla alive to
every
tic in her cheek and temple, every small raggedness in her breath. With
Jaffe following in after her she crossed the hallway towards the lounge
where he'd committed his crime agains t nature. The evidence of that
crime

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

have to step over it one by one, unl ess, with this lesion begun, they
could
simply hack it open till it gaped.
"It doesn't look too dangerous," she said to Jaffe. "We've got a chance if
we move quickly."
"I don't know how to seal it."
"Try. You knew how to open it."
"That was instinct."
"And what do your instincts tell you now?"
"That I haven't got the power left in me," he said. He raised his broken
hands. "I ate it up and spat it out."
"It was all in your hands?"
"I think so."
She remembered the night at the Mall: the Jaff passing poison into
Fletcher's system from fingers which seemed to be sweating potency.
Now
those same hands were decaying wreckage. And yet she couldn't bring
herself to believe power was a matter of anatomy. Kissoon had been
no.demigod, but his scrawny body was a re servoir of the direst suits. Will
was
the key to authority, and Jaffe seemed to have none left.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You?" he said. "You've not a hope in hell." He looked down at his
hands,
then back up at the schism. "I'm the one who opened it. I'm the only one
who ever dared do that. And I'm the only one who can seal it up again."
He walked past her towards the schism, that same lightness in his step
as 
she'd noticed when they were climbing  out of the caves. It allowed him
to 
negotiate the uneven floor with relative ease. It was only when he came
within a yard or two of the hole that his pace slowed. Then he stopped
completely.
"What is it?" she said.
"Come look for yourself."
She started across the room towards  him. It wasn't simply the visible
world
that was twisted and dragged towards the hole, she realized; so was the
invisible. The air, and the minute particles of dust and dirt it carried, was
hauled out of true. Space itself was knotted up, its convolutions pliable
enough to be pressed through but only with the greatest difficulty. The
effect got stronger the closer to the hole she went. Her body, already

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

since childhood when somebody (she'd  forgotten who) had taught her
the
trick of looking at infinity by putting two mirrors face to face, each staring
into the other's reflection. She'd been twelve, thirteen at most, and
completely spooked by the idea of  this emptiness echoing emptiness,
back
and forth, back and forth, until they reached the limits of light. For years
after she'd remembered that moment, confronted with a physical
representation of something her mind revolted at. Here was the same
process. The schism, defying her every idea about the way the world
was.
Reality as a comparative science.
She looked into its maw. Nothing t hat she saw was certain. If it was
cloud,
then it was cloud half turned to rain. If it was rain, then it was rain on
the.verge of combusting, and becoming a falling fire. And beyond the cloud,
and rain, and fire, another place entirely, as ambiguous as the confusion
of 
elements that half hid it: a sea that became a sky with no horizon to di-
vide
or define them. Quiddity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and
still gone on living, hoping, in the agonized, heroic way her species
hoped,
that miracles were possible; that the epiphanies of music and love were
more than self-deception, were clues to a greater condition, where hope
was rewarded with keys and kisses, and doors opened to the everlast-
ing.
Quiddity was that everlasting. It was the ether in which being had been
raised, as humanity had been raised from the soup of a simpler sea.
The
thought of Quiddity tainted by the  Iad was suddenly more distressing to
her
than the fact of their imminent in vasion. The phrase she'd first heard
from
Kissoon revisited her. Quiddity must  be preserved. As Mary Muralles
had
said, Kissoon only told lies when he needed to. That was no small part
of 
his genius: to hold to the truth as long as it served his purpose. And
Quiddity did need to be preserved. Without dreams, life was nothing.
Perhaps it would not even have come into being.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

passed out from its lips, running up through the room it had hauled into
itself. The frozen distortions shuddered, softening once again.
"It's wise to us," Jaffe said.
"We've still got to try," Tesla replied. The floor beneath their feet was
suddenly jittery; pieces of plaster dropped from the walls and ceiling. In-
side
the maw the clouds of fiery rain bloomed towards the Cosm.
Jaffe laid his hands on the softening intersection, but the schism was
having no truck with undoers. It threw a second spasm off, its violence
sufficient to throw Jaffe back into Tesla's arms.
"No good!" he said. "No good!"
Worse than no good. If they'd needed ev idence of the Iad's approach
they
had it now, as the cloud darkened, its motion unmistakable. As Jaffe
had
guessed, the tide had changed. The throat of the schism was not
concerned with swallowing, but with vomiting up whatever was choking
it..To do so, it started to open.
With that motion the beginning of the end began..VII
The book in Hotchkiss's hands was called Preparing for Armageddon,
and

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

preparations, the book interspersed these lists with photographs of
calamities that had occurred across America. Most of them were natural
phenomena. Forest fires raging,  unchecked and uncheckable; hurri-
canes
laying towns flat in their passage. There were several pages given over
to a
flood in Salt Lake City in May of 1983,  accompanied by pictures of Uta-
hans
building walls of sandbags to contain the water. But the image that
loomed
largest amid this catalogue of final acts was the mushroom cloud. There
were several photographs of that cloud, underneath one of which
Hotchkiss
found the simple legend:
The first atom-bomb was detonated at 0530 hours July 16, 1945, at a
location named Trinity by the bomb's creator, Robert Oppenheimer.
With
that detonation, Mankind's last age began.
There was no further explanation. The purpose of the book was not to
explain the atomic bomb and its construction, but to offer guidance on
how

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He stood up, Preparing for Armageddon in his hand, and crossed
through
the chaos of discarded books to the front of the store. Awaiting him out-
side
was a sight that stopped him in his  tracks. There were dozens of ani-
mals
running free in the lot. Puppies rolling around, mice running for cover
with
kittens on their tails; lizards basking on the hot asphalt. He looked along
the row of store-fronts. A parrot flew out through the open door of Ted
Elizando's store. Hotchkiss didn't know Ted at all, but he knew the sto-
ries
about the man. As a source of gossip himself he'd always attended
closely
to what was said about others. Eliz ando had lost his mind, his wife and
his
baby. Now he was losing his little ark in the Mall as well; setting it free.
The task of getting the information on Trinity to Tesla Bombeck was
more
important than offering words of comfort or warning to Elizando, even if

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mals
underfoot, but no sign of their liberator. He called the man's name.
"Elizando? Are you OK?"
There was no answer, and it occurred  to Hotchkiss that the man had
killed
himself. Set the animals free then slit his wrists. He picked up his speed,
weaving through the displays, the perches and the cages. Halfway down
the store he saw Elizando's body slumped on the far side of a sizeable
cage. The occupants, a small flock of canaries, were panicked, fluttering
back and forth, feathers dashed from their wings against the wire.
Hotchkiss dropped the book and went to Ted's aid.
"What have you done?" he said as he approached. "Jesus, man, what
have you done?"
As he got closer to the body he realized his error. This was no suicide.
The wounds on his face—which was pressed against the wire—were
not
self-inflicted. They were traumatic; co bs of flesh torn out of his cheek
and
neck. The blood had spilled through the mesh and covered the bottom
of 
the canaries' cage, but it had ceased to pump with any gusto. He'd been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him
and the exit. Had he not had to pick up the book he might have outrun it,
but by the time he had Preparing for Armageddon in his hand it was at
the
door. Now that it was in full sight several facts became clear. That this
was
no escapee from the store (no household in the Grove would have given
it 
a home). That it bore as much resemblance to a Moray eel as it did to a
snake, but even that lik eness was vague: it was,  in truth, like nothing
he'd
seen before. And finally, that it  had left smears of blood on the tiles to
mark
its advance; and that the interior of  its mouth was also wet with blood.
This
was Elizando's killer. He retreated in front of it, evoking the name of the
Savior he'd long ago forsaken:
"Jesus."
The word brought laughter from somewhere at the back of the store. He
turned. The door to Ted's office was wide open. Though the room be-
yond

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

snake or its charmer—and they were surely in league—he chose the
charmer. A naked man, squatting, was not much threat.
"What the fuck's going on here?" Hotchkiss demanded as he ap-
proached.
The man grinned in the murk. His smile was wet and wide.
"I'm making Lix," he replied.
"Lix?"
"Behind you."
Hotchkiss didn't need to turn around  to know his exit was still blocked.
He
had no choice but to stand his ground, even though he was increasingly
appalled by the sight in front of hi m. Not only was the man naked, but
his
body, from the middle of his chest to the middle of his thigh, was
swarming
with bugs, the store's supply of lizard food and fish food, here assuaging
another appetite. Their motion had him hard, his crooked member the
focus
of their endeavors. But there was a sight as repulsive or worse on the
ground in front of him: a small heap of animal excrement, droppings

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

squirming
motion. Two emerged from behind their maker. Another was climbing up
the counter to the right of Hotchkiss, and wriggling towards him. In order
to 
avoid it, he took a backward step,  and realized too late that the maneu-
ver
had put him within reach of another of the beasts. It was at his leg in two
beats, ascending it in three. He dropped Armageddon a second time
and
reached down to strike at the thing, but its gaping mouth struck first, the
twin motions throwing him off balance. He staggered back against a
shelf of
cages, his flailing arms bringing several of them down. A second snatch,
this time at the shelf itself, was just as fruitless. Built only to bear kittens
and their cages, it gave way beneath his weight, and he fell to the
ground,
the shelf and its load coming down after him. Had it not been for the
cages
he might have been slaughtered on the spot, but they delayed the Lix
converging on him from front door  and back. He was granted ten sec-
onds'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to 
yell for help, before the breath was squeezed out of him.
"There's only me," came the reply.
He gazed up at the man called Raul who was no longer squatting in
ordure, but standing over him—still hard, still swarming—one of the Lix
draped around his neck. He had the first two fingers of his hand in its
open
mouth, stroking the back of its throat.
"You're not Raul," Hotchkiss gasped.
"No."
"Who...?"
The last word he heard before the Lix wound around his chest tightened
its knot, was the answer to that question. A name, made up of two gen-
tle 
syllables. Kiss and soon. It was these  words he thought of at the last,
like a
prophecy. Kiss; soon. Carolyn, wait ing on the other side of death, lips
ready
to press to his cheek. It made his last moments bearable, after all the
horrors.
"I think what we've got here is a lost cause," Tesla said to Grillo as she

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You can't hold me up any more than I can hold you—"
"What's happening in there?"
"The hole's started to open again. It's like a dam's going to burst."
"Shit."
The entire house was creaking now; the palms lining the driveway were
shaking down dead fronds as they  rocked, the driveway cracking as
though
it was sledge-hammered from below.
"I should warn the cops," Grillo said. "Tell them what's coming."
"I think we lost this one, Grillo. Do you know what happened to
Hotchkiss?"
"No."
"I hope he gets out before they come through."
"He won't."
"He should. No town's worth dying for."
"I think it's time I made my call, don't you?"
"What call?" she said.."To Abernethy? Break the bad news."
Tesla made a small sigh. "Yeah, why don't you? The Last Scoop."
"I'll be back," he said. "Don't think  you're getting out of here alone,
you're
not. We're going together."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bulk of them had withdrawn a good di stance down the Hill, leaving a
single
vehicle just outside the gates, with  two men posted as observers. They
paid
little notice to Grillo. Their twin concerns—one professional, one per-
sonal—
were watching the house, and preparing for a rapid retreat if the fissures
spread in their direction. Grillo drove on past them, and down the Hill.
There was a half-hearted attempt by one of the officers lower down the
slope to halt him, but he simply drove on by, heading to the Mall. There
he'd hope to find a public telephone in which to make his call to Aber-
nethy.
There too he'd find Hotchkiss, and warn  him, if he didn't already know,
that
the game was up. As he negotiated the rat maze of streets blocked or
plowed up or turned into chasms, he experimented with headlines for
this
last report. The End of the World Is Nigh was so commonplace. He did-
n't 
want to be just another in a long line of prophets promising the Apoca-
lypse,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over. The species had enjoyed its adv enture, but it was coming to an
end.
He stopped the car at the entrance to the lot, and stepped out to survey
the bizarre spectacle of animal playtime. A smile came to his lips, de-
spite
himself. What bliss they knew, knowing nothing: playing in the sun with-
out
the least suspicion of how short their span was. He crossed the lot to
the
book store but Hotchkiss wasn't there. The stock was scattered over the
floor, evidence of a search that had presumably ended in failure. He
headed along to the pet store, in hope of finding some human company,
and a phone. There was a din of birds  from inside: the store's last cap-
tives.
If he had time he'd set them free himself. No reason why they shouldn't
get
a glimpse of the sun.
"Anyone home?" he said, putting his head around the door.
A gecko ran out between his legs. He watched it go, the same inquiry on
his tongue. It went unsaid. The gecko had run through blood on its way
out

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

but he kept up his labors until he'd s een enough of Hotchkiss to be cer-
tain
he was dead. Uncovering his head confirmed that fact. The skull had
been
crushed to smithereens, shards of bone sticking up like broken crockery
from the mush of his mind and senses. No animal housed in a store this
size could have committed such violence; nor was it easy to see what
weapon might have caused it. He didn't linger to ponder the problem,
not
with the very real possibility that those responsible were still in the vicin-
ity.
He scanned the floor, looking for some weapon. A leash, a studded
collar,
anything to ward off the slaughter. His search took him to a book,
dropped
on the floor a little way from Hotchkiss's body.
He read the title aloud:
"Preparing for Armageddon?"
Then he picked it up, flipping through it quickly. It seemed to be a man-
ual
on how to survive the Apocalypse. These were words of wisdom from

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

places. Maintain a year's supply. "
He flipped on through it. Why had Hotchkiss selected this book?
Hurricanes, forest fires and floods? Wh at did they have to do with Trin-
ity?
And then there it was: a grainy  photograph of a mushroom cloud, and
the
words beneath, identifying the place where it had been detonated.
Trinity, New Mexico.
He read no further. Book in hand he ran out into the lot, animals scat-
tering
in front of him, and got into the car. His call to Abernethy would have to
wait. How the simple fact that Trinit y was the birthplace of the bomb fit-
ted
into this story he didn't know, but perhaps Tesla would. And even if she
didn't he'd have the satisfaction of bringing her the news. It was absurd,
he 
knew, to be so suddenly pleased with himself, as though this information
made some difference to things. The world was going to end (The Ride
Is 
Over) yet having this small piece of the puzzle in his hands was enough
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One had virtually disappeared entirely—the earth had simply opened up
and guzzled it—the other was strewn with wreckage from two toppled
houses. He found a third route that was still passable, and began up the
Hill, the tremors in the ground becoming so violent that on occasion he
could barely control the car. A few observers had appeared on the
scene
during his absence, in three unmarked helicopters, the largest of which
was
hovering directly over the Vance  house, its passengers attempting to
make,
no doubt, an assessment of the situat ion. They must have guessed by
now
that this was no natural phenomenon. Perhaps they even knew the root
cause. D'Amour had told Tesla the existence of the Iad was known to
the
highest of the high. If so, there should have been firepower ranged
around
the house hours before, instead of a few frightened cops. Had they not
believed the evidence in their hands, the generals and the politicians?
Were they too pragmatic to think t hat their empire could be put in jeop-
ardy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gates of Coney Eye had been toppled; so had its perimeter wall. He
left the car in front of the pile of rubble, and clutching the book climbed
towards the house, upon the face of which something he took to be a
cloud-shadow seemed to sit. The ructions had opened up the fissures in
the driveway and he had to tread with care, his concentration befuddled
by 
a distressing quality in the atmosphere around the house. The closer he
got to the door the darker the shadow seemed to get. Though the sun
was
still beating down on the back of his head, and on Coney Eye's cake-in-
the-rain
facade, the whole scene was grimy, as though a layer of dirty varnish
had been painted over everything. It made his head ache to see it; his
sinuses pricked, his ears popped. More distressing than these minor
discomforts was a palpable sense of  dread that grew stronger in him
with
every step he took. His head started  to fill up with sickening images,
culled
from his years in the newsrooms of a dozen papers, looking at photo-
graphs
no editor, however squalid, would have put to the press. There were

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cruelties, all filling up his head.
"The Iad," he heard Tesla say, and swung his eyes around in the direc-
tion
of her voice. The air between them was thick, her face grainy, as though
reproduced. Not real. None of it real. Pictures on a screen.
"It's the Iad coming," she said. "That 's what you're feeling. You should
get
away from here. There's no use in your staying—"
"No," he said, "I've got...a message."
He was having difficulty holding on to that thought. The innocents kept
appearing, one after the other, bearing every kind of wound.
"What message?" she said.
"Trinity."
"What about it?"
She was shouting, he realized, but still her voice was barely audible.
"You said Trinity, Grillo."
"Yes?"
"What about it?"
So many eyes, looking at him. He  couldn't think past them; past their
hurt
and their powerlessness.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

him
he remembered.
"The bomb," he said.
"What?"
"Trinity is where they exploded the first atomic bomb."
He saw a look of comprehension cross her face.
"You understand?" he said.
"Yes. Jesus! Yes!"
She didn't bother to open the book he'd brought, she just told him to get
away, back towards the road. He listened as best he could but he knew
there was another piece of information he needed to convey. Something
almost as vital as Trinity; and as much about death. Try as he might he
couldn't bring it to mind.
"Go on back," she told him again. "Out of this filth."
He nodded, knowing he was useless to her, and stumbled away
through.the dirty air, the sunlight br ightening the further he got from the
house, the
images of the dead innocents no longer dominating his thoughts. As he
turned the corner of the driveway, and came in sight of the Hill again, he
remembered the information he'd failed to convey. Hotchkiss was dead;
murdered; head crushed. Somebody or something had committed that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ready
caught up with him again. Before it befuddled him afresh he pulled out a
pen he'd brought from the motel in case he'd needed to take notes. He'd
brought a paper too, from the receptionist's desk, but the parade of
cruelties was coming at him agai n and he feared losing the thought
while
finding the pad, so he simply scrawled the word on the back of his hand.
"Hotchk—" was as much as he could manage. Then his fingers lost the
power to write, and his mind the power to hold anything but grief for
dead
innocents and the thought that he had to see Tesla again. Message and
messenger one flesh, he turned about and stumbled back into the Iad's
cloud of influence. But when he reached the place where the woman
who
shouted in whispers had been, she' d gone closer still to the source of
these
cruelties, where he doubted his sanity could survive to follow.
So much suddenly made sense to Tesla, not least the atmosphere of
anticipation she'd always felt in the Loop, particularly when passing
through

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

set a dinosaur movie there. Her dramatic instinct had been on the but-
ton.
This was a town waiting for doomsday. It was just the monster she'd got
wrong. What better place for Kissoon to hide the evidence of his crime?
When the flash came the bodies would be utterly consumed. She could
well imagine what perverse pleasure he'd have taken in plotting such an
elaborate creation, knowing that the cloud that destroyed the Shoal was
one of the most indelible images of the century.
But he'd been outplotted. Mary Muralles had trapped him in the Loop,
and
until he could find a new body to leave in he was its prisoner, his will
perpetually holding the moment of  detonation at bay. He'd lived like a
man
with his finger on a crack in a  dam, knowing that the moment he ne-
glected
his duty the dam would burst and overwhelm him. No wonder the word
Trinity had thrown his thoughts into  confusion. It was the name of his
terror..Was there a way to use this knowledge against the Iad? An out-
landish
possibility occurred to her as she re turned into the house, but she'd
need

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the merest rumor of their approach,  could so profoundly affect the psy-
che.
Not in all her attempts to imagine the nature of that invasion had she
considered the possibility that their weapon would be madness. But
perhaps it was. Though she was able to ward off this assault of vileness
for
a time she knew she'd capitulate to it sooner or later. No human mind
could
keep it at bay forever, and would have no choice, drawing in such hor-
rors,
but to take refuge in insanity. The Iad Uroboros would rule a planet of
lunatics.
Jaffe was already well on his way to mental collapse, of course. She
found
him standing at the door of the room where he'd practiced the Art. The
space behind him had been entirely commandeered by the schism.
Looking through the door she truly understood for the first time why
Quiddity was called a sea. Waves of  dark energy were beating against
the
shore of the Cosm, their surf spillin g through the schism. Beyond it she
saw

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

she
doubted, they were impossible to assimilate as such. One thing she was
certain of: caring parents they weren't.
"Do you see?" Jaffe said.
"Oh yes," she said.
He asked the question again, his voice lighter than she'd ever heard it.
"Do you see, Poppa?"
"Poppa?" she said.
"I'm not afraid, Poppa," the voice ou t of the Jaff went on. "They won't
hurt
me. I'm the Death-Boy."
Now she understood. Jaffe wasn't  simply seeing with Tommy-Ray's
eyes,
he was speaking with the boy's voice. She'd lost the father to the son.
"Jaffe!" she said. "Listen to me. I need your help! Jaffe?" He made no
reply. Avoiding sight of the schism as  best she could she went to him
and
took hold of his tattered shirt, hauling him towards the front
door.."Randolph!" she said. "You've got to speak to me."
The man grinned. It wasn't an expr ession that had ever belonged on
that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was not a great shaman. She c ouldn't seal the schism. But she
might
move it. She'd proved twice before that she had the power to pass in
and
out of the Loop. To dissolve herse lf—and others—in thought, and re-
move
them to Trinity. Could she also jump dead matter? Wood, and plaster? A
piece of a house, for instance? This  part of this house, for instance?
Could
she dissolve the slice of the Cosm she and the schism occupied, and
remove it to Point Zero, where a force was ticking that might fell the gi-
ants
before they spread their madness?
There was no answer to the questions this side of attempting the suit. If
she failed, the answer was no. Simple as that. She'd have a few mo-
ments
the wiser for her failure before wisdom, failure and her aspirations to
shamanhood became academic.
Tommy-Ray had started to speak ag ain, his monologue now deterio-
rated
to a ragged babble.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She didn't look back towards the schism to see if the giants were visible,
though she was sorely tempted. T he moment would come when she'd
have
to look it in the eye but she wasn't yet ready; wasn't calm, wasn't girded.
She took another step back to the front door, and seized firm hold of the
door jamb. It felt so damn solid. Her common sense protested at the
idea of
being able to think such solidity into another place and time. She told
her
common sense to go get fucked. It and the madness that was spewing
from the schism were not opposites. Reason could be cruel; logic could
be 
lunacy. There was another state of mind that put aside such naive
dichotomies; that made power from being in between conditions.
All things to all men..She remembered suddenly what D'Amour had
said, about there being a
savior rumored. She'd thought he'd meant Jaffe, but she'd been looking
too
far afield. She was that savior. Tesla Bombeck, the wild woman of West
Hollywood, reversed and resurrected.
The realization gave her new faith; and with the faith, a simple grasp of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

up,
swallow them. They were all devourable. The solid and insolid, this
world
and that, all edible and moveable feasts. Now she knew that, nothing
could
keep her from the table.
She looked at the schism, dead on.
"Not even you," she said, and began to eat.
As Grillo had got within two steps of the front door the innocents had
come back to claim him, their assault more pitiless than ever, this close
to 
the schism. He lost the power to mo ve forward or back, as brutalities
rose
around him. He seemed to be treading on small, bloody bodies. They
turned their sobbing faces up to him, but he knew there was no help for
them. Not now. The shadow that was moving across Quiddity brought
with
it an end to mercy. Nor would its reign ever end. It would never be
judged;
never be brought to account. Somebody moved past him towards the
door,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

new twist. Black snakes, as thick as his arm, were crawling over the
children as they followed the man in side. Appalled, he took a step for-
ward
in the vain hope of stamping one or all of them out. The step took him
closer to the edge of insanity, which  paradoxically lent force to his cru-
sade.
He took a second step, and a third, trying to put his heel on the heads of
these black beasts. The fourth step took him over the threshold of the
house, and into another madness entirely.
"Raul?"
Of all people, Raul.
Just as she'd got a grip on the task before her he stepped through the
door, his appearance here so shocking she might have put it down to
some
mental aberrance, had she not been certain of her mind's workings now
as.she'd never been certain in her life before. This was no hallucination. He
was here in the flesh, her name on his lips and a look of welcome on his
face.
"What are you doing here?" she said, f eeling her grasp of the suit slip-
ping
from her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to 
her was up the stairs. At best that promised a temporary reprieve. She'd
be 
trapped up there, waiting for them to find her in their own good time, ex-
cept
that they wouldn't need to bother. In  minutes, the Iad would be in the
Cosm.
After which, death might very well be desirable. She had to stay put, Lix
or 
no Lix. Her business was here, and it had to be done quickly.
"Keep away from me," she said to R aul. "I don't know why you're here,
but
just keep your distance!"
"I came to see the arrival," Raul re plied. "We can wait here together if
you
like."
Raul's shirt was unbuttoned, and around his neck she caught sight of a
familiar object: the Shoal medallion. With the sight came a suspicion:
that
this wasn't Raul at all. His manner wasn't that of the frightened Nunciate
she'd met at the Mision de Santa Catrina. There was somebody else

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

way
you or Randolph resisted. He gave in quickly enough."
"You murdered him."
"Oh no," Kissoon said lightly. "His spirit's alive and kicking. Keeping my
flesh from the fire till I go back for it.  I'll reoccupy it once it's out of the
Loop.
I certainly don't want to stay in this. It's repulsive."
He came at her suddenly, agile as only Raul could be, leaping to catch
hold of her arm. She yelled at the force of his grip. He smiled at her
again,
closing on her in two quick steps, his face inches from hers in a heart-
beat.
"Gotcha," he said..She looked past him to the door, where Grillo was
standing, staring into
the schism, against which Quiddity's waves were breaking with mount-
ing
frequency and ferocity. She yelled his name, but he didn't respond.
Sweat
ran down his face; saliva dribbled from his slack jaw. Wherever he was
out
wandering, he wasn't home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

changed. One was Jo-Beth McGuire. The other was Howie Katz. Fur-
ther
out in the waves he thought he glimpsed a third figure, pale against the
dark sky. This one he didn't know. There appeared to be no flesh left on
his
face to recognize. He was a death's-head, riding the surf.
It was further out still, however, where the real horror began. Forms
massive and rotting, the air around them dense with activity, as though
flies
the size of birds were feeding on their foulness. The Iad Uroboros. Even
now, mesmerized, his mind (inspired by Swift) looked for words to de-
scribe
the sight, but the vocabulary was impoverished when it came to evil.
Depravity, iniquity, godlessness: w hat were those simple conditions in
the
face of such unredeemable essences? Hobbies and entertainments.
Palate
cleansers between viler courses. He almost envied those closer to the
abominations the comprehension that might come with proximity—
Tossed in the tumult of the waves, Howie could have told him a thing or

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yond
these loathsome images to Jo-Beth,  with whom he'd come so far, on a
tide
which had conspired to keep them together, but couldn't get them to the
shore fast enough to save them from the slaughterers at their backs.
The
sight of her, which might have sw eetened these last despairing mo-
ments,
was denied him. All he could see was the cattle beaten on to the ramps,
and the shit and blood being hosed away, and kicking carcasses being
hooked up by one broken leg and s ent down the line for disembowel-
ment.
The same horror filling his head forever and forever.
The place beyond the surf was as invisible to him as Jo-Beth, so he had
no idea of how far—or indeed how near— they were to its shores. Had
he 
had the power of sight he'd have se en Jo-Beth's father, stricken,
and.speaking with Tommy-Ray's voice:
"...here we come!...here we come...,"
—and Grillo staring out at the Iad; and Tesla, on the verge of losing her
life to a man she called—

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in 
it. A high place. You know how many years I've waited for this? Planned
for
it? Murdered for it? They'll reward me."
"Signed a contract did you? Got it in writing?"
"I'm their liberator. I made this possible. You should have joined the
team
back in the Loop. Lent me your body for a while. I'd have protected you.
But
no. You had your own ambitions. Like him." He looked at Jaffe. "Him the
same. Had to have a piece of the pie. You both choked on it." Knowing
Tesla couldn't leave now, when ther e was nowhere to leave to, he let
her
go and took a step towards Jaffe. "He got closer than you did, but then
he 
had the balls."
Tommy-Ray's whoops of exhilaration were no longer issuing from Jaffe.
There was only a low moan, which might have been the father, or the
son,
or a combination of both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

she might just begin the process of removal to the Loop afresh.
"Wake up and see me, fucker. It's Kissoon. I got out! I got out!"
She let his haranguings become part of the scene she was picturing.
Nothing could be excluded. Jaffe, Gr illo, the doorway out to Cosm, and
of 
course the doorway to Quiddity, all of it had to be devoured. Even she,
the
devourer, had to be part of this removal. Chewed up and spat into an-
other
time.
Kissoon's shouts suddenly stopped.
"What are you doing?" he said, turni ng to look at her. His stolen fea-
tures,
not used to expressing rage, were  knotted up in a grotesque fashion.
She
didn't let the sight distract her.  That too was part of the scene to
be.swallowed. She was equal to it.
"Don't you dare!" Kissoon said. "Hear me?"
She heard, and ate.
"I'm warning you," he said, moving back in her direction.  "Don't you
dare!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't you dare."
"Red rag to a bull, saying dare to me. I've seen stuff...done stuff..."
Prompted by the words, he remembered a motion. His hand going down
to the pocket of his jacket, to find a blunt-bladed knife that was waiting
there. A knife with an appetite  for opening up sealed and secret things.
Like
letters; like skulls.
He heard the words again—
"Don't you dare."
—and opened his sight to the scene in front of him. His arm, a parody of
the strong limb he'd once owned—went down to his pocket. All these
years
he'd never let the knife out of his possession. It was still blunt. It was still
hungry. His withered digits closed ar ound the handle. His eyes focused
on 
the head of the man who'd spoken from his memories. It was an easy
target.
Tesla saw the motion of Jaffe's head from the corner of her eye; saw
him
push himself away from the wall and start to raise his right arm up from
the

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the
pain of her enemy, and her power seem ed to rise on its arc, the task
she'd
undertaken suddenly easier than it had ever been, as though part of
Kissoon's strength was passing to her  in the sound. She felt the space
they
occupied in her mind's mouth, a nd chewed on it. The house shuddered
as 
a significant piece of it was wrenched away and removed into the closed
moments of the Loop.
Instantly, light..The light of t he Loop's perpetual dawn, pouring in
through the door. With it
the same wind that had blown on her face whenever she'd been here. It
blew through the hallway, and took a portion of the Iad's taint with it, off
across the wasteland. With its passing she saw the glazed look leaving
Grillo's face. He grabbed hold of t he door jamb, squinting against the
light
and shaking his head like a dog maddened with fleas.
With their maker wounded, the Lix had left off their attack, but she didn't
hope they'd leave her be for long. Before he could redirect them she
made

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

apart at every corner.
"You want the good news or the bad?" she said.
"The good."
"This is the Loop. I brought part of the house through—"
Now she'd done it she could barely believe she'd succeeded.
"I did," she said, as though Grillo had contradicted her. "Fuck me, I did!"
"Including the Iad?" Grillo said.
"The schism and whatever's on the other side came too."
"So what's the bad news?"
"This is Trinity, remember? Point Zero?"
"Oh Jesus."
"And that—" she pointed to the steel tower, which was no more than a
quarter of a mile from where they stood, "— is the bomb."
"So when does it blow? Have we got time—"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe it won't detonate as long as Kissoon's
alive. He's held that moment, all these years."
"Is there any way out?"
"Yes."
"Which direction? Let's do it."
"Don't waste time wishing, Grillo. We're not getting out of here alive."
"You can think us out. You thought us in."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the ether of the dream-sea was spilling  out in all directions, too thick
now to.be dispersed by the wind. They  were in it somewhere, but out of
sight.
"Tesla? Are you listening to me?"
"The bomb won't go till Kissoon's dead," she said. "He's holding the
moment—"
"So you said."
"If you want to run for the exit, you might make it. It's in that direction."
She pointed beyond the cloud through the town and out the other side.
"You'd better get going."
"You think I'm a coward."
"Did I say that?"
A wave of ether curled towards them.
"If you're going to go, go," she said, her gaze fixed on the rubble of
Coney
Eye's lounge and hall. Above it, just  visible through Quiddity's spillage,
was
the schism, hanging in the air. It doubled in size in the space between
blinks, tearing itself open. She readied herself for the sight of the giants.
But it was human forms she saw first, two of them, thrown up and out on
to

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

looked
up first. Leading Howie by the hand she sought Tesla out in the turmoil.
"This way," Tesla said. "You have to get away from the hole—"
The tainted ether was inducing nightmares. They itched to be seen. But
Jo-Beth seemed able to think her way through them to a simple ques-
tion.
"Where are we?"
There was no simple answer.
"Grillo will tell you," she said. "Later. Grillo?"
He was there, already getting that  same distracted look she'd seen in
his
eyes at the door of Coney Eye.
"Children," he said. "Why's it always children?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him. "Listen to me,
Grillo."
"I'm...listening," he said.
"You wanted to get out. I told you the way, remember?"
"Through the town."
"Through the town."
"Out the other side."
"Right."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes."
"It's simple," she said. "This is the final trial. All things to all men,
remember?"
"Damn stupid," he said, holding her gaze, as though the sight of her
helped him keep the insanity at bay.
"Damn right," she said.
"So many things..." he said.
"What?"
"I haven't said to you."
"You didn't need to. And I hope neither did I."
"You were right."
"Except one. Something I should have told you."
"What?"
"I should have said—" she began; then grinned a wide, almost ecstatic
grin that she didn't need to fake because it came from some contented
place in her; and with it terminated her sentence as she'd terminated so
many telephone calls between them and turned away, heading off into
the
next wave out of the schism, where she knew he couldn't follow.
Somebody was coming her way; another swimmer in the dream-sea,
thrown up on the beach.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

resembled bone. His brows and cheeks had swollen up, his eyes sunk.
He
looked like a living skull. He wiped a  thread of saliva from his chin with
the
back of his hand, the pinpoints of hi s gaze directed past Tesla to where
his
sister stood.
"Jo-Beth..." he said, moving through the wash of dark air. Tesla saw Jo-
Beth
look back towards him, then take a step away from Howie as though
she was ready to part from him. Though she had urgent business to fin-
ish
Tesla could not help but watch, as Tommy-Ray moved to claim his sis-
ter.
The love that had ignited between Howie and Jo-Beth had begun this
whole story, or at least its most recent chapter. Was it possible that
Quiddity had undone that love?.She had the answer a beat later, as Jo-
Beth took a second step from
Howie's side, till they were at arm's length, her right hand still holding his
left. With a thrill of comprehension  Tesla saw what  Jo-Beth was dis-
playing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most
probably there was none. Skulls could only grin and grimace; opposites
collided in one expression. She sa w Jo-Beth's look, however, even
through
the intervening murk. There was a little pity in it. But only a little. The
rest
was dispassion.
Tesla saw Grillo speak, words to summon the lovers away. They went
immediately; all three. Tommy-Ray didn't move to follow.
"Death-Boy?" she said.
He looked around at her. The skull was still capable of tears. They
welled
on the curve of his sockets.
"How far are they behind you?" she asked him. "The Iad?"
"Iad?" he said.
"The giants."
"There are no giants. Just darkness."
"How far?"
"Very close."
When she looked back towards the schism she understood what he

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

be 
far behind.
She glanced away from the sight to wards the steel tower, and the plat-
form
on top of it. The bomb was her species' ultimate idiocy, but it might jus-
tify
its existence if it was quick in its  detonation. There was no flicker from
the
platform, however. The bomb hung in its cradle like a bandaged baby,
refusing to wake.
Kissoon was still alive; still holding t he moment. She started back to-
wards
the rubble in the hope of finding him, and in the vainer hope of stopping
his
life with her own hands. As she approached she realized the clots had
purpose in their upward movement. They were assembling themselves
in 
layers, their filaments knotting so as to create a vast curtain. It was al-
ready
thirty feet in the air, and each wa ve that broke brought more clots,
their.number rising exponentially as the schism widened.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

freely running. The cuts seemed not to have impaired Kissoon's
strength.
Even as she came in sight of them the shaman tore at Jaffe's throat.
Pieces of his flesh came away. Kissoon went back for more instantly,
opening the wound further. She directed him from his assault with a cry.
"Kissoon!"
The shaman glanced her way.
"Too late," he said. "The Iad's almost here."
She took what comfort she could from that almost.
"You both lost," he said, taking a back-handed swipe at Jaffe which
threw
the man off him to the ground. The frail, bony body didn't land heavily; it
had too little weight. But it rolled some distance, the knife going from
Jaffe's
hand. Kissoon offered his opponent a contemptuous glance, then
laughed.
"Poor bitch," he said to Tesla. "What did you expect? A reprieve? A
blinding flash to wipe them all away? Forget it. It can't happen. The
moment's held."
He started towards her as he talked, his approach slower than it might
otherwise have been had he not sustained so many wounds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Muralles's blood.
"The breasts," he said. "Show it the breasts."
A long way behind him, Tesla saw Jaffe getting to his feet. Kissoon
failed
to notice the motion. His eyes were all for Tesla.
"I think I should bare them for you," he said. "Allow me to do you that
kindness. "
She didn't retreat; didn't put up any resistance. Instead she dropped all
expression from her face, knowing how much he liked the pliant. His
bloody
hands were repulsive, the hard-on pressing against the soaked fabric of
his
trousers more disgusting still, but she succeeded in concealing her
repugnance.
"Good girl," he said. "Good girl."
He put his hands on her breasts.
"What say we fuck for the millennium?" he said..She couldn't quite dis-
cipline the shudder that ran through her at the touch
and the thought.
"Don't like it?" he said, suddenly suspicious. His eyes flickered off to his

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

could
forbid it, sliding into his wide right eye. Kissoon didn't scream this time,
but
expelled his breath as a long moan.  Jaffe pulled the knife out and
stabbed
again, the second stab as accurate as  the first, puncturing the left eye.
He
drove the blade in to the hilt, and pulled it out. Kissoon flailed, his moan
becoming sobs as he fell to his k nees. With both his fists wrapped
around
the knife Jaffe delivered a third blow  to the top of the shaman's skull,
then
went on stabbing, the force of the blows opening wound after wound.
Kissoon's sobs stopped as suddenly as they'd begun. His hands, which
had been scrabbling at his head to ward off further cuts, fell to his sides.
His body stayed upright for two beats. Then he fell forward.
A spasm of pleasure ran through Tesla that was indistinguishable from
the
highest pleasure. She wanted the bomb to detonate at that moment,
matching its completion with her own. Kissoon was dead and it would
not

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sweated
all those years to hold at bay had to come? Now; on delay. But there
was
nothing. The steel tower still stood.
"What have I missed?" she asked herself. "What in God's name have I
missed?"
She looked towards Jaffe, who was  still staring down  at Kissoon's
corpse.
"Synchronicity," he said.
"What?"
"I killed him."
"It doesn't seem to have answered the problem."
"What problem?"
"This is Point Zero. There's a bomb, just waiting to detonate. He was
holding that moment at bay."
"Who was?"
"Kissoon! Isn't it obvious?".No,  babe—she told herself—it's not. Of
course it's not. The thought was
suddenly clear in her head that Kissoon had left the Loop in Raul's body
intending to come back to claim his own. Once out in the Cosm he had-
n't

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ate it up and spat it out."
"Like my hands?"
"No, not like your hands. Not at all."
The sun was steadily being blocked out  by the mesh of clots, the light
only
breaking through in patches.
"Where are you going?" he said again.
"The hut. Kissoon's hut."
"Why?"
"Just come with me. I need help."
A cry in the gloom slowed progress a moment.
"Poppa?"
She looked round to see Tommy-Ray stepping out of shadow into a
patch
of light. The sun was strangely kind to him, its brilliance bleaching out
the
worst details of his transformed state.
"Poppa?"
Jaffe stopped following Tesla.
"Come on," she urged him, but she already knew she'd once more lost

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you coming or not?"
The answer was simple:
"Not," he said.
She didn't bother to waste breath on  the issue. The boy had a prior
claim;
a primal claim. She watched their embrace tighten, as though they were
squeezing the breath from each other, then she again set her sights on
the
tower and began to run.
Though she forbade herself a backward glance, as she came to the
tower—her lungs already aching, and still a bruising distance to go be-
fore.she found the hut—she looked.  Father and son had not moved. They
stood
in a patch of brightness, wrapped around each other, with the clots still
assembling behind them. From this distance their construction resem-
bled
the work of a monumental and funereal lace-maker. She studied the
curtain a moment, her mind racing through interpretations and finding a
solution to its existence both preposterous and plausible: that this was a
veil behind which the Iad Uroboros were going to rise. Indeed there
seemed to be motion behind its folds already; a greater darkness,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

their sanity. This last trip demanded energies they scarcely had to give.
With every other step their bodies th reatened to give out, the hard des-
ert
floor looking comfortable by contrast  with the agony of advancing. But
the
oldest fear known to man drove them  on: that of the pursuing beast. It
had
neither claws nor fangs, of course, but it was all the more lethal for that.
A 
beast of fire. It was only when they  reached the town that they slowed
their
pace long enough to exchange a few gasping words.
"How much farther?" Jo-Beth wanted to know.
"Just on the other side of the town."
Howie was staring back at the Iad curtain, which had now mounted a
hundred feet and more.
"Do you think they see us?" he said.
"Who?" said Grillo. "The Iad? If they do they don't seem to be following."
"That isn't them," Jo-Beth said. "That's just their veil."
"So we've still got a chance," Howie said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

over in her mind, the exchange in wh ich she'd confessed to him the ex-
tent
of her spiritual ambition. If she died here in the Loop—and that was vir-
tually
inevitable—she knew she'd come  to understand more about the work-
ings
of the world in the days since she'd  arrived in Palomo Grove than in all
the
years previous. She'd had adventures beyond her body. She'd encoun-
tered
incarnations of good and evil, and learned something of her condition
because she resembled neither. If s he was gone from this life soon, ei-
ther
at the instant of detonation, or at the Iad's arrival, she had no complaint
at.that.
But there were so many souls who had not yet made their peace with
extinction, nor should have to. Inf ants, children, lovers. Peaceable peo-
ple
the planet over, whose lives were still in the making and enriching, who,
if

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But
mind was in matter, always. That was the revelation of Quiddity. The
sea
was the crossroads , and from it all possibilit ies sprang. Before every-
thing,
Quiddity. Before life, the dream of lif e. Before the thing solid, the solid
thing
dreamt. And mind, dreaming or awake,  knew justice, which was there-
fore
as natural as matter, its absence in any exchange deserving of more
than a
fatalistic shrug. It merited a howl of outrage; and a passionate pursuit of
why. If she wished to live beyond the impending holocaust it was to
shout
that shout. To find out what crime her species had committed against
the
universal mind that it should now be tottering on execution. That was
worth
living to know-The hut was in sight. Behind her the suspicion she'd had
that

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

their anatomies before they could be raised. When she began again
towards the hut the glimpse she'd h ad of the emergents began to re-
solve
itself in her mind's eye, her wits  making coherence of their titanic mys-
tery.
The door of the hut was closed, of  course. But it wasn't locked. She
pulled
it open.
Kissoon was waiting for her. The shock of the sight of him took her
breath
away, and she was about to retreat  out into the sun until she realized
that
the body propped up against the far wa ll was vacated by spirit, its sys-
tem
ticking on to preserve it from mortification. There was nobody behind the
glazed eyes. The door slammed closed, and without wasting any more
time
she named the only spirit here that  could possibly be holding the mo-
ment
in Kissoon's stead.
"Raul?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't know what he did to you to make you give up your body, but I
know it wasn't your fault. He trick ed you. He lied to you. He did the
same to
me. Do you understand? You're not to blame."
The air began to settle somewhat. She took a deep breath and began
her
persuasions again, remembering how she'd first bullied him into coming
with her, back at the Mission.
"If it's anybody's fault, it's mine,"  she said. "Forgive me, Raul. We've
both
of us come to the end. But if it's  any comfort, so's Kissoon. He's dead.
He
won't be coming back. Your body...won't be coming back. It's destroyed.
There was no other way of killing him."
The hurt of the whine had been re placed by another, deeper ache: that
of 
knowing how much his spirit must be suffering, dislocated and fright-
ened,
unable to let go of the moment. Kissoon's victim, as they'd both been. In
some ways, so much alike. Nunciates both, learning to climb out of their

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

panic
would escalate. She waited beside the cold ashes of the fire, knowing
every second he remained unper-suaded gave the Iad another foothold,
but devoid of further arguments or  invitations. She'd offered him more
than
she'd offered anyone in her life: total possession of her body. If he didn't
accept she had no more persuasions.
After a few, breathless seconds something seemed to brush the nape of
her neck, like lover's fingers, the stroke suddenly becoming a needle
point.
"Is this you?" she said.
In the beat it took her to ask the question it became self-directed, as his
spirit entered her head.
There was no dialogue, nor any need for dialogue. They were twin
ghosts
in the same machine, and in the in stant of his entering entirely conver-
sant
with each other. She read from his memories the method by which Kis-
soon
had claimed him, pulling him through to the Loop from the bathroom in
North Huntley Drive, using his confusion to subdue him He'd been easy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Iad's curtain was huge enough  now that its shadow touched the
hut.
There were still some shafts of sun breaking through, but none near the
threshold upon which Tesla stood. Here there was darkness. She
looked
towards the veil, seeing the Iad assembled behind it. Their silhouettes
were
the size of thunderheads, their limbs like whips plaited to beat moun-
tains
with.
Now, she thought. Or never. Let the moment go.
Let—it—go.
She felt Raul do just that, his will releasing its hold and shedding the
burden Kissoon had laid upon him. A wave seemed to move from them
towards the tower above which the I ad loomed. After years of suspen-
sion,
time was unfettered. Five-thirty on the sixteenth of July was moments
away, and so was the event that marked that innocent instant as the
beginning of Mankind's Last Madness.
Her thoughts went to Grillo, and to Jo-Beth and Howie, urging them on
through the exit and into the safety of the Cosm, but her urgings were

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She pictured herself—woman, man and ape in one bruised body—
standing on the step of the hut, the li ght of the bomb blazing on her
face.
Then she imagined that same face and body in another place. She had
only seconds to work with. But thought was fast.
Across the desert she saw the hosts of the Iad drawing their veil of clots
aside, as the blazing cloud grew to eclipse them. Their faces were like
flowers the scale of mountains, an d they kept opening, throat upon
throat
upon throat. It was an awesome display, their hugeness seeming to
conceal labyrinths, which turned insi de out as they uncovered them-
selves.
Tunnels becoming towers of flesh, if it was flesh they had, and turning
again, and turning, so that every part of them was in constant
transformation. If singularity was indeed their appetite, then it was as
salvation from this prodigious flux.
Mountains and fleas, Jaffe had said, and she saw now what he'd meant
by 
that. The Iad was either a nation of leviathans, itching with numberless
parasites and opening their guts, over and over, in the vain hope of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

their
madness and their appetite sealed up in a moment of lost time..VIII
As Howie, Jo-Beth and Grillo had entered the confounding terrain at the
perimeter of the Loop, the tiny time to either side of 5:30 a.m., July 16th
1945, which Kissoon had created, commandeered and been captive of,
a 
light had bloomed behind them. No, not bloomed. Mushrooms had no
flowers. None of them looked back,  but pushed their exhausted bodies
to 
one last, superhuman effort, which carried them, the fire at their backs,
into
the safety of real time. They'd lain on the desert floor, unable to move,
for a
long while, only dragging themselves to their feet when the risk of being
fricasseed where they lay became impossible to discount.
It was a long and difficult haul back to California. They found a highway
after an hour of wandering, and after another hour a deserted garage
along
that highway. There Grillo left the lo vers, knowing that hitching a ride
with

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

County. They lay in the back of t he truck in a deep sleep, their exhaus-
tion
so utter nothing woke them. They arrived back at the Grove just before
dawn of the following day, but there  was no possibility of access. The
same
authorities who'd been so slow, negligent, or—as was Grillo's suspi-
cion—
complicit in not defending the Grove  against the forces erupting in its
midst
had now, with the eclipse of those forces, become obsessively cautious.
The town was sealed off. Grillo didn't  challenge the edict. He simply
turned
around before he came to the bar ricades, and headed along the high-
way
until he found a place to park the truck and sleep. Their slumbers were-
n't 
interrupted. Some hours later, when he woke, he found the back seat
empty. His every joint aching he got out, took a piss, then went to look
for
the lovers. He found them up an incline, sitting in the sun. The

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

experience nobody else in the world had shared, and had become, in
that
sharing, possessed by each other. More than a minute spent in their
presence and he felt like an intruder. The three of them talked briefly of
what was wisest to do now, and conclu ded that staying in the vicinity of
the
Grove was best. They made no mention of events in the Loop, or in
Quiddity, though Grillo burned to as k what it had been like to float in
the.dream-sea. With ro ugh plans laid, Grillo w ent back to the truck and
waited
for them to come down. They came after a few minutes, hand in hand.
There had been no paucity of witnesses to Tesla's relocation of a part of
Coney Eye. Observers and photographers both parked on the Hill and
hovering above it saw the facade grow smoky, become transparent and
finally vanish entirely. With a portion of its structure summarily removed
the
entire house succumbed to gravity. Had there been only two or three
witnesses, doubts might have been ca st on the veracity of these ac-
counts.
It was only in the pages of the National Enquirer and its fanciful ilk that
solid wood and slate were whisked off into another plane of being. But

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to have caught a glimpse of that place. A white horizon and a bright sky;
dust blowing around. Nevada, maybe;  or Utah. Any one of a thousand
wide
open places. America had no shortage of those. The country was huge,
and still full of emptiness. Places where a house could reappear and
never
be found; where mysterie s could be happening every day of the week
and
nobody be any the wiser for it. For a few of the witnesses, seeing what
they'd seen, it was the first time it had ever occurred to them that maybe
a 
country could be too big, too full of open space. But it occurred now, and
it 
haunted them.
One of those spaces, at least for the foreseeable future, would be the
ground upon which Palomo Grove had been built.
The steady process of its destruction didn't end with Coney Eye's
relocation into the Loop. Far from it. The earth had been waiting for a
sign,
and had got it. Cracks widened to fissures and fissures became
chasms,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the place where Coney Eye had stood  that took the brunt of the de-
struction
(though it would scarcely have mattered—their owners had been among
the first to leave, vowing they'd not  return). It was the Crescents. Emer-
son
moved south two hundred yards, its houses concertinaed in the proc-
ess.
Whitman went west, the houses, by some quirk of geology, pushed and
tipped into their own pools. The othe r three Crescents were simply laid
flat,
much of the debris finding its way down the Hill and damaging count-
less.houses in its descent. AH of which was academic. Nobody would be
salvaging anything from their ho uses; the entire area was deemed un-
stable
for six days, during which time fires raged unattended, destroying a
large
part of the property which the ground had not overturned or swallowed.
In 
this regard the unluckiest village was Stillbrook, the sometime occu-
pants of
which might have eventually claimed some of their personal belongings

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was that night, the night after Stillbrook burned, and six days after
events on the Hill, that Grillo came  back to the Grove. He had slept
more
than half of the intervening time, but  he didn't feel that much better for
the
rest. Sleep was not the palliative it had been. He wasn't eased by it,
soothed and comforted by it. When  he closed his eyes his head played
out
scene after scene from the past. Mostl of the show was recent. Ellen
Nguyen featured strongly, asking hi m over and over again to give up
kisses
and use his teeth; so did her son, sitting in bed surrounded by Balloon
Men. There were guest appearances by Rochelle Vance, who did and
said
nothing. but offered her beauty to the parade: there'was Good Man
Fletcher, down at the Mall. There was the Jaff in the upper room at
Coney
Eye, sweating out power. And Witt a live. And Witt dead, face down in
the
water.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was that sense of unfinished business between Tesla and himself
which
kept him from returning any of the calls Abernethy left on his answering
machine back home, though God know s the story itched in him, and
itched,
and itched. She'd always expressed  ambiguity about his making the
truth
public, even though she'd sanctioned his doing so at the end. But that
had
only been because she'd thought the issue academic, the world almost
finished and little hope left for the saving of it. But the end hadn't come,
and
she'd died in the act of preservation. He felt honor-bound to keep his
silence. Discreet as he was being,  however, he couldn't keep from re-
turning
to the Grove to find out how its demise was progressing.
The town was still a no-go area when he arrived, police barricades
surrounding it. They weren't difficult  to bypass. The Grove's guardians
had.become lax in their duties in t he days since it had been sealed off,
given
that very few people, whether sightseers, looters or residents, had been

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

have been elegiac under different circumstances, but he'd learned too
much about the Grove and its tragedies to indulge such sentiments. It
was
impossible to view the destruction  without regretting the Grove's pass-
ing.
Its worst sin had been hypocrisy—going on its blithe, sunny way willfully
concealing its secret self. That self had sweated out fears, and made
dreams real for a while, and it had been those fears and dreams, not
Jaffe
and Fletcher, which had finally torn the Grove apart. The Nunciates had
used the town for their arena, but  they'd invented nothing in their war
that
the Grove had not already nurtured and fed in its heart.
He found himself wondering as he walked if perhaps there was some
other way to tell the story of the Grove without flying in the face of
Tesla's
edict. If he forsook Swift, perhaps, and tried to find some poetic mode in
which to couch all he'd experienced. It was a route he'd contemplated
taking before, but now (as then) he knew without attempting it he'd fail.
He'd come to the Grove a literalist, and nothing it had shown him would
ever dissuade him from the cult of the re-portable fact.

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It wasn't the same for Jo-Beth and Howie. They'd had their dark night of
the soul on Quiddity's tide, and the  nights that followed, back in the
Cosm,
were dreamless. At least, they woke remembering nothing.
Howie tried to persuade Jo-Beth that they were best going back to
Chicago, but she insisted that any su ch plans were premature. As long
as 
the Grove remained a danger zone, and the bodies there were
unrecovered, she wasn't going to leave the vicinity. She didn't doubt that
Momma was dead. But until she was found and brought out of the
Grove to
be given a Christian burial any thou ght of a life for them both beyond
this
tragedy was not to be contemplated.
In the meanwhile, they had a lot of healing to do, which they did behind
closed doors in a motel in Thousand Oaks close enough to the Grove so
that when it was deemed safe to return Jo-Beth would be among the
first to.do so. The marks that Quiddity had left upon them soon receded into
memory, and they were left in a strange limbo. Everything was finished,
but

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to realize that unlike dozens, per haps hundreds, of  innocent Grovers
they'd
emerged physically unscathed.
On the seventh day after events in Kissoon's Loop the morning news
informed them that search-parties were going into the town. The
destruction of the Grove had been a big story, of course, theories being
advanced from countless sources as to why the town had been singled
out
for such devastation when the rest  of the Valley had survived with no
more
than a few tremors and some cracks in the freeway. There was no men-
tion
amid these reports of the phenomena witnessed at Coney Eye;
governmental pressure had silenced all those who'd seen the impossi-
ble
happen in front of their eyes.
The entry into the Grove was cautious at first, but by the end of the day
a 
large number of survivors were back in the town, looking to salvage
keepsakes and souvenirs from the wreckage. A few were lucky. Most

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

had
slid into a hole, as had a fair portion of the lot itself, but the stores
themselves were virtually undamaged, which meant, of course, that a
murder investigation (never solved) got underway as soon as the bodies
in 
the pet store were discovered. Bu t corpses aside, had there been Gro-
vers
to shop the Mall could have opened for business that day without much
more than a dusting off. Marvin Jr., of Marvin's Food and Drug, was the
first
to organize a removal of unspoiled stock. His brother had a store in
Pasadena, and customers who couldn't  give a damn where their bar-
gains
originated. He made no apology for the haste with which he got about
his
profiteering. Business was business, after all.
The other removal from the Grove, of course, and this a business of a
grimmer sort, was that of bodies. Dogs and sound-sensitive equipment
were brought in to establish whethe r anybody was left alive, the efforts
of

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the night, taking this opportunity  to re-invent themselves and start
afresh.
One of the latter group, so rumo r went, was William Witt, whose body
was
never recovered but whose house,  upon investigation, was found to
contain
enough pornography to keep the Combat Zones of several cities sup-
plied
for months. He'd had a secret life, had William Witt, and the general
suspicion was that he'd chosen to go and live it elsewhere.
When the identity of one of the two  corpses in the pet store was re-
vealed
to be that of Jim Hotchkiss one or tw o of the astuter journalists noted
that
his had been a life dogged by tragedy. His daughter, they reminded their
readers, had been one of the so-ca lled League of Virgins, and in re-
marking
on this the writers took a paragraph to comment on just how much grief
the
Grove had endured in its short life. Had it been doomed from the outset,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ruins of her house, which had sustained considerably worse damage
than
any of the surrounding property. It wa s taken for identification, as were
the
bulk of the bodies, to a makeshift mortuary in Thousand Oaks. That
onerous duty fell to Jo-Beth, whose brother would be numbered among
the
missing forty-one. Identification made, arrangements were begun for her
burial. The Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-day Saints looked after its
own.
Pastor John had survived the leve lling (indeed he'd left the Grove the
night
of the Jaff's attack on the McGuire  house and hadn't come back till the
dust
had settled) and it was he who organized Momma's funeral. Only once
in 
that time did he and Howie cross paths, and Howie was quick to remind
the
Pastor of the night he'd blubbered beside the refrigerator. The Pastor
insisted he remembered no such incident.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

two
days after that exchange. Howie  didn't attend the ceremony, but
was.waiting for Jo-Beth when it was a ll over. They left for Chicago twenty-
four
hours later.
Their part in events was very far from  over, however. The first sign that
the
adventure of Cosm and Quiddity had  made them part of a very select
band
of players came half a week after they 'd got to Chicago, with the arrival
on 
their doorstep of a tall, handsome-gone-to-harrowed stranger, dressed
too
lightly for the weather, who introduced himself as D'Amour.
"I'd like to talk to you about what happened at Palomo Grove," he said
to 
Howie.
"How did you find us?"
"It's my job, finding people," Harry explained. "You may have heard
Tesla
Bombeck mention me?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"He says he knew Tesla."
"D'Amour," the stranger said, "Harry  D'Amour. I really would appreciate
a 
few minutes of your time. Just a few. It's very important."
Howie glanced at Jo-Beth.
"Why not?" she said.
"It's damn cold out there," D'Am our observed as he stepped inside.
"What
happened to summer?"
"Things are bad all over," Jo-Beth said.
"You noticed," D'Amour replied.
"What are you two talking about?"
"The news," she said. "I've been watching it, you haven't."
"It's like a full moon every night," D'Amour said. "A lot of people are act-
ing
very strange. The suicide rate's  doubled since the Grove Breakout.
There's
riots in asylums across the country. And I'd lay money we're only seeing
a 
little part of the whole picture. There's a lot being kept under wraps."
"Who by?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Theirs?" Jo-Beth said.
"The Iad's people. The infiltrators  who kept the army at bay when it
looked
like the Iad were about to break out."
"How do you know so much about all this?" Howie wanted to know.
"I have to be a little careful about my sources just at the moment, but I
hope I can reveal them to you eventually."
"You make it sound like we're in this with you," Howie said. "We're not.
You're right, we do want to get on  with living our lives, together. And
we'll
go wherever we have to— Europe, Australia, wherever—to do that."
"They'll find you," D'Amour said. "The Grove brought them too close to
succeeding for them to give up now. They know they've got us spooked.
Quiddity's tainted. Nobody's going to have many sweet dreams from
now
on. We're easy meat, and they know  it. You might want to live ordinary
lives
but you can't. Not with fathers like yours."
It was Jo-Beth's turn to express shock at his words.
"What do you know about our fathers?" she said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from
Fletcher, but I never took it."
"You're Fletcher's son," D'Amour said. "His spirit's in you. It's just a
question of listening to it "
"He was a genius," Howie told Harry. "I really believe that. I'm sure he
was
out of his mind on mescaline half the time, but he was still a genius."
"I want to hear," said D'Amour. "Do you want to tell me?"
Howie stared at him for a long moment. Then he sighed, and with a tone
very like surprise said:
"Yes. I think I do."
Grillo was sitting in the 50's Cafe on Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman
Oaks, trying to remember what it was like to enjoy food, when some-
body
came and sat opposite him in the booth. It was the middle of the after-
noon,
and the cafe wasn't full. He raised his head to request some privacy but
instead said:
"Tesla?"
She was dressed in quintessential Bombecksquerie: a flock of ceramic
swans pinned to a midnight-blue blouse, a red bandanna, dark glasses.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I've made that mistake. It's easily done."
"This isn't some illusion?" he said.
"Well the whole damn thing's that, isn't it? All a show. But us, are we
any
more illusory than you? No."
"Us?"
"I'll come to that in a minute. First you. How are things?"
"There's not much to tell. I went back to the Grove a couple of times,
just
to see who survived."
"Ellen Nguyen?"
"She wasn't found. Nor was Philip. I went through the rubble personally.
God knows where she went."
"Want us to look for her? We've got contacts now. It hasn't been much
fun, as far as homecomings go. I had a body to deal with, back at the
apartment. And a lot of people asking difficult questions. But we've got
some influence now, and I'm using it."
"What is this we business?"
"Are you going to eat that cheeseburger?"
"No."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

inside me. Him, and the ape he used to be, and me, all in one body."
"Your dream come true," Grillo said. "All things to all men."
"Yes, I suppose so. I mean, we suppose so. I keep forgetting to include
us 
all. Maybe it's best I don't try."
"You've got cheese on your chin."
"That's it, bring us down."
"Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to se e you. But...I was just beginning to
get
used to the fact that you weren't around. Should I still call you Tesla?"
"Why not?"
"Well you're not, are you? You're more than that."
"Tesla's fine. A body's called by what  it seems to be, right?"."I suppose
so," Grillo said. "Do I look like I'm freaked out by all this?"
"No. Are you?"
He shook his head. "Weird, but no. I'm cool."
"That's my Grillo."
"You mean our Grillo."
"No. I mean mine. You can fuck all the great beauties in Los Angeles
and
I've still got you. I'm the great imponderable in your life."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Synchronicity," Tesla said. "Where  was I? D'Amour thinks they'll try
New
York next. They've got footholds there. Had them for years. So I'm
gathering half the team together, he's gathering the other half."
"What can I do?" Grillo said.
"How do you fancy Omaha, Nebraska?"
"Not much."
"That's where this last phase began, believe it or not. In the Omaha Post
Office."
"You're kidding me."
"That's where the Jaff got his half-witted idea of the Art."
"What do you mean: half-witted?"
"He only got a piece of the thing, not the whole solution."
"I don't follow."
"Even Kissoon didn't know what the Art was. He had clues, but only
clues. It's vast. It collapses time and place. It makes everything one
again.
The past, the future and the dreaming moment between...one immortal
day..."
"Beautiful," Grillo said.
"Would Swift approve?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And they write it down?"
"Yes. Then they send the letters out."."And they end up in Omaha."
"Some of them. Pay for the cheeseburger. I'll be waiting outside."
He did, and she was.
"I should have eaten," he said. "I'm suddenly hungry."
D'Amour didn't leave until late in the evening, and when he did he left
two
exhausted storytellers behind him. He took copious notes, flipping the
pages of his pad back and forth as he tried to make sense of the way
fragments of information related to one another.
When Howie and Jo-Beth were talked out, he gave them his card with a
New York address and number on it, scrawling another, private number
on 
the back.
"Move as soon as you can," he advis ed. "Tell nobody where you're go-
ing.
Nobody at all. And when you get there— wherever it is—change your
names. Pretend you're married."
Jo-Beth laughed.
"Old-fashioned, but why not?" D'Amour said. "People don't gossip about

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

going. It's a long drive."
"You driving to New York?"
"I hate flying," he said. "I had a bad experience in the air one time, mi-
nus
plane. Remind me to tell you about it. You should know the dirt on me
now I
know it about you."
He went to the door, and let himself out, leaving the small apartment
reeking of European cigarettes.
"I need some fresh air," Howie said to Jo-Beth once he'd gone. "Want to
walk with me?"
It was well past midnight, and the cold from which D'Amour had stepped
five hours before had worsened, but it  stirred them from their exhaus-
tion.
As their torpor lifted they talked.
"There was a lot you told D'Amour that I didn't know," Jo-Beth said.
"Like what?"
"The stuff that happened on the Ephemeris."
"You mean Byrne?"
"Yes. I wonder what he saw up there."
"He said he'd come back and tell me, if we all survived."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Not really. Not if we're together."
She took hold of his hand. They were both suddenly sweating, despite
the
cold, their innards churning the way they had the first time, when their
eyes
had met across Butrick's Steak House. A little age had passed since
then,
transforming them both.
"We're both desperadoes now," Howie murmured
"I suppose we are," Jo-Beth said. "But it's all right. Nobody can separate
us."
"I wish that was true. "
"It is true. You know it is. "
She raised her hand, which was still locked in his, between them.
"Remember this?" she said. "That's what Quiddity showed us. It joined
us 
together. "
The shudders in her body passed through her hand, through the sweat
that ran between their palms, and into him.
"We have to be true to that. "
"Marry me?" he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for them, who couldn't dismiss the long ing, but knew Quiddity was real;
a 
place where love might found continents.
It would not be long before dawn, and at the first sign of the sun they'd
have to go to sleep. But until the light came—until the real insisted upon
their imaginations—they stood watchi ng the darkness, waiting, half in
hope
and half in fear, for that other sea to rise from dreams and claim them
from
the shore.